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Comment by alerighi | Hacker News Reader

I will never understand why we change the clock instead of changing our habits. Well, maybe in a time when we didn't have computers it was simpler to just put the clock ahead or behind an hour, but nowadays it creates a ton of complexity for nothing. Isn't it simpler to just shift our times, for example in the summer start to work at 9:00 and in the winter at 8:00?

Beside, if we have to choose a time, why not choose the solar time and shift all our times one hours, at least the sundial are right...

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I don't really think it simplifies things to change every single meeting/appointment/agreed-upon time an hour forward/backward two times a year without changing the actual clock time. If I have a weekly appointment at 11:30 for the whole year, I don't want to be putting that at 10:30 in some months and 11:30 in others. But if you move the clock an hour forward or backward, it can just stay at 11:30 on every day (though the effective time will of course be different).

> Isn't it simpler to just shift our times, for example in the summer start to work at 9:00 and in the winter at 8:00?

You make this sound so simple, but the "our" you're referring to is "hundreds of thousands of employers". Yes, it is simpler to change the time than to convince every single employer to voluntarily shift their working hours in tandem with everyone else. Even one would be practically impossible: everyone would have to sit down and adjust every single meeting by an hour.

"Meeting's at 10am!" "Wait, is it 10am before or after fake-DST?" "I don't remember, did you change it?"

To me that just makes what DST really does transparent. It makes everyone shift their schedules, whether they want to or not.

About the meeting example, I don't think GP meant purple who like DST should change their clocks, they should just change their schedules. If you want more sunlight after work, arrive earlier and leave earlier. After all, that is effectively what DST forces everyone to do.

> If you want more sunlight after work, arrive earlier and leave earlier.

Too many people on HN assume that everyone has dream jobs with flexible work hours like them.

Uh.. in this age of everyones important clocks (like phones, computers) auto updating.. there's literally nothing to do.

You are suggesting changing work schedule hours, school times, etc half the year and you call that more simple? Wow.

It is difficult to get every business, school, and workplace to coordinate on changing habits together. If they don't, it causes a lot of problems for a lot of people

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