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| why is the US not Metric |
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| KL27x:
Sorry, bsfeechannel on the spelling. --- Quote ---In other words, metric is really cool, but the government, mired in scandals and deficits, is not strong enough to educate Jack Sixpack and Jenny Average about the benefits of metrication, much less to ask for a small contribution and effort during the mildly discomforting transition. Until this embarrassing situation is solved, the US will still be forced to stick to this inconvenient system of units for quite a while. --- End quote --- Operators are waiting by the phone. For the price of a cup of coffee a day (for only 4 short years), you pay union laborers high hazard wages for changing the numbers on a single interstate sign 100 feet over the ground in the middle of the desert. That is best case. Probably your money gets contracted out to overnight startups created by war buddies and somehow that pile of case dries up before the job gets done. Just another national "Big Dig." It's the same game, over and over, because oddly enough people don't really mind the slap on the wrist at the end. When you do this, you don't just "get it done." You create a cottage industry that gets a life and a political power of its own. But hey, when even half the signs are converted, that will be a massive improvement, right? >:D >:D >:D |
| Cubdriver:
--- Quote from: bsfeechannel on November 20, 2019, 09:34:42 pm --- --- Quote from: Cubdriver on November 19, 2019, 09:52:28 am ---I still fail to see WHY the government should piss away billions in tax dollars (when they're already running horrific deficits) --- End quote --- That's the answer I was looking for! In other words, metric is really cool, but the government, mired in scandals and deficits, is not strong enough to educate Jack Sixpack and Jenny Average about the benefits of metrication, much less to ask for a small contribution and effort during the mildly discomforting transition. Until this embarrassing situation is solved, the US will still be forced to stick to this inconvenient system of units for quite a while. I already knew that, and I guess someone posted an old Usenet joke about it, but it is fine to see someone admitting it for real. It's so good an answer that we can start our own conspiracy theories on how the government is interested in maintaining this state of affairs despite the fact that people end up paying more to stay imperial than to switch to metric in the long run. --- End quote --- You're still not getting it, are you? (Note here that I have been speaking specifically about changing road signs from their current, non-metric miles, feet and inches to metric units. As has been repeatedly pointed out to you, most new scientific pursuits and manufacturing here in the US are already metric.) Yeah, metric is really cool. Happy? Now, tell me why we should spend unknown billions to be 'cool'. You still haven't. I'm a techie-geek - I've never been particularly 'cool' my whole life, and, truth be told, really don't give a rat's ass that I'm not. 'Cool' is not a justification to spend that kind of money - sorry. You'll have to do better. And here's a newsflash for you - even if the government WASN'T in deficit, you'd still need to do better than you have in my eyes to justify spending all that money to change a perfectly functional system. One more time - WHAT IS THE BENEFIT TO JOE SIXPACK AND JENNY AVERAGE to changing all the road signs to metric units that justifies spending billions of dollars in tax revenue (extracted from their pockets) to do so? Why are miles, feet and inches on road signs 'inconvenient'? As I've mentioned previously, the instruments in our vehicles display those units, and our brains think in them. And I'm REALLY curious to hear how leaving our road signs in non metric units will be more expensive in the long run. -Pat |
| vk6zgo:
--- Quote from: Cubdriver on November 20, 2019, 11:34:30 pm --- --- Quote from: bsfeechannel on November 20, 2019, 09:34:42 pm --- --- Quote from: Cubdriver on November 19, 2019, 09:52:28 am ---I still fail to see WHY the government should piss away billions in tax dollars (when they're already running horrific deficits) --- End quote --- That's the answer I was looking for! In other words, metric is really cool, but the government, mired in scandals and deficits, is not strong enough to educate Jack Sixpack and Jenny Average about the benefits of metrication, much less to ask for a small contribution and effort during the mildly discomforting transition. Until this embarrassing situation is solved, the US will still be forced to stick to this inconvenient system of units for quite a while. I already knew that, and I guess someone posted an old Usenet joke about it, but it is fine to see someone admitting it for real. It's so good an answer that we can start our own conspiracy theories on how the government is interested in maintaining this state of affairs despite the fact that people end up paying more to stay imperial than to switch to metric in the long run. --- End quote --- You're still not getting it, are you? (Note here that I have been speaking specifically about changing road signs from their current, non-metric miles, feet and inches to metric units. As has been repeatedly pointed out to you, most new scientific pursuits and manufacturing here in the US are already metric.) Yeah, metric is really cool. Happy? Now, tell me why we should spend unknown billions to be 'cool'. You still haven't. I'm a techie-geek - I've never been particularly 'cool' my whole life, and, truth be told, really don't give a rat's ass that I'm not. 'Cool' is not a justification to spend that kind of money - sorry. You'll have to do better. And here's a newsflash for you - even if the government WASN'T in deficit, you'd still need to do better than you have in my eyes to justify spending all that money to change a perfectly functional system. One more time - WHAT IS THE BENEFIT TO JOE SIXPACK AND JENNY AVERAGE to changing all the road signs to metric units that justifies spending billions of dollars in tax revenue (extracted from their pockets) to do so? Why are miles, feet and inches on road signs 'inconvenient'? As I've mentioned previously, the instruments in our vehicles display those units, and our brains think in them. And I'm REALLY curious to hear how leaving our road signs in non metric units will be more expensive in the long run. -Pat --- End quote --- You have inches on your road signs? |
| Cerebus:
--- Quote from: vk6zgo on November 20, 2019, 11:37:52 pm ---You have inches on your road signs? --- End quote --- A hangover from the spat between Texas and Alaska about who's got the biggest road. |
| KL27x:
--- Quote from: Cerebus on November 20, 2019, 02:38:23 pm ---We sell and price petrol in litres, measure vehicle weights in kilos, official fuel efficiency figures are in litres/100km and yet have stuck with statute miles and miles per hour for road signage. It hasn't changed and we saw no need to change it as it is the least consequential of all possible changes. There's no great advantage to changing it in the way that there is a great advantage to an M6 bolt being the same size in Doncaster, Dieppe, Düßeldorf, Dubrovnik, and Dabrowa Górnicza. --- End quote --- A #6-32 machine screw is also the same size in Doncaster, Dieppe, Düßeldorf, Dubrovnik, and Dabrowa Górnicza. And this has already been hashed. I don't see how US having a national metric parade/conversion is going to put this cat back in the bag. And can we take a moment to appreciate that UK did not change their road signs? I agree that this is not particularly consequential. But can you tell us why this stuff is a big deal to you?: --- Quote ---a few years back I was getting a lass, of perhaps 20 to 25 years age, on the meat counter in the supermarket to cut me a couple of steaks. She asked "How thick?", I said "1 inch", she said "How much is that?", "Two and half centimetres." said I. So metrication is sufficiently ingrained that there is at least one generation that has always had the Internet and doesn't know Imperial units, even ones that are still in casual use by older generations. We sell and price petrol in litres, measure vehicle weights in kilos, official fuel efficiency figures are in litres/100km --- End quote --- If you live in the EU, maybe you wake up from a bender in a different country, regularly? You have trouble buying steaks and gas? "No, I want a Quarter Pounder, not a Royale with Cheese, god damnit!" |
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