4 ms·

What, fundamentally, would be actually different if the US was "metric?" Why should a federal government enforce one particular standard or another?

blooalien 3y ago
Easier interactions around measurements when communicating with nearly the entire rest of the world for starters. Also, pretty much all of science is metric measurement these days, so there's that. We could also do away with the confusion of using two entirely different measurement systems here as we currently do. Milk often comes in gallon jugs but soda in 1 and 2 liter bottles for one example.
fbdab103 3y ago
It is literally in the constitution. >To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
- akira2501 3y ago
  "Congress shall have the power" was omitted, there. Congress is a representative body. Of course, representatives should have the power to recognize a national standard, the administration isn't entitled to just choose a standard and enforce it against the wishes of the people as represented by congress. That was actually the point I was trying to get at. Thank you.
throwawa14223 3y ago
I really like that the US hasn’t adopted the metric system. I like the idea that humanity has some redundancy even in something like a system of weights and measures. It seems like the world would lose something intangible if we all went with the same one. Like if we all spoke the same language or had the same government.
- defrost 3y ago
  The official US foot has been based on a metric measure for more than a century now though: The Mendenhall Order marked a decision to change the fundamental standards of length and mass of the United States from the customary standards based on those of England to metric standards. It was issued on April 5, 1893, by Thomas Corwin Mendenhall, superintendent of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, with the approval of the United States Secretary of the Treasury, John Griffin Carlisle. At this point every US unit of measure (length, mass, volume, temp, second, etc) is defined in terms of a metric fundemental. The US public are really just pretending that they don't use metric.
  - akira2501 3y ago
    > The US public are really just pretending that they don't use metric. I also like the fact that feet are are composed of inches in base 12. The promise that decimal brings some deep utility doesn't really materialize in most other contexts, and time is still base 60. In my view, people who use metric pretend they like using metric. I mean, the unit of temperature is often expressed in divisions that are 0.1 apart, both because the basic units range and scale aren't particularly useful for human experience, and because "centidegree" is pretty difficult to actually "conjugate" in the system. Neither system is particularly great, they're mostly just familiar, and outside of a few peculiar cases aren't very distinguished from each other.
  - throwawa14223 3y ago
    It seems like it should be a priority to fix that.
    - stonogo 3y ago
      Why?
- pstuart 3y ago
  Redundancy is normally a good thing, but being that weights and measures about communicating physical facts accurately and broadly, moving to metric seems like the most reasonable choice. It's not clear how this "redundancy" your aiming for would benefit us.
the_third_wave 3y ago
The Mars Climate Observer would have been observing the climate on Mars instead of becoming a crater [1] to be observed by future Mars satellites. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Cause_of_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Cause_of_...

blooalien 3y ago

Easier interactions around measurements when communicating with nearly the entire rest of the world for starters. Also, pretty much all of science is metric measurement these days, so there's that. We could also do away with the confusion of using two entirely different measurement systems here as we currently do. Milk often comes in gallon jugs but soda in 1 and 2 liter bottles for one example.

fbdab103 3y ago

It is literally in the constitution. >To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

akira2501 3y ago
"Congress shall have the power" was omitted, there. Congress is a representative body. Of course, representatives should have the power to recognize a national standard, the administration isn't entitled to just choose a standard and enforce it against the wishes of the people as represented by congress. That was actually the point I was trying to get at. Thank you.

throwawa14223 3y ago

I really like that the US hasn’t adopted the metric system. I like the idea that humanity has some redundancy even in something like a system of weights and measures. It seems like the world would lose something intangible if we all went with the same one. Like if we all spoke the same language or had the same government.

defrost 3y ago
The official US foot has been based on a metric measure for more than a century now though: The Mendenhall Order marked a decision to change the fundamental standards of length and mass of the United States from the customary standards based on those of England to metric standards. It was issued on April 5, 1893, by Thomas Corwin Mendenhall, superintendent of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, with the approval of the United States Secretary of the Treasury, John Griffin Carlisle. At this point every US unit of measure (length, mass, volume, temp, second, etc) is defined in terms of a metric fundemental. The US public are really just pretending that they don't use metric.
- akira2501 3y ago
  > The US public are really just pretending that they don't use metric. I also like the fact that feet are are composed of inches in base 12. The promise that decimal brings some deep utility doesn't really materialize in most other contexts, and time is still base 60. In my view, people who use metric pretend they like using metric. I mean, the unit of temperature is often expressed in divisions that are 0.1 apart, both because the basic units range and scale aren't particularly useful for human experience, and because "centidegree" is pretty difficult to actually "conjugate" in the system. Neither system is particularly great, they're mostly just familiar, and outside of a few peculiar cases aren't very distinguished from each other.
- throwawa14223 3y ago
  It seems like it should be a priority to fix that.
  - stonogo 3y ago
    Why?
pstuart 3y ago
Redundancy is normally a good thing, but being that weights and measures about communicating physical facts accurately and broadly, moving to metric seems like the most reasonable choice. It's not clear how this "redundancy" your aiming for would benefit us.

the_third_wave 3y ago

The Mars Climate Observer would have been observing the climate on Mars instead of becoming a crater [1] to be observed by future Mars satellites. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Cause_of_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Cause_of_...