+34 We (the US) should switch to the metric system, amirite?

by Myrtie15 1 year ago

USA uses metric for drugs, guns and chicken nuggets

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Think we only changed guns to metric cause of NATO. 50, 45, 30-06, .308 etc. Are imperial measurements.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

and anything manufactured in Yurop

by Anonymous 1 year ago

But seriously science, medicine, engineering, all use metric. American customary units are defined by conversion factors of metric units (e.g. an inch is defined as 2.54cm). It is weird and really born out of how self sufficient the U.S. is and how it had a well defined system of measurements before the mass adoption of SI units.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Americans use imperial units in all of those cases way too often. Worse, they commonly mix imperial and metric units.

by Ordinary_Analysis809 1 year ago

The metric system is the tool of the Devil…my car gets 40 rods to the hogs head and that's the way I likes it.

by Dizzy-Deer-3901 1 year ago

So basically for the things that matter.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Makes me glad to be an American 🦅

by pfannerstilleth 1 year ago

And hard alcohol

by Infinite-Pop-6747 1 year ago

And baking!

by Anonymous 1 year ago

The US only uses Imperial in consumer-facing industries. Retail, law enforcement, and like a construction company will use square footage with clients. Butchers will use pounds for their customers, etc. Honestly the US is about 70% metric already. Everything below the surface runs on metric. The only people use never use metric in the US are children, the unemployed, and people who work directly with the public

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Construction is still mainly in imperial units.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I work directly with the public as a nurse and I do in fact use metric at work as does every other healthcare professional. I just have to know how to convert it so I can explain to my patient what it means.

by Lesly36 1 year ago

I'm a machinist. I make a lot of stuff for aerospace, nuclear, and other research. I have made parts that are in space. I've worked with metric prints plenty to be perfectly comfortable with it. But the vast majority of the work around me actually uses imperially units. The machines we use (most of which are designed in Japan) are programmed in inches. We don't use feet/yard/mile. We use decimal inches (out to the 3rd or 4th decimal place) Not fractions. Once you take out the conversions and fractions, it becomes a non-issue.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Oilfield was all standard, but we used tenths of a foot. Also only time I've seen ‘ton-miles' used.

by Alternative-Dot 1 year ago

Children use metric a lot in school.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I'm a residential architect and still use the imperial system. The metric plans I've seen just look like a mess with all the weird tiny measurements. No thanks!

by Anonymous 1 year ago

with all the weird tiny measurements. I'm not sure what you mean by tiny measurements.

by Krystal13 1 year ago

A lot of process engineering uses English units because all of the gauges also use them. It is quite frustrating.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

The rest of the world still hasn't switched for basic building materials. A sheet of plywood is still 48x96, y'all just convert it to mm. A 2x4 is still 1.5x3.5, y'all just convert it to mm.

by srath 1 year ago

Effectively it already has. It's simply not mandated by law

by Kohlerxander 1 year ago

In the early 1970s, we had a lot of metric and imperial measurement education with conversions before high school. Was told metric was coming. Then it didn't.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

In America we use whatever we want.

by Full-Cap3867 1 year ago

That's never gonna happen because y'all have foot fetishes

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Unpopular in the US, very damn popular outside of the US

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I don't disagree but I also don't want to adapt to the metric system.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

The cost alone for that would outweigh the benefits.

by Fuzzy-Quantity 1 year ago

Imagine all the production costs that would be saved not having to print metric and imperial labels, manufacture devices to imperial specs etc etc. There would be a one time cost for the switch and it would make everything cheaper for everyone everywhere.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Don't forget the savings from no more incorrect/missed unit conversions.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

At least 193 million in a single accident.

by Jacey25 1 year ago

I'm not convinced this would save much at all. Do you have any sources?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I'm pretty sure it's been attempted and f'd too much stuff up and people pretty much rejected it. For us to switch the government can't just make it a rule. People would have to collectively agree to actually use it. Things you wouldn't otherwise think about like the torque specs on the bolts holding your car together are possibly in imperial units. In situations like that, it makes sense to continue to use the imperial units and it could possibly cause issues if people were mixing units and miscommunicating.

by Gerlachericka 1 year ago

Why is the US unique in this, though? Every other country had to make the change at some point. As for mixing units complicating things, it already does. Canada, while officially working in metric, has so much trade with the US that we have to convert all the time. I imagine Mexico has much the same problem. And anything you're importing is going to be metric, so just pull off the bandaid already. In an increasingly global community it makes no sense to cling to an outdated system of measurement that no one else is familiar with. Just ask NASA how costly that can end up being.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

"Why is the US unique in this, though? Every other country had to make the change at some point." The metric system started in Europe in like the 1700 or 1800s. Back then how much was the average person using accurate units of measure in their day to day life? They most likely referenced common objects that most people would know. Adopting a standardized system would be easy in that scenario. Much easier than converting an existing one. "As for mixing units complicating things, it already does. Canada, while officially working in metric," So do Americans. It's not like we don't use metric at all, it's just not used primarily, outside of science. It still doesnt change the fact that it wouldn't be easy to get people to adopt it. You'd just revert to what's familiar and comfortable to you.

by Gerlachericka 1 year ago

UK still using a mixture

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Is it true that UK road signs are in kilometers for distance but speed limits are in miles per hour?

by Fuzzy-Quantity 1 year ago

mph on the car and road signs , mies on the map. then you got pints in pub and milk but litres in other liquids. weights are all over the place too. Hybrid. I dont hear anyone talking in quarts of milk or a cup of sugar

by Anonymous 1 year ago

All distances in the UK are in Miles distances on road signs must be described in yards and miles. Metric units are not permitted it is the same with speed signs they must show Miles only Height/width/length restriction signs must include feet and inches. Metric-only height/ width/length restrictions are not permitted. Metric roads are Illegal

by Ok-Gas-3772 1 year ago

That's such a bizarre system.

by Fuzzy-Quantity 1 year ago

My guess is that in the US big businesses will effectively resist any legislation that would cost them money or labor even temporarily.

by Trudiebraun 1 year ago

Outside pressure. Lots of smaller countries didnt have a choice they had to either follow Europe or come up with their own. but the US did, and since most people used imperial in day to day life, the pressure mostly was from Americans to stay with the imperial system. British colonies still use the Imperial system plenty like Canada because they used it for everyday use and didn't see any need to change how they said their height to follow the official standards.

by FixDue 1 year ago

Set your metric torque wrench to the recommended torque settings?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I am pretty sure the big three metricated 30 years ago.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

A pound / foot sounds pretty dam imperial to me. So does a gallon, quart, and cubic inch. maybe the bolts are in mm (I'm not sure if they are or not) but imperial measurements are still all over American cars.

by Gerlachericka 1 year ago

You can use decimals in the imperial system?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

You can. I think they meant base 10 instead of a variety of random stuff like 12 or 8 or whatever dry weights are pretending to be.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Yah, but the rest of the world didn't. That's sorta the problem with Americans.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Thanks for shaming me for growing up in a different culture than you 👍 I'll be born somewhere else next time

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Yes and no. My client is Texas based and they will send drawings with 15.36" on it. How do you measure that in real life?

by Objective-Can 1 year ago

"15 3/8 cooter fuzz light" is fine for most things. If it's high tolerance machining, they're already measuring things in hundredths or thous

by srath 1 year ago

With calipers or a micrometer. My entire industry uses decimal inches. The 3rd decimal is the default.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I dont work in an industry that requires thousands of an inch precision.

by Objective-Can 1 year ago

I don't think I've ever scene an imperial tape measure graduated in decimal inches, always fractional.

by Academic-Effort-9548 1 year ago

They have them, they're called engineering scales. Used them in my job all the time.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

That's also true of the metric side. I don't see them putting 1.5 cm on a tape measure, just the tiny little lines that represent a millimeter

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Or a .1 centimetre… yah know mille, 1000, 1/1000 of a base meters. Centi, 100, 1/100 of a base meter. These are suffixes you actually already use too, like century, and millennia. So you provably should be able to deduct their meaning.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Babe I wasn't saying it was impossible to figure out. I'm saying they don't list decimals on either side of the measuting tape. For the record I use cm all the time when knitting patterns written by people who use the metric system. It's also not that hard to know 3/4 is .75

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Its not actually popular belief that we think you can't handle it or never encountered it. Its hyperbole.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

You can measure things without a tape measure. You can do a lot of advanced math and engineering with 0 tape measures.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I have nothing against metric but how in my day to day life will my life improve by switching?

by Plus-Ad 1 year ago

It won't. You will just measure everything in your everyday life in either an impossibly small unit(mm) or impossibly large unit(m) "Hey can you get me the 304mm bowl from the cabinet." "No all we have are 203.2mm bowls" Don't come at me with cm or dm because every damn thing i ever see measured in metric is mm or m.

by Smooth-Station 1 year ago

Bowls is measured in cm, just like penises

by megane54 1 year ago

literally everything day to day is measured in cm what are you on about

by Anonymous 1 year ago

A meter is not an impossbly large unit😂 what are you on about

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Agreed. Enough with this silliness.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

In elementary school (early 1960's) I remember reading about it in the Weekly Reader. The US was not only going to switch to the metric system, we were also going to learn Esperanto, the world language. We only read about making these changes, we never actually did anything.

by Maudokuneva 1 year ago

As a Canadian I don't see this as unpopular.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

There were plans to switch the USA to metric when Jimmy Carter was President. Then we got Reagan.

by Full_Bad9429 1 year ago

I whole-heartedly agree after earning a biology degree and using the metric system like crazy it is so much simpler to use meters, cm and mm. Then having to count fractions of inches. I hate it!

by CardiologistNo 1 year ago

I mean, yeah, we should, but we won't.

by Bergelaron 1 year ago

I would not be against going to metric.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Too expensive to change

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Doesn't have to be such an immediate switch either, because that would cause unnecessary confusion. I'm from the UK and we were largely taught metric and UK imperial side by side. I wouldn't say I'm a master at imperial, but I can convert distance, length, temperature, and volume relatively well in my head. Obviously if it was for measuring something important, I'd just use my phone. After 1 or 2 generations, you'd have a population that largely uses the same units as the rest of the world and you wouldn't have to alienate or scare the more resistant of people.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

We're taught metric and US customary side by side too. They were telling me we'd be switching to metric exclusively some day soon as a kid in the early 80s but it never happened. It's still the norm for science applications. It's the norm in healthcare. I use it every day and I use US customary every day. This slow transition has just been really slow. The US adopted metric as one of its official and preferred systems in the 19th century. It's just never been able to pull the trigger on killing customary.

by Lesly36 1 year ago

Well of course you can do it because you guys use even more wacky stuff than Americans do. 10 stone 8 ounces abd 16 corish pastries tall.

by Gerlachericka 1 year ago

We're handicapping our kids in the global job market by continuing to use "freedom units". Science and engineering worldwide use metric units, meanwhile our kids learn this mishmash of units. Ridiculous.

by Onolan 1 year ago

Literally every science class I'd ever taken in the barren educational landscape of Texas public schools was taught in Metric, because metric is the units used in the sciences and scientific institutions. Your kids are learning metric in schools and are for much of their life. Whether they pay attention to it or not is up to them.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

For temperature measurements I definitely prefer Fahrenheit.

by Cummingssonia 1 year ago

That's only because it's what you are used to.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Possibly. I'm also somewhat of a weather geek. I like the greater range that it provides.

by Cummingssonia 1 year ago

but "percentage of hot" is different for every single person. someone raised in bolivia will experience temperature different than someone from norway. once again, it's just what you're used to.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

°Freedom > °Communism. No thanks I like things measured in freedom units.

by Firm-Photograph 1 year ago

Nope

by Ambitious-Door2787 1 year ago

Honestly, respect the attitude.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Renumbering highway exits was bad enough. Leave our measurements alone.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

We tried, people hated it so much we went back, that's why all consumer stuff is in Imperial but everything else is Metric

by Carterjamil 1 year ago

It's easier mathematically as it uses decimals. Which you can do in Imperial. Honestly of all the good reasons, you picked one that is irrelevant.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

You have a tape measure in feet that has decimal graduations?

by NorthArm 1 year ago

Yes. It's in inches, with graduations in .1" and .01" My whole industry works in decimal inches.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I have 300 foot tapes that have feet divided into 1/10ths, I'm sure smaller tapes exist but I don't need them.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Yeah it's called being good at math. If you need a tape measure to tell you 1/4 = .25 or 1/2 = .5 you probably shouldn't be where tape measures are being used.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I see you avoided the question. Only 0.5 is a decimal in the sense we're discussing, all the 16ths, 8ths, and only 2 of the 4 4ths are what is meant by decimal in this case.

by NorthArm 1 year ago

It's a bad question, not everyone who is using maths is using a tape measure, and it doesn't change the fact that you can still covert to decimal in an Imperial system, does it?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Making things go by 10's is infinitely more efficient no matter if you're using a tape measure or any other use case of physical units. Please tell me what 1.4 pounds is in ounces, or how many feet are in 2.34 miles, or the fluid ounces in .4 gallons?

by NorthArm 1 year ago

My tape measure doesn't measure gallons. Do they have calculators where you live son?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Buddy you ignored his point, I'd like to see you me what a 24th of an quart is in ounces in under 10 seconds.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Such a common predicament I find myself in daily lmao 32 oz in a quart divided by 24 is about 1.3 oz. Give me something hard lmao I do this for a living. Now tell me how many cm are in 6" in 1 second and then hand that off to the foreman ripping boards.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

That's precisely the point, converting imperial to metric is a huge hassle that's why it' s easier if everyone just used metric. Also an inch is like 2.5cm so 6inches is 15 cm approx.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I could figure it out but I'd also never need to know how many feet are in 2.34 miles. Anyone dealing with miles would just work in miles. For example the odometer in my truck measures in tenths of a mile, mile markers are in tenths of a mile, etc.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Nah, we're good.

by winnifredweiman 1 year ago

Basically already did, and to a commoner standpoint, tried. Pretty hard to truly convert everyone to it, but at least there's basic education of metric system here.

by kboehm 1 year ago

Would be nice for unit conversions. Like who the heck decided 5,280 feet is a mile? Or that 2 cups = 1 pint, 2 pints = 1 quart, 4 quarts is a gallon. That one is more understandable because alcohol but still.

by Ill-Mammoth 1 year ago

The National Electric Code is already metric. All the table's and values are in metric and imperial.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

We mostly already have. Construction, roads, and cooking might be the last major bastions of the imperial system.

by Hvon 1 year ago

Well, the obvious superior measurement is the Cavendish banana.

by Taylorwintheise 1 year ago

No thanks. I've lived abroad where the metric system is used. It worked great, but our system is perfectly fine.

by Feeneytomas 1 year ago

Nah, just do what we do in the UK. Teach the metric system but then randomly still use imperial measurements for various things. In any given day I'll use feet and inches, metres and cm, miles, kg and g, pounds and stones. We only use kilometres for sport where we will say a 5K fun run. Although we still use miles for Marathons.

by Buster42 1 year ago

How about we make them use freedom units?

by Fermin72 1 year ago

All of our existing infrastructure is in imperial units, it's too late and complicated to switch. That's the answer

by Ok_Bison_1987 1 year ago

The metric system is good for science. When you're measuring minuscule or enormous amounts, and regularly need to scale up or down (which is simplified by just moving the decimal). For everyday human use, it sucks. Want to measure something? You have to use hundreds of tiny units. Want to know the temperature? Hope you know what the temperature feels like to water, because that's what the system is based on! Metric is better for typical use. You have nice, varied, middle-sized units. You have a temperature scale based on people.

by jwaters 1 year ago

That's a bunch of nonsense. The idea that Fahrenheit is more intuitive is stupid. There is no way to imagine how 50F or 70F feels without having used the scale for years and knowing exactly how it feels. If 0F is really cold and 100 is really hot, 50 could be anywhere between 0C and 25C. Also, 0F could be anything between -50C and -10C. At least you know water freezes at 0C, that's a temperature everyone can imagine. If you want to measure something, usually you don't have to use hundreds of units. You can use up to 10, that's literally built into the system, until you get really big or really small. I don't see how inches and feet and yards are better than centimeters and decimeters and meters.

by Thurmanvandervo 1 year ago

As for the temperature thing, it depends on what you are used to, people who don't know Celcius could say the same things you have said in reverse. Everyone who uses Fahrenheit knows 32 is freezing and can get close guessing temperatures. You can flip your example of 50 being anywhere between 0C and 25C around and say 12C can be anywhere from 32F to 80F. Just because you aren't used to it doesn't make it bad. A big reason some people like imperial better is the foot measurement. Its a whole measurement that doesn't have commonly used counterpart in metric and is nice for everyday use. For example 2 ft is a bunch of cm or some fraction of a meter.

by Relevant_Row 1 year ago

I'm an American engineer and kind of with you. No issue at all using miles, pounds and Fahrenheit for distance to my house, my weight and the weather outside, Also no issue using micron and Celsius for device size and oven temperature for quality testing. It bugs me when older engineers give area estimates on square mil (thousandths of inches) instead of square micron but such is life. I do think being able to quickly convert a few reference points is worth it so you can have an idea what someone means in casual conversations. Eg 20-22C is room temp 30+ is hot, 5km is 3.1 miles and a meter is basically a yard.

by No-Article-8822 1 year ago

So you are an engineer. You must be able to understand its just the system you learned first and holds no real advantage or ease of use right? Like why would a mile be easier to grasp than a kilometre? How is it more useful?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I disagree, atleast for temp inerature, celsius is perfectly fine for measuring body temperature and it is already very intuitive since a lot of temperature based application involve water. It's probably dependent on what we were raised on, since you (probably) grew up with Fahrenheit, and I grew up with Celsius, we find our respective scales more understable. (Also isn't Fahrenheit based on horse blood and salty water? I think celsius is much simpler there)

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Correct. The scale of measure needs to be designed for what is actually being measured. A scale is small and narrow as Celsius is wildly inappropriate for measuring temperature as it matters to human life. Your point about this system being useful for science is valid, and completely antithetical to its use in every day human life.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

This is mostly based on what people get accustomed to, and what temperatures they are used to. For a person who grew up with Celsius, they'll know that around 0C is when frost or snow can start to appear. 30C is a typical hot summer day, and it feels slightly colder or hotter every 5C. For a person who grew up with Fahrenheit, they'll see 30F as typically cold and 90-100F as hot, with the feel of the temperature changing every 10F or so. Some people say that 0F to 100F is a good range, but this depends on the temperature that someone is accustomed to. The temperature ranges outside 30F - 100F aren't useful to me because I'm not used to temperatures that cold or that hot. In terms of Celsius, 0C to 30-35C is what I grew up with. Took me a few years of living in the US to get used to working with Fahrenheit. Someone else can of course give a similar argument in favor of Fahrenheit (for example, someone who lives up north might say 0F is meaningful). However the point is that it's mostly a matter of what you grew up with.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Obviously, but good luck.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Youre 1/4 right, 1/4 funny, and 1/2 unpatriotic. Plus the 0.6 Compromise of 1787 just doesnt sound the same.

by ksporer 1 year ago

I really don't understand why the US use the imperial system in the first place. Metric system makes so much more sense.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

What is 6.3 feet in inches? I rest my case.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Approximately 75 5/8" (75.6" if you need to be accurate)

by larsonbridie 1 year ago

Yes you really should

by SouthernOutcome 1 year ago

no we really shouldn't

by Anonymous 1 year ago

How is it necessarily more logical? I can take third of a yard or a foot, but I can't take a third of a meter.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I convert units every day and using fractions is a huge pain in the ass, I don't care if they are easier to divide by 3. Plus when measurements are in feet and inches it is actually 2 conversions.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I can take a tenth of a meter and 10 times a meter, but I can't take a 10th of a foot.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

1/10 of a foot is .1 feet

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Ok so represent that in inches, you get 1.2 inches, gee that seems unnecessary, whereas I can just Centimeter to decimeter to meter to decameter to hectometer to kilometer

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I can never understand this straw man. Yes it is unnecessary conversions, you'd just keep using feet in decimals, kinda like how machinists use thousandths of an inch for everything. Just because you have a formal name for each decimal place doesn't make it special, I could just as easily call 1/100th of a foot a centifoot, which is all the centi- prefix means

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Wrong. Rest of the world has no where near the luxury US has, so why would US need to use the same measurements when other places don't even have the same basic life economy? US has never catered to the world, why the hell start now?

by Aggressive_Buyer 1 year ago

What? It's not catering to other nations, and what does their economy have to do with it? OP just means that the entire world uses metric and metric is arguably much simpler and more intuitive than the imperial system.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

no

by Anonymous 1 year ago

The US uses the Statute System, not the Imperial System, but yes, they should officially adopt System International.

by MiserableDriver 1 year ago

I prefer a more humanist system for everyday use.

by Murky_Finger 1 year ago

Nothing is harmed by using feet, miles, etc. Every industry which metric would be helpful is already doing so.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Of course it should. But any attempts to do so would be met by Trump and the right-wing media pretending that metric is an attack on American "free dumbs". It would be insufferable!

by Anonymous 1 year ago

365 days, 12 months of varying length, 7 days in a week, 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour, 60 seconds in a minute. That's all so convoluted, make it all based 10 like the metric people wanted it to be, it's easier mathematically. Btw, an unpopular opinion (and the correct one) is that everyone should switch to Imperial, the UK Imperial to be precise.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

This is not just unpopular, should be an outright permanent ban from the internet it's so terrible

by Anonymous 1 year ago

There is no imperial but the UK one. The US has never used imperial.

by Lesly36 1 year ago

You think we (the US) could handle that ? remember how hard it was for people to insert a chip on a card instead of swiping?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

For anyone who thinks this. Try looking back on when Oregon changed the law from people not being able to pump their own gas.

by Queenie59 1 year ago

more logical? metric system is based off tens. they that a divisibility of 1,2,5,10. whereas feet for instance is 12 based, that's a divisibility of 1,2,3,4,12. the only thing metrics is better at is large quantities and small quantities which is rarely needed in everyday life.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

One more crisis for the right wing to go ballistic over.

by Chemical_Archer_9367 1 year ago