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Why do people who try to convince others to switch to metric focus so much on the conversions? (herbicide.fallcounty.omg.lol)
submitted 9 months ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
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It seems like a weird point to bring up. How often do y'all convert your measurements? It's not even a daily thing. If I'm measuring something, I either do it in inches, or feet, rarely yards. I've never once had to convert feet into miles, and I can't imagine I'm unique in this. When I have needed to, it's usually converting down (I.e. 1/3 of a foot), which imperial does handle better in more cases.

Like. I don't care if we switch, I do mostly use metric personally, it just seems like a weird point to be the most common pro-metric argument when it's also the one I'm least convinced by due to how metric is based off of base 10 numbering, which has so many problems with it.

Edit: After reading/responding a lot in the comments, it does seem like there's a fundamental difference in how distance is viewed in metric/imperial countries. I can't quite put my finger on how, but it seems the difference is bigger than 1 mile = 1.6km

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[–] 10 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I put this as part of a response to another user. But since it also answers the main question of this post I'll repeat it here:

Because it's not only better for me, but it's also better for you.

It doesn't matter if I tell you a distance in meters or kilometers, you only have to remember what that means in feet so you can convert it to whatever imperial distance you want. Just multiply/divide by 1000 afterwards by moving the decimal point. If 53 meters is 863 yards, 53 kilometers is 863000 yards.

However, it does matter what unit you choose to communicate with me. I know that 1 inch is about 25.4mm/2.5cm, but if I'm unlucky and you decide to say it in feet, I'm going to need to Google the conversion.

I don't care what units you used for yourself, as you shouldn't care what units I use for myself. However, if we have to communicate, we should both be as helpful as we can so we can communicate as easily and effectively as possible. Communicating with someone using imperial is a pain in the ass, while communicating with someone using metric is as easy as it gets. The only thing easier than metric is scientific notation, since with that you don't even need to remember what the metric prefixes mean. However scientific notation is only easily written, not spoken. Speaking in scientific notation is a pain in the ass.

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  • [–] [S] 0 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    I do know the conversions, at least roughly enough to get the point. I will, however, point out that this same argument applies both directions. That usually results in a pidgin when it comes to language, which would be quite funny, but not very practical in this case.

    Communicating with someone in metric if you already know metric is easy. The process of pulling up a calculator is the same regardless which direction you're going from, since converting 55" to 1.375m isn't something that most people are gonna be able to do in their heads

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  • [–] 7 points 9 months ago*

    That is in fact incorrect. And the reason is in that other comment. To make a summary of that other comment:

    If an only-metric guy wanted to communicate with an only-imperial one, each would need a table of conversions. For a basic use case, the metric cheat sheet would only need 8 entries, while the imperial one 10. That is, you need to memorize less "magic number"s for metric than for imperial. Furthermore, 5 of those entries in the metric cheat sheet are: 1000, 1000, 1/10, 1/100, 1/1000, which are obviously easy. So the real difference would be more like 3 entries to 10.

    Of course, any kind of real measurement you will need a calculator. But that is reality for any unit conversion across systems. The difference is that you only need to remember 3 numbers to convert to/from metric, but you need 10 to convert to/from imperial.

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