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Should the U.S. convert to the Metric System?


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This debate is still around? I remember this from the 70s. Forget it, mate. The U.S. is too entrenched in our less efficient--yet oddly comfortable--system. Although who of us wouldn't love to say our eight inch c*ks are 20.3 cm? Twenty-plus just seems so much more imposing. :)

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When I was in the Army Field Artillery, we used metric for everything. Mils instead of degrees, meters and kilometers instead of yards and miles. I didn't mind it at all.

Of course in Germany, my favorite sign on the autobahn had no number at all:

10473?$detail$

what were the prerequisites back then to join army?

mutton chops?

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Well..

Would be nice to see you guys jump on board.

It's not too threatening, we still use the term mileage when it comes to car performance.

Is the U.S. the only non-metric country?

Liberia, Myanmar, and the United States.

The US, Liberia and Myanmar do not use the Metric system... and the UK still uses Yards and Miles in some cases...

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you realy do live on another planet.

the main reason for not switching is not "it aint broke" but "we are too fat and too lazy"

We are too fat to switch to metric? Don't know that i get that argument.

If you think about it, it is a huge undertaking in cost and time to switch. Think about all the roads that are measured in miles, changing out all those signs would be a pain in the ass. All the manufacturing industry in this country would need to retool, and that is just an expense nobody needs right now.

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you realy do live on another planet.

the main reason for not switching is not "it aint broke" but "we are too fat and too lazy"

You have no idea how much it would massively complicate the home improvement industry. Say for instance you have a fire in your kitchen, and I have to come in and tear it down to studs. Well the framing in your house is all laid out for 4'X8' drywall, but now all the drywall is 120cmX60cm and it's never going to lay out right. So either the home improvement stores will have to carry both types or I'm going to have to adjust the framing or the drywall (at an additional cost). I could probably come up with 100 other similar scenarios if I needed to, but I think you get the point. There's really nothing to gain by it.

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From Sept 1999

(CNN) -- NASA lost a $125 million Mars orbiter because a Lockheed Martin engineering team used English units of measurement while the agency's team used the more conventional metric system for a key spacecraft operation, according to a review finding released Thursday.

The units mismatch prevented navigation information from transferring between the Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft team in at Lockheed Martin in Denver and the flight team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

I see the point with construction, but they can get past it. Metric really is a more intelligent system of measurement, and it "connects" measures like volume/length/mass using ideas like the density of water...whereas the English system is completely arbitrary.

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You have no idea how much it would massively complicate the home improvement industry. Say for instance you have a fire in your kitchen, and I have to come in and tear it down to studs. Well the framing in your house is all laid out for 4'X8' drywall, but now all the drywall is 120cmX60cm and it's never going to lay out right. So either the home improvement stores will have to carry both types or I'm going to have to adjust the framing or the drywall (at an additional cost). I could probably come up with 100 other similar scenarios if I needed to, but I think you get the point. There's really nothing to gain by it.

we define our inches in exactly 2.54 cm. so get a 10.16cmX20.32cm drywall

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From Sept 1999

(CNN) -- NASA lost a $125 million Mars orbiter because a Lockheed Martin engineering team used English units of measurement while the agency's team used the more conventional metric system for a key spacecraft operation, according to a review finding released Thursday.

The units mismatch prevented navigation information from transferring between the Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft team in at Lockheed Martin in Denver and the flight team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

I see the point with construction, but they can get past it. Metric really is a more intelligent system of measurement, and it "connects" measures like volume/length/mass using ideas like the density of water...whereas the English system is completely arbitrary.

great example jerry

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Now...I dont' want to take this discussion the wrong direction....

But do all of you "pro metric" people know just what group is most likely to propose this in Washington, and who would cry foul? I'm worried some of you are being naughty and don't realize it.

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