General > General Technical Chat
why is the US not Metric
KL27x:
--- Quote from: MT on December 10, 2019, 01:20:18 am ---This thread are prime example why standards cant be properly formulated and installed by multinational committees as everyone eventually will resort to pompousness and arrogance while feeling butthurt. :o
--- End quote ---
https://usma.org/laws-and-bills/metric-convention-of-1875
America is just as invested. This is interesting reading. The cost was supposed to be shared by all countries. They agreed to periodically check standards against each others for verification. In actuality, there are internationally owned prototypes, which all parties have access to. It's not just the meter and the liter. This includes thermometers, for instance. And to discuss potential ways to improve the way these standards are defined (for perhaps science and, say, the sake of consistency over millenia).
It's not a fluke that America redefined imperial units to metric rather than the other way around. Even when we're not using metric, we're on the same calibration. (Metric is the preferred units of international trade by law, as well as for government contracts).
There is even a 12 year advance notice period to request cancellation from the club. I suppose you forfeit up to 12 years of membership fees if you skip out early, lol. Your card will automatically be debited for an additional 144 monthly payments.
bsfeechannel:
--- Quote from: Cubdriver on December 09, 2019, 06:21:39 am ---Methinks one of us needs to work on our reading comprehension, because that is NOT what was said. He did not say that road signs COULDN'T be metric, he said that it doesn't matter what system they are in just as long as it is consistent.
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We are straining out gnats while swallowing camels. None of those issues will really answer the OP's question.
When people ask "Why is the US not metric?", the full question is "Why is the US not metric in opposition to the whole world?" If your answer is "Because it'll cost a fortune", this raises the question "Why can't the US afford to be metric when the whole world could?" You can say, because there's no perceived benefit. Then someone will ask "Why can't the US see benefit in metrication when the whole world did?" You may say, "Well, because the US is a country of continental dimensions, and people pretty much roam inside its borders, so there's no need to adopt metric to agree with other countries." Then that Socratic social gadfly that lives inside all of us will ask "Why does the US blame its continental dimensions for not being metric when all the other continentally-dimensioned countries are (including Australia that borders no other country)?"
Answers like that give rise to huge straw man arguments, which is what this thread essentially is.
KL27x:
^You spent time to write that? You basically ran out of things to say, but you're not done talking. Got it.
--- Quote from: boffin on December 09, 2019, 08:48:44 pm ---
--- Quote from: KL27x on December 09, 2019, 08:40:36 pm ---^So are you suggesting that changing to metric will fix this? Americans will have better healthcare because of meters? The cost will drop, infant mortality will drop, and life expectancy will increase?
Oh, you got dragged completely off topic by a looney bin? :-//
--- End quote ---
No, I'm using it as an example of
Some countries think they're #1 and hence don't have to change; vs
Other countries know they're not #1, but are willing to do things to improve
--- End quote ---
IOW, you consider America's use of imperial to indicate that we believe our healthcare is #1. Our country is #1. And we don't want to change because we're basically fascists that think we're better than everyone else.
But... you concede that changing to metric doesn't change any of this nor anything else of significance (considering any and all arguments, thus far). It's just a symptom that doesn't have any real consequences. So changing to metric will be an important symbolic move to show that Americans no longer feel like America is #1 in healthcare. And measuring things. And w/e you imagine the real problem is?
Do you think Swedes thought their country is #1? Is that why they didn't want to change sides of the road? They thought they were the best country in the world, and they were better than everyone else? Do you think they secretly thought their method was the best? It surely had advantages and disadvantages. But do you think they ever thought that if they held out, eventually the entire rest of the world would come around and start driving right hand cars on the left side of the road, because they are so superior and "#1 country?" Or did it have anything at all to do with the fact they ALWAYS drove that way since the beginning of time? Including 5 minutes ago, when they drove home from work for the 1,000th time.
If it's for a symbolic move, I just don't see it having any effect. Our world and its people are way too sophisticated, today, for this to matter. It would be nothing but a joke. Just watch the decimal dollar jingle of Australia and imagine that passing for America's international public relations focus. Or footnote. Or Saturday Night Live skit for weeks.
What kind of message would this send? I don't even think America is necessarily the freeist country in the world. But America is part of the stabilizing force that maintains this status quo. What enables people to work and feel like they will one day enjoy any fruits of their labor, because there is stability in the world. But you want the poster child in this ideology of "western freedom" to force its citizens to change road signs against popular will. Just lookie here at this sweet freedom and democracy!
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I noticed in the Australian change of road signs video that I linked, and comparing that to my memories of the Bourne Identity chase scenes, it seems like a lot of the EU and/or metric countries use a similar speed limit sign with a red circle around a black number. You'd think the measuring system of science (and of horrendous 4-syllable unit names but great abbreviations in print) would also display the units on the sign as a mark of the new sanity. :-\
Moshly:
--- Quote from: KL27x on December 10, 2019, 05:30:12 am ---I noticed in the Australian change of road signs video that I linked, and comparing that to my memories of the Bourne Identity chase scenes, it seems like a lot of the EU and/or metric countries use a similar speed limit sign with a red circle around a black number. You'd think the measuring system of science (and of horrendous 4-syllable unit names but great abbreviations in print) would also display the units on the sign as a mark of the new sanity. :-\
--- End quote ---
You need to ask the designer ->
Tepe:
--- Quote from: KL27x on December 10, 2019, 05:30:12 am ---I noticed in the Australian change of road signs video that I linked, and comparing that to my memories of the Bourne Identity chase scenes, it seems like a lot of the EU and/or metric countries use a similar speed limit sign with a red circle around a black number. You'd think the measuring system of science (and of horrendous 4-syllable unit names but great abbreviations in print) would also display the units on the sign as a mark of the new sanity. :-\
--- End quote ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Road_Signs_and_Signals
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vergleich_europäischer_Verkehrszeichen
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