It has nothing to do with disliking learning. Trying to learn and use a system of measurement without being immersed in it is really hard. For years, I've set all my temperature measurements on my phone and thermometers to Celsius, but because I'm surrounded by people and systems that don't use metric, I have to convert back and forth between the two. It's a lot of mental effort for basically no gain.

Every day, customary speed and distance units and my intuitive understanding of them are reinforced when driving and seeing street signs. I know how long a kilometer is, but if you say "My brother lives 45 kilometers away", I'd have a difficult time truly understanding that. I wouldn't be able to estimate how long it would take to drive there, for example.

Another issue is cost. In my job, it would take weeks or months to update all of the documentation and code to metric. Then customers would have to approve of all those changes. A whole bunch of machinery still uses customary units too, so they would have to be replaced or updated.

I say all of this as a metric lover and evangelist. It's not trivial to convert an entire massive country to metric. Countries that have converted already should be hugely proud of themselves for accomplishing a difficult task.

[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Doesn't need to be instant.

You can have a year or two where both metrics are given side to side on products, weather,...

Even road signs can just slowly update by hanging the new signs next to the old ones for a while, until the old ones are removed.

It is about disliking learning and the need to be contrary to the rest of the world.

[–] FlorianSimon@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

There's always the option to be stuck in an infinite transition period, like in Canada. I was appaled the other day when a buddy of mine used °C for air temperature, but used freedom units for water temperature. The same applies to heights vs distance and speed, weights... It's all kinds of cursed.

[–] observantTrapezium@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I think younger people in Canada only know °F if their thermostat is set to it and they can't or don't bother to change. My stupid fridge is in Fahrenheit and that can't be changed (even though the handbook shows the display in Celsius! A variation of the model is probably sold abroad).

I think Canada properly adopted Celsius, kilometres, litres and millilitres (at least here in Toronto), but all other metric units are the underdog. Even CBC, that is probably the only media outlet that tries to stick to metric will specify people's height in feet and inches. Shameful.

[–] ebc@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago

Canadian here. It really depends on if it's a cultural use or something the government might have an influence on through legislation. They can force industries to label packages in metric, but they can't force grandma to change her manually-transcribed recipes. The other big influence is obviously our neighbours to the south. A lot of industries haven't switched over there, and we get their products. Main culprit here would be the construction industry, lumber and hardware is all in US customary units and I hate it.