Better have it too cold and people where extra clothing than have people sweating themselves. You can always put more clothes on, you can't take off your skin.
For athletic centers, of course it makes sense. But in big open libraries, lecture halls, places with little activity in general, it's awful. It's especially bad for your health if you live in a hot region like southern California since your body has to keep adjusting between the scorching heat outside to the freezing cold inside.
Like hell it is. I sweat like a pig at 78.
It's really silly that we have the technology of AC but cannot control the temperature accurately enough.
Edit: I remember going to the halls at Uni for the first time and nearly dying of the heat - never lived anywhere that had central heating. Got used to and, of course, felt like I'd been exiled to Siberia when I went to my parents ramshackle large house for the Xmas break.
I've noticed temperatures in Scotland on mountains feeling much colder than lower temperatures in the Alps.
In Denver, I could run for an hour in direct sunlight with the temperature about 30 C. In Washington, DC, that would have been suicidal.
Also, my workplace keeps inside air conditioning much cooler than I would, around 20C, which is uncomfortably cold when I'm dressed for the summer weather (ranges from 27C to 38C).
I've set my apartment to 26C. I find that without the humidity (since the AC deals with that too), 26C is actually not too bad for the summer.
Similarly, I don't heat above 15C in the winter. That way, getting dressed to go outside is less complex than suiting up for a space walk.
The main difference I'd see between inside and outside is the lack of rain and wind in the former - temperature difference is secondary.
75°F is too damn warm. My brain pretty much stops working around 77°F.
Fortunately, wearing shorts to work on extremely hot (over 30 C) days is also more socially acceptable here.
The people from the Caribbean would turn the heat up to 80 degrees all of the time. It got to the point where the thermostats were pulled off the wall in the middle of the night by to keep them from being turned up.
I think probably 3/4 of the building had their windows open all winter, even when it was -20 below outside, just to keep the temp livable. The thing is that it doesn't do much with steam heat, since those radiators can pump out more heat than you can possibly imagine.
The physical plant ended up putting the thermostat within a metal box that was grouted to the wall.
I can understand though. The first time it hits 40 degrees after the summer, I'm freezing, but if it hits 40 in January I'm walking around with shorts on. It was still kind of funny to listen to them describe what being really cold is like: "I'm on fire! Why do I feel like I'm on fire from being cold!"
I'm sure I sound equally hilarious when I'm somewhere hot though.
"Caucasians" also seems the wrong abstraction here in either case. If you put a Swede or Brit and a Spaniard or Italian in the same room, they'll likely have different opinions the optimal temperature too, yet all of these are pointlessly grouped as "Caucasian" just because some people like to pretend it sounds less racist than simply saying "white" (which is an equally useless category for most concerns).
I live in a hot climate now and it's normal to keep inside temps 75-78.
In both places inside temps feel normal. The body seems to adjust it's idea of a comfortable temperature after acclimating to a new climate. When I first moved down south I kept my thermostat at 70 but it felt too cold after a few months. My most comfortable temperature is 76 now.
I don't think I'll ever get used to this. I don't see how it's possible even in principle to acclimate to such large swings in temperature over such a short time frame.
At least I sit next to a window, so I can let some warmer/cooler and fresher air to compensate, but it is such a waste of electricity, it drives me nuts.. It's also imposible to concentrate when the air gets too dry from the AC.
ends rant
Humor aside, there's a point for me at which even with more clothes the AC is too cold or aggressive and I end up with headaches. Fortunately I am aware of it and I try to be preventive about it (by moving away from the thing).
Seriously though, I live without AC at home (Portland, OR, so not a real hardship) and often wear a cap and vest during the winter. I kinda like having more connection to the outside temperature.
Sure, it's more humid, than, say, San Diego, but it's not humid in the PNW, by any rational means.
There's a reason AC is uncommon up there, because it's really not necessary.
As for heating, that's more of a concern up there, and that's why oil heating is WAY more common there, than, say, Alabama. The opposite is true for cooling, too...
But, as someone else who lived in the PNW, I have to agree with you at least on one front, some good fingerless gloves are basically necessary in the winter.
No, but I've seen PowerPoint presentations that were designed by someone wearing mittens...
I suspect (for offices) it has to do with productivity - warmer people can get sleepy after lunch, etc. Colder people are more alert (to a certain point).
Are you sitting next to a window that is blasting its rays over your body?
Is the building badly designed?
Are you protected by a layer of fat cells?
Sweating at 24-26C without sunlight blasting at you is very anomalous.
Lowering the AC to 20C or below is such an insanely wasteful thing to do it ought to be forbidden. The biggest CO2 footprint is us, the first world, heating and cooling.
The AC in Japan has two settings--one is cool and one is "dry" for dehumidify. The cool setting does not dry the air (or if so, ever so slightly). We have high humidity so 26 degrees can feel hot indoors.
There are some seats in the office that are close enough to have the sunlight hit the desk. I'm not in one of those seats but can imagine it feels very hot.
Our office is "set" to 25 but at my desk it is often over 28 degrees (all the towers are on the tables and the AC is far from my location). I consider myself in fairly good shape but sweat quite a lot when it's over 28 degrees with a PC tower blowing hot air at me.
I'm curious how this works. In America, we have only one setting, and it does both. The indoor air is 23 degrees or so (22 in busy offices, 25 in frugal/environmentally conscious homes...28 would be considered oppressive heat, no matter the humidity). But the evaporator coils in the air handler should be cooled to about 5 degrees in a properly functioning air conditioner. If the air is humid when it cools on these coils, it drops below the dew point, and humidity condenses out of the air to be drained out of the building. If the AC is properly sized, it keeps the air indoors comfortably dehumidified (if too large, it will cool a small amount of air by a lot, and run too infrequently to dehumidify; if too small, the air temperature will not drop enough to cause condensation).
We also have dehumidifiers, which are practically identical to air conditioners but have the condenser coils in the same machine to warm the air back up before it exits (and to simplify construction/improve efficiency). These actually add a bit of heat to the room, but do dry out the air. Typically, these are only used when a home doesn't have an air conditioner.
21 degrees is what I would consider a 'normal' room temperature, anything above 23 I would consider 'warm'.
I wasn't sweating heavily, or any at all, just my arms were sticky to the desk. It was warm enough that long sleeves were out of the question, so contact was unavoidable. Also, my desk was next to a window facing east, and our blinds were a bit tricky to raise and lower (decide between, darkness and heat filtering).
It is easier to deal with 26C as a baseline temperature in LA than BJ given that humidity is much lower in the former.
25 would only be accepted if there was a heatwave.