why is the US not Metric

[KL27x]

How many other small American businesses are doing their business in metric.... but are not on this list of giant companies from the 80's? The writer of this article did not visit my workplace to interview me.

Metric is not exactly a secret. If it's cheaper to buy, measure, or make in meter or liters or kg's, then you should bet that Americans are already doing it. Both for actual businesses and for the business of life.

[bsfeechannel]

So, like me, you cannot come up with a good reason to spend all that money to change out all the highway signs.  Cool.

So, you're not metric because you don't do your homework but you want me to do it for you. And you'll be happier if I don't. This indicates what I said before. The common citizen can't understand the benefits of metrication because they want to see an immediate individual gain with the change. And if you try to explain using data and arguments with a little more sophistication to show that the benefits are going to be diluted and felt in the long run, they get bored.

 

[KL27x]

Thank you Dave and Simon and other mods. Bless this wonderful, wonderful place. This forum makes the world just a wee bit better.

[eti]

Oh well, this must be the 5th topic to discuss the same thing! Usually ends in a row so expect me to lock it!

Simon, I think I should buy you a bulk quantity of exclamation marks for Christmas; as this rate, and using them with such wild abandon, you're gonna run out. 

[KL27x]

We've had threads about this on the forum, recently. I would like to remind you.

If you are not having fun, you don't have to be here. No one forces you to read this stuff, let alone to post your own messages.

We're all just having fun, here. Right? Baby names, 2x4's, global trade, the finer points of sign painting?

If this thread is not a gift to your day, try to take a minute and look again. This thread is TOTALLY AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[eti]

We're all just having fun, here. Right? Baby names, 2x4's, global trade, the finer points of sign painting?

What the...?

Not sure what all that was about, but the jibe I made about exclamation marks was just a smidge of dry British humour; there's no need to get all heavy and serious.

"If this thread is not a gift to your day, try to take a minute and look again. This thread is TOTALLY AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!<truncated - I think I got the point>"

Erm, yeah... okay. "Awesome" - yes, it truly inspires awe in me. /s 

(In case it didn't convey well, I am messing around, no malice intended, nor snippiness )

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

You're asking it wrong. Real 'mericans can't spell metre properly. Ask'em to metericate. 

[Cubdriver]

So, like me, you cannot come up with a good reason to spend all that money to change out all the highway signs.  Cool.

So, you're not metric because you don't do your homework but you want me to do it for you. And you'll be happier if I don't. This indicates what I said before. The common citizen can't understand the benefits of metrication because they want to see an immediate individual gain with the change. And if you try to explain using data and arguments with a little more sophistication to show that the benefits are going to be diluted and felt in the long run, they get bored.

No, we're metric where it's important, and see no compelling reason to throw away a great deal of money to change where it's not.  Spare me your condescension.

-Pat

[bsfeechannel]

No, we're metric where it's important, and see no compelling reason to throw away a great deal of money to change where it's not.  Spare me your condescension.

And here's where you die (metaphorically speaking, of course). There's no such thing as "metric where it is important", or "metric where it makes sense".

Metric is important and makes sense EVERYWHERE. It was designed with that goal in mind. Imperial can't claim that, and the proof is that the US uses metric to supplement their broken-down and obsolete imperial system.

Since the US could only conduct a half-assed metrication, it is in a even more cumbersome stage where they use all the confusing imperial units PLUS metric.

You will only be able to say that the US is metric, when they finally manage to ditch imperial for good, like whole world did, and stick to just one coherent system of units. And today the only system capable with bearing that quality is metric.

So game over. Try again next year.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

That's not entirely true bsfeechannel, we say a pinch of salt, a slice of bread, a glass of water, a bit further, an arms length, a bottle or two, a can of beans, [and many others] etc etc. It doesn't matter much what the unit is, 100 miles or 160.9 km, as long as we can figure out how far away that is. And they obviously can, and like it the way it is. So what?

[tooki]

bsfeechannel, you literally have zero self awareness about how dumb you’re making yourself look, don’t you?

Whether it’s because you’re trolling and think it’s funny, or because you genuinely believe that metric is inherently cheaper (it’s not; it’s only cheaper where economies of scale and standardization matter, and contrary to your beliefs, they don’t always matter!), you’re actually just making yourself look stupid.

Not to mention the cognitive dissonance in believing that other countries are fully metric. As I and others have explained repeatedly, there is literally no place on earth that is fully metric.

[bsfeechannel]

(it’s only cheaper where economies of scale and standardization matter, and contrary to your beliefs, they don’t always matter!)

And where, in the modern world, economy of scale and standardization don't matter? I presume you understand we've been talking about formal measurements.

Not to mention the cognitive dissonance in believing that other countries are fully metric. As I and others have explained repeatedly, there is literally no place on earth that is fully metric.

Your assertion is corroborated by USMA, the US Metric Association:

"Metric is used predominantly in the rest of the world, with the US being the only major holdout."

It's not a zero-self-awareness dumb that's saying that. It's a US-based institution.

So the US works daily to disrupt the desire of the whole world to have just one system of units, accuses the world of not being fully metric, without mentioning that the US themselves are precisely the root cause of that evil, and then claim to be metric because the inch is based on the meter.

Gimme a break!

Who are you trying to fool?

I may be dumb. But not that dumb.

[KL27x]

Your assertion is corroborated by USMA, the US Metric Association:

"Metric is used predominantly in the rest of the world, with the US being the only major holdout."

It's not a zero-self-awareness dumb that's saying that. It's a US-based institution.

A US-based "institution?" The Flat Earth Society is a US-based institution, too.



For a bit, here, I thought we were discovering a cult. That was so exciting. But it looks, now, like everyone has recovered from momentary lapses in judgment. Well almost everyone.

bsfeechannel, you said all this stuff.

In case you forgot.

And here's where you die (metaphorically speaking, of course). There's no such thing as "metric where it is important", or "metric where it makes sense".
Metric is important and makes sense EVERYWHERE. It was designed with that goal in mind.

Metric has just one unit: the supreme METER

So the US works daily to disrupt the desire of the whole world to have just one system of units, accuses the world of not being fully metric, without mentioning that the US themselves are precisely the root cause of that evil, and then claim to be metric because the inch is based on the meter.

The US haven't [fully converted]. We can see by the replies in this forum that people are still attached to imperial units and won't let go of them.

If you were really willing to convert to metric, you would have already put a plan into action decades ago to gradually convert those signs.

The cost of switching to metric is in fact marginal. And the benefits enormous. If that weren't true, the world wouldn't have taken the plunge.

So you drive a motorized vehicle along a road and you think you're not doing engineering.

Those who don't get it are our beloved Jack and Jenny. The benefits of metrication for them are diluted and a technical explanation incomprehensible. They don't understand that their customary way of doing things is a hurdle to progress.

[Zero999]

Changing the road signs to metric would be a stupid waste of money. Most cars have both miles/h and km/h on the speedo and changing a digital display is just a line of code.

How much metric is taught in school over in the US? In the UK it's all metric. I can't remember learning any imperial and this was in 1990s, so not that recently. I learned how to convert between the two systems, when I started work.

[KL27x]

Other than geography and history, pretty much 100% of our education is in metric. Honestly, every single "look, in metric this is easier because..." example that has been mentioned in this thread is explicitly demonstrated in a classroom, thoroughly explained (I want to say somewhere around 5th to 8th grade?), and then the students USE all this stuff for all their coursework for the rest of their academic life. So to everyone who thinks they're a special snowflake for realizing the conveniences of metric? I bet most of your countrymen under the age of 90 also learned these things in your schools. So you're not that special.

But after they graduate, Americans go into the real world. And our construction industry is imperial. This drives the tool market. E.g., even though our tape measures have both, TBH, inches is always marked more prominently. To this day, I have never seen metric drill bit set in a store or online, even. Other than my tiny PCB drills. The construction industry uses the tools that make their life easier, and this is what Jack and Jenny get to choose from.

So Americans adapt and are for the most part completely comfortable with either system. It's not like I feel metric "taints" imperial or vice versa. I see both as a man-made arbitrary constructs, and I use the one that works best. While driving on our roads, mph seems about right for some strange reason. Maybe some of you can explain that one. While fabricating stuff, I use imperial cuz my tools for this are slightly better/easier in imperial, IMO. I mean, I know how to make a 1M solution of salt by using the atomic weight, Avagadro's number, and weighing out the grams into a 1L flask before filling with water to the line. But I don't actually do that very often, so I don't lose any sleep if my measuring cup is literally a cup. And I have no problem to convert that same recipe to any size in any unit. Or I could calculate "Pedro's Number," which will produce the weight of a mole in grains or ounces. Or I could calculate "JoeBob's Number," which, multiplied by the atomic weight, will give the lbs per barrel, for mixing up barrels of molar-concentrated solutions.

Internal Calibration:
I would say I primarily "capture" or estimate distance in imperial, due to my environment. You don't learn that in a classroom by reading and doing abstract problems on paper. You get become calibrated when you start to do things in the real world and actually have to measure and cut and deal with resulting accuracy.
Weight? I dunno. Pounds mostly, but for light things w/e. Grams, usually. Grains for lighter stuff (yeah, I have reloaded ammo). To me metric ton vs imperial ton? Honestly, I will look it up if/when I need to know. I'm not sure if a ton is 1000 lb or 2000lb?

Volume? Equally comfortable with gallons or liters or cups.

You metric guys listing furlongs and tower oz and whatnots, ad infinitum? You guys seem to know more antiquated and stupid imperial units than we do. We Jacks and Jennys use the basics.


If you wanted Americans to LOOK like we're metric just like Canada, then we would have to change road signs and legal stuff and to make some international announcement. Documents. Media/news. That's gigantic mess for the next 80 years.

If you wanted Americans to think in metric and are upset about tools/fasteners, then I would focus on the construction industry and media/news. That is a much more manageable problem, I think. But still expensive.

[SilverSolder]

Is it actually a problem that metric and imperial co-exist?

It doesn't seem any different than dealing with ancient measurements elsewhere (e.g. when cooking:  tablespoons, teaspoons, cups, ...)  which can be more convenient in real world usage than an exact number of milliliters...   in fact, mixed units are common when cooking.  (e.g. 600g flour + 435ml water + 1.5tsp yeast + 1tsp salt + 2tbsp honey to make bread dough).

[Bud]

Is it actually a problem that metric and imperial co-exist?

It is in Canada. You go buy a 1/4 plywood for a repair, bring it home at it turns out it is not good because it is 5mm, not 6mm ! 

[KL27x]

^According to bsfeechanel, that's only because evil America is subverting your system, Canada.

Even if imperial were "completely vanished" as bsfeechannel seems to think is obviously desirable, we would still have use imperial in textbooks.

Even in America, we get imperial examples in our textbooks and curriculum. And just like in your countries, these examples are used to show us how stupid imperial is, and to teach how to do conversions. And even after bsfeechannel is happy, we will still need to teach these examples to our kids so that they can understand that metric is not reality. It's just the arbitrary system that we have agreed upon.

[Zero999]

Other than geography and history, pretty much 100% of our education is in metric. Honestly, every single "look in metric this is easier because..." example that has been mentioned in this thread is explicitly demonstrated in a classroom, thoroughly explained (I want to say somewhere around 5th to 8th grade?), and then the students USE all this stuff for all their coursework for the rest of their academic life.

But after they graduate, Americans go into the real world. And our construction industry is imperial. This drives the tool market. E.g., even though our tape measures have both, TBH, inches is always marked more prominently. To this day, I have never seen metric drill bit set in a store or online, even. Other than my tiny PCB drills.

So Americans adapt and are for the most part completely comfortable with either system. It's not like I feel metric "taints" imperial or vice versa. I see both as a man-made arbitrary constructs, and I use the one that works best. While driving on our roads, mph seems about right for some strange reason. Maybe some of you can explain that one. While fabricating stuff, I use imperial cuz my tools for this are slightly better/easier in imperial, IMO. I mean, I know how to make a 1M solution of salt by using the atomic weight, Avagadro's number, and weighing out the grams into a 1L flash before filling with water to the line. But I don't need to to that very often, so I don't lose any sleep if my measuring cup is literally a cup. And I have no problem to convert that same recipe to any size in any unit.

I would say I primarily "capture" or estimate distance in imperial, due to my environment. You don't learn that in a classroom by reading and doing abtract problems on paper. You get become calibrated when you start to do things in the real world and actually have to measure and cut and deal with resulting accuracy. Weight? I dunno. Pounds mostly, but for light things w/e. Grams, usually. Grains for lighter stuff (yeah, I have reloaded ammo). To me metric ton vs imperial ton? Honestly, I will look it up if/when I need to know. I'm not sure if a ton is 1000 lb or 2000lb?

Volume? Equally comfortable with gallons or liters or cups.

You metric guys listing furlongs and tower oz and whatnots, ad infinitum? You guys seem to know more antiquated and stupid imperial units than we do. We Jacks and Jennys use the basics.


If you wanted Americans to LOOK like we're metric just like Canada, then we would have to change road signs and legal stuff and to make some international announcement. Documents. Media/news. That's gigantic mess for the next 80 years.

If you wanted Americans to think in metric and are upset about tools/fasteners, then I would focus on the construction industry and media/news. That is a much more manageable problem, I think. But still expensive.

I suppose that's the main difference between the US which is not fully metric and the UK which is nearly completely metric: drills and tools are all metric, rather than imperial. It's exactly the area where the US should focus on moving further over to metric, simply because it would make trading with the rest of the world much easier. Granted, it would be annoying having to stock extra tools for legacy jobs, but no doubt it worth it in the long run.

Of course you'll use whatever units you're accustomed to. In the UK people normally think of miles for large distances, simply because that's what's used for road signs, but metres, centimetres and millimetres for short distances.

I've always thought it was silly how there's an uneven number of grains in an ounce which is 437.5 grains. It should be an even number like 400 or 500.

The one US unit which caught me out as a child was the cup, because no one uses it in the UK or ever has done to my knoledge. I often used to encounter it in US recipe books but had no idea what it meant, so guessed. Nowadays, I'd simply Google it, but in the the Internet wasn't so convenient to access back in the 90s. Normally the recipe worked out in the end, after some experimentation, but it would have been nice if they'd used an internationally recognised measurement.

[Bud]

I am a metric guy all around but for house repairs i find inches and feets more convenient to work with the typical small construction jobs, i guess they better fit the volumetrics of distances and sizes of such jobs , i.e. just 1 foot floor tile vs 30cm or 0.3m, you save on the number of digits and decimal separator ! 

[KL27x]

I've always thought it was silly how there's an uneven number of grains in an ounce which is 437.5 grains. It should be an even number like 400 or 500.

True. But somehow it's easy to remember that there are 7000 grains in a lb? I mean... I can't remember how many lb's are in a ton, but 7000 is such a stupid number it's hard to forget! And 16 oz in a lb is also a stupid number, so I don't care if grains don't match with oz's. I just ignore oz's exist other than for mail. Anything smaller than multiple pounds, I pretty much go to grams.

The system we use is just a skin. I still remember the internal struggle I had when I started to actually make stuff as a young adult who grew up in suburbia with a father who owned a screwdriver and a hammer, and I never seen him use either more than once. Cm or inches? Everything I learned made it seem like an easy decision to choose metric if all else were equal. But if the best value tools work better/easier/faster in imperial, then what is the difference?

It's not like I care when people express things in metric. But some guys think expressing things in imperial is arrogant. It's just the raw output of an imperial calibrated mind. If the guy thought it mattered, he would have converted it for you. When an American conveys a measurement in inches to say a mixed audience, he assumes anyone who is interested in the actual measurement can convert it if they care. In the reverse,  if I watched someone build a cabinet, I would probably be more interested in the tools and techniques and sequence of actions than the actual measurements he is spouting. If I build it, it will be made to fit my kitchen or shop, using w/e materials I have. His measurements are irrelevant. When he does this, stating all measurements in metric, no one cares. If the American or Canuck does this and states inches, you get complaints that he is being myopic, self-centered, and insensitive to the reality of the metric majority.  When in fact, he figured you were smart enough to not build the exact thing he did, to the exact dimensions he did. Because there's only a 1 in a million chance that copying exactly what he did would make any kind of sense to anyone else.

[SilverSolder]

Is it actually a problem that metric and imperial co-exist?

It is in Canada. You go buy a 1/4 plywood for a repair, bring it home at it turns out it is not good because it is 5mm, not 6mm ! 

6mm is the closest metric size to 1/4"...   anyone selling 5mm as 1/4" need a trip to the woodshed!

[Mr. Scram]

6mm is the closest metric size to 1/4"...   anyone selling 5mm as 1/4" need a trip to the woodshed!

Wood is peculiar anyway. They often indicate the wet size which it won't have after some drying and being in the store. The difference can be quite significant. Always measure what you buy as there's a significant chance the size isn't as listed.

[KL27x]

Pretty much. Any furniture grade wood shop will joint and plane practically every hardwood they use.

Plywood is made in metric countries to metric spec, but even then it can vary a little batch to batch. So we basically just deal with the fact it's not really 3/4" plywood whenever that matters. Because our 3/4" hardwood boards are actually 3/4". 

But dowels or metal rounds/tubes? With plywood, you can just cut the slot smaller. Dowels have to fit the hole. Our drill bits being imperial, so follows the material. If the construction industry changed, this would be felt in the machining industry and in engineering/design. Then I think you wait until some years later to change the media, so's when they report it in C with gusts of wind up to kmh (with imperial subtitles), it is not rejected.




;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
For some reason I woke up with the idea that some people don't intuitively understand what "economy of scale" means as applied to the car industry.

Every modern manufacturer has a sophisticated inventory control. When a regional distributor orders 4 red Camrys, a Toyota employee doesn't walk through a warehouse full of Camry's, go to the imperial section, find the "red" row, and drive 4 of these over to the boat. Each car has been ordered before production even starts, and it's the distributors' job to predict and/or influence the future by keeping the order queue filled with the cars that will create the biggest profit based on the figures from all of the dealers. They are tasked with matching supply to demand, ordering the right cars, and getting them to the right place. Maybe the Camry in Rosewine Red with interior S817 and body trim R173 is killing it in the Soutwest; let's get some to our other showrooms; and the memo goes out to the local dealers that this is now in the pipeline to get their salepeople pumped up to move these cars, which they can tell their customers "Gary has sold X of these last month in Texas, and the factory can't keep up; they're very popular." Even when the factory ships these identically kitted 4 red Camrys to the regional distributor, they are not all the same. Each has a unique ID and is a unique order and is handled as such. And they might tailor many of the other options to better suit local market demand, depending where the car is headed to. A large number of factory options, of which there could be dozens, and most of which are way more "permanent" than speed and mileage indicators, are easily managed this way. If you counted all the permutations of a factory Camry, the actual different number of ways to order one could be hundreds of thousands or maybe millions. So this is the only practical way to do it, anyway.

When the regional distributor orders their 4 Camrys and ships them out to the local dealers, say 1 of those dealers doesn't manage to sell his red Camry, but a dealer over in Australia wants this exact red Camry.

What the cost of imperial is to this situation is that instead of trucking a Camry across the country, putting it on a cargo ship, sailing it over to Australia, clearing customs, and getting it over to the dealer, and dealing with any other country specific changes that have to be done, and performing a 186 point QA and safety inspection after it arrives? They have to do all that plus change a couple things for mile to km thing. And increasingly today, that would be done by plugging a widget into the ECM and pressing a button. Changing over the car might be an incredibly boring or tedious part of that job, but compare that to:

"Ted? Do me a solid and go change all the road signs in America. Come and see me when you're done. I need to speak with you before you go home."

[tooki]

(it’s only cheaper where economies of scale and standardization matter, and contrary to your beliefs, they don’t always matter!)

And where, in the modern world, economy of scale and standardization don't matter? I presume you understand we've been talking about formal measurements.

Ever heard of custom builds? It doesn't matter what units it is. 

Or what about things where you need so many production lines (or whole factories) anyway that it simply doesn't matter whether they're all the same or not? (A LOT of things fall into this category.)

Not to mention the cognitive dissonance in believing that other countries are fully metric. As I and others have explained repeatedly, there is literally no place on earth that is fully metric.

Your assertion is corroborated by USMA, the US Metric Association:

"Metric is used predominantly in the rest of the world, with the US being the only major holdout."

It's not a zero-self-awareness dumb that's saying that. It's a US-based institution.

So the US works daily to disrupt the desire of the whole world to have just one system of units, accuses the world of not being fully metric, without mentioning that the US themselves are precisely the root cause of that evil, and then claim to be metric because the inch is based on the meter.

I have no idea what you're babbling about. And you clearly had no idea what I'm talking about. So here it is again worded differently: NO COUNTRY IN THE WORLD IS 100% METRIC. Even the "fully" metric countries use non-metric stuff here and there. I provided examples in an earlier comment. (For example, automotive tires actually use a mix of metric and inches.)

This alone is reason enough to tell metric snobs to get off their high horses, since they themselves haven't eliminated non-metric.

Gimme a break!

Who are you trying to fool?

I may be dumb. But not that dumb.

Indeed, you're actually proving to be far dumber...


You see the world as being binary, everything falling neatly into right and wrong, and that's just not reality, man...