How about, "What's the compelling reason?" Let's hear a dollars and cents argument for how investing in further metrication will pay off.
If you aren't familiar with metre/meters and so on...
- Thread starter JesterFace
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The Republicans control the House, they wouldn't be for it. Democrats control the Senate, they'd be afraid of being associated with Carter. Not happening anytime soon.
Well I found this article (true it is somewhat old)
http://www.nist.gov/pml/wmd/metric/upload/1136a.pdf
One of the big reasons would seem to be international trade.
And what about the counter argument a dollars and cents arguent for how not investigating in further metrification will pay off?
Yeah, that doesn't cite any figures, and the info in it is getting close to 20 years old now. Companies and government don't want to invest in a movement that will collapse out from under them like the last push in the late 1970s did. In theory it sounds warm and fuzzy (no duplicate products, compatibility with the rest of the world, etc.) but what is the actual cost?
This "counterargument" is DOA, because it provides no rationale for investing. Investing has to lead to greater return than doing nothing, otherwise why invest at all. There are plenty of places for people to put their money and get a good return. Metrication has to at least equal that demonstrably, otherwise it won't happen.
Much of this comes down to East vs. West. In the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, countries that were loosening themselves from imperial powers faced issues of what measures to adopt that would best suit them. Although many would have preferred standardizing traditional measurements that had been replaced by imperial or metric, the process would have taken too long. The metric system at least had the benefit of being abstract. However, most wanted to distance themselves from the US and UK, the two powers that opposed decolonization on the grounds that it abetted the spread of communism. Adopting the metric system was seen as a way of protecting themselves the commercial power of those countries by making their goods less compatible with native markets. Doing so would also strengthen ties with other commercial powers, some established (Netherlands, Switzerland, and Germany), other up and coming (India). Even in former French colonies, it was considered better to distance the new nation from the US and UK rather than punish France for the past. The big player was the Soviet Union, which played a supporting role in some independence movements and was, at the time, often lauded as an opponent of imperialism. Because of the ideological issues related to trade, American politicians were ambivalent about promoting the metric system: it was "giving in," in a sense, without regard to the "measurement gap."
^ That's very interesting. I'd never heard that point of view on the subject.
I'm all for the government encouraging a change to metric, placing metric distance on public roads and teaching metric in public schools, I just think it'd be horrible to penalize individuals for refusing to go along.
The fact that a government is elected by a majority* rather than inherited doesn't mean they have sovereign powers to control people's personal lives. Majoritarianism is just another form of dictatorship. The role of the government is to protect and to facilitate, not to control. Whether or not the corner deli lists its prices in pounds or kilograms should not be within the scope of government power.
*Plurality of electorates among candidates determined by a system dominated by a handful of very wealthy people.
The fact that a government is elected by a majority* rather than inherited doesn't mean they have sovereign powers to control people's personal lives. Majoritarianism is just another form of dictatorship. The role of the government is to protect and to facilitate, not to control. Whether or not the corner deli lists its prices in pounds or kilograms should not be within the scope of government power.
*Plurality of electorates among candidates determined by a system dominated by a handful of very wealthy people.
^There's nothing about it to make it generally interesting, just an aside of the Cold War. I only know about from studying France's relations with its former colonies and the promotion of French culture as a means of reestablishing a leading role in the Francophonie.
Pick your battles. I hardly think standardizing units is "controlling people's personal lives." Perhaps some roads should be posted in Smoots, just so that the locals don't feel "controlled." Then when you're tagged for speeding, you better not complain that your instruments aren't metered in Smoots, or you'll be accused of oppressing the locals.
Yeah, but still, even if it's just another brick in the wall, so to speak, I think it's interesting.
Not really, American companies exporting product can easily place their product in any size container require, and print out whatever label is needed for eventual foreign entry.
Changing America's measurement system isn't required for this to take place.
If Britain suddenly decided that all imports had to have their weights marked in stones, America would accommodate them, but we wouldn't have to change our own measures to stones.
Then there's always the kelvin scale (I forget what its basis is). Hardly of much use to us land-locked Earthers, but it's better than saying the sun is a thousand, million, billion degrees!
The Kelvin scale uses the same gradations as Celsius, but the zero point is absolute zero. Water freezes at 273°K and boils at 373°K.
I do have to wonder, is there a reason the writers on Star Trek made a point of everything being in Metric? Was it supposed to be a comment about everyone in the future using a common standard, or is there another reason?
I mean, TOS usually didn't. It seems to have become something the writers only started doing, when, maybe in the movies? Certainly TNG always worked on the assumption of the Metric system being standard by Star Trek's time.
It's a bit like common currencies. One might assume that the Ferengi trade exclusively in Gold Pressed Latinum both on Ferenginar and off-world, but for all we know (and logic dictates such) one would assume that like any complex planet with a commerce based system different places must have different currencies, otherwise the entire thing is meaningless. So GPL is probably only like an 'international standard' or something. I just don't see how the common market works on a galactic scale.
And one would therefore assume different cultures have different measurements ('kellicams' etc), maybe even Earth in Trek's time still has differences and divisions in measurements and the like between different countries "on world" which don't apply "off world". Maybe that's why the likes of Kirk sometimes use Imperial. It's because America might still be Imperial even in the 23rd/24th centuries?
I mean, TOS usually didn't. It seems to have become something the writers only started doing, when, maybe in the movies? Certainly TNG always worked on the assumption of the Metric system being standard by Star Trek's time.
It's a bit like common currencies. One might assume that the Ferengi trade exclusively in Gold Pressed Latinum both on Ferenginar and off-world, but for all we know (and logic dictates such) one would assume that like any complex planet with a commerce based system different places must have different currencies, otherwise the entire thing is meaningless. So GPL is probably only like an 'international standard' or something. I just don't see how the common market works on a galactic scale.
And one would therefore assume different cultures have different measurements ('kellicams' etc), maybe even Earth in Trek's time still has differences and divisions in measurements and the like between different countries "on world" which don't apply "off world". Maybe that's why the likes of Kirk sometimes use Imperial. It's because America might still be Imperial even in the 23rd/24th centuries?
I think I've already said the US would go down the UK route and have a hybrid system. Road signs in the UK are still Imperial and aren't going to change any time soon.
So you buy loose fruit and veg buy the kilo
Petrol and Diesel by the litre
Bottles of water/pop are sold by the ml/litre
Wine and spirits by the cl
Beer by the ml/litre
Tins of food are sold by the gram ie. 400g
Tempature is given in celsius
I'd like to point out the unit is called "Kelvin", not "degree Kelvin". So it's written 273K, not 273°K, and pronounced "273 Kelvin"
Eh, now we're going around in circles. Strictly speaking, we already have a hybrid system, as it is. Everybody knows what a two-liter Coke bottle is. There's just no compelling economic reason to change the way we do certain things at the consumer level, such as how we sell gasoline and tell temperature, in addition to other things we've discussed.
However, most thermometers these days, whether analog or electronic, have both scales on them, though for electronic devices such as thermostats you may need to look in the installation manual to find how to to switch to Celsius (I had to do that for my partner, because she's always spoken Celsius; it required moving a DIP switch on a chip under the cover and then restarting).
It's hard to see how there will be a compelling reason in the future, either, for additional change. Canada to our north sells gasoline by the liter (litre) and tells temperature in Celsius, and I'd have to look up how they do it in Mexico, but in any case that doesn't exert any economic pressure on the US to change whatsoever, at the consumer level. I can make the conversion effortlessly, because I'm used to it and I don't get hung up about such things (I do at home every day!), but evidently I'm in the minority.
Perhaps the next mass-market automotive fuel that comes online will be sold in metric units. That's certainly a possibility.
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