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Comment by spodek | Hacker News Reader

> The target demographic is business people who have to wear suits in the sweltering heat.

How about we change customs that are historical relics and now just feed global warming with unnecessary air conditioning?

Can't one leader in the banking industry. government, or other influential position point out the futility of sustaining that tradition and start a trend to change?

I'm sure they can find other ways to show their status that don't require wearing multiple layers of wool even in nearly tropical places like Hong Kong that need expensive, chemically intensive cleaning.

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The Japanese Government actually has a "Cool Biz" campaign to reduce office air conditioning energy usage by relaxing traditional dress code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Biz_campaign

Ugh, in my experience, 28C is way too much to think/code in a productive manner

Woah, 28C is way too hot, even if I'm naked!

For me, 21-22C is comfortable, but anything more than that will have me sweating and affect my productivity.

But even if I'm an outlier (I don't think I am?), 28C is surely too hot for most?

Wow, someone is doing it. Glad to see.

I look forward to this trend continuing and spreading.

You're underestimating the Japanese summer. Hundreds of people across the country die from heatstrokes every month in the summer, and wearing less clothing won't keep you alive. Air conditioning isn't just a luxury, it's necessary for survival.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/08/06/national/heatst...

> Hundreds of people across the country die from heatstrokes every month in the summer, and wearing less clothing won't keep you alive.

Drinking water will though...

(said as someone who's spent plenty of time outside in summer desert heat without AC and hasn't died yet)

The other factor to preventing heat stroke is humidity. Dry heat can be okay, but if it's also too humid, you can't sweat the heat off. (this is a slight oversimplification) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature#Wet-bulb_...

If we take "extremely hot" as an example (let's say 40C), I actually find dry heat to be more unbearable than humid heat. I don't think I have any weird issues around sweating, and logically what you say makes a kind of sense, so I wonder why that might be?

Amusingly, air conditioning created the problem that air conditioning solves.

Prior to widespread air conditioning, men wore lightweight suits, shorts, and hats in the summer. It was commonplace to have two sets of business attire, one for cool months, another for the summer.

Air conditioning is what made it possible to wear a navy blue wool “power suit” in August, and once that happened, summer clothing stopped appearing at work and became specialized for causal wear to semi-formal activities.

If we want suits without air conditioning, we could theoretically rediscover summer-weight clothing again. But I’m not holding my breath.

>How about we change customs that are historical relics and now just feed global warming with unnecessary air conditioning?

How about we retain what little has been left of style (and/or local character), and we don't all look like 15 year old American skater boys, with t-shirts and shorts?

Air-conditioning in the summer is like 10% of energy use in Europe, so there are much better Pareto targets than it. And of course in 37 and 40 degrees celcius + humidity, it's not used because of clothing, it would be used even if people were in t-shirts and underwear...)

(Besides, white shirts can help cool a person, and there are several options for white suits and light fabrics).

Replying to "why wear suits" with "so we don't look like t-shirt/shorts wearing kids" is probably the falsest dichotomy I've read in some time. It neglects the entire range of slightly less formal styles.

> now just feed global warming with unnecessary air conditioning?

Modern society would not exist without air conditioning, it is completely necessary to sustain our current civilization.

I'll concede that adding air conditioning capacity will increase global warming, but the above point still stands. Without A/C, our civilization is not sustainable.

If by "modern society" you mean colonizing the American South-West and California, you are probably right. Those places are deserts and semi-deserts and should have been left sparsely populated, but a combination of corruption, American exceptionalism gave us this.

Thus said, there are plenty of places around the Mediterranean which have always been pretty warm in the summer, and where there is a convention of closing down between noon and 4 PM, but spreading the work-day longer during the evening and the early morning (think 8-12 4-8 instead of 9-5). So I strongly suspect that there is much about this that is a matter of culture and habit.

(Not to mention that your use of modern is pretty wrong historically, since AC is a contemporary invention, definitely not modern, but I'm digressing...)

Have some decent insulation and sun blinds. Keep windows shut during the day and open at night.

Works in many hot places around the world. AC can be complementary, but you dramatize.

Sorta anecdotal but I live in Phoenix, AZ and in the summer time it is regular 110f+ during the day and close to, if not still above 100f at night. Opening windows doesn't help.

Most of our electric bill in the summer goes to the AC unit(s). Some people have evap/swap coolers but those only go so far, and stop working during monsoons cause it's already too humid.

Edit: its 8:45am and 97f outside.

There is a protected class of person who holds a cultural ideal and keeps these kinds of things going. My former CTO would not take financial advice from anyone with a beard. Another, not from someone who wore rubber soled shoes (wood all the way). These were ways of life from multi-millionaires.

I would hope that with time, companies run by CTOs like that would be competed away as new anti suit companies enter the ring, and as new fintech startups begin changing the culture of finance. Some of my friends in banking already speak of the magic of relaxed dress codes...

I'm assuming it was leather soles, not wood. Wood sounds like a terrible sole material.

Probably parent was thinking of Dutch clogs :)

Yeah it's baffling. To me it really shows the current belief that "tech will solve everything", even when much simpler alternative can do the trick.

I still sweat in this summer heat on clothing optional day.

clothing optional days? doesn't your bum stick to your seat?

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