If git did that automatically, without reporting a merge conflict, that would be a disaster. Suppose there were more Americans on team 1 of the Mars Climate Orb

If git did that automatically, without reporting a merge conflict, that would be a disaster. Suppose there were more Americans on team 1 of the Mars Climate Orbiter and more Europeans on team 2, so team 1 chose imperial units by consensus and team 2 chose metric units by consensus. That isn't going to give a stable system.