[ajkjk]

It's so silly to use statues of liberty as a metric when nobody really knows how tall it is either (famously it's a lot smaller than people expect).

[Tempest1981]

Helpful but pointless metrics:

1 Statue of Liberty (including foundation) is roughly 1 American football field (excluding end zones)

1 Eiffel Tower is around 3 Statues of Liberty (each with foundation)... which is almost 1600 bananas

[mooreds]

Wow, so the deepest well is about 27k bananas deep. Amazing!

[pwython]

I'm actually shocked how big the Eiffel Tower is.

https://www.size-explorer.com/en/compare/buildings/eiffel+to...

[daemonologist]

It was the tallest freestanding structure in France from 1889 to 2004 (when it was surpassed by one of the pillars of the Millau Viaduct; it's still the second-tallest). Must have been absolutely mind blowing at ~312m when it was new - the record was around 150m for centuries before it.

[daedrdev]

Football fields, despite being a meme, are very easy for Americans to visualize

[defrost]

Internationally ambiguous though, the world at large equates football with FIFA and Australians picture something much larger with more foot to ellipsoid than a tiny US handegg court.

[rascul]

Canadian football fields are bigger

[_DeadFred_]

I'll have you know my Canadian friends have told me it's OK, American football fields are average sized (definitely not less than average).

[checkyoursudo]

One statue of liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World, Liberty Island, NYC) is approximately 4 times the size of one statue of liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World replica, Île aux Cygnes, Paris).

Easy peasy.

[rplnt]

The idea is you assume it with the base while they only used the statue itself, making whatever they are measuring look more impressive.

[thaumasiotes]

I think the idea is that nobody has any sense, even a very rough one, of how tall the Statue of Liberty might be. It's not like you ever see it in person, and if you did most of it would be in perspective, which ruins your chances of determining its size.

Most people have enough trouble believing that their foot is the same length as their forearm. You never see your feet close up, either.

[3eb7988a1663]

Whelp, I just had to put my foot onto my arm, so point made.

[catlifeonmars]

AU would have been the most universal measurement.

[lostlogin]

Metric? That unit of measure must surely be imperial?

[ajkjk]

Surely

[adrianmonk]

It's probably done because Statues of Liberty is the ultimate "freedom unit".