LYDIC:
Time. It flies
when you’re having fun, but it also killed Peepaw. Every March and November,
we try to control it. Daylight Saving Time is about
to begin. Remember, we fall back tomorrow
night. Set the clocks back. MAN: Springing forward,
and I hate it. WOMAN:
That one hour… LYDIC:
Why do we change our clocks? And does it do more harm
than good? Well, as I found out, if you screw with time… Who are you? …it just might
screw you back. Arizona– it’s one of America’s top states… alphabetically, but more importantly, their
clocks play by their own rules. WOMAN:
Arizona has opted out
of Daylight Saving Time. LYDIC: They stick to Standard
Time all year, so I’m here in cactus country to find out how these time bandits
can even function living outside of normal time. How has living
without Daylight Saving Time completely messed up your life? I feel like everybody else
is all messed up, because I’ve never
turned my clock back. I never have to worry about it. I guess it’s like the Wild West? Does that explain your mustache? I don’t know what explains this. I love the fact
that I don’t have to worry about changing the clocks. Don’t you feel
like you’re missing out, being an hour behind the rest
of the country? No, that’s all right. We’ll catch up. You won’t catch up. You’re always an hour behind. Oh. Yeah. I don’t see it
as living in the past. I only see it
as living in the present. It’s their future
and not my past ’cause my past is then… their past. I’m sorry. What? Arizonans seemed happy
with their own time laws, not to mention their access
to primo desert drugs. But if they were unaffected
by not changing their clocks, why do the rest of us do it? I sat down with clock blocker
Scott Yates who’s on a mission to permanently stop
clock changing. I’m the leader
of the Lock the Clock movement. Trying to stop people
from having -to change the clocks
twice a year. -But isn’t it a good thing to set the clocks
forward an hour and gain that extra hour
of sunlight? People, in general, like
that extra hour of sunlight, but for some people,
it’s really deadly. Traffic accidents go up,
strokes, heart attacks. More people actually just die in the few days after
the spring forward time change. Wow. I guess,
for some people, time is up. (laughs) Solid jokes aside, if this is literally
killing people, there has
to be a good argument for it. There really isn’t any argument to change the clock
twice a year. Well, no, there is.
The farmers. No, the whole story
about the farmers– it’s the biggest
PR con job ever. The farmers have always been
against changing the clocks for Daylight Saving Time,
and they’ve been like, “Hey, stop blaming us. We don’t
have anything to do with this.” The old blame-the-farmer trope. “No, honey, I did not have sex
with my yoga instructor. It was the farmer.”
(laughs) -“Who I had sex with.”
-Yeah. Why do we even have
Daylight Savings Time? Or is it
“Daylights Saving Times”? Daylight -Saving Time. No “S”s.
-Savings Times. -Daylight Saving Time.
-Got it. -Daytime Save Light Time.
-Well, it was first proposed here
in the United States by a retailer that found
that if there’s more sunlight, people would have more time
to shop. -This all started
from a retailer? -Well, he came up with the name
“Daylight Saving Time,” but it actually started
during World War I. The Germans started doing it,
and then, the Brits, and then, the U.S. fell
into it after that. It was called “War Time.” Such a German thing to do,
to make people lose an hour. After the war,
we stopped doing it because everybody hated it. And then, in the 60s, the golf industry became
a really big industry. So golf lobbyists were able
to convince politicians that we should have
Daylight Saving Time so that there’s more time
to play golf after work. -Wait. The golf lobby?
-Yeah, that’s right. They make hundreds of millions
of dollars for every extra month that the country is
in Daylight Saving Time. And then, the candy lobbyists
went to Congress and said, we should have
Daylight Saving Time extend into the first weekend
of November, and that way, -on Halloween, they can sell
more candy. -(kids cheering) All right, War Time, golfers,
and now candy men are the reason behind DST?
Where does that leave us now? Things are actually
really improving. There’s a bill that has both
Republican and Democrat support to actually make a change
to the law so that the states can go on
permanent Daylight Saving Time. So it’s a bipartisan issue? -It’s totally bipartisan.
-Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever heard
that from anybody before. Well, the basic idea of time
is really just an agreement. We all have to come together
to decide when 10:00 a.m. is. And that agreement
shouldn’t kill people. Time is an agreement? What even is time? When is time? Who is time? Why is time? (quietly):
Oh! What?! Uh, can I go now? LYDIC: The deeper I traveled
into Daylight Saving, the deeper I got lost
in what time even was. Time is a construct. (echoing):
Right? Right? Time is… It’s now.
It’s before. (echoing):
It’s later. Later. I’m-I’m in their past, (echoing):
but it’s my future. Future. LYDIC: And if some states
change the clocks, and Arizona doesn’t, could space and time invert
on themselves? Who are you? Better question is:
When am I? -Future Me?
-Yeah. I’m you during
Daytime Save Light Time. Hold on a second.
This is me in an hour? Yeah. This whole
changing-the-clock thing is really (bleep) up. (whispers):
Goddamn it. If we would just lock
the clocks, this whole thing BOTH:
would never happen. Ah, yes, the McFly Paradox. I knew exactly what to ask me. You want to 69? Yeah, okay. Either America needs
to lock the clocks, or I need to stop doing peyote
on work trips. (cheering, applause)