Comment by hot_gril
1 year ago
I promise it's not because we think of people outside the US as American. When I was a kid in the 2000s, we were told never to say "black" and to say "African-American" instead. There was no PC term in the US to refer to black people who are not American. This has started to change lately, but it's still iffy.
Besides that, many Americans (including myself) are self-centered in other ways. Yes I like our imperial units better than the metric system, no I don't care that they're called "customary units" outside the US, etc.
Fahrenheit gets a bad rap.
100F is about as hot as you'll ever get. 0F is about as cold as you'll ever get. It's a perceptual system.
The day after I left Oslo after Christmas, it hit -20F. 0F is peanuts. I've also experienced above 100F several times. In the US, incidentally. It may be a perceptual system, but it's not very perceptive, and very culturally and geographically limited.
(incidentally I also have far more use for freezing point and boiling point of water, but I don't think it makes a big difference for celsius that those happen to be 0 and 100 either)
I grew up in a place where it'd get above 100F and below 0F pretty much every year.
But I will say, F is pretty decent still, even if the GP statement is a bit off:
100F is getting uncomfortably hot for a human. You gotta worry about heat stroke and stuff.
0F is getting uncomfortably cold for a human. You gotta worry about frostbite and dying from the cold if underdressed.
In the middle, you'll probably live. Get locked out of the house taking out the trash when it's 15F? You're probably okay until you find a neighbor. Get locked out of the house taking out the trash when it's -15F? You have a moment of mental sheer panic where you realize you might be getting frostbite and require medical attention if you don't get inside in like <10 minutes.
But yea I still use C for almost everything.
8 replies →
this is why I use kelvin for everything.
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Fahrenheit tells you how warm a human feels.
Celcius tells you how warm water feels.
Kelvin tells you how warm the atoms feel.
I go outside the country and all the thermostats are in 0.5˚C increments because it's too coarse, heh.
I can't recall caring about <1 degree increments other than for fevers or when people discuss record highs or lows.
Lmao my thermostat in Germany was in Fahrenheit because the previous occupant disliked the inaccuracy of Celsius since the """software""" allowed the room to get colder before kicking in while in C.
Also adding that "Caucasian" was somehow the politically-correct version of "white" here, then it reversed.