Japan has entered the new era. With the new emperor, the Heisei era ends and begins the Reiwa era in a country with the third most advanced economy and technology in the world. Ojo, it's not Amateratsu's cough: the calendar also changes with the donkey in Japan. On May 1 began the Reiwa 1, which must be used for all official functions. All computer systems have had to be adapted in order to be able to correctly use the name and dates of the new era. To a large extent, the process of abdication of the old emperor Akihito has been prolonged to facilitate these adaptations. Everything seems to have gone pretty well. If you'd had the current technology 31 years ago, when you had to suddenly move from the Show era to the Heisei era, who knows what was going to happen.

Is it a little absurd for such an advanced country to suffer this kind of Self inflicted injury? Don't believe it. On a smaller scale, but every year we do something very similar twice. We call it an hour shift. In our case, we went from walking an hour more – in winter time – than what we would call the solar time – which would have half a day at 12:00 and half a night at 00:00 – to walking two hours more ahead – in summer time – than the sun; and vice versa. We will soon be 50 years on that horizon, if the sounds that have already begun to be heard out are not materialized.

Each of us knows how these changes affect oneself. I have heard many and few complain as if they were daughters. I would venture to say that it is subject to the resignation of necessity. Trying to adapt to it. When the goal would be to change the schedule for our benefit.

In this way we come to the “rationality” of the benefits. The main objective of these changes seems to be energy saving. There is also – less and less – someone who dares to give figures. No one has ever presented a conclusive study on this: when savings have been found on one side, losses appear on the other.

The only truth demonstrated is that the current DST system (Developmental Systems Theory / Development Systems Theory) was initiated by the oil crisis of 1973. And then, what's there. Majo has changed our world ever since. Existing electrical and lighting equipment control systems exist, for example. In any case, the objective at the time was to save oil and save energy only indirectly. In the daily curves of current electrical consumption, it takes a lot of faith to find the restrictions for the change of time.

But faith is not lacking in our world. We will not believe in Amaterazu, but all that has been dressed in “rationality” involves believers immediately, even if basic common sense must be avoided. For example, how do we get the same benefits by changing the time we and the florentines that are in our same latitude, when we have a difference of 13-14 degrees, that is, about an hour in length? And we're not going to start uniting the Galicians of Santiago with the Serbs of Nise ... Because we all have the same CET schedule. UTC+1, although we are more west than Greenwich, we at least.

Fewer and fewer people dare to say that the adaptations that the change of time produces in social uses, which are mainly derived from the presence of longer evenings in summer, are good on their own. Trade, which should be the main economic beneficiary of this, closes its doors, at least for a few months, with the sun. On the contrary, the primary sector more closely linked to nature does not receive good words about DST anywhere. Industry doesn't care. If not for bars... The economic and social consequences of morning shortening (many) do not seem to have to be taken into account.

Interestingly, when the Japanese emperor changes his calendar, Japan continues to accuse Japan of a delightful entanglement, one of the most serious measuring sessions of a dozen years ago, taking into account only the consumption of domestic lighting. Contrary to prejudices, the study concluded that the total consumption balance of DST implementation would be negative, although the difference was very small. And the Japanese still don't change their time. Like most countries in the world, and the largest. In recent years, some DST users have been reflecting on their intention to quit.

As in the case of the Japanese calendar, it is not so easy to make this change (no). Although devices that are continuously attached to the network often have no problems, a large part of the computer equipment we have sold over the past few decades is ready to make the change automatically twice a year. And what's a little entanglement on your personal computer can become a critical incident in giant systems and services dependent on them.

That's what keeps you at the time shift, more than anything.

(This report has been published in Aktuitate gakoa magazine. If you want a full magazine you can buy it in the Argia market.)