Some of us IT folks lived through updating all the various TZ files, which was quite an experience since a lot of things were not designed to be updated dynamically at the time.
So what? It is 8/12 months of the year in DST now, and has been for well over a decade. That's the current baseline and all current daily schedules are definitely adjusted to it by now. Moving to permanent standard time would thus have a distortionary effect on 8/12 months of the year, vs only 4/12 months of the year for moving to permanent daylight saving time.
If we got rid of that, then the changes in the sun's key position, sunrises/sets, and shadows through-out the day would simply shift as the seasons do: gradually.
After the "final jump" people won't notice things IMHO.
I'm talking about something different, which is the actual current timing of the day/night cycle relative to people's daily schedules. I'm assuming daily schedules (e.g. show up at work at 9, leave at 6) won't change, so the distortionary effect would be on 8 months of the year by changing to permanent standard rather than only on 4 months of the year by changing to permanent DST. This means that e.g. the available sunlight on my bike commutes to/from work would be changed in 8 months out of the year from what they are now by switching to perma-standard, vs only 4 months out of the year by switching to perma-DST. Schedules for things that rely on day/night cycles would thus be more disrupted by being upended for fully twice as much of the year with perma-standard as with perma-DST.
I never understood how it came to be that the two biggest economic blocks with a ton of business between them didn’t manage to align on this. Thank you for finally giving me the context.
