And both sides of the debate have found science that backs up their opinion, and cherry picked public comments, so the deadlock continues. Even though the doing nothing is far worse than picking the wrong shed color.
While true, and while I think most will agree that there are issues with US partisan politics, here's the thing...
Many people actually like DST. I personally do.
I don't think this is quite as clear cut as some things. It depends upon where you live (the farther north, it seems (to me) there is more support). It also depends upon whether you want light in morning or night.
So to restate, I think this issue is more "people just have opinions for legit reasons", rather than typical US partisan politics.
Here’s one example article that discusses this.
https://www.businessinsider.com/daylight-saving-time-is-dead...
Stopping this is more important than picking the right offset to stop it at.
People would still have to deal with the change either way.
Much better to change schedules as often and by as much as suitable in each case.
Where it matters, changing schedules can make an actual difference and it’s what people already do anyway.
It's also been "proven" that not time shifting is bad, too. SAD is worse without it, up North, and SAD results in an increase in suicides in the winter. And there are other "it helps" claims from pro-DST advocates, too.
As per the referenced study, it even states it is not actually validated. I'm all for the additional research, however, there is a problem here. What if this is only delaying or spiking heart attacks at these choke-holds?
EG, how do we know that without DST, said attacks wouldn't be 2 week delayed? A month?
And while I certainly think a month of life is worth living, does that actually offset the SAD improvements, and the (unproven, but hypothesized reduction in suicides)?
This bit of the study, I don't get:
Results There was no difference in the total weekly number of PCIs performed for AMI for either the fall or spring time changes in the time period analysed. After adjustment for trend and seasonal effects, the Monday following spring time changes was associated with a 24% increase in daily AMI counts (p=0.011), and the Tuesday following fall changes was conversely associated with a 21% reduction (p=0.044). No other weekdays in the weeks following DST changes demonstrated significant associations.
So there were no differences at all, until they applied a model? They applied 'trend and seasonal effects', and suddenly, it shows people dying and not dying?
I feel there should be more focus on what this model was.
Do you mean "it's proven that not changing the time twice a year is bad", or "it's proven that having winter on a particular time is bad"?
Studies (in both the US and Europe) have shown that DST improves road safety for both cars and pedestrians at dawn/dusk times.
Or, to put it another way, switching isn’t making this specific issue better.
There are lots of things that serve no unique functional purpose that we still love and that still increase death rates (e.g. marathons, hamburgers, skiing).
Having risk doesn't mean that we automatically shouldn't do something.
https://aasm.org/sleep-experts-want-to-stop-springing-forwar...
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(19)...
And having risk also doesn't automatically mean that we should sit on our thumbs and go "there's nothing we can do, not enough people are dying from it yet!"
I also suspect that more people will die from the additional hour of morning dark in the winters. If you want to save lives, Permanent Standard Time would make more sense
And as for myself, I couldn’t care less which time offset is picked, I just want them to pick one and stop changing the offset twice a year.
Will there be long term problems from picking one over the other? Doubtful; there’s enough states/countries/etc which are stopped at various offsets to solar noon that we’d know if there was a significant advantage or disadvantage to being offset from solar noon.
That data seems speculative at best right now, telling me there advantages and disadvantages to each. Which reinforces my “just fucking pick one” opinion.
And there are plenty of studies already; I highly recommend perusing them. I won't insult your intelligence by offering a lmgtfy link.
Which makes sense because how on earth could getting 1 hour less sleep on a random Saturday once a year lead to untold numbers of deaths?
It's absurd. Change your clocks and if it bothers you drink an extra glass of wine at dinner and nod off a little sooner. People that get emotional about daylight savings are an odd bunch to say the least.
See it in our healthcare system too.
I prefer standard time since in winter using DST would mean dark skies until 9 am. But most people here seem to enjoy how in summer the sun doesn't set until 10 pm. So, whoever touches this topic will end up getting burned by either side and no one dares to change it or suggest it (for now). So the terrible status quo continues.
[0] https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/10/28/when-will-the-...
Doesn't the EU (and various other countries) still switch back and forth between standard and daylight savings time?
In the meantime, all EU countries observe a summer time that starts and ends on the same day across the EU.
Something that does seem unusually American (although I’m sure not uniquely) is: We all agree this thing is bad, and something should be done. But the primary way to make big changes is to have one side push it and make concessions to the other side, to get it done. Nobody is willing to make concessions for something we all agree is good, so the good thing will never get done.
And also, we all agree it is bad, but our solutions are different, maybe even just in name, so we can’t let it be solved because that would give the other team a W.
Or Imperial measurement when everyone else is on metric
Or middle endian date when...