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Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

petitions.whitehouse.gov

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Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#231

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

smackfu wrote: post #193

While we are at it, why not standardize: * date and time formats * language * time zones * currency Seems about as easy and has the same kind of benefits.

> Why not standardise ... date and time formats

There are two ways to do dates and times (especially when sending machine-readable data across the web):

1) ISO 8601

2) A world of pain.

Personally, I prefer option 1. So, that one is done.

The "world of pain" with US/UK date formats is that code that's not even written yet can fail to interoperate, but only when it's deployed to a different machine with different system defaults and only after the 13th of the month rolls around. That kind of landmine is an unacceptable feature for a format to have.

Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#232

Post by 430gj9j »

smackfu wrote: post #179
veidr wrote: post #114

It's obviously a great idea, and obviously (to Americans) unlikely to happen in the lifetime of anybody reading this forum. Does anybody else from America remember being taught the metric system in public elementary school, and being told that we'd be switching to it over the next few years? I was taught this around second grade (1981), I think based on the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki…

Amusing visual evidence that speaking English sucks: http://cnrsociety.org/images/English-Official_Map-s.png

This would be a great analogy if countries in grey shared a common language.

Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#233

Post by pelle »

I grew up with the metric system but have now come to largely accept the imperial system as a more humane system.

Nassim Taleb actually talks about the benefits of it in his latest book Anti-Fragile as well.

The metric system is already used for anything important in the US and doesn't need to be further legislated. Look at any food item you buy in the supermarket it already has grams or ml on it.

I wrote a piece a few years ago about this: http://stakeventures.com/articles/2007/08/28/in-defence-of-i...

Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#234

Post by maxerickson »

jacquesm wrote: post #42

It very likely is never going to happen. The main reason for resistance apparently is the various land boundaries that would have to be re-scaled to metric, which would be a source of endless legal wrangling. Already houses in the US have the longest history attached to them, sometimes all the way from the homesteading days if the plot is old. I've used both metric and imperial, for construction imperial is lots easi…

I was reviewing some old deeds that a relative had. A particular inclusion of land was expanded (they transferred some land to expand a township cemetery). The deed before the transfer is specified relative to survey markers and such. The deed after the transfer gives the corners as lat/long coordinates.

I guess there is some room to argue about the representational accuracy of a chosen coordinate system, but it would take quite a bit of a crazy to keep on pursuing it (especially in areas where public roads already impinge on things far more than an inch or two).

Of course it would still be pretty pointless to engage in a wholesale conversion of all that information (and I guess the lat/long stuff isn't really metric...).

Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#235

Post by twoodfin »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #12

Metrickery is a socialist plot to weaken America. First it's units of measurement divisible by ten, then it's universal health care, then gun control, and finally off to the gulag for the last remaining freethinkers. Sadly, there are people who believe more of less exactly what I just wrote.

It must be fun to live in a world where everyone who disagrees with you is a moron.

Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#236

Post by rjtavares »

smackfu wrote: post #179
veidr wrote: post #114

It's obviously a great idea, and obviously (to Americans) unlikely to happen in the lifetime of anybody reading this forum. Does anybody else from America remember being taught the metric system in public elementary school, and being told that we'd be switching to it over the next few years? I was taught this around second grade (1981), I think based on the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki…

Amusing visual evidence that speaking English sucks: http://cnrsociety.org/images/English-Official_Map-s.png

There's a difference between "A vs. B" and "A vs. Not A"

Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#237

Post by rmccue »

jacquesm wrote: post #42

It very likely is never going to happen. The main reason for resistance apparently is the various land boundaries that would have to be re-scaled to metric, which would be a source of endless legal wrangling. Already houses in the US have the longest history attached to them, sometimes all the way from the homesteading days if the plot is old. I've used both metric and imperial, for construction imperial is lots easi…

> The Canadians officially have metric, try buying a 250x125 sheet of plywood. Everybody will look at you as if water is burning.

Really? I picked up a 1.5m^2 sheet of aluminium for a project fairly recently (Australia). I have literally 0 idea what that is in feet/inches/furlongs.

Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#238

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

HCIdivision17 wrote: post #96
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #14

Before we start with the standard junk about "imperial measures are better because they are easier to understand / better suited to human scale / etc." can I say nope . The only advantage that imperial measures have (for some) is that they are familiar. That's the sum total of it. People where were raised metric find these apologies for imperial measures to be pure gibberish.

From what I've experienced, we use the imperial units for the same reason we use degrees over radians: the units allow for common use of integer multiples of simple fractions. For some people, a simple fraction of a relatable unit really is easier to deal with than a base ten decimal, and a lot of labor out there simply doesn't need higher precision. Of course, once you enter any sort of engineering work, well, simpl…

> the units allow for common use of integer multiples of simple fractions.

What does that mean? Isn't "use of multiples of fractions" a property of numbers in general?

> For some people, a simple fraction of a relatable unit really is easier to deal with than a base ten decimal

What's easier is what you're used to. That's the whole point.

Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#239

Post by DanBC »

jzwinck wrote: post #223
smackfu wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>not too hard on people but a lot of signage needs to change. Feasible. Very expensive though. Signs normally have a 20 years expected lifetime. Now you need to replace them all at once. Plus a lot of the sign locations need to be changed, unless you want all those "Exit 29 1 mile" signs to now say "Exit 29 1.6 km".

You do not need to replace them all at once. For example the new signs could be European style, red ringed white circles with the number inside. Virtually every car has both readings already. This would make new speed limit signs immediately recognizable to more visitors in the future while avoiding ambiguity of units during the transition. They could even say km/h during the first generation.

Road signs need to be very clear and instantly understandable. Adding a tiny delay to comprehension; a tiny bit of lack of attention to the road; could, when multiplied over the number of kilometres driven and number of drivers and time mean many deaths.

Whether that's acceptable or not is another matter, but it'd suck if "km/h KILLED MY FATHER" became a meme.

It is odd how some countries make massive national changes overnight. eg, Sweden:

(http://users.telenet.be/worldstandards/driving%20on%20the%20...)

> In 1955, the Swedish government held a referendum on the introduction of right-hand driving. Although no less than 82.9% voted “no” to the plebiscite, the Swedish parliament passed a law on the conversion to right-hand driving in 1963. Finally, the change took place on Sunday, the 3rd of September 1967, at 5 o’clock in the morning.

Leaving it until now has meant the UK would find it very hard to change.

Re: Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

#240

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

DanBC wrote: post #172
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #14

Before we start with the standard junk about "imperial measures are better because they are easier to understand / better suited to human scale / etc." can I say nope . The only advantage that imperial measures have (for some) is that they are familiar. That's the sum total of it. People where were raised metric find these apologies for imperial measures to be pure gibberish.

You think there are no advantages to easy divisibility? 16 is divisible by 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16. 24 is divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 24 10 just has 1, 2, 5, 10

That's an argument against counting in base 10, and it's a fair one. However, while we do count in base 10, metric is the way forward.

If you wanted, you could always count in 2 times, 12 times or 16 times the basic SI units.

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