this post was submitted on 28 May 2024
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[–] rambos@lemm.ee 4 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I don't get why Americans and some other countries don't use metric system. Guys! x10, x100, x1000 or mm, m, cm, km is way easier than 🦢, ", ', mile, yard or whatever weapon you use to hurt yourself lol. I know scientists get that, but its easy for them to convert anyway. Imagine that 120 cent is 1$ haha

I'm familiar with both, but only use inch for screen size and for some specific pipes that are made in ". And yeah, the guy from the picture is 188 cm tall or 1,88 m. Don't think anyone use 10th of the mm for that and even if they did they would probably say 1879,6 mm

[–] Theharpyeagle@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

There's no real reason for it other than familiarity (and maybe some silly tribalism among certain people). I think if switching systems was as easy as flicking a light switch, most Americans would be fine with it. However, the mental effort it would take to unlearn the old system (especially for those in construction/carpentry and similar jobs) and the amount of tax money it would take to change signage just doesn't seem worth it. Personally I'd like to see us slowly update signage to include both measurements and teach only metric in school, but it's so far down the list of priorities that it's unlikely to happen any time soon.

[–] rambos@lemm.ee 1 points 6 months ago

I was mostly joking, but to use metric system you don't have to do much, just learn it. Honestly, I wasn't expecting I'll change the world aynway haha

Knowing both is useful and IMO it is the easiest for engineers and construction/production workers. For example here where I am, a lot of measurement tools have both units already (like measuring tape with meters and inches)

[–] NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 6 months ago

Imagine that 120 cent is 1$ haha

It's not that crazy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coins_of_the_pound_sterling#Pre-decimal_coinage

  • Β£1 = 20 shillings (20s).
  • 1 shilling = 12 pence (12d).

I'm big on metric but there's nothing weird or wrong about non-decimal subdivisions. People have intuition about whichever system they're used to. The true sin of so-called imperial units is that they're ambiguous: a mile can be a nautical mile or a survey mile or any of these other miles. Volume is totally broken: US and UK have incompatible definitions for fl oz, 'cup' has many different definitions and is easily confused for "however much liquid fits in your cup" so is basically meaningless, and 'gallon' has three values that are wildly different from each other. If you follow a recipe from the other side of the pond, you better make sure you're using the right foreign measuring cup.

[–] PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml -2 points 6 months ago

A base 12 system is better then base10 objectively, because divisors are what make numbers useful and avoid decimals and fractions.