Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Make the Metric system the standard in the United States

petitions.whitehouse.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 547 posts

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

#301

Post by eru »

bjourne wrote: post #56
davidw wrote: post #18

The way I explain this one to my European friends is: Do you remember the transition to the Euro? How you had to mentally convert prices at first? And how old people had more difficulties with it in some cases? Now, imagine that, not just for one unit, but weights, lengths, temperatures and volumes, all at the same time.

Oh, the problem with the Euro was that they raised prices everywhere where they introduced the new currency. What was previously 0.8€ becase 1€, 28€ to 30€ and so on. Economic power also moved from individual countries to the ECB in Brussels. If the US started using SI (Systeme International), it's not like you would be subject to a metric-controlling organisation in Paris. :)

Actually, they didn't raise the prices on average. (There were even some papers about it. And not too much actual power shifted to the ECB in Frankfurt, since the other European countries were reduced to copying German monetary policy (or face humiliating devaluation) long before.

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

#302

Post by sb »

krschultz wrote: post #145

Most of the comments in this thread are talking about the units for personal height, weight, local road signs or for the weather forecast. Those are by far the least important things to be worried about. All of those things are local and there is no carrying cost for them. There would be a cost to change all those signs and forecasts - for no real gain. However, dimensions of physical goods are a constant recurring c…

I agree that it is all about cost, however this is far more "local" to many US citizens than they might imagine. For example, most of the coke bottles outside of the US come in half litres, while in the US they come in 20 fluid ounces (this is certainly true for many other products, too.) Hence, companies that make coke filling machines must accommodate the imperial system on top of the metric system, as well. Given that the metric system company can easily grab most of the market share, it should eventually be able to get larger economies of scale. In the end, it could very well be that machinery to supply imperial unit sized products becomes more expensive, a cost that will most certainly be relegated to the consumer.

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

#303

Post by javert »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #215
javert wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Countries tend to converge on an optimal balance of individual liberties and social protections because it measurably works. That's just utter nonsense. What measurement are you optimizing for? What makes you think that moving the US to the left moves it closer to, say, Germany, instead of closer to, say, Brazil, India, and Mexico (which is what I think will happen)? And even if it did move it closer to Germany, I…

> What measurement are you optimizing for? Take your pick. The US is at or very near the worst among OECD countries in: infant mortality, child poverty, child health and safety, life expectancy at birth, healthy life expectancy, rate of obesity, disability-adjusted life years, doctors per 1000 people, deaths from treatable conditions, rate of mental health disorders, rate of drug abuse, rate of prescription drug use,…

Most or all of which would not be helped by liberal attempts to emulate Europe.

For example, high child poverty is to be expected in a country that harbors many poor immigrants from Latin America.

For another example, high rate of incarceration is largely to be blamed on the "War on Drugs," which has the same effect as the prohibition on alcohol did.

For another example, low rate of doctors is largely to be blamed on the fact that medicine is a guild (as in, midieval guild) where med school is super tough to get into, doesn't select for competency as a medical practitioner, and creates a "class hierarchy" within medicine where a highly-trained nurse can perform as well or better than a doctor in many common situations, but is not legally allowed to practice in that capacity.

This could go on and on.

Overall, American liberals want a society where everybody gets whatever they demand, to the degree that there is enough to go around, except the actual producers. That society already exists, and it's called India.

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

#304

Post by stephen_g »

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

Instead of a measurement like 7/16 inches, we'd use something like say 11.1 millimetres (or a little more than a centimetre in everyday use)...

Maybe it's just that I'm so used to decimal measurements, but whenever I see plans that use fractions of inches, it looks confusing and imprecise... Coming from a decimal background, I don't really feel like using a fraction is ever better than using a smaller unit unless you're making an estimate (ie, "about half a kilometre").

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

#305

Post by siscia »

kbutler wrote: post #242
geon wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't that make the arc-minute the practical unit?

> Wouldn't that make the arc-minute the practical unit? Yes. However, the earth is not a perfect sphere. The nautical mile is an average arc-minute.

For what I know the nautical mile change due to your position in the Earth...

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

#306

Post by eru »

jvzr wrote: post #158
davidw wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak for most people, since I'd be happy to change, but my guess is their thinking is along the lines of "it ain't broke, so why should we fix it?". For most 'everyday' use, the defects of the imperial system are most likely not that visible: if I have to guess how far something is in miles, it doesn't matter much if I say 2.5 miles or 4 kilometers, since I'm basically sticking to one unit and fractions ther…

It sure does. And I understand the issue that lies therein. But, if the rest of the world is to ask of the US to switch to the metric system, there will be a time when the authorities have to enforce the system onto the citizen. Sometimes, the greater good of the community does not align with that of the citizen. We Europeans have switched from our country's respective currency to the Euro not to please us personally…

> We Europeans have switched from our country's respective currency to the Euro not to please us personally but for the economic good of the whole European Union.

The behind-the-scenes motivation wasn't about the common good, it was about the French trying to gain formal influence on monetary policy. The Germans had to agree in exchange for the French consent to German reunification. (Before the Euro, the rest of Europe was more or less reduced to copying German monetary policy, or face devaluations.)

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

#307

Post by eru »

eru wrote: post #306
jvzr wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sure does. And I understand the issue that lies therein. But, if the rest of the world is to ask of the US to switch to the metric system, there will be a time when the authorities have to enforce the system onto the citizen. Sometimes, the greater good of the community does not align with that of the citizen. We Europeans have switched from our country's respective currency to the Euro not to please us personally…

> We Europeans have switched from our country's respective currency to the Euro not to please us personally but for the economic good of the whole European Union. The behind-the-scenes motivation wasn't about the common good, it was about the French trying to gain formal influence on monetary policy. The Germans had to agree in exchange for the French consent to German reunification. (Before the Euro, the rest of Eur…

> We Europeans have switched from our country's respective currency to the Euro not to please us personally but for the economic good of the whole European Union.

The behind-the-scenes motivation wasn't about the common good, it was about the French trying to gain formal influence on monetary policy. The Germans had to agree in exchange for the French consent to German reunification. (Before the Euro, the rest of Europe was more or less reduced to copying German monetary policy, or face devaluations.)

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

#308

Post by DanBC »

masklinn wrote: post #251
DanBC wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

And then people invented decimals.

It's frustrating that the same people who push weird systems (ounces, the old money in UK) instead of metric units and decimal money are comfortable doing all kinds of mental arithmetic, but freeze when as soon as you involve a decimal point.

People who have no trouble with the concept of "half of a third for four people taken out of this bag of potatoes" get stuck on "0.25".

For all the people who answered my post - I agree that metric and SI are the sensible way forward. I'm kind of relieved that some sections of US[1] industry are choosing to ignore the international market or to lumber themselves with extra costs for both systems.

[1] Because I'm not in the US; I'm European and I want our industry to do well.

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

#309

Post by Freestyler_3 »

mootothemax wrote: post #265
kokey wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember during the influx of Polish workers in the UK, that a pub got into some trouble because it sold a certain Polish beer in a 1 litre glass.

I remember during the influx of Polish workers in the UK, that a pub got into some trouble because it sold a certain Polish beer in a 1 litre glass. From what I recall, it was more that they were using Żywiec-branded glasses, which hold 0.3 and 0.5-litres respectively. UK law only allows beer to be sold in pint units. I doubt they were doing it on purpose, but the small difference adds up quite quickly: serve 10 drin…

They have those standards so that you know how much alcohol you are drinking. 1 pint 5% (0,5L)= ~20g alcohol = 2 glasses of anything else.

Wine 12% = 0,1L

Whiskey 40% = 0,035L

One glass is about 10g alcohol. (Posted only in liters so it easy on people who are not used to it.)

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

#310

Post by ajuc »

Kylekramer wrote: post #281
acangiano wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much better visual evidence: http://signword.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/423399_101506340...

Pretty weak argument for Celsius. Why should people care that the boiling and freezing points are simple? That is almost irrelevant for the most common uses of temperature reporting. People care about the ambient outside temperature (which Fahrenheit seems optimized for), not the effect it has on the state of one particular compound.

People care for various temperatures:

- weather (Celcius has the advantage that just from the temperature you know if there will be snow and ice/will snow melt, or no) And you won't know the difference of 1 C anyway, so no point in having so small degrees.

- temperature of human body (are you sick or not - it's 36.6 C for healthy human, 40 C for dangerous temperature) - here Fahrenheit has slight advantage, because human body temperatures are near 100 F, IIUC.

- temperature for cooking (water boils in 100 C, you make tea with 80 C, most cakes bake at 220 C, etc) I think Fahrenheit is worse there.

- temperature for science/engineering (Kelvin rules here, but Celcius is just Kelvin - 273.15, so conversion is much easier than Fahrenheit, differences are same in K and C).

Post reply on HN