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Why doesn't the US use the metric system??

Why isnt the US on the metric system?

  • Liberals. Its why we cant have good things

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • The downside of change is greater than the upside, and I'm a short term thinker.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    32
It's the false allure that somehow the metric sounds smarter just because it is generally used in the sciences. It's just an arbitrary convention, and different trades use their own systems/units to make their own concerns more manageable.

Look at it this way.... NO ONE has ever gone to the metric system and gone back to the Imperial system because it was 'more manageable'. No one.
 
Ever heard of the saying if it ain't broke then don't fix it? Besides the US is on top,so why should we be like the rest of the world?

The people who drive the economic status of the US, scientists, innovators, engineers, all use the metric system.

The rest of the people, don't.
 
Ever heard of the saying if it ain't broke then don't fix it? Besides the US is on top,so why should we be like the rest of the world?

The U.S. isn't a hipster, literally everyone else in the world uses it.
 
Yes we understand all that. But Fahrenheit is the best scale suited to describing weather.

Arguable.

I read your prior statements including the long one at #78 or smth.

While true, for weather maybe Fahrenheit is better, as in, public information about weather. The weatherman on tv telling people if it's gonna be hot or warm.

But for calculation, celcius is better. So for scientific weather predictions, temperature calculations, etc, celcius is better. It also makes calculation conversions to and from kelvin a lot easier and more precise than with fahrenheit.

But then again, nobody cares about the weather that much. I mean, when the weatherman tells me that it's gonna be a maximum of 26 degrees, I know how to dress. It doesn't impact me. It's not like if it turns out to be 28 degrees that I'd melt if I were dressed for 26degrees C. So the advantage, if you wanna call it, of F over C from this perspective is minimalist while the advantage of C in everything else is obvious.
 
Metric should be adopted, perhaps except military equipment.
 
Metric should be adopted, perhaps except military equipment.

I would imagine that a lot of the more modern equipment already is, anything built overseas or built in the U.S. for an overseas market would also be metric. The military will have to change to, every other military in the world uses it.
 
I would imagine that a lot of the more modern equipment already is, anything built overseas or built in the U.S. for an overseas market would also be metric. The military will have to change to, every other military in the world uses it.

You clearly miss the point.
 
Personally I think it is has to do with conservative "no one is going to tell me what to do" arrogance. Metric aint the only example of this. Daylight savings time is another. Years ago, most countries, including the US, agreed to have 2 fixed dates when the switch was made. This was done to avoid to have situations where countries were out of sync time wise for weeks if not months due to local rules.

The US agreed to this, but when it came to ratification, 2 senators (yes GOPers) blocked ratification and well that was that. So to this day, most of the world switches to daylight savings time on the same date, except for the US. And the point is not if daylight savings time is good or bad, but the attitude and arrogance.

But the US aint the only country that has this problem.. the UK still uses imperial quite a lot, which annoys the hell out of a lot of people. This is due to old people mostly, but the fact that TV pushes imperial still annoys me.
 
Arguable.

I read your prior statements including the long one at #78 or smth.

While true, for weather maybe Fahrenheit is better, as in, public information about weather. The weatherman on tv telling people if it's gonna be hot or warm.

But for calculation, celcius is better. So for scientific weather predictions, temperature calculations, etc, celcius is better. It also makes calculation conversions to and from kelvin a lot easier and more precise than with fahrenheit.

But then again, nobody cares about the weather that much. I mean, when the weatherman tells me that it's gonna be a maximum of 26 degrees, I know how to dress. It doesn't impact me. It's not like if it turns out to be 28 degrees that I'd melt if I were dressed for 26degrees C. So the advantage, if you wanna call it, of F over C from this perspective is minimalist while the advantage of C in everything else is obvious.
No argument about academic and laboratory uses. Scientists will use what ever is more scientifically expedient. That is expected.
Though for the public use, Fahrenheit just makes more sense ... AND all Americans already understand it and are use to it.
The American public would gain no advantage from using the Celsius scale for weather description.
If a meteorologist wants to tell us what the temperature is in Canada, he can do the calculation into Fahrenheit ... That's part of his job.
 
No argument about academic and laboratory uses. Scientists will use what ever is more scientifically expedient. That is expected.
Though for the public use, Fahrenheit just makes more sense ... AND all Americans already understand it and are use to it.
The American public would gain no advantage from using the Celsius scale for weather description.
If a meteorologist wants to tell us what the temperature is in Canada, he can do the calculation into Fahrenheit ... That's part of his job.

Yeah, well, again, I have no problem with the fahrenheit system. I understand why people who are used to it will like, I am just pointing out that the so-called advantage is minimal and really, not all that important. It's a pseudo-advantage as people who are used to the celcius, like I am, don't have any problem understanding it and accommodating to it.

However, this temperature measurement is not glued to the metric system and that's the topic here.
 
No argument about academic and laboratory uses. Scientists will use what ever is more scientifically expedient. That is expected.
Though for the public use, Fahrenheit just makes more sense ... AND all Americans already understand it and are use to it.
The American public would gain no advantage from using the Celsius scale for weather description.
If a meteorologist wants to tell us what the temperature is in Canada, he can do the calculation into Fahrenheit ... That's part of his job.

The objective of using Celsius is that it aligns the U.S. with international standards, weather everywhere else is done in celsius.
 
The objective of using Celsius is that it aligns the U.S. with international standards, weather everywhere else is done in celsius.
Weather is local... and when weather concerns are not local, they are reported to us by a local meteorologist.He can make the translation. He wouldn't report about a rainstorm in France using the French language either.
 
However, this temperature measurement is not glued to the metric system and that's the topic here.
Exactly my point.
When the country was asked to convert to the metric system we were asked to give up our superior weather temperature scale at the same time.
The Celsius scale has nothing to do with the metric system and should never have been tied to the program.
 
Exactly my point.
When the country was asked to convert to the metric system we were asked to give up our superior weather temperature scale at the same time.
The Celsius scale has nothing to do with the metric system and should never have been tied to the program.

...

You're kinda missing the point dude.
This is such BS.

The "superior" part there is basically a lie, or at least, an exaggeration the size of an elephant. It's no better than celcius because as I said, repeatedly, if you're accustomed to C, you're not going to have a problem with understanding the weather outside. For crying out loud, it's the god damn weather. It's not like your life is dependent on it.
You're doing yourself and the rest of americans a disservice. Because when you travel to Europe, on the local TVs here, you won't see the weather in F, but in C. And guess what, that goes double and triple for the rest of the world because almost everyone else uses C.


Also, when the country was asked to convert to the metric system, don't act as if the weather report was THAT IMPORTANT to the american people that it was a dealbreaker. No. It was the fact that people like many in this thread, like jamesrage or whatever, who cannot understand that the imperial system is ****. Won't accept that. Because apparently, 'murica can't have no nothing that ain't da best.
 
The 4th solution is best I think:

"The whole world should change to US system!" instead.

:lol:
 
Exactly my point.
When the country was asked to convert to the metric system we were asked to give up our superior weather temperature scale at the same time.
The Celsius scale has nothing to do with the metric system and should never have been tied to the program.

While fahrenheit does have a higher resolution when using whole numbers, that resolution, as Rainman pointed out, is effectively useless. The human body can not really tell a difference between 2-3 degrees fahrenheit. The scientific and meteorological communities overwhelmingly uses celsius, and the average citizen gets absolutely no benefit whatsoever from the insignificantly higher integer resolution from fahrenheit.

Celsius and SI are inevitably linked. Just about all scientific formula and units based off of temperature values use celsius as the core. Adopting the highly superior SI system without accepting the temperature scale with it just needlessly complicates things. It really just comes down to tradition and habits. People don't like change. Hell, I'll even admit, I work in SI all day long and I still convert my weight and sometimes temperature to imperial because that's how my brain was taught to reference those values. This is only because that was the system I was raised under as a child, not because it has any intrinsic advantages.
 
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The U.S. isn't a hipster, literally everyone else in the world uses it.

Everyone else in the world could be jumping off a cliff,I am not going to join them just because everybody else is doing it.
 
Everyone else in the world could be jumping off a cliff,I am not going to join them just because everybody else is doing it.

Metric is an international standard which the U.S. should follow, there are standards for doing business not something that could harm anyone.
 
Quite simply the reason we don't change is because we don't want to. Really that's it. And I am not saying the government doesn't want us to. Or the GOP or any other group. I am talking about the majority of Americans. It is a very small minority that wants to change how Americans measure things. The vast majority like how it is. Most are comfortable with it. It is the will of the people of the United States.
 
Ah. It's too hard.

And yards would be impossible to convert to meters!

Another indication that it because of Conservatives that we can't have nice things.

We have converted to the metric system...at the Olympics. Even when we host the son of bitch.
We won't force Usain Bolt to run a hundred yard dash. Other than that, screw the rest of the world.
 
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