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

Why isnt the US on the metric system?

  • The public is too stupid to change

    Votes: 9 28.1%

  • Conservatives. Its why we cant have good things.

    Votes: 8 25.0%

  • Liberals. Its why we cant have good things

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • The rest of the world should switch to the US system!

    Votes: 3 9.4%

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

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Who needs the metric system? My moms basement is all in inches.

    Votes: 1 3.1%

  • I have no idea. Not changing is absolutely stupid.

    Votes: 13 40.6%

  • Its a French idea.

    Votes: 3 9.4%
  • Total voters
    32
Rainman05 said:
Oh that's genius.

I wonder why scientists don't use imperial when doing measurements.
Oh, I know... because half a tablespoon means diddly squat.


What works for cooking doesn't work for science. And having a public that is using one system of measurement and an intellectual community that uses another creates a disconnect that shouldn't exist.
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That's a common misconception, that somehow the metric system is " more accurate". Half a tablespoon means as much, is just as accurate (traceable to defined standards), and is just as valid as the corresponding 7.39338 ml in metric, its just a lot easier to deal with and further manipulate.
 
Decimals > fractions.


This is not in dispute.
 
Citizen.Seven said:
That's a common misconception, that somehow the metric system is " more accurate". Half a tablespoon means as much, is just as accurate (traceable to defined standards), and is just as valid as the corresponding 7.39338 ml in metric, its just a lot easier to deal with and further manipulate.
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It's accurate when one attributes metric to it.

for instance, 1 tablespoon is 14.78mL. That's where it's accuracy comes from. Like you pointed out, it's 7.39mL in metric. In metric.

If you didn't have the conversion in metric, what would you have.

So when you tell someone to put half a tablespoon into a chemical reaction, if you don't do the conversion to metric, you have nothing. Imprecision. Where as with metric, you tell the guy to put this many grams or this many mL into the solution. Precision.


It's not easier to manipulate and not easier to deal with. That's the common misconception. Usually held by people who can't admit that they're wrong.
 
It's momentum. We're all used to the imperial system, so it's easier to keep using it even though metric is better.

Same reason we type on QWERTY keyboards instead of a more sensible layout like Dvorak.
 
Threegoofs said:
Great. How about half a half gallon?

And please don't tell me it's harder to remember a decimal point that how many cups/pints/quarts are in the half gallon.
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A quarter gallon, or, the convenient unit of one quart.
 
Threegoofs said:
I was thinking about this as I was working with my daughter this AM baking, and to adust the recipe we had to figure out how many tablespoons in a cup, how many cups in a quart, etc. I, as usual, converted everything in my head to metric and I just showed her the rough metric approximations (tsp=5ml tbsp=15ml, cup 240ml, pint ~ 500ml ) and figured it out from there. She looked at me and said "why dont we just use that measurement in the first place?".

The metric system is much, much more simple than the Imperial system... it makes doing simple things like doubling a recipe, calculating distance, and scaling up fluid and weight measurements much easier. The US is virtually the only nation in the world that sticks with the old, goofy imperial system, which probably costs a whole lot of money (everyone else sells stuff or buys stuff in metric units - the US has to be the exception), and we know has destroyed at least one space mission.

Its a simple system to use. We half-use it already anyway - you buy pop in 2L bottles, all food items are at least marked in metric volume or weight, and people run 5k races. Why dont we complete the job and ditch these worthless british holdovers that even the brits ditched years ago.

I dont know whatever happened to the metric initiative in the 70s (but I'm guessing Reagan killed it because it was too French and would confuse his constituents) and I know getting the old voting crowd to actually want to change would be tough,
but why has there been no major initiative in the US for the last thirty years to finally join the rest of the world in measuring sanity?
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Because the conservatives in the USA are opposed to any kind of change(Except maybe taking a lot of things in the USA back to their pre-Civil War status).





"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid, it is true that most stupid people are conservative." ~ John Stuart Mill
 
Citizen.Seven said:
It depends what you're doing with them.
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Multiplying? Decimals are easier.
Dividing? Decimals.
Subtracting? Decimals.
Adding? Decimals.


Is there anything else you would do with either?
 
1/4 x 1/4 = 1/16

.25 x .25 = 0.0625

Now, I can do both in my head, but there's cosiderably more steps in the decimal case. There are examples for any operation.
 
molten_dragon said:
It's momentum. We're all used to the imperial system, so it's easier to keep using it even though metric is better.

Same reason we type on QWERTY keyboards instead of a more sensible layout like Dvorak.
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DVORAK is only better if you like to be fast and productive.
 
The metric system died here because nobody, other than the politicians involved, wanted to change. We're happy with the system we have, and most of us don't have a problem with following recipes. It would be yet another terrible waste of money on a low, low priority item that no one really wants, to run another "force em to adopt metrics" program.

Much like NAFTA and globalization, this is something politicians want and have forced upon us. The people want none of it.
 
Citizen.Seven said:
A quarter gallon, or, the convenient unit of one quart.
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Ask a shop clerk for a quarter gallon of something. See what response you get.

And yeah, its easier to know its a quart. But you have to know that.

Frankly, I've been around the imperial system for decades, and I cant seem to remember it half the time, much less remember that my bucket of water which weighs about ten pounds holds about how much liquid? But my bucket that weights ten kilos has about ten liters of fluid in it. And the five hundred yards to the corner is how much of a mile vs. the five hundred meters being a half kilometer.
 
clownboy said:
The metric system died here because nobody, other than the politicians involved, wanted to change. We're happy with the system we have, and most of us don't have a problem with following recipes. It would be yet another terrible waste of money on a low, low priority item that no one really wants, to run another "force em to adopt metrics" program.

Much like NAFTA and globalization, this is something politicians want and have forced upon us. The people want none of it.
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Shortsightedness and insular thinking, topped off with a touch of paranoia of big gummint. Its why we cant have good things.
 
Rainman05 said:
It's accurate when one attributes metric to it.

for instance, 1 tablespoon is 14.78mL. That's where it's accuracy comes from. Like you pointed out, it's 7.39mL in metric. In metric.

If you didn't have the conversion in metric, what would you have.

So when you tell someone to put half a tablespoon into a chemical reaction, if you don't do the conversion to metric, you have nothing. Imprecision. Where as with metric, you tell the guy to put this many grams or this many mL into the solution. Precision.


It's not easier to manipulate and not easier to deal with. That's the common misconception. Usually held by people who can't admit that they're wrong.
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The accuracy of a tablespoon doesn't come from metric. They are both arbitrary units, each ultimately traceable to a fiat standard. For instance, I could just as easily say 1 ml = 0.06762805 tablespoon.

I really don't understand the drive for unit homogenization. Diversity is a good thing, as is letting people use the units they want to use. Basically, there's no real advantage to changing the current standards, so why incur the cost and headache? If people want to use metric, no body is stopping them. I use both every day with no problems, so what's the big deal.
 
Threegoofs said:
Shortsightedness and insular thinking, topped off with a touch of paranoia of big gummint. Its why we cant have good things.
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Nonsense. The system has been just fine for the past couple hundred years and will survive, if we do, a couple hundred more. Has nothing to do with paranoia of government and we already do have good things.

Esperanto failed too. Get over it.
 
There is no need to fix something that is not broken. However, most likely the United States will go to the metric system slowly over time, which is must better than our power hungry federal government shoving it down our throats.

The United States is already going metric to a certain extent, for example many people refer to their car engines size in liters instead of cubic inches. Sodas bottles are in liters. And on several items the metric equivalent amounts are always listed.
 
Citizen.Seven said:
The accuracy of a tablespoon doesn't come from metric. They are both arbitrary units, each ultimately traceable to a fiat standard. For instance, I could just as easily say 1 ml = 0.06762805 tablespoon.

I really don't understand the drive for unit homogenization. Diversity is a good thing, as is letting people use the units they want to use. Basically, there's no real advantage to changing the current standards, so why incur the cost and headache? If people want to use metric, no body is stopping them. I use both every day with no problems, so what's the big deal.
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No, diversity is a good thing when diversity is good and diversity is a stupid thing when diversity is a stupid thing.

Diversity in units of measurement is a stupid thing.

Again, it's not my problem. But when you look at the numbers you'll see that last year for the first time, Mexico surpassed the USA in engineering graduates by about 10k people. Mexico has 1/3rd the population. Now, ofc, this isn't down the metric system alone. It's a combination of factors, but one of the many factors that make Mexico, as of last year, a more engineering happy country than the USA is the fact that people don't have a disconnect between scientific measurement education and plebean one. In other words, both in and out of work, they use meters and liters and everything else that makes life simple.

Besides, the US is hypocritical.
You already use the metric system in the 2 things american love the most.
Coca Cola (2L of cola) and guns (9mm, 7.62mm, you know, the important stuff). So stop being hypocrites, adopt the metric system all the way and be happy.
 
Threegoofs said:
Shortsightedness and insular thinking, topped off with a touch of paranoia of big gummint. Its why we cant have good things.
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The government can't really give you good things. I know you will mention the internet, but you should take note of the fact that the infrastructure is dependent on government. That is a problem in case you didn't know.
 
Threegoofs said:
Great. How about half a half gallon?

And please don't tell me it's harder to remember a decimal point that how many cups/pints/quarts are in the half gallon.
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1/4 of a gallon.
 
Rainman05 said:
No, diversity is a good thing when diversity is good and diversity is a stupid thing when diversity is a stupid thing.

Diversity in units of measurement is a stupid thing.

Again, it's not my problem. But when you look at the numbers you'll see that last year for the first time, Mexico surpassed the USA in engineering graduates by about 10k people. Mexico has 1/3rd the population. Now, ofc, this isn't down the metric system alone. It's a combination of factors, but one of the many factors that make Mexico, as of last year, a more engineering happy country than the USA is the fact that people don't have a disconnect between scientific measurement education and plebean one. In other words, both in and out of work, they use meters and liters and everything else that makes life simple.

Besides, the US is hypocritical.
You already use the metric system in the 2 things american love the most.
Coca Cola (2L of cola) and guns (9mm, 7.62mm, you know, the important stuff). So stop being hypocrites, adopt the metric system all the way and be happy.
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We're not at all hypocritical, that's just silly. Soda comes in liters because business used the government's absurd forced switch over to run a scam on the consumer. The consumer would have been just fine buying quarts.

As for guns, they're international. Just as English is the international business language, metrics are the international language of measurements. We need to speak that language if we're involved in international measurements. But most of us aren't in any sort of everyday manner.
 
Everyone who needs to use the metric system uses it.

Porchev said:
which is must better than our power hungry federal government shoving it down our throats.
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Lol, relax. It's to our benefit, they don't really get anything out of it.
 
Rainman05 said:
No, diversity is a good thing when diversity is good and diversity is a stupid thing when diversity is a stupid thing.

Diversity in units of measurement is a stupid thing.

Again, it's not my problem. But when you look at the numbers you'll see that last year for the first time, Mexico surpassed the USA in engineering graduates by about 10k people. Mexico has 1/3rd the population. Now, ofc, this isn't down the metric system alone. It's a combination of factors, but one of the many factors that make Mexico, as of last year, a more engineering happy country than the USA is the fact that people don't have a disconnect between scientific measurement education and plebean one. In other words, both in and out of work, they use meters and liters and everything else that makes life simple.

Besides, the US is hypocritical.
You already use the metric system in the 2 things american love the most.
Coca Cola (2L of cola) and guns (9mm, 7.62mm, you know, the important stuff). So stop being hypocrites, adopt the metric system all the way and be happy.
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If someone can't manage such a simple thing as diverse measurement systems, there's no way they could handle the more complicated concepts in engineering. That's just an absurd contention.

Secondly, guns also come in .45, .38, .357, .223, .308, so that's an equally absurd advantage. (And, no, 223 and 308 are not exactly the same thing as 5.56 mm and 7.62 mm).

Finally, it would be more advantageous if the US standardized on a common language, or even multiple ones, than changing an already existing srandard.
 
Citizen.Seven said:
The accuracy of a tablespoon doesn't come from metric. They are both arbitrary units, each ultimately traceable to a fiat standard. For instance, I could just as easily say 1 ml = 0.06762805 tablespoon.

I really don't understand the drive for unit homogenization. Diversity is a good thing, as is letting people use the units they want to use. Basically, there's no real advantage to changing the current standards, so why incur the cost and headache? If people want to use metric, no body is stopping them. I use both every day with no problems, so what's the big deal.
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I guess when your water bill starts to charge you in drams, you might want to have standardization.
 
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