General > General Technical Chat

why is the US not Metric

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Zero999:

--- Quote from: rstofer on November 03, 2019, 03:44:44 pm ---
--- Quote from: soldar on November 03, 2019, 09:09:46 am ---Not only dick waving but a very limp dick that saw better days ... maybe in 1969. Sad!

--- End quote ---

You're right, it is.  And that's because EVERY ONE of these threads, and they happen a couple of times a year, devolves into US bashing.  I get a little tired of people from 3rd tier countries attacking the US.  We have done so much for so many in our mere 243 years of existence you would think we would get a little respect.  But no, people from countries thousands of years older that have accomplished exactly nothing in their entire history seem to find great glee in bashing our success because we CHOOSE not to use metric.  It's a choice and we made it!

Do outsiders, in even their most drug induced hallucinations, believe that the US cares what other countries think?

--- End quote ---
You do realise the person you've just responded to is in Spain, which played a very large role in making the USA what it is today? :palm:

soldar:

--- Quote from: Simon on November 03, 2019, 06:42:05 pm ---China just gets the criticism you want Americans to accept. Although I agree with you, you can't have it both ways.

--- End quote ---

I never said otherwise but there is a great difference between objective criticism and bashing. Nobody here is bashing America.

But quite often there is gratuitous bashing of China. "It's made in China and therefore it's crap" is a common theme. I never heard the same about America. I have never seen "It is American and therefore it is crap".

A bridge collapses in China and the entire country and culture is at fault and condemned as corrupt. A bridge collapses in America and the engineer who built it is blamed.

Not to mention that many Americans feel entitled to tell China how it should govern itself but would never accept the reverse.  The government of China is bad and wrong and evil while the government of America is benevolent and democratic and all things good.

We are discussing America's use of units and how going metric might be better. There is no moral judgment involved and I can't see how it can be taken as America bashing except by the very insecure and touchy.

To give a parallel example: Over the years I have discussed with Chinese people how Chinese script is hard to learn and requires energy and resources which could be dedicated to other things if China adopted pinyin or other simpler script. Not one time has any Chinese person taken it as an insult to their country and told me to bugger off and that they don't care what I think.

Gyro:

--- Quote from: rstofer on November 03, 2019, 12:03:47 am ---Second, despite our backward system, we have walked on the Moon and nobody else has and we did it 50 years ago.  Some of the work was calc'd in metric, most of it was built in customary units.  Call back when you leave footprints!  In the meantime (probably another 100 years or so), keep working on the project, you'll get there someday, but we'll be on Mars before you get to the Moon!

....

Been to the Moon, largest economy in the world, Imperial units...  See a pattern here?
....

I know, every time I bring up the Moon thing people frame it as American Exceptionalism.  Well, yes, it's true.  But if it wasn't for AE, the French people would be speaking German and the standards would be in Berlin.  The Germans always did have the superior scientists.
....

You're right, it is.  And that's because EVERY ONE of these threads, and they happen a couple of times a year, devolves into US bashing.  I get a little tired of people from 3rd tier countries attacking the US.  We have done so much for so many in our mere 243 years of existence you would think we would get a little respect.  But no, people from countries thousands of years older that have accomplished exactly nothing in their entire history seem to find great glee in bashing our success because we CHOOSE not to use metric.  It's a choice and we made it!

Do outsiders, in even their most drug induced hallucinations, believe that the US cares what other countries think?

--- End quote ---

@rstofer:

Has it occurred to you how insulting your naive comments and view of the rest of the world are to the rest of us outside the US?

Lest you forget (or don't even realize) the father of the US space program was Werner von Braun, a member of the German Nazi Party and the SS, secretly smuggled out of Germany, together with around 1600 fellow scientists and stocks of V2 missiles. In his time as head of the V2 program, he was an active party to the deaths of up to 20 thousand people (slave labour) not to mention the people killed by his weapons. All conveniently swept under the carpet and forgotten in the interests of the US race to the moon. As you say, The Germans always did have the superior scientists!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun

Presumably von Braun had to convert from the metric system to the American customary system when he was recruited to pioneer the US space program. Now that really is irony!

As for your country's 243 years of existence, you should remember that your continent's population also dates back (hundreds of) thousands of years, just like the rest of us.

As for 'American Exceptionalism' please don't forget the agreement between Churchill and Roosevelt to share technological information. As it turned out, a distinctly one-sided arrangement, giving the US the jet engine, vital contributions to supersonic flight and accelerating its atomic weapons development (the US's developments then being classified, requiring the UK to virtually have to start from scratch again to keep pace catch up).

The US is very good at importing other peoples' technological developments and claiming them as its own. Maybe that's the secret of becoming 'the world's largest economy'.

I could go on, but I will halt it there. This thread started out as a civil discussion but if you really must turn it into a political point scoring exercise, then please be better informed.

Enough with the superiority crap, as I said, it's insulting.

Macbeth:
The real problem is those crazy imperialists that insist on using the term "mil" when they should just say "thou" to avoid ambiguity with millimeters. UK here, worked for a motorcycle parts engineering and toolmaker shop that dealt with imperial and metric without much problem.

We would never call out "mil" instead of "thou". Because millimeters are "mil" and we only need one syllable. Just state "thou"

When a Harley Davidson dealer was on the phone, we knew how to change tune. Yeehaw!  :-DD

Mr. Scram:

--- Quote from: rstofer on November 03, 2019, 12:03:47 am ---
What advantage does metric offer to the average person walking down the street?  Not a darn thing!  Some of our industry has converted, some more might convert, some never will.  So what?

Second, despite our backward system, we have walked on the Moon and nobody else has and we did it 50 years ago.  Some of the work was calc'd in metric, most of it was built in customary units.  Call back when you leave footprints!  In the meantime (probably another 100 years or so), keep working on the project, you'll get there someday, but we'll be on Mars before you get to the Moon!


Why do you care what we do?  Why is this all so terribly important to you?  We don't care what you're doing, we certainly don't criticize your use of the metric system but we're not staging protests demanding change.  We simply don't care!  If we need metric, we use it.  If we don't, well, we don't.  It isn't important in our everyday lives.

And do be aware that, as backward as we are, we're still the largest economy in the world.

Been to the Moon, largest economy in the world, Imperial units...  See a pattern here?


Satisfactory to whom?  It is already satisfactory to us and we're the only people that matter.  We haven't converted at the population level in the last 50 years, why do you assume we will to it to your satisfaction in the next 50 years?  Do you imagine that we care what the world thinks?  Your only option is to redefine your idea of "satisfactory" and imagine that what you see today meets your new standard because what you see is all you'll ever see.  Industry may change, science and medicine have changed or always were metric but the person walking down the street isn't going to change - ever!  And certainly not just to meet your "satisfaction".

I know, every time I bring up the Moon thing people frame it as American Exceptionalism.  Well, yes, it's true.  But if it wasn't for AE, the French people would be speaking German and the standards would be in Berlin.  The Germans always did have the superior scientists.

--- End quote ---
The Apollo flight computers used metric and converted it to imperial for the non scientific personnel flying along. The imperial part was quite literally for show.

When you say "we" can you indicate your personal contributions to the achievements you list?

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