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by ndr42 111 days ago
My "very dishonest take" is the result of the polls after the EU parliament voted to stop the time change.

The question in these polls had been which time the person would prefer. A big majority in Germany chose "summer time". So without any reasons given/discussed/researched the preference is summer time.

Of course there are proponents with reasons for or against this or that time but this doesn't matter as the majority does not decide by reasons.

My point is that alone the naming the time "summer" or "winter" influences the preference to a big extent.

1 comments

What's dishonest about your take is your strawman interpretation of the poll results. Just because you disagree with the majority of people does not mean they simply misunderstand the question and think

"hurr durr summer better than winter, me choosey summer"

Well, at least thats the way I would have responded to the question when interviewed. Maybe I'm dumber or more mindless than the average german.

There were say some 100s of people called by phone, asked a lot of questions about a lot of topics, one of them is "which do you prefer: summer or winter time" - I would have said summer (without thinking to much) because I like the long summer evenings too.

That has nothing to do with misunderstanding the question.

It is of course possible that the average interviewee is well prepared or thinks long and hard before answering without letting the wording influence their answer.

But you should at least consider the possibility that also the german naming (summer/winter) could influence some people (like me) in their answers.

(I think the wording can have a big influence (maybe because of my linguistic background) but you are free to disagree)