4 ms·

This is a stupid headline and completely wrong. The imperial system has never gone away - pints of beer and pints of milk, six-feet tall humans, 12-inch records

by vr46 5y ago

This is a stupid headline and completely wrong. The imperial system has never gone away - pints of beer and pints of milk, six-feet tall humans, 12-inch records, quarter-pounder burgers, shoe sizes, clothes sizes - but they’re now saying that shops or store holders will be allowed to sell goods in older measures like pounds and ounces. The imperial system is a system good for humans, metric is good for standardization.

nsajko 5y ago
> The imperial system is a system good for humans "citation needed".
- hulitu 5y ago
  Land mile, sea mile, metric ton, short ton, long ton, uk gallon, us gallon. In europe we also have this pfund (pound) and other historical measures. How accurate and how they differ from country to country is hard to say.
yurishimo 5y ago
> The imperial system is a system good for humans Meh. It's good for humans that already know it. I find measuring length in centimeters awkward as an American, however, plenty of people all over the world can do it just fine as naturally as I can with inches. Temperature is another great example. The important thing is what you were taught as a child and learned to interpret the world with. The only reason this continues to be an issue, is that it is painful for the current generation to adapt to the new standards, causing a self-fulfilling prophecy of not moving because you don't want to alienate the society around you. IMO, we should transition things in daily home life to metric as quickly as possible, but where the table stakes are low. Food is actually a great area to start with, because you don't care what the number on the package is. Eventually, you'll buy that thing over and over again and build those neural pathways and associations. Here's an example: do you know how big a 2L bottle of soda is? How about a 1L bottle? Most likely, you've seen these in the world before, probably a lot. If we do that for everything else, in a few years, everyone will have a much better handle on things. Older people might still use an internal conversion back to imperial units, but now we are no longer holding back new generations from adopting these concepts natively. Once food is sold in metric, recipes will be adapted to match those conversions (if they aren't already for an international audience) and the world will move on.
- beezischillin 5y ago
  I've been wondering about this ever since I read the article - does coming from a different cultural background that doesn't use SI make it harder or more complicated for scientists and researchers to do their work, having to often deal with units of measurement they don't see in their regular lives? I always find it difficult to follow cooking recipes from the US or tutorials DIY projects (where even screws are completely different!). But it's not something I do on the regular so I just can't imagine.
accountofme 5y ago
Which humans? I have grown up in a completely metric system, pounds ounces, fareignheit, miles, feet, inches and all the rest are absolutely meaningless to my brain. If I want to use them, I have to look up the conversion to metric and go from there.
- sotruesotrue 5y ago
  The metric system is in the UK to stay and has been taught in our schools for decades. If the UK wants to use pints for milk and beer, pounds for sugar and flour, miles per hour on road signs, who the hell is entitled to have a problem with that? Do we want every country to be exactly the same as every other one just for the convenience of global commerce.
  - accountofme 5y ago
    I am referring to the comment that the imperial system is good for humans. I am human and it's not good for me. My point is, what ever system you use is good for you because you learnt it. I have not said one thing about England and it's choice to revert systems. I don't care about that.

by vr46 5y ago

nsajko 5y ago

> The imperial system is a system good for humans "citation needed".

hulitu 5y ago
Land mile, sea mile, metric ton, short ton, long ton, uk gallon, us gallon. In europe we also have this pfund (pound) and other historical measures. How accurate and how they differ from country to country is hard to say.

yurishimo 5y ago

> The imperial system is a system good for humans Meh. It's good for humans that already know it. I find measuring length in centimeters awkward as an American, however, plenty of people all over the world can do it just fine as naturally as I can with inches. Temperature is another great example. The important thing is what you were taught as a child and learned to interpret the world with. The only reason this continues to be an issue, is that it is painful for the current generation to adapt to the new standards, causing a self-fulfilling prophecy of not moving because you don't want to alienate the society around you. IMO, we should transition things in daily home life to metric as quickly as possible, but where the table stakes are low. Food is actually a great area to start with, because you don't care what the number on the package is. Eventually, you'll buy that thing over and over again and build those neural pathways and associations. Here's an example: do you know how big a 2L bottle of soda is? How about a 1L bottle? Most likely, you've seen these in the world before, probably a lot. If we do that for everything else, in a few years, everyone will have a much better handle on things. Older people might still use an internal conversion back to imperial units, but now we are no longer holding back new generations from adopting these concepts natively. Once food is sold in metric, recipes will be adapted to match those conversions (if they aren't already for an international audience) and the world will move on.

beezischillin 5y ago
I've been wondering about this ever since I read the article - does coming from a different cultural background that doesn't use SI make it harder or more complicated for scientists and researchers to do their work, having to often deal with units of measurement they don't see in their regular lives? I always find it difficult to follow cooking recipes from the US or tutorials DIY projects (where even screws are completely different!). But it's not something I do on the regular so I just can't imagine.

accountofme 5y ago

Which humans? I have grown up in a completely metric system, pounds ounces, fareignheit, miles, feet, inches and all the rest are absolutely meaningless to my brain. If I want to use them, I have to look up the conversion to metric and go from there.

sotruesotrue 5y ago
The metric system is in the UK to stay and has been taught in our schools for decades. If the UK wants to use pints for milk and beer, pounds for sugar and flour, miles per hour on road signs, who the hell is entitled to have a problem with that? Do we want every country to be exactly the same as every other one just for the convenience of global commerce.
- accountofme 5y ago
  I am referring to the comment that the imperial system is good for humans. I am human and it's not good for me. My point is, what ever system you use is good for you because you learnt it. I have not said one thing about England and it's choice to revert systems. I don't care about that.