ExFed @ ExFed @lemm.ee

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Joined

2 yr. ago

Aye, didn't want to accuse you of advocating for censorship. Just a friendly reminder that even the most "dangerous" texts are that way because of context, not content.

Also I was today years old when I learned about The Turner Diaries. Yikes.

I think it would depend on the books.

Isn't that the whole argument for banning some books and not others?

I live in the USA. I'm talking about people in developed nations. The richness of a large region only loosely correlates to the prosperity of its smaller regions.

People have to make decisions based upon their environment. There's no government in the world that can control this fact. The least we can do is acknowledge it and help people make the right decisions within their environment.

School attendance works all around the world.

For most kids in most places, I agree. But there are some places around the world where formal government-run school does not work. I live nearby some very rural places with chronically underfunded schools and unique social problems. The teachers I know who work there try their hardest, yet are aware they can't do a good enough job for their kids. In those communities, formal schooling just isn't enough.

Provide good options and people will make good decisions. Abolish bad options and people will still make bad decisions.

...everything else around me moves an hour. I have to move because time is standardized.

This sounds an awful lot like you're arguing for continuing to change our clocks twice a year. I'll assume benefit of the doubt that this is just a misunderstanding.

I don’t think standard matches our biology in some magical way.

It's not magic. It's science.

work doesn't let you come in earlier and leave earlier in the winter (clock-wise)

And that's where the real problem lies. Instead of negotiating with our employers to help build equitable schedules, we'd rather ask the government to enforce it for us. Permanent anything, either DST or ST, will force us to face this fact. In light of that, I'd rather go with permanent Standard Time, as it matches mean solar time and thus circadian rhythms. Everything else is a social contact.

why you're snarkily editing my words

That's fair. That's on me.

earth time is arbitrarily assigned

Excuse me if I'm misunderstanding what you mean ... but, no, it really isn't. UTC is defined quite precisely and accurately to track the mean solar time. Time zones are usually designed to balance the zenith of the sun (that's "noon") and regional boundaries (although some countries make some... creative decisions in that regard). "Morning" and "evening" are defined in terms of the position of the sun, not some number on a clock.

Perhaps you think I work 9-5.

Apologies. I was using "9 to 5" to mean "a standard work schedule that doesn't actually exist for most people except as a cliche."

I have no desire to go to work an hour earlier

But that's exactly what permanent DST is! Just because the clock still says "7 xDT" instead of "7 xST" doesn't make it the same time. The sun still rises and sets on it's own time no matter what our clocks say. Circadian rhythms ultimately depend on sunrise, zenith, and sunset, not some number on a clock. Switching between ST and DST effectively forces the whole world to adopt a "winter" schedule and a "summer" schedule, but in an incredibly disruptive and politically-charged way.

I agree that changing clocks twice a year is a bad idea. My point is, if we're going to pick one, it should be the one that is based on the motion of the planet. The whole world has to coordinate schedules anyways. So let's use a standard that more closely matches our biology, not some "you'll save daylight" marketing.

Or maybe we should all agree to live in the future and just use UTC...

We're kind of having the same argument in two different threads ... I'm not sure which thread is better.

Morning our schedules is no better than moving out clocks.

It's objectively better! "Moving clocks" is effectively the same as moving schedules for individuals, but to practically coordinate with others, everybody must change their clock and therefore their schedule. Individuals and organizations already construct their schedules as needed.

Part of the issue is that we all work too damn much, anyways. The 40 hour, 5 day work week (and thus the 9-to-5) is an arbitrary concept that research has indicated may be just as effective as a shorter work week.

I'm not arguing for changing clocks twice a year. I'm arguing that permanent DST is no better than permanent Standard Time when it comes to scheduling. The difference is that people are falsely convinced permanent DST will give them "more daylight" when it will not. Schedules have always shifted between seasons. We can't do anything about the motion of planets, but we can decide to go to work an hour earlier to maximize how much continuous time we have after work to do yardwork or whatever.

Today, we have this arbitrary "9 to 5" work schedule. Give it 20 years of permanent DST, and we'll start wishing we "had more daylight" because we have a "10 to 6" work schedule. They're just numbers. Why not choose the simpler standard?

So you'd rather change everybody else's schedule to meet your desires? Because that's what DST is: the government telling its people to change their schedules by an hour.

The daytime is basically our employer's time anyway, I'd rather not waste any more precious daylight on that part of the day.

I feel like this strikes at the heart of the whole DST vs. ST argument. As I mentioned in a sibling thread, it boils down to how much control we have over our own schedules. Instead of a mutualistic relationship, we've sold our souls to our employers. Shifting to permanent DST may be a temporary solution, but if we can't figure out a way to form healthy relationships and boundaries with work/school/etc, even those gains will eventually get optimized away from us.

I’d rather the light when I might be able to enjoy it.

There's a subtext to every DST vs. ST argument that never gets talked about: how much control people have over their own schedules. If, instead of shifting your clock, you could instead shift your schedule, wouldn't that achieve the same result?

I love how a purely factual statement somehow receives as many downvotes as it does upvotes ... People are weird.

Local businesses and governments already shift their hours to be open when people are awake and available regardless of whatever arbitrary thing the clock says...

If DST and Standard Time are functionally equivalent for all intents and purposes, why not just stick with the simpler one?

The opposite. For northern latitudes, the time switch is actually somewhat beneficial. People generally don't love waking up and going to work/school/whatever in the pitch black. DST doesn't magically "save daylight." The total amount is daylight is the same for either.

The only real solution is permanent Standard Time. Local businesses and governments already shift their business hours as they see fit for other reasons, so keeping "summer hours" and "winter hours" is totally reasonable.

Because people prefer the [lack of] daylight in the [morning] which is why everyone [hates] DST hours.

Is that actually what you meant?

I really wish people would stop spinning DST as if it gives us any more daylight than Standard time. It's literally just rotating a circular instrument by 30 degrees and whitewashing it with a nice-sounding name.

Like say, a standardised, govt funded education system? With dedicated professionals on staff and specialised facilities?

That still fails to prepare countless students because they don't quite fit expectations? I was one of those students.

Homeschooling isn't above criticism, for sure, but public schooling isn't perfect, either. People don't just make decisions for no reason. Sometimes they really do have some local insight that you don't.

I totally understand the need to educate the educators. Few parents are appropriately equipped to become a full-time teacher. That's a problem, for sure.

But, as a rule, saying "X needs to be abolished" is extremely lazy, naive, and reeks of authoritarianism. If it's so bad, try proposing something better.

The point they're making is that homeschooling is far more flexible (for better and for worse) than most public education in the USA. Admittedly, it's a bit of a patch to fill in the gap, but for some kids it's incredibly beneficial. I was in a very similar situation: elementary school sucked and was extremely boring; despite the school psychiatrist's objections, the administration wanted to put me on Ritalin instead of proposing any real solutions. So my parents homeschooled me through middle school. I didn't actually follow much of the formal material, and instead of followed an "unschooling" approach. It was extremely beneficial compared to getting medicated.

The USA needs education reform, for sure, but kids can't wait for our value systems in the States to finally figure out good, flexible, and diverse pedagogical techniques.