Lots of discussion on the Web about whether there should be a change in Daylight Saving Time. What do you think?

In the 21st century DST disruption to schedules and bio clocks outweighs questionable economic benefits. The usefulness of daylight savings time went out the door with the invention of the lightbulb.

Originally Posted by Arkitexas

The usefulness of daylight savings time went out the door with the invention of the lightbulb.

Actually, the light bulb was invented and Daylight Saving Time was adopted at about the same time. It's unclear which was first

Originally Posted by Arkitexas

In the 21st century DST disruption to schedules and bio clocks outweighs questionable economic benefits. The usefulness of daylight savings time went out the door with the invention of the lightbulb.

It's about doing work outdoors,, not indoors,, the light bulb has nothing to do with it

Those of us living in most of Arizona view DST with a wide variety of emotions.. the most prominent of which is total indifference.
A wise native American chief once said, "Only the US Government would think that you can make an Indian blanket longer by cutting a piece off one end and sewing it onto the other end..."

It caused me some embarrassment yesterday (Sunday) when I checked my watch and saw that I had to meet a friend and his wife for dinner in one hour, then I got a text message that they were waiting for me at the restaurant.

It's all good if you want to let your kids walk to school in the dark I guess, just one reason,,, moving the patch of blanket to a useful area makes sense if you think about it

What's easier,, changing the clocks, or changing the time of day people go to work/school??

Originally Posted by scale_only

What's easier,, changing the clocks, or changing the time of day people go to work/school??

We seem to be doing both - twice a year.

Originally Posted by scale_only

It's about doing work outdoors,, not indoors,, the light bulb has nothing to do with it

So, do you often work outdoors, at night, without a light?

You do understand that the idea is to not have to use a light as much,,that's why they call it "daylight savings"

Thank you for explaining what the idea is. Now please vote on whether you think it's a good idea or a bad idea.

It's all about getting your butt out of bed and spending money.
Also so the gulf nuts can have more daylight at the courses...again spend money for tee time.

Originally Posted by Jim409

It's all about getting your butt out of bed and spending money.
Also so the gulf nuts can have more daylight at the courses...again spend money for tee time.

LOL,,, I resemble that remark

Here in Western Australiam successive state govt's really, *really* wanted us to have Daylight Savings Time but somehow it was resisted. There was a referendum, and it was voted down. Not what the govt. wanted, so some time later (I really don't remember if it was Party A or Party B, and who was in power before/after the referendum) they bombarded us with media (this was pre-internet so a lot of dubiously-neutral "articles" in the paper for one thing) about how great life was in places that had DST, and guess what, ANOTHER referendum! Once again, it was voted down. The state govt. obviously really wanted it, which probably means the dozen or so largest local businesses wanted it and were leaning on them to provide it. So we had a *THIRD* referendum and it got voted down a third time, if I remember rightly by the largest margin of the 3 votes (I think it was about 60/40 against). At last, once and for all, whichever party was in power at the time finally accepted that it wasn't going to happen and stated that they wouldn't be trying again. They were scared of the issue after that. Voters were by this time getting pretty sick of their wishes being ignored (so they try to avoid votes as much as possible now - democracy West Aussie style! ) I'm not sure but I think at least twice it was the Liberal party here that had the referendum. In Australia we have the Labor and Liberal parties, the Liberals are in fact the conservative party and they're quite different to "liberal" politicians as the world understands it...the closest parallel would be that Labor is like the Democrats and the Lib's are more like the Republicans. Labor is based in union history and is traditionally more left-leaning, the Lib's lean right.
Australia is a biggish place spread across 3 time zones and W.A. would be 3 hours behind Sydney if not for DST. This is why it's an important issue in Perth, it's now got a population of 2 million people and it's one of the top 2 or 3 resource-based economies in the world. Perth is like the office of a big mining and farming community, but the big companies that own it all are typically based in Sydney or Melbourne (or overseas, with head Australian office there). They have daylight savings "over east" in summer, and big business wanted it here to lessen the time difference. It was the public at large who didn't want it, I don't know what most people's reasons were. The pro-DST groups liked to say that those against were just stupid people who actually believed it would fade the curtains, apparently after some comment from a letter to the newspaper.

Finally after *three* referenda, I think it was the Liberals in power at the time and they accepted that people really, really didn't want it, and it was starting to smell bad that it got voted against but they didn't want to accept that and made us vote all over again. It felt like they were saying "And this time get it right!!" and failing to respect people's wishes and the democratic process. Of course we don't get to vote on anything of substance, the only other issue recently we got to decide was whether shops would be allowed to open for extended trading on sundays, holidays and so on. We don't for example, get a vote on the death penalty, voluntary euthanasia, abortion and so on... government doesn't trust us to decide for ourselves. I can just picture the policy meetings on that one... "what, let them VOTE on politics, constitutional and state matters? You've gotta be joking! WE'RE the government here, WE'LL handle that, thank you very much! Give 'em something they can handle, like, oh I dunno... *Shopping*, there we go, that ought to shut the plebs up for a while..." And so it was we got to settle the big issues, under the noble and time-honoured democratic process, as piddled away to nearly nothing by the Westminster system. Democracy, just barely, in its thinnest, most dilute form they can get away with and still call it that. Shopping. Yeah right. That's after we kept voting "wrong" on daylight savings, they're never going to trust us with any decisions again

I started this thread last Spring. Let's take a fresh look at this question now that it's Fall and we've set our clocks back to standard time.

I just voted for permanent standard time, and keeping what we have now would be my second choice. I think the idea of permanent daylight saving time makes no sense because it would cause the daily schedules our society has adopted over the centuries to steadily evolve until a movement eventually arose to push the clocks ahead yet another hour. That progression could continue until the Sun was eventually rising in the evening!

If you haven't voted then please vote now.