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> That is, "Americans excluding Canadians, immigrants and scientifically literate". Well, I think it would include Canadians in most circumstances - metric ado
by Gormo 12y ago
> That is, "Americans excluding Canadians, immigrants and scientifically literate".
Well, I think it would include Canadians in most circumstances - metric adoption in Canada is only marginally more pervasive than in the US - and would also include most "scientifically literate" Americans outside the context of formal scientific research (it would seem a bit absurd to suggest that because a microbiologist measures his research subjects in nanometers, he'll somehow find it optimal to use the same unit to measure his furniture).
But, yes, as a tautology, it isn't much of an argument for or against anything, apart from being a very strong argument against artificial imposition of unnecessary changes.
- SideburnsOfDoom 12y agoSure. Though I wouldn't categorise the USA (and to some extent Canada and UK) finally getting on board the same metric bus as the rest of the planet as entirely "unnecessary".
- Gormo 12y agoI don't understand why it's necessary to implement methods in your own situation just because someone else is using them in theirs. That seems to be a cargo-cult mentality. If there's no endogenous case for using the metric system, why do so? By the same reasoning, you could argue that people should all adopt e.g. Esperanto in place of their own languages for use in all circumstances without distinction.