I like to think myself a reasonable person. I like kittens, I’ve never punched an infant. Not everyone is levelheaded though, and I can respect that. What I have trouble respecting, however, is the concept of daylight savings time.
I don’t understand it. It’s crazy to me. In my mind, it is the perfect example of the wrong solution to a “might be a” problem.
The whole concept of time is so that we can all be one the same page when we want to meet together. It’s a reference for collaboration. It makes travel easier. It makes communication easier. It’s a standard… and a standard is most useful when it’s not in flux.
standard: noun stan·dard \?stan-d?rd\
4: something set up and established by authority as a rule for the measure of quantity, weight, extent, value, or quality – Merriam-Webster
Presumably, there are people who claim DST has “benefits.” I have yet to be convinced.
Here’s the thing that I find most irritating.
Many publications credit DST’s proposal to the prominent English builder and outdoorsman William Willett, who independently conceived DST in 1905 during a pre-breakfast ride, when he observed with dismay how many Londoners slept through a large part of a summer’s day. An avid golfer, he also disliked cutting short his round at dusk. His solution was to advance the clock during the summer months, a proposal he published two years later. – Wikipedia (emphasis added)
If I understand this correctly… rather than find a way to start his golf game earlier… he instead advocates that a billion other people change their clocks. Meaning: Willett has the political influence to inconvenience the world’s current and future population, but somehow doesn’t have enough control over his own schedule to change his tee time.
I… have no words for this. (Just kidding, I have lots of words on this.) It’s crazy making.
He has the ear of the governmental leaders and rather than suggest that maybe business, factories, and schools change the time they start and stop each day he suggests that everyone (in perpetuity) change their clocks twice a year.
What great piece of utopia-creating legislation did we (as a human race) fail to think about and pass because someone wanted to spend a little more time on the golf course? Thanks a lot Willett.