|
|
|
|
|
|
by xlayn
3606 days ago
|
|
|
Maybe can be re-framed as how much has been lost? If the change is performed, the time gained by absolutely everyone making use of more saner unit system could offset the cost? maybe just by avoiding errors? This are ideas that has to be transformed in order to be shared with mostly everyone else. Shameful confession, I do use pounds for weight. |
|
|
The general idea in most of these arguments is that "more sane" is a very hard thing to define. There are cases for which metric is more useful. There are cases where it's less useful. Yet the argument is almost never actually made that way; metric tends to be presented as an ideally perfect system not susceptible to even the most trifling criticism, and any case presented in which it's disadvantageous compared to an alternative is dismissed with an ad hominem attack implying the person making the case is just too much of a stupid American to grasp the heavenly best-in-all-possible-cases-for-all-people perfection of metric.
Truth is it's an arbitrary system optimized for a particular set of use cases. The traditional-ish units used in the US are a different arbitrary system, optimized for a different particular set of use cases.