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> The motivation being global compatibility, not internal consistency. All the more reason to officially switch to metric. Because as of right now, only 3 coun

> The motivation being global compatibility, not internal consistency. All the more reason to officially switch to metric. Because as of right now, only 3 countries in the world (US, Liberia and Myanmar) officially use imperial units, while the rest of the world uses the metric system. > The US was an original signatory of the treaty of the Meter. So? If I have a gymcard and don't go to the gym, it's not doing me any good. > It's nice to have but really reads like marketing wank. What matters to people doing work is if they can do their jobs. Indeed it does. That's why science and engineering are using the metric system. Including NASA btw. Being able to convert measurements easily, and have them correlate with our most common, radix 10, numerical system, is not "marketing wank", it's a built-in advantage. If I want to figure out what mass of water falls on an area in the metric system, I can do the calculation in my head. If I have to figure out hundredweights per acre, given that X inches of rain fell, I'm gonna need a calculator, a conversion table, and social context to know which kind of "hundredweight" I'm supposed to use. Oh btw. people "do work" in all these other countries. And guess how they measure things when doing that? Exactly: In meters and kilograms.

mulmen 3y ago
> Because as of right now, only 3 countries in the world (US, Liberia and Myanmar) officially use imperial units This is not true. The US has never used the Imperial system, we use the US Customary system, which has been based on the metric system since 1893. > If I have to figure out hundredweights per acre, given that X inches of rain fell, I'm gonna need a calculator, a conversion table, and social context to know which kind of "hundredweight" I'm supposed to use. Nobody is doing this. > and social context to know which kind of "hundredweight" I'm supposed to use. Since as you say everyone else uses the Metric system it should be pretty easy to figure out. As an American I have never even heard of a hundredweight, not sure why you are so fixated on this unit.
- usrbinbash 3y ago
  > This is not true. The US has never used the Imperial system, we use the US Customary system So how is using yet another different system defining arbitrary measurements that cannot be easily converted, do not directly correspond with the radix 10 numerical system, and are also not widely used make things better? > Nobody is doing this. Yes, people are doing such calculations all the time. How many concrete transports will a construction company need to make a foundation, if the depth is 2.2 m², the size is 97.2 m² and the specific weigth is 2.5 tons per m³? How much rain did fall on Hamburg in 2022 given a city size in square kilometers, and an average fall of cm/day. What kind of energy output can a solar farm provide given a conversion rate, panel efficiency, panel angle, and land size? Easy to do if all is in SI. > As an American I have never even heard of a hundredweight It's an official unit of the us customary system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundredweight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundredweight
  - Aloha 3y ago
    Yes hundredweight is an official measurement, but it's not a widely used one (I think it might be used in the sale of nails only?) - which is the parents point. We'd just calculate it in pounds or fractional tons. You act as if these calculations are simply impossible in customary units, they're not and we do them all the time. To go on from this, we've converted everything that meaningfully effects our external competitiveness, as I said in a parallel comment I dont think our competitiveness would be helped or harmed if meat was sold in kilograms vs lbs or if we have temperature on the weather forecast in Celsius.
    - usrbinbash 3y ago
      > You act as if these calculations are simply impossible in customary units, they're not and we do them all the time. No I don't. I said they are more difficult than they have to be, and for no good reason. > I dont think our competitiveness would be helped or harmed if meat was sold in kilograms vs lbs https://gizmodo.com/five-massive-screw-ups-that-wouldnt-have-happened-if-we-1828746184 https://gizmodo.com/five-massive-screw-ups-that-wouldnt-have... Maybe not, but it would probably have helped in not having a 125 million dollar space probe go up in flames.
      - mulmen 3y ago
        125 million dollars is precisely nothing in the scheme of interplanetary exploration and we already learned our lesson. I would expect someone so obsessed with radix 10 as yourself to understand orders of magnitude. In the places it matters the US already uses the metric system. This has been true for more time than Germany has used the metric system. Since the time the metric system was created a world war was fought, centered around a misguided sense of supremacy. The people with a sense if moderation and the ability to compromise in the face of real constraints won the war. The adherents to strict philosophy were destroyed. The Mars Climate Orbiter crashed because of a miscommunication. We could have done it all in IS Customary units. Nobody did any calculations in their head. This is a hard task. We learned from that, as we always do. The US has still led the largest presence on Mars. We know what we are doing.

mulmen 3y ago

> Because as of right now, only 3 countries in the world (US, Liberia and Myanmar) officially use imperial units This is not true. The US has never used the Imperial system, we use the US Customary system, which has been based on the metric system since 1893. > If I have to figure out hundredweights per acre, given that X inches of rain fell, I'm gonna need a calculator, a conversion table, and social context to know which kind of "hundredweight" I'm supposed to use. Nobody is doing this. > and social context to know which kind of "hundredweight" I'm supposed to use. Since as you say everyone else uses the Metric system it should be pretty easy to figure out. As an American I have never even heard of a hundredweight, not sure why you are so fixated on this unit.

usrbinbash 3y ago
> This is not true. The US has never used the Imperial system, we use the US Customary system So how is using yet another different system defining arbitrary measurements that cannot be easily converted, do not directly correspond with the radix 10 numerical system, and are also not widely used make things better? > Nobody is doing this. Yes, people are doing such calculations all the time. How many concrete transports will a construction company need to make a foundation, if the depth is 2.2 m², the size is 97.2 m² and the specific weigth is 2.5 tons per m³? How much rain did fall on Hamburg in 2022 given a city size in square kilometers, and an average fall of cm/day. What kind of energy output can a solar farm provide given a conversion rate, panel efficiency, panel angle, and land size? Easy to do if all is in SI. > As an American I have never even heard of a hundredweight It's an official unit of the us customary system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundredweight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundredweight
- Aloha 3y ago
  Yes hundredweight is an official measurement, but it's not a widely used one (I think it might be used in the sale of nails only?) - which is the parents point. We'd just calculate it in pounds or fractional tons. You act as if these calculations are simply impossible in customary units, they're not and we do them all the time. To go on from this, we've converted everything that meaningfully effects our external competitiveness, as I said in a parallel comment I dont think our competitiveness would be helped or harmed if meat was sold in kilograms vs lbs or if we have temperature on the weather forecast in Celsius.
  - usrbinbash 3y ago
    > You act as if these calculations are simply impossible in customary units, they're not and we do them all the time. No I don't. I said they are more difficult than they have to be, and for no good reason. > I dont think our competitiveness would be helped or harmed if meat was sold in kilograms vs lbs https://gizmodo.com/five-massive-screw-ups-that-wouldnt-have-happened-if-we-1828746184 https://gizmodo.com/five-massive-screw-ups-that-wouldnt-have... Maybe not, but it would probably have helped in not having a 125 million dollar space probe go up in flames.
    - mulmen 3y ago
      125 million dollars is precisely nothing in the scheme of interplanetary exploration and we already learned our lesson. I would expect someone so obsessed with radix 10 as yourself to understand orders of magnitude. In the places it matters the US already uses the metric system. This has been true for more time than Germany has used the metric system. Since the time the metric system was created a world war was fought, centered around a misguided sense of supremacy. The people with a sense if moderation and the ability to compromise in the face of real constraints won the war. The adherents to strict philosophy were destroyed. The Mars Climate Orbiter crashed because of a miscommunication. We could have done it all in IS Customary units. Nobody did any calculations in their head. This is a hard task. We learned from that, as we always do. The US has still led the largest presence on Mars. We know what we are doing.