Hacker Remix

Time for a Change: The long, contentious history of time shifts

30 points by crescit_eundo 4 days ago | 44 comments

jedberg 13 hours ago

To summarize all the invitble comments:

"I hate the time shift, just pick one!" (Almost no one likes the time shift, about 90% of people want us to just stay with one. The problem is, 50% of those people want standard time year round and 50% want daylight time)

"California and Florida already voted to stay on Daylight time year round, why don't they?" (Because congress has to pass a law to let them, states can only choose to stay on standard time year round)

"Daylight time year round causes health problems" (There is some weakly supported evidence that this is true, that the human body really wants noon to be at solar noon)

throw0101c 3 hours ago

> "Daylight time year round causes health problems" (There is some weakly supported evidence that this is true, that the human body really wants noon to be at solar noon)

Every single association for sleep research and chronobiology that has put out a position paper on the topic has said that standard ("winter") time year-round is best for human health:

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30691237

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30691158

skissane 10 hours ago

> Because congress has to pass a law to let them, states can only choose to stay on standard time year round

Does Congress actually have the power to stop a state adopting whatever time zone it wants?

15 USC 260a(b) expressly supersedes state laws specifying different changeover dates for daylight savings time, and 260a(c) authorizes the Department of Transportation to apply for a federal court injunction against violations of that section.

But, 15 USC 260a doesn't govern what standard time zone applies to each state. That is governed by 15 USC 261 thru 265. However, unlike section 260a, sections 261 thru 265 don't contain any provision analogous to 260a(c), authorizing USDOT to apply for a federal court injunction to enforce it. One might argue that means injunctive relief isn't available for 261 thru 265, hence rendering 261 thru 265 effectively unenforceable. One might also argue that the absence of any provision analogous to 260a(b), expressly superseding state laws, means 261 thru 265 don't supersede state laws, unlike 260a. Of course, we'd have to wait and see what the federal courts make of such an argument, if they ever get presented with it.

Furthermore, 15 USC 261(a) grants the Secretary of Transportation the authority to specify the boundaries between time zones. This means the Secretary of Transportation could potentially move a state to an adjacent time zone without needing any Congressional approval.

Finally, 15 USC 260a(c) grants the Secretary of Transportation the power to apply for a court injunction of enforcement – which could be read as implying only the Secretary of Transportation has this power - meaning if the Secretary of Transportation chose to "turn a blind eye" to a violation, nobody else would have the legal power to do anything about it.

jedberg 8 hours ago

I am not a lawyer, so I must rely on people who are to tell me these things. And they have told me that a state can legally choose which to remain on standard time year round, but they cannot choose which time zone they are in nor can they choose to remain on daylight time year round.

So perhaps you are missing some other laws that govern this? Or perhaps it's a declaration from the Secretary of Transportation that has never been changed?

skissane 7 hours ago

I think it comes down to legal risk appetite.

If you go by what the law says on its face – yes, you need either approval from Congress or the Secretary, and probably the Secretary has made clear they are unlikely to agree to use whatever powers they technically have in this area.

If you start coming up with inventive legal arguments – then it comes down to whether you can convince the courts to accept them. Maybe you will, maybe you won't. But obviously this is a much more legally risky strategy.

Although, at least in this case, it is unlikely that anyone will go to prison if the courts don't like their inventive legal argument. Still, it would require state officials to risk being ruled against by federal court, and some of them might not view the political consequences of that as acceptable.

CalRobert 8 hours ago

So go to standard time and let culture shift? Hard to coordinate admittedly, your boss and your kids schools both have to say 8 is the new 9…

Dylan16807 11 hours ago

> "I hate the time shift, just pick one!" (Almost no one likes the time shift, about 90% of people want us to just stay with one. The problem is, 50% of those people want standard time year round and 50% want daylight time)

Time zone preference is only a problem for the people not saying "just pick one". If 90% of people say "just pick one" then we could flip a coin (or commission a study).

jedberg 8 hours ago

The people who don't care about the time shift don't care about the time zone either. They are happy with or at least indifferent to the time changes.

The people saying "just pick one" usually care deeply about which one is picked. We've already done surveys and studies. 45% of the people really want to be on standard time year round, 45% of the people want to be on daylight time year round. The rest don't care.

So we keep the status quo because we can't agree on what to change it to.

Dylan16807 7 hours ago

> 90% of people want us to just stay with one.

> 45% of the people really want to be on standard time year round, 45% of the people want to be on daylight time year round. The rest don't care.

So you think the people that want the swapping to end above all else are a rounding error? I don't. I think it's a significant group of people.

Also it would only take a few of them to break a deadlock.

For example, let's say 42% of voters want standard, 42% want summer, 6% want either, and 10% don't care very much. Of that last 10%, let's pessimistically say that 2/3 will vote against any change and 1/3 will vote yes.

If you put up a vote to end daylight savings in either direction, 42% + 6% + 3.3% vote yes, and 42% + 6.7% vote no. It passes.

jedberg 7 hours ago

> So you think the people that want the swapping to end above all else are a rounding error?

No, they are the 90%.

Dylan16807 6 hours ago

"Above all else" means they will support permanent summer time and they will support permanent standard time.

When you said the 90% "care deeply about which one is picked", I thought you were saying they cared about that more than the end of daylight savings. If you're not saying that, and they care about it less than the end of daylight savings, then it doesn't matter that they "care deeply about which one is picked". They'll still support ending it in either direction. Do a poll for either option, show 90% support, do it.

fragmede 7 hours ago

so pick 30 minutes as the permanent offset

blahedo 10 hours ago

As someone who actually likes the time changes, as part of the annual cycle of stuff that changes and lets the year "breathe", I just want to set up and knock down my favourite anti-DST argument:

"Why should we move the clocks off from (close to) the solar-noon standard? If people want to get up and go to work earlier so as not to 'waste sun', they can do that, and just coordinate it, no need to change the clocks."

I hear this argument frequently, every year. But here's the thing, I've got a great way to do that coordinating. It's called daylight saving time. DST is our way to collectively, without every single business having to change their posted office hours and every school having to adjust their starting times and every club having to adjust their meeting times, agree to move all times one hour earlier/later so as to better line up with the sun. DST itself _is_ the mechanism by which we collectively make that shift.

And it's a good idea.

baskinator 9 hours ago

It's jarring to my system. I like the natural progression of the seasons.

> and just coordinate it

I have never heard that argument before. Why does it need to be coordinated instead of a personal choice?

blululu 9 hours ago

One of the primary functions of time keeping is coordination between people. The fact that nobody currently exerts their personal preference to not observe daylight savings time would indicate that the social forces overrule individual preference in this domain.

baskinator 8 hours ago

It sounds like a strawman argument.

I've only ever heard the argument of keeping the time fixed and then people can wake up earlier or later depending on their personal preference instead of it being coordinated (mandated) by law.

mike-the-mikado 15 hours ago

It is interesting to note that the UK was on summer-time all year between 1968 and 1971. At the end of the period, Parliament voted by a large majority to revert to the previous system.

I think this is a case where people only understood the drawbacks through practical experience.

tzs 10 hours ago

Same in the US in the mid ‘70s, in an attempt to save energy due to an oil embargo from Arab oil exporters.

It was widely disliked and dropped as soon as the oil crises was over.

bfdm 11 hours ago

What were the drawbacks? I guess, what motivated the revert.

cmrdporcupine 10 hours ago

late darkness in the morning when you're trying to get your kids on the school bus, or get to work early

__MatrixMan__ 7 hours ago

It's so wild to me that we ever thought it was a good idea to change the clock, rather than just changing when things are scheduled based on local constraints like where the sun is in the sky.

Let's get rid of timezones altogether.

mjevans 7 hours ago

The idea is roughly, "we want an easy way to talk about meetings and 'business hours' without constantly remembering the offset of all the timezones and doing the math".

E.G. a normal person wants to know roughly: morning, mid-day, evening +/- offset. Durations also matter, so an oversimplified version that uses numbers to represent those values appeals to some. 0800, 1400, 2000 (or in lay person time 8am 2pm 8pm)

However the further from the equator anyone is, the less those numbers hold ANY stability or reality over the course of a year. E.G. even in Seattle it barely gets to twilight overnight during the summer, and the length of a day from bright enough to do anything to too dim to safely do stuff is insane. https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/seattle (Take Jun 20: 1:43 of real night, nearly 16 hours of 'real day', and LOTS of practically day besides). Contrast to Orlando https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/orlando (June 20: 6:54 Night, nearly 14 hours of 'real day')

Which is to say, DST doesn't really do much of anything, other than give very equatorial places a slightly easier way of making the evening brighter longer and making it MUCH harder to get to sleep on time with all that bright light.