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[polyh3dron]

What is the advantage for people's daily lives for switching to metric? Metric (or rather, SI) units are amazing for scientific use where you need to do a lot of calculations and unit conversions between all sorts of scales. However, how is counting distances in kilometers superior to counting distances in miles? Both units of measurement are equally arbitrary. Likewise, there is no practical advantage to measuring the weight of meat at a grocery story in kilograms over measuring it in pounds.

Really, the only place where SI units have an advantage over Imperial is in science, and we already use SI units for scientific stuff in the US. What is the gain to be had that justifies the enormous effort required to convert every roadsign and food label in the country? Saying "it is hard remembering how many feet are in a mile" doesn't really cut it in my book.

All you have to do to convert between different metric units of measurement is move a decimal point. Freezing temp is 0. Boiling temp is 100.

Imperial measurement is more of a pain in the ass.

And Republicans don't like Metric measurement because lol Jimmy Carter (see above)

 

[Canis lupus]

Hope Obama introduces it.

 

[Xeke]

All you have to do to convert between different metric units of measurement is move a decimal point. Freezing temp is 0. Boiling temp is 100.

Imperial measurement is more of a pain in the ass.

Not if you've grown up on it?

 

[Levyne]

On roadsigns having to be replaced....signs that say 1/2 mile or 2 miles would have to be converted to things like .8km and 3.2 km. Or they could be rounded and made just estimates, or they could be moved to new spots...which would be more expensive than redoing the sign I think.

 

[Hieberrr]

Hope Obama introduces it.

Too much change.

 

[jerry1594]

I'm all for it if it increases our gas mileage.

 

[FO-totality]

A single one of our states is larger than many of your puny countries. The cost of changing out road signs alone would be astronomical.

Regardless, you brits use "stone" as a weight measurement. Downright ridiculous. All of your complaints about using the imperial system in the US are 100 freedompercent* null and void.

* 100 freedom percent = 110 metric percent

This, so much.

Seriously. Stone? Until you get off of that, we can still use lbs.

I'm all for it if it increases our gas mileage.

It wouldn't be gas mileage then.

 

[KillGore]

So what is the exact reason the US didn't want to adopt the metric system? when did they stop using it? I'm sure the first settlers used it.

 

[polyh3dron]

I'm all for it if it increases our gas mileage.

You could do 100 km/h on the freeway, LEGALLY.

 

[KingFire]

Damn, you guys are really torn up about this eh? lol

Getting the numbers in a mixture of English and metric units than converting all that to a single system IS BULLSHIT. It takes forever to do and do not get me started on the English definition of force and g in the US unit system. The whole US unit "system" (lol) is one giant cluster fuck.

*Engineers would understand my feelings right now*

 

[nhlducks35]

wrong.gif

Hell, every science class uses metric units; Physics, Chemistry, Earth Science, etc.

 

[IISANDERII]

Well my issue with the Celsius 0-100 scale is that I will never use most of it in day to day life. I understand the logic behind it but my daily life shouldn't really revolve around when water boils.

So your day-to-day life instead revolves around when brine freezes. Brilliant.

 

[The Technomancer]

As an engineering student let me say "Fuck the imperial system. Fuck it so hard"

 

[FO-totality]

Getting the numbers in a mixture of English and metric units than converting all that to a single system IS BULLSHIT. It takes forever to do and do not get me started on the English definition of force and g in the US unit system. The whole US unit "system" (lol) is one giant cluster fuck.

*Engineers would understand my feelings right now*

And yet you claim that that scientists and science classes in the US don't use SI units?

gtfo

 

[Dr.Palutena]

Getting the numbers in a mixture of English and metric units than converting all that to a single system IS BULLSHIT. It takes forever to do and do not get me started on the English definition of force and g in the US unit system. The whole US unit "system" (lol) is one giant cluster fuck.

*Engineers would understand my feelings right now*

Noooooo don't make me remember .

 

[Hieberrr]

Hell, every science class uses metric units; Physics, Chemistry, Earth Science, etc.

The rest of the world uses metric and it's a lot easier to use (also more accurate).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pikrntjcbyw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

 

[Eggplant Wizard]

Fahrenheit: 0 - Really cold, 100 - Really Hot
Celsius: 0 - Kinda Cold, 100 - Dead
Kelvin: 0 - Dead, 100 - Dead

Pretty much, they're all based in practical applications.

A mile is around how far I can go in a minute when I'm on the freeway.
Most adults are between 5 and 6 feet tall.

Keep in mind that the sizes for base metric units also have ZERO consistency to them.
A liter of something is more than I'll ever use in a day.
A gram is fucking tiny.
Meters and degrees Celsius are pretty reasonable.

Mostly though, there's literally no convincing reason for switching systems. Sorry, but BEEP BOOP LOGIC isn't going to make millions of people relearn their entire way of thinking about the world, and pay for the cost of every road sign in the country, and provide enough reason for whoever's in office to commit political suicide once people accuse him of being unamerican. Sorry.

 

[KingFire]

Bolding for knowledge

good info



What? We do though.

The US schools "teach" how to convert between the two systems. However, in science, the field is still not completely dominated by SI.

 

[polyh3dron]

Not if you've grown up on it?

Even if you've grown up on it, conversion between inches, feet and yards takes more than just moving a decimal point like it does with millimeters, centimeters and meters.

 

[Mister Zimbu]

So what is the exact reason the US didn't want to adopt the metric system? when did they stop using it? I'm sure the first settlers used it.

I'm no historian, but I'm pretty sure that back in the 1600s and 1700s most people were still using nonsensical and seemingly random units. I doubt that the metric system was anywhere near a standard back then.

 

[jerry1594]

As an engineering student let me say "Fuck the imperial system. Fuck it so hard"

As an American I say go back to North Korea and apply grams to your pathetic rations.

 

[Emitan]

Dates: YYYY/MM/DD

Anything else is objectively inferior and harder to parse

 

[The Technomancer]

Are BTUs even used in the UK anymore? Why the hell do we use them in the US?

 

[dejay]

On roadsigns have to be replaced....signs that say 1/2 mile or 2 miles would have to be converted to things like .8km and 3.2 km. Or they could be rounded and made just estimates, or they could be moved to new spots...which would be more expensive than redoing the sign I think.

The first instance would be expressed as 800m, not 0.8km. The advantage of this is that odometers are in decimal.

The second instance would probably have to be moved to be accurate - I've never seen a sign saying 3.2km or 3200m. Generally speaking though signs aren't that accurate so a margin of error like that may be deemed acceptable.

 

[protonion]

I love the metric system. Would never like to use that convoluted mess. I'm happy knowing 1 litter of water weighs 1 kilogram.

I think that's a coincidence. A liter of another liquid would have a different weight.

 

[Levyne]

The US schools "teach" how to convert between the two systems. However, in science, the field is still not completely dominated by SI.

In academia...it pretty much is all SI, all the time. If you were to clarify your point to say US engineering and science industry is not completely dominated by the metric system, then I'd say I agree.

 

[goomba]

I find it hilarious the only defense to keep imperial is because it's "too ingrained". The US is still an infant in age compared to every other country that already switched to metric.

 

[Red Blaster]

Nope

Kiss our asses 2nd rate countries

 

[FO-totality]

The US schools "teach" how to convert between the two systems. However, in science, the field is still not completely dominated by SI.

ohwow.jpg

not at fucking all

I've only used a few non-SI units in my classes (bars, Torrs, atms, slugs). Hardly standard.

 

[Zoramon089]

What schools are some of you going to where they don't use metric in science?! Are you from Alabama or something?

 

[The Technomancer]

A liter of something is more than I'll ever use in a day.

But...we use gallons for things like milk and gasoline...

 

[Eggplant Wizard]

But...we use gallons for things like milk and gasoline...

I'm on a small campus, I don't drive.

 

[Christine]

We'll keep using miles until the road markers no longer cite distance in miles.

We'll keep using Fahrenheit until the weather information services stop providing temperature data in that scale.

We might stop using pounds for body weight if every general medical practitioner started keeping our records and telling us our weight in kilos. We'd have to get the bathroom scale manufacturers on board simultaneously, however.

We'll keep using dry units for cooking for so long as most people continue to learn to cook from their parents. You'd have to somehow convert or destroy every "family recipe" in the country.

The bottom line is that we've pretty much passed the window where a switch might have happened. Computer automation allows everyone to personalize the way information is displayed, allowing everyone to continue to use the customary units that they are familiar with. No-one wants to do mental conversions, they want a unit measurement from which they can readily perceive intuitive scale.

This means that children born today will continue to be raised with "Imperial" as their intuitive customary units, because that's what their parents use.

Pounds, miles, inches, and ounces are here for the foreseeable future.

 

[Lamel]

I mean does it really even matter? When it comes to the general public, let them use imperial.

When it comes to professional fields/studies that require metric, America uses metric anyway. So yeah...

Edit: I should correct myself, we use systeme international (SI) units in sciences etc...but pretty much the same.

 

[IISANDERII]

America uses an illogical system of units but still has the best science and engineering programs in the world. Turns out converting units isn't that difficult!

It's much harder than you think, even for the "best" scientists and engineers in the world: $125 million Mars orbiter lost due to conversion error

 

[Sye d'Burns]

Just as illogical as the imperial system. Date should be, as it's numbers, in a logical order like this :

Day, Month, Year (see the patern ? It's going up in lenght)

or Year, Month, Day

Crazy metric people, Using a triangle to measure time.

"Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives."

I'm on board with the 24 hour clock, though. Use it all the time.

 

[dejay]

Dates: YYYY/MM/DD

Anything else is objectively inferior and harder to parse

Pretty much this. Working in a multi-national company with shipping documents from the US and Canada, I find I have to write dates in reports like this to avoid confusion - it's the one standard that people can see from any country and not misinterpret.

 

[FACE]

I mean seriously, isn't it about time we get with the program lol?

I agree, the imperial system is awful and should die a fiery death.

 

[KingFire]

I was wrong. Apparently the US has been using SI in science.

Engineering is still pretty much imperial though. I work as a petroleum engineer and we mostly use imperial. We do have to convert between the two systems especially when we deal with international companies.

 

[The Technomancer]

I was wrong. Apparently the US has been using SI in science.

Engineering is still pretty much imperial though. I work as a petroleum engineer and we mostly use imperial. We do have to convert between the two systems especially when we deal with international companies.

Engineering depends on the field, at least in my academic experience. Manufacturing seems to mostly be in metric, but thermodynamics seemed about 50/50 in class and my minimal real world experience suggests that in the field thermodynamics is much more imperial heavy

 

[Big Takeover]

The cost would be eye watering to say the least. It's a great idea until you go to pay for it.

 

[Jack Scofield]

As long as we keep our Fahrenheit, I don't care. More degrees means more exact temperatures. Because a few degrees does make a difference.

 

[Sibylus]

If we switched to the metric system than what would we call the Five Dollar Footlong?


I say all you weird metric guys should switch to our system.

Five dollar meter feeder.

More sandwich!

 

[Timedog]

I feel like it would be mutually beneficial for businesses for us and for other countries.

 

[pswii60]

God Bless America and God bless the Imperial system.

Long live the mile!

Don't you mean, God Bless Britain for giving you imperial units?

And here today in Britain, we have a bizarre mix of the imperial and the metric. We drive in miles but measure everything else in meters. We buy milk and draught ales in pints, but then we buy food in grams and all other liquids in litres.

Just be thankful that we all have metric currencies these days. That would be a headache.

 

[h1nch]

The cost would be eye watering to say the least. It's a great idea until you go to pay for it.

As mentioned before, if Europeans really want the US to switch, then the EU should foot the entire bill (we have a LOT of road signs)

Otherwise, Americans have real problems to deal with...

 

[Hieberrr]

The cost would be eye watering to say the least. It's a great idea until you go to pay for it.

Better than an additional $2 trillion in military spending amirite?

Spoiler

I kid haha

 

[dejay]

As long as we keep our Fahrenheit, I don't care. More degrees means more exact temperatures. Because a few degrees does make a difference.

This is true coming from a C man. 1 degree C isn't enough variation on an AC thermostat. Newer AC units have 0.5 degree increments.

The cost would be eye watering to say the least. It's a great idea until you go to pay for it.

Other countries have done it in the past. As a percentage of GDP the project should cost less these days, given the efficiencies in the printing for example.

 

[Trey]

I feel like it would be mutually beneficial for businesses for us and for other countries.

I'm sure businesses can multiply and divide. It would cost a lot of money for a very small increase in efficiency.

 

[-KRS-]

You know the phrase: "Walk a mile in my shoes"?

Imagine if we said "Walk 1.6 km in my shoes".

You realize how retarded that sounds?

Where I'm from, 1 mile = 10 km. So you could still use that saying, you'd only have to walk way longer.