Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by hutzlibu 1151 days ago
And yet we claim to live in a science based society.

I mean, there are a million things, that do not need universal standards, but standards are imposed anyway.

But where one standard would be really helpful, like scientific values, we have many. And some people would rather go to prison, than adopt. (I think that happened in the UK, after they force switched to metric)

2 comments

Keep digging and all the imperial standards are just an arbitrary conversion from metric at this point.

1 ft = exactly 30.48 cm; One pound is exactly 0.45359237 kilograms as in 0.453592370000000000… kilograms.

Not only they might go to prison, they may risk values and lives of others, too:

https://usma.org/unit-mixups

Well in a general sense, yes, but the particular case I remember was a (fish?) seller at a local market, so nothing life endangering.