Why does USA America refuse to adopt the metric system?

Question

In_Trance · Accepted Answer

Americans are idiots.  Water freezes at 32 and boils at 212... Makes no sense to freeze at 0 and boil at 100 right?  Fkn dumbasses

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

Because a 7” dick sounds better than a 245 cm dick every day.

abc3643 · Answer

Well, cost primarily.

That said, we haven't exactly refused to adopt the metric system.

For instance, the metric system was invented after the French Revolution, yet pretty much the entire field of electromagnetism was developed after that and mostly in Europe. So, now, we all are "using metric" whenever we talk about anything related to electricity. Watts, Volts, Amps, etc. All metric.

In the 1980s, there was also a shift in the beverage industry to switch to metric. For the most part, we did that and one reason, I suspect, was that plastic bottles became commonplace. Before the 1980s, we usually bought soda in glass bottles with soda sold in 12-oz and 32-oz bottles. When the 2-liter plastic bdaottle came along, that changed a great deal... and Americans became diabetics.

For some things, there's just no need to go to metric. For instance, temperature in weather reports is easier with Fahrenheit because a 1-deg F difference in temperature is only 5/9ths the size of 1-deg C difference in temperature. In other words, the finer gradation gives a better sense of what it is. The specific values aren't that important and aren't that intuitive. 0 deg C is great for indicating freezing, but 100 deg C is not experienced by people. However, the span of 0 deg F to 100 deg F pretty well in everyone's experience over the course of a year.

A similar discussion can be made about mass. The pound is a finer gradation than the kilogram since there are about 9 pounds in 4 kg.

As for linear and areal measure, yeah, we could go to metric and maybe we should.

However, I do not like the hectare and think it is a terrible and misleading unit.

In metric, the fundamental unit of area is the "are" (abbreviated as "a") which is the area inside a square whose edge is 1 meter long. But, the metric prefix "hecto-" means multiply by 100, so you'd think 1 hectare = 1 "ha" = 100 are = 100 a. But NOOOOO... That's not the case. 1 hectare is the amount of area inside a square whose edge is 100 m or 1 hectometer (hm). Furthermore, there are 100 hectares in 1 square kilometer. That's sort of inconsistent and makes it as worthless as English units like acre.

And, again, the acre is a finer gradation than the hectare. There are about 2.5 acres in 1 hectare.

Since the acre is connected to the square mile by this: 640 acres in 1 square mile and land property measurements have been in acres for hundreds of years, there's no real benefit to changing.

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Think of all of this as like infrastructure.

Changing basic infrastructure is very expensive and time-consuming. Look at how we are doing that right now with EVs.

From a cost-benefit perspective, you change infrastructure only if the benefits are worth the costs. In the beverage industry, it definitely was; the shift from glass to plastic saved money on manufacturing and transportation costs AND permitted offering a wider variety of sizes, so switching to metric wasn't that cumbersome.

However, if you had to switch all the road signs and mile markers in the US from miles to km, that would be expensive. In far north upstate NY, they use both because of Canadian truckers, but once far enough south, they didn't bother using both. The signage in the far north is a benefit and a neighborly thing to do to help with our visiting Canadian neighbors.

Meanwhile, if you think about it, many of our technology is already in metric. Part of this is driven by "the literature" - scientific papers which always use metric - and then that science transitions to engineering and industry.

Here's an example. About 100 years ago, during the early days of radio and TV, it was common to say a frequency of a signal was in "megacycles per second" or "kilocycles per second", but that shifted to hertz (Hz) once the metric system officially defined the hertz be made 1 cycle per second by the IEC in 1935 and CGPM (the metric people) in 1960. Hertz or hz certainly was easier to write and say than cycles per second.

Now, in computers, when we talk about memory or CPU clock speed, we use metric prefixes. Why? More like, why not? This was a new industry born after metric became the standard in science, so, as computer science got off the ground, it was only natural (like with any science) to use metric prefixing for units.

So, the bottom line isn't so much that we refused to adopt the metric system. It's more like we didn't adopt it if we didn't need to; if it wasn't going to improve our lives much if we did... that it wasn't worth it from the cost-benefit analysis perspective. When an industry is new, it's easy to adopt.

blueonblack22 · Answer

It’s been discussed about converting to the metric system since the Jimmy Carter administration. I agree it’s stupid but when it’s so immeshed into our culture it’s not easy to give up on the imperial system overnight. And the imperial measurement system was invented by the British not Americans. There shouldn’t be a “national pride” about it either.

I do know Canada moved over to the metric system but there was a transition period where speed limits, goods, etc were labels in both imperial and metric system. You would see a speed limit sign that would say 45 mph / 70 kilometers per hour.

The USA could do this transition system and it needs to be over at least a 5 year time period for people to adjust.

andreasderjuengere · Answer

Once they figure out that their dick now shows a length of 15 or so units,

they will gladly convert :D

They did it with their money system already. No one pays -as an example-

''5 Dollars and 11/64'' for one piece of something.

I prefer them to be different from me, though.

RebelinSteel · Answer

It is strange that they have not changed, I would have thought as soon as Metric became an option, the Americans would have stopped using the British Imperial system. Also the system used is the old imperial system not even the renewed British version from about 1820, they use the old Queen Ann Imperial system for volume. The Queen Anne system is based on Wine barrels, the British on 10 pounds of water at around 16c. This means British and Commonwealth pints are larger than US pints.

It is really bizarre that they are happy to have a British Imperial system, maybe deep down they did not want to sever all links 🙄 lol

Kelley1 · Answer

It has been adopted but people don't use it. When manufacturers attempt to sell merchandise using metrics, they lose sales to manufacturers selling using the English system.

I know how to get Americans to use and by merchandise using the metric system but Congress is not as smart as I am.

exitseven · Answer

The real question is why is the rest of the world clinging to the metric system? When are they going to use the standard system.>? It is really annoying because a lot of things have a standard measuring system and also random metric bolts.

NaultD · Answer

The founding fathers order a set of metric standards to set up the process but the boat sank so it never got set up.

At this point it would take years to fully transition into and small miscalculation in converting will cost honestly people's lifes, time and money.

SweetDripp · Answer

The metric system makes more sense, but having grown up using the Imperial system, it's not like my life has been any more difficult because I think of distance in terms of inches, feet and miles rather than centimeters, meters and kilometers. The difficulty lies in convincing 300 million people to do away with a system of measurement which has become intuitive to them in favor of one that seems foreign but is more logically developed.

Stetson · Answer

It's not needed, and there are issues that actually matter

purplepoppy · Answer

It's not in the constitution or the bible so they don't want it.

avery58 · Answer

We like to think we're special

NathanDavis · Answer

it makes us smarter...

Pterodon · Answer

Because 300 million AMERICANS don’t want it

dustybiker2 · Answer

People fear change.

Why does USA America refuse to adopt the metric system?

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