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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 mea

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.

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.