3272: Time Change

Time Change

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Title text: All discussions of daylight saving time policy are doomed by a mix of contradictory, inconsistent, and impossible preferences, which is why I think the only thing we can really hope to do is to make it worse.

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Explanation

In the United States, there have been multiple proposals to eliminate or change how daylight saving time (DST, or daylight savings time) is observed. The most recent attempt at the time of this comic was passed by the US House of Representatives on July 14, 2026, and would eliminate the use of "Standard Time" and make DST permanent for most states. However, this bill is considered to be unlikely to pass the US Senate, due to lobbying by various groups. Concerns include danger due to dark morning commutes and impacts on agriculture.

Many people enjoy "falling back" more than "springing forward" because turning the clocks back by an hour extends the time between normal bedtime and waking time, 'gaining' them an 'extra' hour to sleep. On the other hand, shifting the hour forward makes people 'lose' an hour of their day which could have been spent resting, hence Cueball's statement about everyone hating springing forward but enjoying the sleep benefits of falling back.

This comic invents a "new" way to deal with this issue, by not moving the clocks forward in the springtime, while retaining the moving back of clocks in the fall. As others observe, this would be a ludicrous proposal because it would end up with clocks wildly out of sync with the daily solar cycle. Cueball is unbothered by this, and shortsightedly claims that people will be better prepared to deal with the consequences of clock changes because they will be getting an extra hour of rest each year. This rather ignores that one hour a year is likely to provide only short-term benefit, whereas his scheme changes what are relatively short-term temporary issues for much longer-term ones. It will also cause a more harmful sleep schedule than the DST clock change in the first place when sleep aligns with broad daylight. In practice, people probably would find ways to cope, by shifting their waking and working patterns with respect to the clock, but at the cost of greater potential for confusion and burden on those who have to handle time data, planning, etc..

The title text asserts Randall's opinion that DST discussions are irresolvable, because no option exists that does not run afoul of somebody's firm opposition, whether that opposition is based on logic or emotion, and therefore no option exists that will, or can, improve on the status quo ante. Rather than conclude that the best thing to do would therefore be to leave it alone, though, it suggests that we should actively aim to make it worse, as if that would at least be some sort of achievement.

Transcript

[Cueball standing behind a lectern.]

Cueball: We all hate springing forward,

Cueball: but we love falling back.

[Zoomed out view. Cueball is on a raised podium behind a lectern, and Hairy, another Cueball, and Hairbun are standing in front of Cueball (to the panel's left), looking at him.]

Cueball: Therefore, we are abolishing the spring time change only.

Cueball: We'll gain an hour every year, but never lose one.

[Zoomed back in on Cueball behind the lectern, who has his fist raised]

Off-screen voice: Won't that cause the clocks to spiral out of sync with the sun?

Cueball: (fist in air) Then we will meet the chaos clear-eyed and well-rested!

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Discussion

Earlier this week the United States House of Representatives approved a bill that would make Daylight Saving Time permanent. 2603:8081:9700:1224:0:0:0:1 01:52, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Cue Yogi Berra (Deja vu all over again) and CSNY (We have all been here before). Year-round DST was the law of the USA during the second world war, and again in 1974, during the energy crisis set off by the 1973 Arab oil embargo. In the New England states, where I lived in 1974, there was a major consequence of the imposition of year-round DST: in winter, schools opened, and children were bussed, or walked, to those schools, while it was still night, and pitch dark. The resulting incidents, and outcry, led to the cessation of the permanent-DST experiment long before it was set to expire - and should tell us of the futility of all DST proposals and discussions, as expressed in the title text. 2605:59C8:160:DB08:5806:FCD6:584A:5938 03:33, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

I'm in down east (far east) Maine USA. Nova Scotia across the bay. Running on DST, it stays pretty light past 9 on the clock. OTOH, EST in winter, it gets dark well before 5pm. PRR (talk) 06:20, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Ayup. Bring on those lazy, crazy 15-hour days of summer, when dawn breaks at 5:30 (4:30 on EST, and who thought that up?!?). And those 9-hour days of winter, when it's light maybe by 7 (by 8 on EDT, and how can I get to work when I can't see?!?). The problem, science-phobes and vaxx-haters, the People's Choice in these Untied States in North America, is ... physics. It's so inconvenient. Just ban it. 2605:59C8:160:DB08:9860:B24C:D545:45E7 10:21, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

I'm a little further south than you. Aclimatizing to nightfall setting in four hours earlier in Winter takes a huge toll on one's mental state. Those 9 pm twilights are a cherished luxury. These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For (talk) 03:07, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

I take a weekend away for time change weekend because I find that waking up on Sunday and travelling home is all the disruption I need to overlook the fact that the clocks have changed. Cueball's plan unfairly robs me of a holiday every year therefore I offer the counterproposal that we in fact spring back as well as falling back. Everybody wins. 134.58.253.56 08:05, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

The UK tried British Standard Time from 1968 to 1971 - one hour on from UTC. I was at school in the north of England at the time and it was dark way past nine o'clock in the morning. There reports of farmers complaining about disruptions in milking cows, but others have pointed out that cows don't use alarm clocks. Evening road accidents fell but Wikipedia points out that this corresponded with stricter drink/driving laws.2A00:23CC:D248:8901:C8FF:7450:1E9B:1A6D 09:03, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

I'd propose a more effective method that does away with all of this hassle: Human Time! 1 hour is the same length but there are 25 hours in the "day". That means that midnight and midday rolls around the planet over the course of 25 days so that all the businesses can synchronise. There'd be no more day or night shifts because it would all be rotating. The extra hour could be deem "free time". Drummertv (talk) 09:09, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Or how about we add just 4 minutes to each day. Then midnight and midday would rotate over the course of a whole year. Synchronize it so as to take most advantage of daylight during winter, while summer involves sleeping during the hottest parts of the day (or feel free to disregard and set a different schedule) while enabling more nighttime activity. To account for the discrepancy between 4 minutes * 365 days is just slightly bigger than 24 hours, you would skip doing this on 31sts, while doing extra on the night before March 1 (or just skip it once every 3 months). You would end up losing a day every year. ... or you could do it with 1 minute each day and iterate over the course of 4 years and then you could get rid of the leap day! (possibly with some special handling on the 100th-year-that-isn't-also-a-400th-year) 74.202.210.170 14:55, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

This would only work if the Sun were to be extinguished, and thus no longer available to forcibly reset human circadian rhythms. The consequences of this would be, ah, nontrivial, and the fix, as a result, short-lived. But we would no longer have to worry about human contributions to / driving of global warming. 2605:59C8:160:DB08:9860:B24C:D545:45E7 14:09, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

We'd no longer have to worry about anything much any more (at least, not for very long) - win all round! 82.13.184.33 14:15, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Fun fact: The German satire party "Die PARTEI" ("The PARTY") had the same idea already in their political program for the European Election several years ago. :) -> https://www.die-partei.de/programm/eu-2014/ Linuspogo (talk) 09:12, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

I would like to see the implementation of British Somewhere Time. In recognition of the fact* that, in days gone by, the sun never set on the British Empire, this would take GMT (none of this woke modern UTC thank you) and apply a random offset between -12 and +12 every time the clock reached 5 o'clock. [*Not an actual fact.] 194.75.188.171 15:36, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

"[* Not an actual fact.]" ... you're right, in that isn't a fact. But only in the "fact" that it was only in days gone by... 92.23.5.229 19:27, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

It's not a fact because the sun demonstrably did (and does) set on it. At its height, the sun was setting on it much more of the time than it wasn't. 82.13.184.33 14:25, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

What's 'woke' about GMT? Isn't time mean enough without labeling it as such? 2605:59C8:160:DB08:9860:B24C:D545:45E7 14:42, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Naw, they said that UTC was 'woke'.

I mean, it deliberately doesn't even stand for anything... Doesn't correspond to either the French or English names, so neither of us feel aggrieved that the other language is favoured, without having to write it twice. ;) 2.98.78.86 21:01, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

It never ceases to confuse me why people thinkg abolishing DST is so difficult. Just do the opposite of what we did when adopting DST. People just try to make it confusing with nonsense like permanent DST. Permanent DST is just called changing time zones and is completely independent of DST. And most of Western Europe is already an hour ahead in winter (and parts of Spain and Iceland 2 hours), so "permanent DST" would just mean we are 2 hours off. Tharkon (talk) 22:00, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

I find it quite funny (in a grinning kind of way) thas DST was introduced to save energy for economical reasons, never quite delivered any measureable economical benefit, and is STILL chosen as the "solution" to the clock shifts instead of coming back to the "normal time" (UTC +/- local timezone) which is more practical, and less confusing. The least convenient / least logical solution has been chosen by people in the US as well as in a few referendums in Europe, which incidentally goes to show that people are simillarly irrational on both side of the Pond. 2001:861:3f07:a020:dd65:7976:be0f:65c2 (talk) 22:18, 16 July 2026 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I suggest we just all switch to CMT... 92.23.5.229 22:51, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Why would we want to switch to CMT? 70.40.118.179 18:36, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Because Ray Bradbury. Especially the final scene of his Martian Chronicles - which, when first published, was dated October 2026. 205.175.118.204 19:08, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

No new comic on page

why is the new comic not on the page cuz i saw it today but it isnt on the website yet is the bot not working? 98.213.54.78 21:09, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

TheusafBot hasn't been reconfigured yet, I'll poke Theusaf about it in a bit. Celene (talk) 21:46, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

done! in the meanwhile, anyone can fill in for the bot by following the instructions here User:DgbrtBOT#When_the_BOT_fails... for anyone reading this at least, since IP-labelled users can't create new pages... -- somefan (talk | contribs) 23:21, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Daylight Savings Time is the one thing I'll never forgive Ben Franklin for creating. It is the worst thing to exist, and anyone arguing to make it permanent is beyond delusional. It should be permanently off. 45.88.221.104 (talk) 00:42, 18 July 2026 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

It wasn't really anything to do with Benny Frankie..., just so you know. 92.23.5.92 16:51, 18 July 2026 (UTC)
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