A: It depends on when and who you ask(ed)
Prior to the need to coordinate time over vast distances, I imagine that people generally used local needs and criteria for knowing the time. Perhaps the sun directly overhead was a good enough reference to communicate with others in the immediate community, relying more on relative time than an absolute fixed number.
The standardization of time as we have come to know it, is a relatively recent enactment and was brought forward by the railroads in the 1800's. The necessity to coordinate schedules of moving parts over distances seemed to be a reasonable impetus for standardizing time. Yet who chose the reference point? The governments of Great Britain, a once colonial power and the United States, a rising economic power in the world, agreed on GMT. What about everyone else in the world?
India objected. To this day has a single time zone for the entire continent- splitting the difference between what would have been different 2 time zones into a single time zone that was offset by 1/2 hour. If you check to see what time it is in India, it will be offset from UTC (GMT) by 5:30 standard daylight time.
China also objected and adopted a single time zone for the entire country. Unlike India where it was a simple matter to split the difference between 2 times zone, China had to choose a reference for the standard. How to choose-- Geographical- select a place in the center of China's landmass? Or Beijing, the capital and the seat of power, which is located in the east.
And now here we are again: Nobody likes changing the clocks but who decides whether or not we stay with standard time all year or daylight savings time all year.
The absurdly named Sunshine Protection Act, is the bi partisan Senate proposal which favors keeping daylight savings time all year. As if keeping the clock set an hour ahead actually accomplishes an extension of the sunlight. Obviously, all it really does is shift the fixed amount of light available away from the morning into the evening. So instead of the sunrise occurring at 7:30 AM (in this latitude, at least), it will cross the horizon at 8:30 AM. The trade off is beginning our days in the dimness of winter instead of ending them there at the close of the day.
As states are weighing in with their preferences for maintaining Standard or Daylight Savings time, we have yet another opportunity to get nasty and dig in.
This issue is so trivial compared to all the hatred, fighting and suffering happening right now all over the world. However, the reaction to fight for one's position with enmity is not trivial. Yet, here we are. For now, with regard to Standard Time/Daylight Savings time, we will all (except for AZ and HI) move the hands of our clocks around-
An act of cooperation and agreement, for the moment.
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