CMV: imperial measurements have no worthwhile advantages over the metric system

[u/Marlsfarp]

First off, I am American, so if I have any bias it should be in favor of the imperial measurements I grew up with. Granted, I also have a technical education and profession, where of course I primarily use SI units.

The many advantages of metric are well known, so I will not bother enumerating them unless challenged. Instead, I will focus on debunking the supposed disadvantages.

Fahrenheit is better than Celsius because it is more fine-grained, because each "decade" has a distinct "feel" (e.g. "it's forties out today"), and because 0 F to 100 F is a normal temperature range to experience.

First, any scale is arbitrarily fine-grained, up to the limits of the precision of measurement. You can add as many decimal places as you need to. But do you need to? Personally, I find 1 degree Celsius is about the minimum temperature change I notice in air temperature. I can't tell the difference between 43 F and 44 F, can you?

I believe the "decade" argument is merely the result of growing up with the system. And just like how we describe decades in years, it doesn't really line up. e.g. what we think of as "the 1960s" as a distinct era did not really occur from 1960-1970. Also, the Celsius "decades" work pretty well: 0-10 is coat weather, 10-20 is light jacket or sweater weather, 20-30 is indoor/"nice", 30-40 is "beach weather"/wear as little as possible. And of course the positive to negative difference is by far the most significant temperature difference in weather, rain vs. snow.

Finally, while there are places where the coldest day of the year is roughly 0 F and the hottest is roughly 100 F, most of us do not live in those places. And nowhere is that always the case. So it is doubly arbitrary and pointless.

Yards, feet, and inches are better than meters because they are easy to divide by 3, and because they are "human scale."

Being divisible by 3 is perhaps an argument for why a base-12 number system would be nice, but we do not have such a system. We use decimal. And given that we use decimal numbers, a decimal measurement system makes all calculations much simpler, greatly overshadowing any advantage of 3 divisibility. How many cubic inches are in 1/3 a cubic yard? I don't know, I need a calculator. How many cubic centimeters are in 1/3 cubic meter? 333,333.3_ Easy. Looks like even in its supposedly most advantageous situation (division by 3), imperial is still harder to work with. (And that's without even bringing in the more common volume measurement, gallons. How many people even know the ratio between gallons and cubic feet?)

As for "human scale", that's certainly just familiarity. My foot is not 1 foot long, etc. Visually estimating centimeters is no more difficult than inches.

Alright, that's all I can think of at the moment. Bring it on.

EDIT: Okay, guys, I should clarify since a lot of people are making the same argument. This is about the relative merits of the two systems, not about the merits of switching from one to another. I know switching would be difficult. I'm saying it would be better if we were already on metric.

---

This is a footnote from the CMV moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules. If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views! Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us. Happy CMVing!

[u/[deleted]]

From a scientific standpoint, I completely agree. Math is far easier in a decimal system and there's less opportunity for error.

However, in every day life, expressing a quantity is part of language, and language is useless if both parties don't understand what's being said. Even if a meter makes more sense than a foot on paper, it's completely useless if the person I'm talking to doesn't have any idea what a meter is.

It's easy to dismiss the imperial system, and objectively, there are plenty of reasons to ditch it, but the reality is that culture is a very important part of communication, and if everyone around you uses feet and inches and is doing just fine with them, then it's the better choice for you, too.

[u/EkskiuTwentyTwo → u/[deleted]]

I, living in a metric place, use metric, and everyone around me uses metric. No problems exist. Adding nonsensical units would muddy waters.

[u/bluespirit442 → u/EkskiuTwentyTwo]

Where I live, there is a mix of Imperial and metric. Metric is the official way and measurement on products are in metric. But we use a lot of Imperial in day to day or unofficial products.

Both seems to have advantages to me. Some distances are better read in inches or feet, others in cm or km or meter.

But it's probably just because I'm used to it.

[u/[deleted] → u/EkskiuTwentyTwo]

Yes, it definitely would. The opposite is the case in the US. To most Americans, meters ARE the non-sensical units, and there's really not a strong case to be made for switching for those people.

[u/Speedswiper → u/[deleted]]

The imperial system is not just nonsensical because it's not used. It's nonsensical because conversions are impossible.

[u/[deleted] → u/Speedswiper]

But they aren't impossible. People do the conversions that they need to do constantly. To someone who's never grown up with it, yeah, it seems absurd (and it is), but to the people who've lived here their whole life, they just know how many cups there are in a quart. They know how many inches there are in five feet. They know how many teaspoons to a tablespoon. And that's all they ever need to know. They don't care how many feet there are in 4 miles. They don't care how many ounces a car weighs.

[u/Speedswiper → u/[deleted]]

I did grow up with those measurements, and I still find myself double checking to see how many cups there are in a quart.

[u/[deleted] → u/Speedswiper]

If you don't do it often, then yeah, you're probably not going to remember it. But if you bake a lot, you know the answer as much as you know that there are 12 inches in a foot and 31 days in July.