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)