EU polls citizens on abandoning daylight savings time

[rene]

Not good enough, especially coming from the EU.

The institution, that is, which you recently democratically decided to tell to go eff itself.

[AndyMH]

By a margin of 4%. 48% of us voted to stay.

[smurphos]

However, I don't think they'll listen to us as England isn't a selectable option; neither are Scotland, Wales, etc.. I had to select "Other" & type England in. Not good enough, especially coming from the EU.

Err - the United Kingdom is (at the moment) the member state and is listed.

[BG405]

Err - the United Kingdom is (at the moment) the member state and is listed.

Indeed, but they asked which country, not which country / state. Besides, these geographical differences are important as people in Scotland (& probably NI) will likely vote differently, which could lead to another survey .. should we have separate time zones? (I think so! Apparently the "late" sunrise in Winter is a significant problem in parts of Scotland).

My 2p worth ..

[rene]

By a margin of 4%. 48% of us voted to stay.

Yes, well, such is the problem of (binary, "winner takes all") democracy. However, seeing as how not just the EU-referendum was, but your entire political system is (effectively) binary, unless you'd like the rest of Europe to ignore your decisions as a matter of course, what's us poor continentals to do?

In any case, noticing from the follow-ups that BG405 was referring to UK versus individual countries rather than him feeling slighted for not being asked at all. It's the latter interpretation that caused a bit of a raised brow and my reply...

[Moem]

Speaking as a moderator here:
Hello friends, can we stop the political part of this conversation? It's explicitly against forum rules. Thanks!

[JerryF]

I live in the U.S. and almost all the states observe DST. I think only Arizona and Hawaii don't, along with some of our territories.

I personally wish we'd do away with it. It used to be every six months we would switch, but we've lengthened the amount that we stay in DST. We are now 8 months in DST, 4 months standard time.

Where I live, that means for this year, May 11 to November 4, it's progressively lighter in the evening, sometimes until 9:00 PM. What purpose does this serve? As someone who has lived in suburban cities all my life, DST isn't beneficial.

Now for the argument that rural areas could use more daylight in the evening for crops. On any given day there's a sunrise and sunset (let's call that daylight workable time). For the sake of argument, let's say it's 6:00 AM to 8:00 PM for a particular day. With DST in place, the times would be 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM. Ok, so what? You're just shifting the daylight workable time on the clock, but not getting anymore daylight.

[rene]

For the sake of argument, let's say it's 6:00 AM to 8:00 PM for a particular day. With DST in place, the times would be 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM. Ok, so what? You're just shifting the daylight workable time on the clock, but not getting anymore daylight.

The idea is that human beings are rather inflexible; start their daily productivity cycle at, to stick with the example, 7:00 regardless of season anyway; add hence 1 hour of naturally illuminated potential productivity to said daily cycle during DST.

Wikipedia does a good job of enumerating arguments for and against DST making actual sense so I'll not repeat them here; essentially there's no convincing study that shows DST to have positive or negative net-effect on modern societies, with an exception for retail liking DST. Frankly this would to me seem to be all the reason anyone could need to do away with the disruptive biannual switching at the very least; nuisances that can be solved need to have reasons to not be. At that point one could still differ about DST year round or doing away with it entirely. Latter I say, but mileage may differ; not though on the switching nonsense.

[sdibaja]

Rene I disagree with your first paragraph. You are thinking of people in urban enviromens (most of the world's population) with a lifetime of indoctrination... but the Natural Humans use their internal clock that is set by the sun.

[KBD47]

Wikipedia does a good job of enumerating arguments for and against DST making actual sense so I'll not repeat them here; essentially there's no convincing study that shows DST to have positive or negative net-effect on modern societies, with an exception for retail liking DST. Frankly this would to me seem to be all the reason anyone could need to do away with the disruptive biannual switching at the very least; nuisances that can be solved need to have reasons to not be. At that point one could still differ about DST year round or doing away with it entirely. Latter I say, but mileage may differ; not though on the switching nonsense.

Actually, more people die because of daylight savings time based on statistics:

https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/ex ... y-fix.html

Others:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswith ... 245940a2da

http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyle ... story.html

[rene]

Rene I disagree with your first paragraph. You are thinking of people in urban enviromens (most of the world's population) with a lifetime of indoctrination... but the Natural Humans use their internal clock that is set by the sun.

That is not actually disagreeing with my first paragraph, which only mentions the reason for DST having been once conceived; I didn't say I agreed with it, nor that anyone should. Also see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_ ... #Rationale.

As to KBD's above links I'll admit I'm not even going to read them seeing as how I'm quite sure I could google up an equal number of counter-links, if not in the same field then another one weighing in on the net part of net-effect. To me, as said, little or no undisputed indication/evidence either way already means we should do away with the disruptive switching at the very least. And sure, I'd prefer getting rid of DST entirely as well, but to me that bit's secondary.

[lsemmens]

Daylight saving, is predominately so the "workers" who work 9-5 (not literally) can spend some daylight hours out "in the garden with the kids" (again: not literally). Any other "reason" is just plain rubbish.

[sdibaja]

cherry picking from Wikipedia:
"Daylight Slaving Time".
Historically, retailing, sports, and tourism interests have favored daylight saving, while agricultural and evening entertainment interests have opposed it.
===
How about some logic... What if everyone, world wide, synchronizes their time pieces (and calendars) on GMT/UTC.
Everyone is on the Same Time!
Then, each school/business/agency sets the time of operation that suits their particular "sun local" and adjusts as needed/wanted... probably kinda like time zones are now. Initial settings would should coincide with whatever silly/arbitrary is currently in use.
As a DST adjustment comes around "hours of operation" change rather than the timepieces. (bonus: no more Y2K crud).
...Then when I see someone operates from say 4:20 to 14:20 UTC, with siesta from 10:30 to 12:30. I just check my time piece, and see if real time communication is practical. No more mental gymnastics twice a year, adjust local hours of operation, not the clocks.

This will also make simple Teleportation more desirable and therefore feasible... just thinking ahead.

I think I will setup a GoFundMe campaign, this shows promise!

[HaveaMint]

I remember a talk show discussing this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wor ... b8be669974