[datadrivenangel]

"After agreement of a common date within the EU, we recommend doing the transition in 1 to 2 steps, depending on the member state:

Step 1: All EU countries abolish the clock change to DST in spring and remain on the clock time they use in winter. For those countries whose recommended time zone is their current standard time, no further steps need to be taken.

Step 2: Those countries whose recommended time zone is not yet their current standard time, additionally turn back their clocks one last time by one hour in autumn, in order to adopt their recommended time zone as their new standard time."

I really wish we could do this in the US.

[xoa]

Well we can't, and that's having tried! The replies do a great job of illustrating why really: there's no consensus. Some want permanent standard time. Some want permanent DST. Some are fine the way it is. In a big country spanning a lot of latitude as well as longitude and tens of millions on wildly different work and sleep schedules, messy compromise making no one entirely happy is what success looks like.

Basically time stuff is arguably one of the big Chesterton's Fences that comes up on HN a lot. We didn't end up where we are for no reason or because people in the past were stupid.

[BurningFrog]

We legislate lots of things without consensus with 51-49 majorities.

People in the past had a very different time environment. I used to have 1 watch. Now I have a dozen different clocks in my apartment.

We also did not interact with other time zones nearly as much.

[xoa]

>We legislate lots of things without consensus with 51-49 majorities.

We really do not in the US when it's a matter of genuine controversy. Once in a long while something gets forced through if the status quo is just unsustainable or it's a core plank issue or something, but the system isn't designed to allow anyone hitting 51 to easily pass anything contentious. And that's with your implicit take that there is a 51-49, but that's the thing, it's not a dichotomy in the first place. It's more like 25/25/40/5/3/1/1. Plus this isn't some inherently critical issue, for most people it's at most a minor irritation twice per year. For some it's a minor enjoyable, "free sleep". And thus status quo rules :).

>People in the past had a very different time environment. I used to have 1 watch. Now I have a dozen different clocks in my apartment.

Indeed! Our clocks used to not have global sub-millisecond automatic time synchronization.

[anon84873628]

>Plus this isn't some inherently critical issue, for most people it's at most a minor irritation twice per year. For some it's a minor enjoyable, "free sleep".

I want to push back on this a bit. It's not just the moment of change itself, it's how wall time compares to the sun.

And the problem with that is business hours being stuck to wall time. Essentially the government controls how business hours relate to the sun, instead of expecting each entity to change their business hours with the seasons (or not) as desired. This goes back to the time when business hours posted on a door were much more important.

If you are stuck in a "9-5" job or otherwise are committed to what the clock says, the time change significantly controls your interaction with the sun.

[hpb42]

Brazil abolished daytime change a couple of years ago. Our time is the same all year, no more +1 and then -1 hour.

It was mess on the day there should a change, many people arrived on their appointments one hour before or later. Many automatic systems changed their time, different clocks at home reported different hours.

This chaos lasted one morning. After some time, nobody now complains about not having it. Many people don't remember about the change anymore. The only people that complains about daylight change are the ones that work with people from countries that have that.

Abolishing daytime change is not the same as adopting an "universal" (country-like?) timezone, but shows that it is _possible_ to do on a "big country spanning a lot of latitude as well as longitude and tens of millions on wildly different work and sleep schedules".

Maybe the main issue is that many people fear change? (Which is quite "funny", as winter/summer time is a change in time...)

[ghaff]

I don't really care any longer having a pretty flexible schedule and no commute. But living in relatively northern New England, the timezone tweaks for summer and winter really were pretty welcome. I suspect that most of those ranting about timezone changes wouldn't actually want sunrise at 4am or sunset at 3pm.

[kelnos]

I feel the opposite way. I too have a flexible schedule and no commute, and I'd prefer not having to change time zones twice a year. It's annoying and doesn't serve any useful benefit to me. I don't care when the sunrise or sunset is in wall-clock time, I can get up later/earlier and go to bed later/earlier if I want. Yes, there are things that need to be done during normal business hours, but I have a full 8 of those to work with.

The main issue I see is that of kids' primary school schedules: they already have to get up so ridiculously early; having to be in school when the sun isn't even up yet is brutal. But that seems to be the case in some places regardless of whether or not we do a DST change.

And of course there are plenty of people who don't have my (our) flexible schedule and lack of commute. It does suck to have to drive to work in the morning when it's dark, or come home in the evening without any daylight left to enjoy. But, again, this is going to be the case for many people even with a DST change.

[ghaff]

In my case, I don't have kids, I don't have a consistent schedule, and I travel enough than a one hour timezone shift isn't something I even notice--the early airport pickup is far more likely to affect my rhythms. My preference is probably year-round DST in the Boston area. (We're basically in the wrong timezone.) But I understand being in sync with the rest of the east coast.

I'd also pretty much be fine with year-round standard time at this point but the time shift just isn't really on my radar.

[anon84873628]

Expecting school and business hours to have a fixed clock time, and then trying to shift that to the sun, is exactly the problem.

Imagine if instead the school changed the start time a few minutes each week in order to maintain a fixed offset with sunrise.

Bonus points because you don't force an abrupt change to circadian rhythm that takes two weeks to adjust.

Of course the problem is that many parents are stuck in jobs that expect fixed start times too...

[jibbit]

> The main issue I see..

you've 180° misunderstood DST, the sole purpose of which is to give you an extra hour in bed in the winter

[xoa]

I also live in northern New England and feel the same at this point. It may not be ideal, but nothing else would be either. And honestly technology has made the pain points pretty much vanish for me anyway: now every single time keeping device automatically switches over, and my smart lights that I made a program for a simulated sunrise and time-of-day based color temperature changes also switch which means my circadian rhythm adapts right away. I can absolutely empathize with those who feel differently but I think where we've ended up is pretty decent given the ginormously different circumstances and wishes. Until something can win a better consensus.

[danaris]

I live in Upstate New York, and care much more about the frustration, added stress, and provable loss of life that results from the twice-yearly changing of the clocks than I do about what the clock says when the sun is setting. If I want more sunlight during the time I'm awake, I can get up earlier in the morning.

[ghaff]

Not everyone controls their schedule.

[danaris]

But I would hope that everyone cares about provable loss of life from extra heart attacks and traffic accidents.

[ghaff]

They do not.

[tivert]

> Basically time stuff is arguably one of the big Chesterton's Fences that comes up on HN a lot. We didn't end up where we are for no reason or because people in the past were stupid.

We should all pretend to be robots and use UTC for everything. Problem solved!

[polishdude20]

I'd rather it be how it is in the spring rather than winter. When you get home there's at least a bit more time in the day to enjoy the sun.

[mjevans]

If you live, vaguely, in the north (of the 45th parallel) you get that change either way thanks to the tilt of the earth.

I'd rather have the sunset start at 8PM and go over the horizon at 9PM (without DST) in the summer, than the current ends at 10PM in the summer. https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/seattle

Now somewhere like Miami, FL https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/miami with DST has a longest day of about 6AM to 8:40PM (civil twilight start / end), which without DST goes to 5AM and 7:40PM.

[anon84873628]

Just stopping the change at all would be a good start.

After that I suspect most people will figure out how to adjust their business / working hours to get the sun when they want.

[loloquwowndueo]

For large parts of the US it’s probably dark by 4:30 so no, not really. I’m not in the US by the way.

[madcaptenor]

Here's a map of the earliest sunset time: https://weather.com/science/weather-explainers/news/2018-12-... . There are parts of the US which have sunsets before 4:30, including some major population centers, but I don't know if I'd call them "large parts".

[alright2565]

that map shows most major cities in North America have the sun set before 5PM (traditional work end time). New York, DC, Los Angeles, San Fransisco, Chicago.

New York, Boston, and Chicago all set before 4:30, a minimum of 10% of the population just there.

[madcaptenor]

Right. Most people have sunset before 5 (there's not that much blue on the map), but not before 4:30.

[Dylan16807]

I've never seen anyone propose moving in the opposite direction of summer time before. That seems needlessly awkward to me.

[vikingerik]

The point is to correct those locales that have gone way too far in the direction of summer time. Spain in particular is almost 3 hours off of solar time.

There's a societal pull in the direction of earlier time, even aside from anything about sunlight. Nobody wants to be "late" compared to their economic neighbors so they gravitate towards earlier time zones. This is correcting for that.

[Dylan16807]

> Spain in particular is almost 3 hours off of solar time.

I suppose if you squint right at the western edge in summer time you could get there.

But the prime meridian runs straight through the country. I think a sensible reckoning would say that it's 1 hour off as a baseline and 1 extra hour during summer.

[reidrac]

Despite the prime meridian crossing the country, Spain is the same timezone as Berlin. One hour more than London.

If you are interested, look for the historical reasons for that.

Edit: OK, a good source.

> On March 16th 1940, the clocks jumped from 23:00h to 00:00h to display the same time as Nazi Germany and other Nazi-occupied countries such as France and the Netherlands. This was an entirely politically motivated move to show support to the fascist government of Germany and showed no consideration for the natural cycle of the sun in Spain. According to the original 24-hour division of the world, Spain’s latitudinal position meant that GMT was the most natural time-zone for it to follow.

From: https://theculturetrip.com/europe/spain/articles/heres-why-s...

Spanish civil war was won by the fascists and Franco's dictatorship followed.

[pavon]

I don't think it is proposing that. From what I can tell their proposal is a (somewhat awkward) way of saying some countries will stick to their current summer (standard) time next time they switch to it. Other countries will stick with their current winter (DST) time when they next switch to it.

[Dylan16807]

Look at the resulting time zones. They wrote it correctly. Every country is skipping the +1 to summer time, but several of them are still doing a final -1 after that. Several countries that use time zones X and X+1 would switch to X-1.

[netsharc]

You got the 2 terms mixed up...

But yeah, assuming they want to do the magic in September: It would mean for countries where UTC+01:00 (standard time, winter time) makes more sense, they'd move to UTC+01:00 when the next switchover date in September shows up, whereas for countries where UTC+02:00 (daylight savings/summer time) makes more sense, they'd stay on that TZ past the September switchover date. They'd have to assign new names though, one can't have 1 timezone with 2 different names...

[Dylan16807]

No, none of the countries say on summer time in the plan.

Every country that is currently UTC+01:00/UTC+02:00 ends up in either UTC+01:00 or UTC+00:00.

[qsort]

The idea would be to move Spain, France and Benelux to UTC. Currently all of Western Europe is on UTC+1/UTC+2, which is much wider than it "should" be.

I have no opinion on the idea, just relaying what they are proposing.

[wiredfool]

Ireland is on GMT/-1, and we're already pretty far west in the 15 degrees centered on 0.

[baggy_trough]

The United States adopted summer time in the 70s but abandoned it because of complaints about the late darkness in winter mornings.

[wharvle]

The sun setting at or before 5PM is so very much worse than morning darkness. Especially for kids. They need sunlight and their only real opportunity to get much time outside during the school year is the late afternoon and evening, especially as recess time has been cut post-NCLB (and public schools are absurdly timid about sending kids outside in the winter anyway). My kids are old enough that they won’t reap a lot of the benefits of the change even if it happens tomorrow, but I remain hopeful we can make this happen for their kids’ sake.

And at least morning darkness means you don’t start your day with a commute that involves having your eyes melted by a just-over-the-horizon sun.

[bobthepanda]

Yeah, the argument made more sense in the 70s, but these days school districts have cut back on bus services so much that your child most likely wakes up in darkness anyways to catch a much windier bus route to school.

[golemotron]

> I really wish we could do this in the US.

The US is about 4000 miles wider. That makes it hard.