I’ve spent time in several countries that use the metric system. I noticed no enhancement of my life.
So, what the fuck are you talking about? Put up, or this seems like nothing more than a “you won’t understand Jesus until you have faith in Jesus” argument.
A week, sure, it will be hard. I’m talking a transitionary period over ten or fifteen years, where each familiar imperial measurement you know will be accompanied by its equivalent in metric, such as miles and km on a speedometer, or inches and centimetres on a tape measure. Why? Because that’s how we did it. We started the conversion in the 1960s and didn’t fully let go until the early 80s, and yeah it was a struggle, and yes some people resisted letting go, and it was definitely harder for older people than younger, but it was done, and now we don’t even think about it.
The main benefit is not having to divide Base 12 by Base 8 and convert to Base 3. 1 mile is 1760 yards. 1 yard is 3 feet. 1 foot is 12 inches. 1 inch is divided into 1/8ths. Holy crap, that’s madness. With every measurement at base 10, conversion between units and systems is far, far easier. 1 kilometre is 1000m. 1 metre is 1000 mm. Done.
Talking in tens and hundreds and thousands is just faster than 5280s and 4840s. It may seem arbitrary to be in base 10, but it’s a consistent standard and it works better between units.
Yes but the point is in our day to day lives we aren’t constantly doing long division to convert measurements. It’s largely not necessary to convert.
Not for us. It’s harder for you because you don’t know it.
You still haven’t answered why our lives will be so much better with metric.
It happens more often than you realise.
I can’t fight wilful ignorance.
Alternatively, one could get a job that provides health insurance, like most people do.
That’s what I thought. You respond with a flip, meaningless quip but have no answers.
On a day to day basis switching to metric wouldn’t affect our lives at all. I find it quite ironic that is you who think us arrogant on this issue.
No, it doesn’t. Sorry. I can count on zero fingers how many times in the past year I’ve had to “divide base 12 by base 8 and convert to base 3.”
If you have to invent silly little contrived “problems” then maybe you don’t actually have much of a point.
Not an option if you work for yourself, like many Americans, including myself do. Granted, you could buy insurance on the market (which is what I did for many years, until I got married and was convinced that the denial for pre-existing bullshit was going to go away. I waited for the ACA to pass, then waited a couple years before jumping on my wife’s insurance.) The health insurance situation in the US is shameful, and this “get a job like most people do” attitude exacerbates it, as not all jobs come with health insurance, and why should it be the employer’s responsibility to provide health insurance in the first place?
Sorry…just disregard this. I don’t want to help start a thread derailment. We’ve got enough places here that this has been discussed.
Okay so you got nothing except an insult.
What’s a quarter of a mile in yards?
What’s a fifth of a mile in feet?
Measure out a third of an inch.
You have 15 seconds. Go.
What’s a quarter of a kilometre in metres? 250m
What’s a fifth of a kilometre in centimetres? 2000cm
Measure out a third of a cm. 3.3mm
That’s the benefit. It doesn’t matter how often it comes up in your life, those calculations are immediately easier for everyone when in metric.
I already explained the best I could the benefits. If you just stubbornly ignore them, how can I convince you? It’s not an insult when it describes your actual behaviour.
440, of course! (You picked an easy one there, to be fair.)
OK, this one I have no idea why it would be interesting but it’s 1000 + (280/5), which is 56.
OK, about yay big spreads fingers.
The part that you are missing is that we do have the metric system in the U.S. Everyone already knows what the units are. Metric is taught in school and used in both the trades and science.
We all know perfectly well what liters are because soda is sold in bottles based on it. People that build or fix things routinely use metric tools. In other words, most people are conversant in the metric system but not fluent. We don’t internalize it and have to do mental conversions except for the measures that we routinely use. For example, most people just know that a meter is roughly equal to a yard and that is good enough.
However, I agree that the benefits of the metric are overblown. I still believe that the Fahrenheit temperature system is better for everyday use than Celsius because it is more finely graded. Sometimes it is important to know whether something is 70 degrees Fahrenheit rather than 68 and the Celsius system does a poorer job of that. If we needed a true temperature system, Kelvin would be the way to go but most people don’t need to compare anything to absolute zero.
Using miles for distance also has value over kilometers per hour. A common speed in a car is about 60 miles per hour. That is easily converted to a mile per minute which is a very common conversion. Almost everyone knows what an acre looks like because it is roughly the same as some sports fields and a very common unit for building housing lots. Square meters wouldn’t work nearly as well for the general public.
I will grant that the various pounds, inches, gallons, pints, quarts are a little antiquated especially for the ones that have different versions but they aren’t that hard if you are fluent in them. The UK is officially on the metric system but still uses some English measurements like pints and miles in common use because they are a known quantity that is easier to envision than the equivalent metric measurements.
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That’s the benefit. It doesn’t matter how often it comes up in your life, those calculations are immediately easier for everyone when in metric.
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I don’t think anyone disagrees that those sorts of calculations are easier in the metric system. But if I rarely or never have to do those calculations , then there is no actual benefit to changing. That’s where the disagreement is - in the definition of benefit. You seem to believe that the ease itself is a benefit while others take the position of “Who cares if it’s easier to convert kilometers to meters than it is to convert miles to yards? I’ve never needed to convert miles to yards - and a half mile is just as easy to understand as 500 meters.”
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Sorry, I’m not in grade school anymore and those kinds of “problems” don’t exist in the real world.
as I said, you’re inventing contrived “problems” for lack of anything better.
Can we drop the discussion of the metric vs the US customary systems?
I never said it was illegal, and I know full well that it isn’t. The vast majority of Americans just assume that kids won’t want to drink wine.
And, of course, for ALL of these things you’ll find communities that do it. The OP is obviously referring to overall trends. Otherwise this whole thread is totally pointless.