Will the US make daylight savings time permanent in 2023?

Jun 22

203

chance

ALL

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-senate-approves-bill-that-would-make-daylight-savings-time-permanent-2023-2022-03-15/

It sounds like the soonest this will happen is 2023, so March 2023 would be the last time Americans change their clocks. I'll resolve this to YES when that becomes certain. On the off chance that March 2022 was the last time change, that would also be a YES.

FAQ

1. What if only some states do this?

This is a prediction about what happens at the federal level. Individual states can opt out without affecting how this market resolves.

2. What if a law is passed but then it's reversed?

If a bill making DST permanent is signed into law in by December 31st, 2023 at midnight eastern time then this resolves YES. It doesn't matter what actually happens after that.

(Ask more questions in the comments! Or holler if anything above seems wrong.)

Timekeeping

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Reynoldsis predicting YES at 14%

Marcus Abramovitchis predicting NO at 14%

The prior on the US government getting anything done is really low. Base rates

mvdmis predicting NO at 12%

@dreev How does this resolve if some states keep DST? The bill recently reintroduced in the Senate includes an exemption for Alaska and Hawaii. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-senators-reintroduce-bill-make-daylight-saving-time-permanent-2023-03-02/

mvdmis predicting NO at 12%

@mvdm oh wait disregard this, Alaska and Hawaii don’t have DST, the exemption would just keep them on standard time rather than switching to +1 time.

brpis predicting NO at 12%

https://www.businessinsider.com/house-failed-vote-daylight-savings-time-permanent-sunshine-protection-act-2022-12?op=1

Nico Dis predicting NO at 26%

Why is the close date 12/1?

Daniel Reevesis predicting NO at 26%

@NicoDelon Updated! I think I must've assumed this would've been decided one way or another by now. Clearly it hasn't been!

Antonbought Ṁ17 of YES

arb https://manifold.markets/kolotom99/will-the-sunshine-protection-act-es

Daniel Reeves

This article makes it sound like the bill has lost needed momentum: https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3571007-permanent-daylight-saving-time-hits-brick-wall-in-house/

Kronopathbought Ṁ10 of NORelated question on California specifically (which still resolves “Yes” if it happens at the national level): https://manifold.markets/Kronopath/will-california-abolish-daylight-sa

Sjlverbought Ṁ50 of NOIs love to see this pass, but... Doesn't this require updating most operating systems in the world? Including your little router at home for which the admin password has long been lost? I'd expect more than a few months notice for such an important decision.

Andrew Hartmanis predicting YES at 30% @Sjlver Not really, no. There's basically a master list of all the complicated time zone shenanigans, of which DST is a subset, to which all (competently written) programs refer. Phasing DST out would just prompt a change to the list, and in theory most of the world's code needn't change.

Sjlveris predicting NO at 30% @AndrewHartman agree, but isn't that list part of the OS? Or C runtime if you prefer... Anyway close enough to the OS that it's hard to upgrade. And you would still need to upgrade that on every device where you need local times. Think surveillance cameras, ATMs, door lock systems integrated into buildings, weather stations, ... It's probably a smaller issue than Y2K, but I would still think along those lines.

Andrew Hartmanis predicting YES at 30% @Sjlver It's a resource file, not code - they learned a (small) lesson from the Y2K days. The majority of programs which rely on it would propagate changes to it automatically, as well.

Adambought Ṁ20 of NOgod I hope not. Maybe I should be buying YES as a hedge, tbh.

upzone_CAbought Ṁ50 of NOI'm not holding hopes for it happening

Bolton Baileybought Ṁ30 of YEShttps://newrepublic.com/article/165961/unlikely-success-permanent-daylight-saving-time-senate gives 60-40 odds

Eli Liflandbought Ṁ20 of NOSeems <50% as I share the prior others have of things not happening, though I'm a bit confused how it passed the Senate unanimously according to the article?

Martin Randallbought Ṁ100 of NOCongress can barely agree to keep the government running.

Scott Owensbought Ṁ25 of NOIt's too my knowledge that it's up to the states to determine DST or not. I can't see this being popular in all states especially ones further North

Stephenbought Ṁ10 of NODo I want this to happen? Yeah, I think so. But, as said above, change is hard. "The battles are so bitter because the stakes are so low", etc. etc. But clearly I'm not very convinced of that logic just yet.

Clive Freemanbought Ṁ50 of NOGetting concensus for any change is ridiculously hard at the moment, regardless of the logic of any underlying arguments.

Confluxbought Ṁ10 of NOmild hedge + change is hard

Daniel Reevesbought Ṁ1 of NOMy personal commentary is that this would suck for commuting to school in the morning in the winter. Our kids bike to school and there were a few weeks around winter solstice where it seemed too dark for that to be safe. With permanent DST it means school starting before dawn in the winter. (Also, just philosophically, how absurd is it to permanently change the clocks rather than change standard business hours? Like my whole pro-DST argument -- https://doc.beeminder.com/madhack#36 -- is that changing standard business hours earlier and later again every year is untenable. But if the public consensus is "business hours should just always start earlier so we have more daylight after work" then it's almost tragically hilarious that the best way to achieve that is to permanently redefine time itself rather than tamper with the apparently greater sanctity that is "Nine To Five". Maybe it's the Dolly Parton movie by that name that really locked us in there.)