Comment by atonse
3 years ago
Same observation here. We (Americans) just don’t care. Not like we’re sitting here huffing and puffing about metric.
Nobody. Cares.
At the end of the day, the one you’re used to is the one that makes more sense. There is no system that is objectively better “in all situations.”
Most people that strongly argue that one is better than the other are usually just saying “it’s better cuz I’m used to it”
One argument would be "the best system is the one that everyone agrees on" [1]. Lower risk for big mistakes.
[1] https://everydayastronaut.com/mars-climate-orbiter/
These always make for fun news articles but that's because these situations are rare.
Again, nobody, anywhere that I'm aware of, is sitting around insisting for imperial units as a matter of principle. We just don't care. We use and learn metric where we use it (all the sciences, chemistry, physics, etc in American schools are taught in metric). And we use imperial where we use it, mostly in daily life. And it's perfectly fine.
For example, I personally prefer grams (more because of weight, but still preferred to ounces) to cups (volume) in recipes because it removes density as a variable (a packed cup of flour vs a loose cup of flour)
> "everyone agrees on"
"Everyone" in what scope? For an international team of engineers and scientists, the answer is obviously metric. But if "everybody" in the relevant context is other tradesmen in America, then "everybody" agrees on the American customary units. It doesn't matter to the latter what the former pick.
Metric is easier. How does the humanity count? By using powers of 10. The usability it's right there. Just keep adding zeros.
But you've just stated that metric is easier mathematically. And I agree with you 100%, for that use case.
But C/F makes absolutely no difference in understanding the weather. Or cooking temperatures. Apart from measuring body temperature and possibly controlled lab environments, there is no situation in life where you need to break temperatures into 1/10 units or benchmark the weather on the boiling/freezing temperatures of water at sea level (I'm talking about the population at large, not meteorologists).
Miles/KM make absolutely no difference in understanding the distance you need to drive somewhere. The fact that a KM is 1000m does nothing to help you understand that the neighboring city is 40 miles (or 64km, or 64,000m) away.
Inches/MM make no difference when I'm doing woodworking. Although, again, no doubt doing the math is easier in mm than adding/removing fractions for inches.
My point is that, one can agree with the simplicity and standardization of the metric system (and I love its consistency) and also argue that it makes no difference in daily life.