Remember Go Paperless?
(media.greatawakening.win)
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Where’s Gen X? Y’all remember the poster with the Earth in the middle with the “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” slogan?
Edit: Also Gen X. Government said “y’all are going to learn the metric system” and the teachers said - fvck that.
The USA was supposed to be fully metric by 1986. It seems like no one tried to make this conversion.
Don't be so sure. If industry wants to sell to the rest of the world, metric compatibility will be a necessity. In the late 1970s, we were dual-dimensioning military hardware in English and metric. There was no problem doing so. Most medical technology has long been in metric units.
If you have to deal with serious science, and go across the fields of mechanics, electricity, and chemistry, metric units are the way to go. You don't have to deal with awkward things like British Thermal Units, horsepower, and pounds meaning either/both mass and force.
There is a lot of utility in being familiar with the metric system. Objecting to learning it is just a defense of ignorance.
Only 3 countries in the world still use the 'imperial' system. Liberia, Myanmar and the United States. Probably good for tool makers, etc, as you have to buy both metric and standard imperial sizes.
It might be an ignorant defense, but I would not call it a defense of ignorance. Resistance to Metric is better described as defense of the familiar and avoidance of sudden disorientation.
Even in some countries that have converted to metric I notice that Imperial units maintain a hold in personal measurements. Canadians remember their weight in pounds and their height in feet and inches. A six foot two man is immediately recognized as tall and, outside of official documentation, is described 6'2", not as 188 cm. Some Brits will give you their weight in stones, of all things.
Two additional advantages of the metric system: i) it is uniformly power-of-10 based. ii) All units are connected to seven irreducible base units. ... SI is a clean-slate system of the organized mind. I believe science would not have progressed nearly as rapidly without it.
That said, astronomers still measure distances in parsecs, and communicate to the general public in light-years; both are tied to SI but are not strictly SI. Scientists too like sticking to familiar units of measurement.
My only point is that the rest of the technological world uses metric units and we have no choice but to master them if we want to sell products that integrate into that world. Go to any other country and find that they use meters, centimeters, millimeters, kilometers, kilograms, grams, and liters...with no conversion into English units. Simple prudence dictates the utility of being "numerate" in metric, if you want to travel the world.
Besides, there is little difference. A liter is nearly equal to a quart. A yard is 9/10ths of a meter. A kilogram is 2.2 pounds-mass. Etc. It only amounts to a handful of simple arithmetic conversions. It is not a big deal. And, as I mentioned, many of our accepted product areas (e.g., medicine and photography) are already established in metric measure. (And, besides, did you know there are two English systems of units? There is the system where force is measured in pounds and mass is measured in slugs. Or the system where mass is measured in pounds and force is measured in poundals. That is one hell of a headache. Along with BTUs and horsepower. I've done engineering in all these systems, and use metric by preference for the sake of simplicity and reduction of confusion.)
Astronomers measure distances in parsecs (parallax-seconds) only in conversation with other astronomers, for which the unit has some functional significance. Otherwise, they use lightyears...and I've read plenty of literature to testify to this. But lightyears have either metric or English measures. They also use Astronomical Units, which is a special measure, having no relation to either system, though they are defined in both systems.
What’s “metric”?
Just a fad. It's on its way out.
Yeah, just 98.5% of the world's countries use it.
I laughed at it then. Lol
If anyone did drugs or still does, you know the metric system
"Earth in the Middle"... good one!