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Post by Vene on Oct 22, 2011 10:17:27 GMT -5
The study that was cited about DST causing more workplace injuries is due to less sleep, as the article says. The article says that these increased injuries only happen on the March time shift (when we lose an hour) and are due to the fact that people are getting an hour less sleep. The best option would seem to me to be that, if you know you are working this Sunday or the Monday after, to take some personal responsibility and make sure you get to bed an hour earlier to counteract the hour lost in the middle of the night, rather than have the entire federal government re-arrange our time standards to suit you. You live in a fucking fantasy land, don't you? |
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Post by Rat Of Steel on Oct 22, 2011 10:54:57 GMT -5
Isn't this called "Summer Time" in Great Britain?
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Post by Oriet on Oct 22, 2011 10:56:59 GMT -5
The study that was cited about DST causing more workplace injuries is due to less sleep, as the article says. The article says that these increased injuries only happen on the March time shift (when we lose an hour) and are due to the fact that people are getting an hour less sleep. The best option would seem to me to be that, if you know you are working this Sunday or the Monday after, to take some personal responsibility and make sure you get to bed an hour earlier to counteract the hour lost in the middle of the night, rather than have the entire federal government re-arrange our time standards to suit you. Except the data already shows that people don't do this. You can gripe about personal responsibility all you want but that won't do squat to change how people actually act. So, first you gripe about others not having personal responsibility, then prove you yourself lack that personal responsibility. Real smooth there, slick. Once again you show a complete lack of understanding of the circadian rhythm. A gradual shift in sunlight will be constantly adjusted for and pose no problem, but a sudden hour shift will throw it off. Unless you're a farmer your sleep-wake schedule will be based on a clock and not the positioning of the sun. Cows need milking when they need milking, irregardless of what the clock says, but your employer will be mightily upset if you're regularly not coming in when you're scheduled to. You're also ignoring that most businesses, and many people, will have their lights turned on even when the sun is up, so adjusting the clock really won't affect power usage that much. It also doesn't mean squat if more power is used in the morning or evening, as the amount of sunlight doesn't change because of what the clock is set at. No, it was designed because of coal rationing during WWI, not because it wanted to be as "less intrusive as possible." Evening BBQs have nothing to do with it, nor does children going to school in the morning (and you're also ignoring them coming home from after school activities which ends up being in the dark then). I also find it pathetic that you are completely ignoring people who have sleep disorders, such as myself and many people I know. Yes, they're invisible disorders cause they're not readily apparent, but they are still debilitating and adjusting clocks by an hour royally fucks everything up. You're also ignoring the amount of monetary loss, number of injuries, and number of deaths caused by those without sleep disorders being thrown off, so I suppose you happen to like people's finances, health, and even life getting ruined for what I can only assume is for amusement. |
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Post by ltfred on Oct 22, 2011 16:29:54 GMT -5
Isn't this called "Summer Time" in Great Britain? It makes living a whole lot easier. /if you get the reference, you rock. |
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Post by The_L on Oct 22, 2011 18:16:19 GMT -5
Isn't this called "Summer Time" in Great Britain? It makes living a whole lot easier. /if you get the reference, you rock. I think I do. |
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Post by Haseen on Oct 23, 2011 5:54:55 GMT -5
The best option would seem to me to be that, if you know you are working this Sunday or the Monday after, to take some personal responsibility and make sure you get to bed an hour earlier to counteract the hour lost in the middle of the night, rather than have the entire federal government re-arrange our time standards to suit you. Personal responsibility is nice for improving your own lot in life. As for changing a statistically significant problem that occurs as the result of poor design, not so much. The mention of "personal responsibility" in a statistically significant phenomenon is pretty much an auto-fail if you know anything about the meaning of statistics... |
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Post by cestlefun17 on Oct 24, 2011 2:39:07 GMT -5
If any problems of a public policy can be remedied by taking commonsense personal measures, I will generally find in favor of solving the issue by taking personal responsibility, not changing an entire policy for everyone. What are you talking about? I don't work on Sundays, so I can go to sleep and wake up whenever I want to. If I did work on Sunday, I would take that into consideration the night before we lose an hour. You're right: I am aware of the circadian rhythm's existence but not much more than that. What you're saying here makes sense. So perhaps the sun rising at 5 in the morning in the summer (if we stick to standard time year-round) or rising at 9 in the morning in the winter (if we stick to DST year-round) wouldn't interfere with the circadian rhythm. It nonetheless is irritating in other ways. As for the circadian rhythm, it is worth asking: How long does it take the average person to adjust to the change in time? And, are there simple, commonsense ways to make the change less disruptive? Perhaps, if it's 4:30 and you're hungry for supper because your body thinks it's 5:30, you eat a small snack and wait instead of having supper at 4:30. Or, if you work the Monday after we lose an hour, treat Saturday night as if it were a weeknight, and go to bed earlier to counteract the lost hour on Sunday. It's worth noting that the article cited about the 3.6% increase in work-related injuries does not actually propose getting rid of DST, but offers other measures. Being designed to be "as less intrusive as possible" is not a motivation. Whatever its motivation, the change is positioned to be as less intrusive as possible. If the extra hour of sunlight is at 5:00 in the morning rather than in the evening, most people are going to sleep through it. Shifting this hour of light to the evening makes it more useful. Again, if people are wastefully keeping their lights on when the sun is up, this is a problem with personal responsibility and not DST. This is all absolutely mind-boggling to me. I have never before heard people complain about this, so really this is all news for me. While I sympathize for people with sleep disorders, any policy we institute is going to burden somebody. When crafting public policy, the point to consider is if the policy is more burdensome than the benefits it provides. If the number of people so profoundly affected by this change remains small, than the burden will be lower than benefits it provides. You can't please all the people all of the time. ---- To make it easier to visualize exactly what Daylight Saving Time does, let's have a look at the sunrise and sunset times on the summer and winter solstice of 2011 (note that sunrise times indicate the beginning of this process, so give about an hour for it to become fully light. Sunset times indicate when the sun has fully dipped below the horizon, so it starts to get dark about an hour before this). JUNE 21, 2011 (Summer Solstice, longest day of the year): Sunrise (Standard Time): 4:11 AM Sunset (Standard Time): 7:24 PM Sunrise (DST): 5:11 AM Sunset (DST): 8:24 PM DECEMBER 22, 2011 (Winter Solstice, shortest day of the year): Sunrise (Standard Time): 7:10 AM Sunset (Standard Time): 4:18 PM Sunrise (DST): 8:10 AM Sunset (DST): 5:18 PM aa.usno.navy.mil/cgi-bin/aa_rstablew.pl (Times are for Providence, RI) Daylight Saving Time/Standard Time keeps the sunrise times within normal boundaries throughout the year and it shifts most of the extra sunlight in the summer to a more enjoyable time. While the original motivation may not have been to allow for more barbeques, it nonetheless allows for a much more enjoyable and recreational summer. In other news, here in France we set our clocks back an hour yesterday. Planes did not fall out of the sky, people were not scratching out their eyes, and the country was not taken over by robot overlords. People went about their day, as normal. |
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Post by RavynousHunter on Oct 24, 2011 2:41:24 GMT -5
Personally, I could do with or without it. I honestly don't give no shit...got better shit to worry about than my clocks having to go back or forward an hour. 'Ell, my only real timepiece, my phone, does that for me...eat convenience!
...
WAIT...No! MY CONVENIENCE!
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Post by Napoleon the Clown on Oct 24, 2011 3:29:00 GMT -5
Okay, fine. Personal responsibility. Just don't come crying to us when some stupid cock causes misfortune for you because of a lack of personal responsibility on their part. It only hurts the irresponsible person! We should abolish traffic laws, in fact. Responsibility!
Daylight Savings is shown to do more harm than good. What's so hard about that?
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Post by sylvana on Oct 24, 2011 3:55:26 GMT -5
I honestly have never understood daylight savings time.
We don't use it. In winter its dark when I leave for work and when I get back, in summer it is light for both. All I see is daylight savings making things far more complicated than they really need to be.
Personally I say get rid of it. (additionally, I agree that America should start using the Metric system.)
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Post by cestlefun17 on Oct 24, 2011 5:21:21 GMT -5
The difference is that people's irresponsibility on the road does have significant impact on other people. Our society has decided that the burden in instituting and enforcing traffic rules is miniscule in comparison to the benefits they provide to us.
Says who? "Harm" and "Good" are not quantifiable measures. Most people enjoy having an extra hour of sunlight in the evening during the summer, rather than sleeping through it in the morning. If our society believes the burden of changing the clocks 1 hour twice a year outweighs the enjoyment they gain from more waking daylight hours, we are free to change it. It's not so simple as it "causes more harm than good." What does this mean?
If your state or country does not use it, then of course you will not notice what it does! If you did use DST, then when DST is instituted (moving clocks forward an hour in the spring), the sun will set one hour later in the evening. You will have one more hour of sunlight when you come home from work in the evening.
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Post by Oriet on Oct 24, 2011 7:52:31 GMT -5
First off, a couple flaws in your arguments.
If there is a huge segment of the population failing to have "enough" "personal responsibility" over their autonomic systems, then obviously something, such as policies, needs to account and adjust for that. You can't just throw Libertarian jibber-jabber at it and pretend it'll do squat.
Common sense is neither common nor sensical. Everyone has different thought processes and different ways they approach problems, so what is obvious to one person is something another person will never think of on their own. Just a quick look at the vast number of different belief systems, such as religion, politics, morality, and even culture, shows that there is no overlaying "common sense" about everything. This is even looking at just neural-typical people within an standard deviation of mean intelligence.
Oh, and I'm going to have to consider you a heartless monster, as you feel a naturally lit, late evening barbecue is worth other people needlessly dying for.
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Post by cestlefun17 on Oct 24, 2011 8:41:33 GMT -5
I'd hardly call it a "huge" segment. If there were indeed a significant portion of the population intensely disturbed by this one-hour change, then it would be changed. The number of people who lack this personal responsibility are not significant enough to effect change in the policy.
You're dodging the issue: for one, how long does it take the average person to adjust to a one-hour time change, particularly considering that this time change adjusts the sunup/sundown times so that they occur at more reasonable points in the day in relation to noon? If people can't think of simple measures like taking into consideration the lost hour the night before when they go to bed, or eating meals at reasonable times, perhaps a public service campaign would be effective. But again, most people don't obsess over this. They do what they have to do then move on with their lives. They are free to change it through their representatives, but there is no push to abolish this policy (at least not up here in New England).
This is absolutely ridiculous. You're acting like two times a year we go through a mini-Armageddon where planes crash into the oceans, trains are derailed, and somnambulist sleep-walkers are eating people's brains. I'm imagining a "Reefer Madness" like film ("Daylight Saving Madness!"). Exactly how much damage and destruction does this one hour cause directly?
If you are stupid enough to be killed by Daylight Saving Time, then good riddance. I've never heard of something so ridiculous in my life. In actuality of course, Daylight Saving Time can't kill anyone because it's not a "thing." Our clock is an entirely arbitrary system of keeping track of the passage of the day, and as it is not based on anything found in nature (there is nothing that says, for example that the day must be divided in 24 equal segments as opposed to 10 equal segments), from time to time it needs to be adjusted to account for the natural variations in sunlight hours. Otherwise, it ceases to mean anything as the sun starts rising at 4 in the morning and the extra sunlight we're supposed to benefit from in the summer (which is not just enjoyable but also psychologically beneficial as well) is pushed to the entirely useless early morning hours.
If one idiot dies in a work accident on DST Sunday because he didn't get enough sleep, the problem is a combination of 1. Him not getting enough sleep (HIS FAULT) and 2. Unsafe work conditions that could cause accidents any day of the year (EMPLOYER'S FAULT). It does not mandate that everyone else forgo their extra summer sunlight because of him, just like if one idiot who is allergic to peanuts eats a peanut-butter sandwich doesn't mean we have to abolish peanuts for everybody.
So if I am a heartless monster to you, then so be it. I will enjoy my hamburger by the pool with my friends on the 4th of July with my extra hour to play lawn volleyball, all idiots notwithstanding.
I have never in my life heard of people making such a big stink about this. It is really amazing to me.
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Post by Vene on Oct 24, 2011 9:07:47 GMT -5
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Post by Oriet on Oct 24, 2011 9:37:34 GMT -5
I wasn't dodging the issue, because it's a stupid one, and is an irrelevant red herring. It doesn't matter whether it only takes one day or one week to fully adjust to an hour change in schedule. Modern culture is already sleep deprived, so depriving the population of an hour in their sleep-wake cycle (which for the vast majority of people means loosing an hour of sleep, as it's easier to wake up to an alarm then fall asleep whenever you want) only compounds the problem. The way to combat a problem is not to make it worse. Right, so if you get hit by a sleep deprived driver on your way to work and die it's because you're stupid, not because you don't live in a complete vacuum from other people. If you don't die in the accident, but instead get a sleep deprived hospital staff I guess it's still because you're too stupid, and not because of a systematic problem. Seriously, what the bloody fuck‽ Other people being too tired, either on the road or workplace, endangers not just themselves but those around them and who rely on their work as well. Also, have you never heard people bitch and complain about DST the Monday after they loose that hour of sleep? Do you just not talk to anyone for the week prior and three weeks after it, or something? Oh, and for all your complaining about personal responsibility and not havint that extra sunlight during the summer, here's an idea: wake up earlier! That way you get to enjoy all of that radiation goodness while basking in that personal responsibility you keep waargarbling on about. Oh, and decimal time has been used in the past. Thing is, how we count time is irrelevant to how time passes, which is what is being concerned about. DST just fucks it all up cause it forces us to use a shifted arbitrary time instead of actual time for setting schedules. Oh yeah, and you should look up seasonal affective disorder, as not everyone benefits from massive amounts of sunlight (and that's ignoring the problem of ultraviolet radiation). |
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