United States of America VS the Metric System
What do we have against the metric system? Can anyone tell me why the good old US of A hates the metric system so much that it stands practically against the world in it’s single minded “We’re Number One” mantra? We stand alone with Myanmar (Burma) and Liberia. This doesn’t bode well in the US’s current stance in about any world wide political situation. I mean, when an argument could be won by almost any country by saying something school-ground childish around the lines of “well, we use the metric system, what do you use?” I think it becomes time to reconsider your standing point on the issue.
Most people (except Americans, Liberians and Burmese) would agree that the metric system is much more useful and makes a lot more sense than a system that relies on body parts (length measurements such as feet and yards) and old fashioned carrying devices (peck, quart, pint). If you don’t believe me that we stand alone in this war against reason, here is a pretty picture in which the red countries are the countries who do not use the metric system. Bottom line is, the metric system makes more sense, period.
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What we have against the metric system is that it is inferior, for daily use, to the US standard system.
Sure, you can convert units easily in it…but real people almost never need to do that. That’s the job of soulless bureaucrats, tallying their statistics in order to decide what to force people to do “for their own good”.
But, in real life, what people need is for units to be as close to a convenient size as possible.
Naturally evolving systems of measure are far superior, in that way, to the “objective” units of measure that, by definition, avoid being adjusted to anything useful or convenient.
And the US system is even superior, mathematically. It is not decimal, an awkward means of breaking down units, but binary. Binary is not only the most advanced and objective numeric system, but also guarantees that you can find a unit closest to what you need.
Not only is one cup pretty much the best cooking size, but you can keep cutting it in half (the very next step down that divides evenly) until you find a unit that’s perfect, or doubling it (the next step up that is a multiple) until you do the same.
It’s far easier to increase your recipe by half, by increasing a cup to a cup and a half, than to multiply 236 milliliters (one cup) by 150%.
October 29th, 2008 at 7:38 pm