
Make the Metric system the standard in the United States - ovechtrick
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/make-metric-system-standard-united-states-instead-imperial-system/FndsKXLh
======
veidr
It's obviously a great idea, and obviously (to Americans) unlikely to happen
in the lifetime of anybody reading this forum.

Does anybody else from America remember being taught the metric system in
public elementary school, and being told that we'd be switching to it over the
next few years? I was taught this around second grade (1981), I think based on
the Metric Conversion Act of 1975
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_Conversion_Act>), which was not just
signed by some random interweb tubers -- it was signed into law by the
president. But IIRC, it was a toothless and impotent piece of legislation that
was effectively stymied by the US auto industry.

P.S. Amusing visual evidence that the US system sucks:

[http://cdn.zmescience.com/wp-
content/uploads/2011/03/metric-...](http://cdn.zmescience.com/wp-
content/uploads/2011/03/metric-system-1024x450.png)

~~~
smackfu
Amusing visual evidence that speaking English sucks:
<http://cnrsociety.org/images/English-Official_Map-s.png>

~~~
bjustin
>1/6 is a rather sizable fraction of the world's population (India itself is
~1/6 or 1/7 at over a billion people). Are there any other languages that are
official for so many people?

The metric system graphic indicates <1/6 of the world's population highlighted
as not using the metric system, making gp's point stronger.

~~~
funkaster
> Are there any other languages that are official for so many people?

Yes, Chinese for one. And Spanish closely follows English[1]

[1]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_numb...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_number_of_speakers)

------
krschultz
Most of the comments in this thread are talking about the units for personal
height, weight, local road signs or for the weather forecast. Those are by far
the _least_ important things to be worried about. All of those things are
local and there is no carrying cost for them. There would be a cost to change
all those signs and forecasts - for no real gain.

However, dimensions of physical goods are a constant recurring cost to the
economy. Anything that crosses the borders for trade (all resources
mined/farmed, everything manufactured) has to be dealt with in both sets of
units. There is massive redundancy in fasteners, components, scales,
paperwork, etc. It requires companies to keep two sets of tools (and not just
wrenches, also drills, taps, dies, cutters, etc).

~~~
JoeAltmaier
THe 'sets of tools' argument is kind of spurious. I already have a box full of
wrenches; I'd need some more in the box. Nobody argues 'lets get rid of 5/32
bolts, so I can get rid of that wrench'.

Its the mental effort to rationalize them that is the real cost. Lets see,
slightly larger than 1/4 - is it 7mm? or 8? or 9/32?

~~~
Xylakant
When I had the tires on my buell motorcycle changed the guy here in germany
only had metric wrenches. He had to "fix" one to get the wheel of.

------
SideburnsOfDoom
Before we start with the standard junk about "imperial measures are better
because they are easier to understand / better suited to human scale / etc."
can I say _nope_.

The only advantage that imperial measures have (for some) is that they are
familiar. That's the sum total of it. People where were raised metric find
these apologies for imperial measures to be pure gibberish.

~~~
oneandoneis2
Actually, I think metric could be improved with a few imperial equivalents - A
"metric foot" as 30cm, for instance - because they _are_ convenient
measurements.

e.g. If somebody asks me "How tall is that person?" it's easier to say "About
five foot" rather than "I dunno, about 155cm?"

(I'm British, btw)

~~~
sirn
I only live in Metric-using country and I have no slightest idea how tall is
five foot, whereas 155cm instantly comes to my mind as, ah, at around my eye
level. It's all about familiarity.

~~~
danielbarla
Sure, but that's 3 digits versus 1; if the requirement is to express common,
human sized-objects with rough accuracy in as few words as possible, it works
just fine. Really, it's all semantics (as you say), but there are specific
cases where one might be a better fit than the other. It's the inconsistencies
in imperial that are truly horrible, not the arbitrary standard unit...

~~~
cygx
> Sure, but that's 3 digits versus 1

It isn't, really. If asked about my approximate height, I'd say 'eins-achtzig'
ie 1.8m (notice me omitting the unit), which in practice also has only a
single significant digit (or 2 if you account for tall people) and to me isn't
any more unwieldy than '6 foot'.

------
stdbrouw
I moved from Belgium to the US last year, and one of the things that surprised
me was that metric measures actually see a fair amount of use in the States.
It makes a convoluted system even more weird, but it's also just plain
fascinating.

2L bottles of coke and 9mm bullets, miles except when people suddenly switch
to kilometers, 50 meter pools and 5K jogging runs but a 120 yard football
field, 2 oz shaving cream but eye drops come in a 20ml bottle and so on.

Guess that's what globalization does for ya.

~~~
eloisant
To be fair, non-metric units are also use worldwide in some specific fields.
In aeronautics, height is in feet. In a boat, distance are nautic miles (not
even the same miles as Americans on the road).

Quick quiz: what's the diagonal size of your laptop screen in centimeters?
Your mobile phone?

So it doesn't matter if you use completely unrelated metrics for different
things. When you want to buy a laptop you know how many inches you want. When
you swim, you know what a 50 meters pool means. But do you care how many
laptop diagonals you're swimming? Probably not.

Now back to US switching to metrics: I think the real argument in favor of
sticking to imperial is the cost and risk of the switch. Risk because
confusion between metrics could lead to a catastrophe (example: filling the
tank of a plane with liters when it should be the same number of gallons).

~~~
rohern
You understand, though, that the reason laptop screens are measured this way
is because of America's continued use of the imperial system.

~~~
curiousdannii
Yes, TV screens are measured in cms, no reason why computer screens couldn't
be too.

------
goodcanadian
Only vaguely relevant, but I grew up in a rural area in Canada which caused me
to learn a strange set of units. For me, highway distances are measured in
kilometres, but country roads are measured in miles. Groceries are priced per
kilogram, but my weight is in pounds. I readily swap inches and centimetres
for measuring small sizes and distances (sometimes on the same project). I am
more comfortable with Celsius, but the thermostat in my parents' house was in
Fahrenheit.

Just to throw an additional wrench into things, prior to official
metrification (which technically predates my birth), Canada used "imperial"
(i.e. British) units, not "standard" (i.e. U.S.) units. Because of this and
the close proximity to the U.S., one had to be careful about just which gallon
or pint you were talking about.

People younger and/or more urban than me seem to be 100% metric. I am starting
to learn my weight in kilograms, but I still have no idea what my height is in
cm without converting.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
Canada also has so-called weak metric measurements: 454g of butter (1 lb), 354
ml of pop (12 oz) and so on.

~~~
goodcanadian
Yes, though I think this is largely due to trade with the U.S.. It probably
helps keep some standard units alive in Canada.

~~~
gutnor
Indeed in country fully converted to metric, the old unit are converted to
their closest sane metric equivalent.

For example, my grand-mother still talks about buying a pound of stuff.
However a pound is now understood as meaning 0.5 kg, we even learn it that way
in school.

------
dickbasedregex
At the risk of being lumped in with the negative/unhelpful/HN-is-on-the-
decline comment crowd, and I hate naysaying here but...

Seriously?

1) If you haven't seen enough of these White House Polls go by yet (and there
is a never ending list of inanity, for example:
<http://www.modernman.com/12-dumbest-whitehouse-petitions/>) let me clue you
in. They do nothing. Nothing. No one reads them. Just go back to wishing on a
star.

2) The belief that something like this would ever be on the White House's
radar/todo list is honestly just retarded.

3) Why is this even here? This isn't Reddit. The focus of HN is pretty
nebulous these days but this is well outside the realm of entrepreneurship and
programming which I believe has always sort of been at the heart of HN.

4) _Rabble rabble_ HN is in decline.

~~~
Avalaxy
It does have a lot to do with programming actually. I'm building an
international application and I have to convert all my dimensions and weights
to make it work in the US.

~~~
dickbasedregex
No. It has as much to do with programming as currency conversion does. It's a
problem involving numbers that people occasionally solve with the use of code.
By your logic beanie babies have a lot to do with programming because someone
built a site to list and sell them online (ebay).

But hey, the metric system seems more sensible to me too.

 _Edit_ I don't mean to come off as a jerk. I haven't slept yet and just got a
BS call from m boss so I'll probably read this later and wish I were more
diplomatic.

------
fennecfoxen
There's a couple of things you'd want to consider converting to metric: long
distances, short distances/dimensions, volumes, weights, and temperature come
to mind.

Long distances: swap out a bunch of highway signs, consider that 60mph (a mile
a minute) ~= 100km/h, not too hard on people but a lot of signage needs to
change. Feasible.

Volumes: people are used enough to 2-liter bottles of soda, expect the 3.78
liter milk to stay around for a while because of supply chains. Gas prices
will be modestly interesting for people, but really easy on the industry.

Short distances/dimensions: now things get tricky and potentially expensive.
There are a lot of fractional-dimensioned parts out there in industry in
different supply chains.

Weights: 2.2lb = 1kg and you're pretty good. Nobody _really_ uses ounces
anyway!

Temperature: Here's the thing about temperature: converting would be
relatively useless because Real People don't do math with the temperature
outside. Even scientists don't do math with the temperature outside all that
much. For most people, a scale that starts at 0="civilization shuts down
because you can't ice the roads" and goes up to 100="heatstroke territory" is
a _fine_ representation of humanity's day to day temperature. Why would we
bother changing it?

~~~
smackfu
>not too hard on people but a lot of signage needs to change. Feasible.

Very expensive though. Signs normally have a 20 years expected lifetime. Now
you need to replace them all at once. Plus a lot of the sign locations need to
be changed, unless you want all those "Exit 29 1 mile" signs to now say "Exit
29 1.6 km".

~~~
jzwinck
You do not need to replace them all at once. For example the new signs could
be European style, red ringed white circles with the number inside. Virtually
every car has both readings already. This would make new speed limit signs
immediately recognizable to more visitors in the future while avoiding
ambiguity of units during the transition. They could even say km/h during the
first generation.

~~~
DanBC
Road signs need to be very clear and instantly understandable. Adding a tiny
delay to comprehension; a tiny bit of lack of attention to the road; could,
when multiplied over the number of kilometres driven and number of drivers and
time mean many deaths.

Whether that's acceptable or not is another matter, but it'd suck if "km/h
KILLED MY FATHER" became a meme.

It is odd how some countries make massive national changes overnight. eg,
Sweden:

([http://users.telenet.be/worldstandards/driving%20on%20the%20...](http://users.telenet.be/worldstandards/driving%20on%20the%20left.htm))

> _In 1955, the Swedish government held a referendum on the introduction of
> right-hand driving. Although no less than 82.9% voted “no” to the
> plebiscite, the Swedish parliament passed a law on the conversion to right-
> hand driving in 1963. Finally, the change took place on Sunday, the 3rd of
> September 1967, at 5 o’clock in the morning._

Leaving it until now has meant the UK would find it very hard to change.

------
Tloewald
Sad it only has 237 votes as of my visit (waiting for my acct to validate so I
can sign).

The problem is, I think the US has already declared itself to be metric to
little effect.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_Conversion_Act>

It's not the do-nothing congress this time, it's the learn-nothing public.

~~~
ry0ohki
Just a simple measure like forcing all government signs to use metric would go
a long way.

------
thinkling
It's nice to be reminded that there will always be fresh waves of not-yet-
cynical people to take up issues like this. But boy, am I cynical about the
chances on this one.

The wikipedia article on Metrication in the US [1] isn't the best article ever
but is worth reading for mentions of previous efforts.

A few things: \- the US Congress has in various ways 'blessed' the metric
system, more than any other. However...

> _Proponents of the metric system in the U.S. often claim that "the United
> States, Liberia, and Burma (or Myanmar) are the only countries that have not
> adopted the metric system." This statement is not correct with respect to
> the U.S., and probably it isn't correct with respect to Liberia and Burma,
> either. The U.S. adopted the metric system in 1866. What the U.S. has failed
> to do is to restrict or prohibit the use of traditional units in areas
> touching the ordinary citizen_ [2]

Did you know that Jefferson proposed a decimal system for the US before the SI
system had come about? (See e.g. [2].) There were also proposals to measure
land in decimal units rather than in 640-acre sections.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_State...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_States)

[2] <http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/usmetric.html>

------
sakopov
I was born in Russia and used the metric system until i moved to the US.
Imperial system is so archaic it's amusing to see a developed nation use it. A
few centuries ago Russians used to measure weight in "handfuls" and short
distances in "elbows." (scratch that, it's "cubits") When only a fraction of
the population had any sort of education, it was easier for everyone to
understand an anatomical measurement. Eh, some things never go away. I don't
anticipate US dropping this... ever.

~~~
yareally
Sadly, we (US Citizens) all learn the Metric system starting in at least 7th
grade (was for me at least back 15 some years ago). We continue to use it
through High School for courses such as Chemistry and Physics as well as
University studies.

However, many of those that are not interested in going into a Science field
tend to discount the Metric System in the United States as nothing more than a
"means to an end" in order to get a passing grade. They quickly forget it or
just pay lip service to it as they don't see the need for it outside of the
classroom.

Until that changes with some sort of mandate by the US Government, I'm afraid
as you mentioned, the larger percentage of the United States will feel no need
to care about the Metric System outside of a few Science courses they took
back in school.

~~~
sakopov
You're absolutely right. Technical people would most likely embrace the
switch. Everyone else will brush it off. I find that Americans are typically
very cautious of any kind of change. Especially baby boomers. Let alone a
change that is "imposed" by the rest of the world. That isn't going to fly
here. We don't do things in the same way the rest of the world does them.
That's just our mentality. Imagine a football field marked with metric units.
Man, I just cringed a little bit. :)

------
davidw
The way I explain this one to my European friends is:

Do you remember the transition to the Euro? How you had to mentally convert
prices at first? And how old people had more difficulties with it in some
cases? Now, imagine that, not just for one unit, but weights, lengths,
temperatures and volumes, all at the same time.

~~~
bjourne
Oh, the problem with the Euro was that they raised prices everywhere where
they introduced the new currency. What was previously 0.8€ becase 1€, 28€ to
30€ and so on. Economic power also moved from individual countries to the ECB
in Brussels. If the US started using SI (Systeme International), it's not like
you would be subject to a metric-controlling organisation in Paris. :)

~~~
allerratio
The ECB is in Frankfurt, Germany.

------
Keyframe
ISO 216 paper sizes while you're at it, please!

~~~
TomAnthony
I'm surprised paper hasn't formed a larger part of this discussion.

The 'A' system for paper has many advantages, and actually would be something
that could be accessibly changed (all printers and scanners handle it just
fine).

~~~
masklinn
> The 'A' system for paper has many advantages

The ISO system in general, ISO 216 and 269 provide 3 series (A, B and C, A is
the base series, B is the geometric mean between two sizes of the A series, C
is the geometric mean between the A and B series at a given index, and is thus
mostly used for envelopes for the A series: an envelope Cn will hold an An
sheet without folding, and of course a Cn envelope will fit an A(n-1) folded
in two)

------
jamesjguthrie
I look forward to everywhere using metric.

I'm in the UK, 27 and still struggle at times to comprehend lbs, ounces,
stone, feet, inches, yards, miles etc., when everything I was taught in school
was in metres, litres, newtons and kilogrammes.

~~~
jamesjguthrie
We ask for a footlong, a quarter pounder etc when we go out for fast food.

Our fat friends are 16 stone, 17 stone.

We live miles away from each other.

Penalties in football are taken in the 18 yard box.

We use cup measures for flour, sugar etc in cooking.

The average penis is ~6 inches when fully erect.

I've got two 4 pint cartons of milk in my fridge.

I could go on. Imperial units are absolute muck and I cannot wait for a
entirely metric world.

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
> We use cup measures for flour, sugar etc in cooking.

We do? My cookbooks are in metric units. In fact I own no books that use
"cups."

~~~
jamesjguthrie
As an example go have a look at <http://gordonramsaysrecipes.com/> which hosts
a collection of Ramsay's receipes. All in tablespoons, teaspoons and cups.

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
That's an American web-site. His books are in metric.

[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gordon-Ramsays-Ultimate-Cookery-
Cour...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gordon-Ramsays-Ultimate-Cookery-
Course/dp/1444756699/)

Click "search inside." Everything is in grams.

edit: That web-site isn't even associated with the chief. It is just some fan
site. Here is a legit web-site and it is all in grams:
[http://www.channel4.com/4food/recipes/chefs/gordon-
ramsay/go...](http://www.channel4.com/4food/recipes/chefs/gordon-
ramsay/gordon-s-lasagne-recipe)

~~~
jamesjguthrie
> Click "search inside." Everything is in grams.

There's loads of references in that book to knobs of butter and
tablespoon/teaspoon measurements.

~~~
DanBC
teaspoons and tablespoons are metric - one teaspoon is 5 ml; one tablespoon is
15 ml. I'm not sure how useful it is having a volumetric unit instead of a
mass[1] unit; but that's one thing I like about US cooking. "About a cup of
this; about to cups of that" - it's all nice and intuitive. I know roughly
what 500 g of flour is, or sugar, but 80 g of butter is tricky.

[1] sorry if I'm using the wrong term. Friendly corrections welcomed.

------
tokenadult
From the petitions.whitehouse.gov petition kindly submitted for comment here:

"The United States is one of the few countries left in the world who still
have not converted to using the Metric System as a standardized system of
measurement. Instead of going along with what the rest of the world uses, we
stubbornly still adhere to using the imprecise Imperial Unit - despite the
fact that practically every other country that we interact with uses Metric."

This petition has the same problem most petitions submitted to the White House
have--its factual premise is incorrect. I'm an American who has lived in
another country (Taiwan) for years. The National Institute of Standards and
Technology reports that "The United States is now the only industrialized
country in the world that does not use the metric system as its predominant
system of measurement."

<http://www.nist.gov/pml/wmd/metric/upload/1136a.pdf>

But the same government report notes that

". . . . In 1866, Congress authorized the use of the metric system in this
country and supplied each state with a set of standard metric weights and
measures.

"In 1875, the United States solidified its commitment to the development of
the internationally recognized metric system by becoming one of the original
seventeen signatory nations to the Treaty of the Meter."

In other words, the United States has treated the Metric System as official
and legal since before my great-grandfather was born. The customary
measurement system is, by contrast, simply customary, not mandatory. The
United States has been metric since 1866 "in the sense that Americans have
been free since that time to use the metric system as much as they like."

<http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/usmetric.html>

If a particular individual or corporation engaged in manufacturing or trade
wants to use metric measurements to meet customer needs and gain a profit, no
one in the United States is stopping that. If someone desires to use customary
measurements out of sheer habit from long-established custom, no one is
stopping that either. My late dad the industrial engineer was aware of plenty
of industries in the United States that from the 1970s, at the latest, had
gone fully metric simply because those industries were involved in vigorous
international trade. Perhaps the best governmental nudge that can be given for
more use of metric measurements in the United States is more encouragement of
developing international markets for domestic businesses.

I note that customary measurements are often used in other countries even long
after metric measurements are adopted officially. For example, the Republic of
China (the regime that governs Taiwan at present) has been officially metric
since before I was born. Japan (the former governing country in Taiwan) was
metric from the 1920s. But the unit of weight for vegetables bought in an
open-air market in Taiwan is still the traditional 斤 ( _jin_ "catty," or
Chinese pound), although that is now standardized at 500g. Prices are given in
monetary units per 斤 for most fruits and vegetables to this day in markets in
Taiwan (and in China).

A Facebook friend with a scientific education recently told me about the
saying "A pint's a pound, the whole world round." If the United States begins
using metric-standard units more for selling foods and the like, then perhaps
a half-kilogram (500g) package will be considered to be one new "pound," just
as a half-liter (500ml) package will be considered to be one new "pint." It is
interesting to me that traditional Chinese culture and traditional British
culture both had weight units in that range, about a half kilogram even before
standardization to metric units. How are grocery measurements treated in
Britain these days?

~~~
jacquesm
That's a typical case of theory and practice.

Yes, in theory the US is a country that supports metric. In practice, go and
ask anybody in the country outside of the military for the following:

\- An M10 bolt

\- a 16mm wrench to drive it with

\- a 3 meter long 50 mm od pvc drainpipe

\- a tape-measure that measures only in metric

\- a highway sign that is posted in km

And so on. See how many people can point you to any of these.

Then try this:

\- a 3/8th " bolt

\- a 9/16th " wrench to drive it with

\- a 10' long 2" od pvc drainpipe

\- a tape measure that only measures in Imperial

\- a highway sign posted in Miles.

The petition is dead on in the way the US approaches the metric system, in
practice it is imperial all the way. As long as the practice doesn't change
what the technical situation is won't matter one bit.

The only way to get out of this is to change the law, and to deprecate
Imperial in favor of metric.

~~~
blhack
Have you ever been inside of a hardware store?

Every hardware store I've ever been to has a section for metric. Our lab, for
instance, keeps a supply of bolts, and as far as I remember /only/ has metric.

Also every socket set I've ever used has a metric and standard set.

Why would you care about road signs? And why would you care about a tape
measure that is /only/ in metric? The second one seems kindof silly.

The only thing I know of that isn't available commonly in metric sizes are
machining tools like mills. As far as I know, machining is always done in
"mils", or thousands of an inch.

~~~
ahlatimer
Or if you happen to ask anyone who works on a vehicle that isn't from one of
the American manufacturers. My Toyota used all metric, AFAIK, and all of my
motorcycles have used metric. I can't say I've ever even used the standard set
of tools that came with my toolset (which had both metric and standard).

~~~
tadfisher
Toyota is weird, in that all of the nuts & bolts on their cars are metric, but
their tolerances in the factory service manual are listed in thousandths of an
inch. I did a double-take when I saw the deck flatness tolerance of ".002" for
my car, for example.

------
dmoo
Ireland has converted mostly to the metric system, we switched to kilometers
for speed limits in 2005. To be honest you get used to it pretty quickly.
There are a number of items, particularly those that are traded with our
neighbours in the UK that are shown as both metric and imperial. You still get
a pint of Guinness in the pub but all bottles and cans of beer are in metric.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_Ireland>

------
RyanMcGreal
_Metrickery is a socialist plot to weaken America. First it's units of
measurement divisible by ten, then it's universal health care, then gun
control, and finally off to the gulag for the last remaining freethinkers._

Sadly, there are people who believe more of less exactly what I just wrote.

~~~
javert
Actually, the "Europe is better and the US is inferior" mantra, which is very
widely held in the American left-of-center, _is_ a significant factor in all
of those.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
As a Canadian, I'd be inclined to call it the "every other industrialized
liberal democracy on earth is better" mantra. Countries tend to converge on an
optimal balance of individual liberties and social protections because it
_measurably works_.

The US is a notable outlier, and the various comparative social and economic
indicators are pretty damning evidence that the continued American insistence
on an 18th century approach to governance actually _is_ inferior to a number
of other approaches that have been more inclined to take evidence-based best
practices into account.

~~~
javert
> Countries tend to converge on an optimal balance of individual liberties and
> social protections because it measurably works.

That's just utter nonsense. What measurement are you optimizing for?

What makes you think that moving the US to the left moves it closer to, say,
Germany, instead of closer to, say, Brazil, India, and Mexico (which is what I
think will happen)?

And even if it did move it closer to Germany, _I wouldn't want that,_ which
speaks to the fact that your "measurably works" claim probably refers to some
non-objective sense of optimality.

> the continued American insistence on an 18th century approach to governance

That's a straw man. Predominating sentiments in the GOP are strongly contra
the Founding Fathers. I mean, George W. Bush greatly expanded the welfare
state.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
> What measurement are you optimizing for?

Take your pick. The US is at or very near the worst among OECD countries in:
infant mortality, child poverty, child health and safety, life expectancy at
birth, healthy life expectancy, rate of obesity, disability-adjusted life
years, doctors per 1000 people, deaths from treatable conditions, rate of
mental health disorders, rate of drug abuse, rate of prescription drug use,
incarceration rate, rate of assaults, rate of homicides, income inequality,
wealth inequality, and economic mobility.

~~~
javert
Most or all of which would not be helped by liberal attempts to emulate
Europe.

For example, high child poverty is to be expected in a country that harbors
many poor immigrants from Latin America.

For another example, high rate of incarceration is largely to be blamed on the
"War on Drugs," which has the same effect as the prohibition on alcohol did.

For another example, low rate of doctors is largely to be blamed on the fact
that medicine is a _guild_ (as in, midieval guild) where med school is super
tough to get into, doesn't select for competency as a medical practitioner,
and creates a "class hierarchy" within medicine where a highly-trained nurse
can perform as well or better than a doctor in many common situations, but is
not legally allowed to practice in that capacity.

This could go on and on.

Overall, American liberals want a society where everybody gets whatever they
demand, to the degree that there is enough to go around, except the actual
producers. That society already exists, and it's called India.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
> Most or all of which would not be helped by liberal attempts to emulate
> Europe.

You mean the rest of the industrialized world, not just Europe.

> high child poverty is to be expected in a country that harbors many poor
> immigrants from Latin America.

You mean unlike a country that harbours many poor immigrants from Northern
Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe?

> high rate of incarceration is largely to be blamed on the "War on Drugs"

Yes, and it is the conservative right that most strongly favours continuing
the War on Drugs. Those left of centre liberals you don't like generally
favour ending the war on drugs and following a more - dare I say - European
approach to legalization. (Sadly, Canada's Republican-lite Conservative
government has taken a more American approach to the War on Drugs,
establishing mandatory minimum sentences and other punitive measures that have
already failed in the US.)

> low rate of doctors is largely to be blamed on the fact that medicine is a
> guild

That's true across all the industrialized countries, but the other countries
are much better than the US at achieving a higher rate of doctors and much
better overall health outcomes, despite spending only 40-70% of what the USA
spends on health care - and running various incarnations of universal health
coverage.

> American liberals want a society where everybody gets whatever they demand

That's a lazy straw man attack. American liberals, like liberals in other
industrialized countries, want their country to value human rights, pay
attention to evidence-based public policy and invest enough in public social
and physical infrastructure to ensure everyone has an adequate standard of
living and the opportunity to work hard and prosper.

Ironically, the USA has among the _worst_ levels of socioeconomic mobility in
the OECD. Poor Americans are more trapped in their poverty than poor people in
countries that do more to level the playing field so everyone has a fair
chance of escaping poverty.

~~~
javert
> despite spending only 40-70% of what the USA spends on health care

Right. And if the USA tries to emulate Europe in healthcare more than we
alreay do, we will end up wasting _even more_ money. There is no solution to
be had here through _more_ regulation.

> value human rights

> ensure everyone has an adequate standard of living

Contradiction. But providing a moral basis for individual rights requires
understanding a complete philosophical system, which is out of the scope of an
HN comment.

> ensure everyone has an adequate standard of living and the opportunity to
> work hard and prosper

You're asking something that may be outside the scope of reality.

> Poor Americans are more trapped in their poverty

As someone from a poor part of rural eastern North Carolina, all I can do is
LOL at this, because it's utterly, utterly false. That is a complete myth. I
mean, we already have free universal education, de jure through high school
and de facto through college.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
> if the USA tries to emulate Europe in healthcare more than we alreay do, we
> will end up wasting even more money.

The evidence is that American health care costs would go _down_ significantly,
given the clear correlation across industrialized countries between the extent
to which health care spending is private and the overall cost (either per
capita or as a share of GDP).

> Contradiction.

It's not a contradition, the latter follows necessarily from the former. It's
why nearly every industrialized country has converged on public health, public
education, public health care, affordable housing, and so on.

> But providing a moral basis for individual rights requires understanding a
> complete philosophical system, which is out of the scope of an HN comment.

Or we can dispense with the 18th century a priori legerdemain and just
recognize human rights as a self-evident basis for a fair, just and humane
society.

> You're asking something that may be outside the scope of reality.

And yet the rest of the industrialized world does a much better job of it than
the United States.

> As someone from a poor part of rural eastern North Carolina, all I can do is
> LOL at this

The plural of anecdote is not data.

------
rohern
Every objection that is being raised on this thread was raised when other
countries enacted metrication. You are free to read the history of these
processes. Nations did not collapse and people learned how to use new units.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication>

I would more support a petition that was well and cogently written, however.

------
drcube
We already have the metric system. An inch is defined as 2.54 centimeters. Et
cetera. I can't think of a single way in which we're NOT metric, except that
stubborn people refuse to let go of gallons, miles and pounds.

Every item you buy in the stores will be measured in metric units. Just
because we call it a gallon doesn't mean it isn't actually 3.785 liters. And
just because the serving size is a cup, doesn't mean it isn't actually 240mL.
And check the nutrition label sometimes. It's all metric.

[http://www.fda.gov/ucm/groups/fdagov-
public/documents/image/...](http://www.fda.gov/ucm/groups/fdagov-
public/documents/image/ucm225384.jpg)

So what's the problem again?

~~~
mpyne
> So what's the problem again?

America sucks and is like the worst thing to ever happen to the world. Or
something, it all blends together eventually.

Oddly no one ever makes a serious push to ban languages other than English or
Mandarin Chinese throughout the world, or currency other than USD which would
_actually_ have beneficial effects on global interaction. Instead they compare
the U.S. to Myanmar as if Americans should seriously be offended by that.

------
jacquesm
It very likely is never going to happen. The main reason for resistance
apparently is the various land boundaries that would have to be re-scaled to
metric, which would be a source of endless legal wrangling. Already houses in
the US have the longest history attached to them, sometimes all the way from
the homesteading days if the plot is old.

I've used both metric and imperial, for construction imperial is lots easier,
for physics and other things that involve frequent conversions metric is far
easier.

The Canadians officially have metric, try buying a 250x125 sheet of plywood.
Everybody will look at you as if water is burning.

~~~
lmm
>Already houses in the US have the longest history attached to them, sometimes
all the way from the homesteading days if the plot is old.

That's young by European standards. Somehow we managed the conversion.

~~~
brudgers
How many European countries are there? How many of them have had the same
government for 230 years?

The US surveyed and then subdivided much of a continent into townships. Land
was sold and granted by the section, halfs and quarters thereof. Flying over
the Midwest, the manifold rectangles on the ground show how problematic even
the slightest of conversion errors would be.

Maybe it's technical debt. But it exists because the legal system is stable.

~~~
jacquesm
How many of them even have the same borders over the last 230 years? I'd wager
very few.

~~~
brudgers
I think the reference for US borders is probably better put at 150 years -
outside of Hawaii.

------
jesusabdullah
> the imprecise Imperial Unit

englilsh units aren't any less precise than SI/metric ones. They're just more
awkward and less used worldwide. The cases which I find particularly
irritating in US units are lb mass vs. lb force, and HP/BTU/foot-
pounds/calories/Calories (and kWh) when all you need is a J.

------
lifeformed
I understand and agree that metric is strictly better, how much better is it?
Do the benefits outweigh the costs of changing the whole system?

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
What about the recurring cost that we have now of using both systems?

~~~
ScottWhigham
I'll play along. What "recurring cost"?

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
As mentioned elsewhere on this page:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4996563>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4996646>

And also things like the occasional cost of writing off a Mars probe (and they
aren't cheap) because not enough was spent on checking unit conversions.

------
AlexeiSadeski
I could care less about using metric, but don't touch Fahrenheit. Celsius
(water based) is inferior to Fahrenheit (air based) for those of us whom just
so happen to reside in the atmosphere instead of the sea.

~~~
Thrymr
It's more accurate to say Fahrenheit is brine based. 0°F was based on the
freezing point of a brine solution used by Ole Rømer:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B8mer_scale>

------
noselasd
Might as well start now - these things take time. In Norway, we introduced the
metric system in 1889, but there's still a lot of non-metric measurements
still around, at least in common speak.

* Length of a boat are measured in feet.

* Lumber is measured in inches, two-by-four and so on.

* Most engines are measured in horsepower(though nowadays the kw/h is usually given as well).

* Firewood have different measures, most of them derived from the pre-metric system.

* distances at sea are measured in nautic miles

* Boat speed is measured in knots. (not sure what the status of these last 2 is regarding SI these days).

~~~
ubernostrum
_Boat speed is measured in knots._

Knots are non-SI, since they're based on the non-SI nautical mile (1 knot =
1nm/hr). But they are a good example of why context is important; the nautical
mile is absolutely superior to the kilometer for use in navigation (at sea or
in the air). Forcing the SI unit there would actually make the relevant tasks
more complex and more difficult.

~~~
guard-of-terra
"the nautical mile is absolutely superior to the kilometer for use in
navigation (at sea or in the air)."

Why is that?

~~~
ubernostrum
It solves headaches that come from trying to project the not-flat earth onto
flat charts.

As Wikipedia puts it:

"In most projections, scale varies with latitude, so on small scale maps,
covering large areas and a wide range of latitudes, the linear scale must show
the scale for the range of latitudes covered by the map."

"Mariners generally use the nautical mile, which, because a nautical mile is
approximately equal to a minute of latitude, can be measured against the
latitude scale at the sides of the chart."

------
neves
Water is the most important substance for life in Earth.

It boils at 100º centigrades and freezes at 0º centigrades

0.1m³ is one liter (1L) of water, so 1m³ is 1,000 liters of water

1L of water is 1 Kilogram

The imperial system is awful, please bury it.

------
davvid
I think most engineers would naturally support this idea. The reality is that
doing something like this is pretty tough because the current system has so
much weight. It's akin to asking a company to abandon a perfectly functioning
legacy software system just so that someone can rewrite it.

My dad was an engineer with Caltrans and he told me about how California was
ready to make the switch. It was going to be a gradual transition where
signage would start listing both metric and imperial speed limits. They had
actually gotten pretty far along into designing signs, etc.

He told me that the state eventually killed it because no politicians
supported it and there was no strong desire from the public. While I think
this is a great idea, I don't have my hopes up.

Apparently the state did a lot of work actually switching over to the metric
system (all manuals, standards, etc. were updated to metric) but the plan was
eventually aborted in favor of English units and much effort was then spent on
switching back. :-/

<http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/oppd/metric1/DD-12-R1_Final.pdf>

<http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/oppd/metric1/metricpg.htm>

------
attheodo
Metric system is way more understandable and easy to mentally manipulate. The
only good argument against standardizing it, is people are used to it for many
years. But so were my grandparents with our country's currency before we
switched to Euro. There's an awkward "bootcamp" period where you just convert
every unit to the old one just to get the feeling of the "quantity" but after
a couple of months the new units feel normal.

------
stinos
what a coincidence, just yesterday I saw a comedian making fun of UK&US for
not using the metric system and instead something he considered archaic

~~~
yarrel
Imperial is very visible in the UK (for road instances and for beer glasses in
particular) but the country is pretty much metric now and has been for
decades.

~~~
dphnx
Funny you should mention beer – I've noticed an increasing tendency for pint
glasses to be marked "568ml". Milk also doesn't come in pints any more, but
does come in 568ml and 1 litre varieties. Still, as a nation we ask for and
think of our beer and milk in pints.

~~~
jamesjguthrie
The 2 cartons of milk in my fridge right now, say "2272ml 4 pints" on them.

~~~
alsothings
This is because in both the US and the UK, imperial measures are legally
defined in metric units. A pint _is_ 568ml, by definition (well, in the UK,
the US believes a pint is 454ml, but that's another argument).

~~~
jamesjguthrie
The milk is clearly sold in pints though, if they were selling it in litres
they would've sold 2 litres, not 2.272 litres.

------
beefman
Measuring metric adoption by counting countries with official adoption is
common. Less common is measuring by aggregate PPP-GDP and actual adoption by
the public. To approximate actual adoption, I give the US, UK, Canada and
Jamaica completely to traditional units and the rest of the world completely
to metric.* Using 2011 data from the IMF, I then conclude that traditional
units command 31% of usage worldwide.

* These are the countries in red on this table [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication#Chronology_and_stat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication#Chronology_and_status_of_conversion_by_country) But a review of the UK article shows that the language "partially complete" is pretty fanciful in describing the current situation in the UK. The story in China is more complex...

------
andrewdubinsky
Don't we have bigger problems than this right now?

Our schools are so badly mismanaged that we're not even graduating people who
can use either standard.

We've got millions of people unemployed who would love to turn a wrench
regardless of metric or standard.

(Not to cast aspersions at either party, they are both very nearly equally to
blame)

------
VaedaStrike
Ironic that a post designed to attempt to rid the world of obfuscation and
confusion has a UI that commits the cardinal sin of auto loading the signature
list so that it's virtually impossible to get to the footer without letting
all the signatures load. :)

Reminds me of getting classes on water conservation in High School only to
walk outside of class and see that they are watering the High School's parking
lot.

How very often the government evokes the classic hypocritical parent of the
old anti-drug campaign commercial of the 1980's where the son finally breaks
and yells at his Father "I learned it by watching you Dad!"

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-Elr5K2Vuo>

------
ComputerGuru
Everything else aside, can someone explain to me the obsession with fractions
(w/out common denominators, even!) in the imperial system?

I love metric, but I have no problem using the imperial system for my work -
however, the fact that all objects made for the imperial system are built on
fractions makes it _impossible_ to work with. There is no 0.1" there's only
1/8. There is no 0.15", there's only 5/32. etc.

Given the bottom is almost always a power of two (2, 4, 16, 32, and 64 at the
most) the conversion isn't _hard_ but there is a _definite_ cognitive overhead
to comparing 1/8" vs 5/32" whereas comparing .125" to .15" is an order of
magnitude simpler.

~~~
mpyne
Fractional measures are useful when you often have to sub-divide a thing, but
you are right in that they make the problem of comparing two things more
difficult.

But with that in mind the answer to your question is that when the scales were
first devised in the first place that it was apparently more important to be
able to evenly split things up easily without grade-school arithmetic than it
was to be able to compare a 3/32" socket to a 1/8".

~~~
ComputerGuru
But why not just use /64 or /32 for everything?

3/32" vs 4/32" is win-win compared to 3/32" vs 1/8" or .09375" vs .125"

~~~
mpyne
The stupid answer is that it's easier to add 1/2 and 1/4 than it is 32/64 and
16/64. Keep in mind this is the kind of measurement system that might evolve
in the time before most people had a formal education.

------
ddorian43
Did any of these petitions accomplished anything?

------
sterna
Regionalized units have the same damaging effect to manufacturing as closed
software ecosystems has to software development. The only reason most US
citizens do not feel the pain of this fragmentation is that they do not have
to buy anything that is not adapted to the US market. Again, this is because
the US is the biggest market on the planet and thus it is profitable for big
companies to adapt their products to US standards.

However, supporting several unit systems is a huge tax on startup companies
that work in manufacturing and therefore they reduce innovation and
competition, causing harm to everybody along the way.

~~~
mosburger
This is actually an argument, for some people in the U.S., to keep using
imperial units. The use of imperial units acts as sort of an "artificial trade
barrier" to foreign competition - it's like a tariff that international trade
agreements can't touch.

~~~
achy
That is a ridiculous argument for a country that is already so heavily reliant
on foreign manufacturing. If anything, at this point, the imperial standard is
a barrier to having the US become a manufacturing nation once again - because
so much industrial technology has been developed without a thought to the
archaic measurements.

------
joeguilmette
Maybe it's just me but, while I agree with this, I would like our government
to focus on gaining a certain level of basic competence. The last few years
seem to have brought to light just how impotent and incapable the US
legislature is.

The other two branches seem to be doing fine, but I'd like to focus our
attention on perhaps changing this ridiculous farce into something that might
work, just a little bit.

The big problem is that due to our system of govt any change will be brought
of the back of legislation, which, unfortunately, will have to pass thru the
broken and disfigured legislature.

That said, I hope this petition succeeds :)

------
edj
The US use of imperial units definitely requires a good bit of annoying
overhead - owning two sets of socket wrenches and hex keys and never knwowing
which one a manufacturer has used is just the first such inconvenience that
comes to mind. So I agree that it's well past time to complete the switch.

That said, I will miss imperial units if they go. There's a natural poetry to
them that metric lacks. Imperial units seem to embody and communicate their
own history - history of path-dependence and weird math, to be sure - while
metric units seem too perfectly consistent, and therefore somehow sterile.

------
sigzero
I don't see this ever happening. There just isn't a push from within to do it.

------
pelle
I grew up with the metric system but have now come to largely accept the
imperial system as a more humane system.

Nassim Taleb actually talks about the benefits of it in his latest book Anti-
Fragile as well.

The metric system is already used for anything important in the US and doesn't
need to be further legislated. Look at any food item you buy in the
supermarket it already has grams or ml on it.

I wrote a piece a few years ago about this:
[http://stakeventures.com/articles/2007/08/28/in-defence-
of-i...](http://stakeventures.com/articles/2007/08/28/in-defence-of-imperial-
units)

------
sudowrestler
I remember being at a 1971 conference in London, when a Brit asked a member of
our party "When will the US go metric?"

My buddy quipped without hesitation, "As soon as you Brits learn to drive on
the right side of the road!"

------
tmrhmd
I don't think politicians would ever allow this, especially during these
times, since the proposed change would cost millions in change of signs and
anything where the imperial system is used.

~~~
davorb
You would save that pretty easily in not having to write separate
software/everything for the US and for the rest of the world. Not to mention
things like
[http://articles.cnn.com/1999-09-30/tech/9909_30_mars.metric....](http://articles.cnn.com/1999-09-30/tech/9909_30_mars.metric.02_1_climate-
orbiter-spacecraft-team-metric-system?_s=PM:TECH)

------
micampe
Not the first time it's been tried:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_State...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_States)

------
lancefisher
There were still some kilometer markers on the roads in Alabama when I moved
there in 1997. Apparently, the state spent $3.2 million to put up km markers
and signs in addition to the mile markers and signs. This proved to be too
confusing, and they were all taken down. Most the people I knew didn't miss
them.

[http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1842&dat=19971128&...](http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1842&dat=19971128&id=Q8gnAAAAIBAJ&sjid=SscEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1434,4556205)

~~~
simmons
I lived in Alabama for a while back in the metric days. The article you link
to seems to confirm the general impression I had of how it went down. US:
"We're switching to the metric system, everybody!" Alabama: "Yay! Switching to
metric!" Alabama: "Okay guys, we've got all our new metric highway signs up,
how's everyone else doing with theirs?" (crickets chirping)

I personally thought the kilometer signs were pretty cool. The person's
comment about the metric initiative being hard to defend when none of the
other states followed through seems to ring true -- it's easy to see how the
public might have thought they had been talked into a boondoggle.

------
jhales
Another petition which may be more effecitve would be directed at the more
rational/scientifically minded people at Google (in as much as they don't have
Rick Santorum on their pay roll) to rename nexus 4/7/10 to be in terms of
metric units not inches. That would may lead to a very rapid comfort with
metric sizes for a large and influential chunk of the population.

This would also avoid the potentially unpleasant comparison to those who hope
to eradicate Spanish by demand English be _the_ state language.

------
Surio
Interesting war story around Imperial to Metric conversion errors.

Relevant to the discussion...

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider>

------
mark-r
One thing I never see mentioned is the awkwardness of the metric names. The
older measurements are all one syllable, while their metric replacements are
often three or four.

mile -> kilometer inch -> centimeter pound -> kilogram

The only one that comes out even is ounce -> gram.

Obviously it's not a huge impediment since many other countries got past it,
but I'm sure it just adds to the discomfort people have with it.

~~~
eurleif
>The only one that comes out even is ounce -> gram.

Gallon -> liter?

And most of the extra syllables are because SI uses prefixes, instead of
inventing completely different units. I think the verbosity is justified by
enhanced understandability.

------
clinth
The real cost is in manufacturing and maintenance.

What is the cost of replacing every machine, every factory, every load
tolerance specified in every standard? Every screw, every nut.

Things that need to work, in place for decades, which we can't arbitrarily
take down. Power plants, water filtration systems. How would you roll it out?

It's _because_ the US is so large and industrialized that _makes_ it
expensive.

------
mosburger
One argument some people make against switching away from imperial units - it
acts as sort of an artificial trade barrier for foreign competition. It costs
non-domestic manufacturers more to package their products for distribution in
the United States, making it sort of a "tariff" for foreign goods that
international trade agreements can't touch.

~~~
huherto
But it works both ways. It is a "tariff" when you want to export.

~~~
mosburger
I didn't claim the argument made sense. :)

------
acomjean
I've Given up.

BUT, the metric system in the US has ben usurped by base 10 US units. As a
civil engineer the measuring tape was in feet and "tenths of feet". A "mil" is
a thousandth of an inch. I worked for the US government civil engineers in the
1990's. They were going to issue contracts in metric years ago. I don't think
they ever did.

------
jcfrei
related question to people from the US: did you actually learn the metric
system in primary school? did you learn it besides the imperial units? I
believe as Tloewald pointed out that the adoption really depends on whether
people are learning it and not what politicians declare to be the standard.

~~~
davidw
You learn it, but academically. Growing up with everything in feet, miles,
pounds, etc... you get a _feel_ for whether to put on a sweater if it's
supposed to be 60 degrees out or not, or how long it might take to drive 10
miles on the freeway, or about how far 20 feet is. So even for someone like
myself who has lived in Europe for a long time, metric units don't feel quite
as 'native' or ingrained, except for temperatures, because you deal with those
every day.

------
tippivenus
This is fantastic!! They told me in 2nd grade (1968) that the metric systems
was coming in 4 years and we had to learn it. This is great news. Finally I
will be able to use those metric socket wrenches I bought. Oh, wait I already
do.

------
hcarvalhoalves
Just a note: Brazil adopts the metric system, but we measure diameters in
inches and land in acres.

Adopting the metric system doesn't mean getting rid of non-metric units, some
things just _make sense_ to measure in units that follow human scale.

------
jemeshsu
The tech industry has to take the lead by renaming their products: MacBook Pro
33cm, Nexus 18. Using inch for display is a worldwide standard, not just US.
It would be strange to look for a 35.5cm notebook or a 100cm HDTV.

~~~
ciupicri
Maybe in the US. People from other countries want a TV with a diagonal of one
meter. It even sounds better because 1 meter is like a barrier unlike 40
inches which is just a number.

------
gcv
So we'd have to rename the quarter-pounder with cheese to royale with cheese?

------
pconf
The Metric system would probably be ubiquitous in the US by now if Ronald
Reagan had not disbanded the U.S. Metric Board in 1982 and overturned laws
encouraging schools to teach kids the metric system.

------
gojomo
A bit of helpful contrarianism about how Metric isn't always best:

Dan Bently, "Metric Doesn't Work", OSCON 2012

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdK-Cr1pe30>

------
kolbe
I'll just leave this here.

[http://www.theonion.com/articles/metric-system-thriving-
in-n...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/metric-system-thriving-in-nations-
inner-cities,458/)

------
smackfu
While we are at it, why not standardize:

* date and time formats

* language

* time zones

* currency

Seems about as easy and has the same kind of benefits.

~~~
redial
It seems to me that time zones are standard.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_time>

~~~
smackfu
For the most part, although daylight-saving time rules are very non-standard
even from year to year.

------
lifeguard
OMG, I actually learned the metric system in public school in the 1970s. Then
Reagan got elected and canceled it.

Now American kids have to get into drugs to learn the metric system.

------
evolve2k
Why not start a bit of a geek pro metric movement to raise awareness on the
issue. I could imagine some funny Tee's and stickers if nothing else.

------
beefman
The metric system? Pff! Sign this petition instead: <http://wh.gov/UNMa>

------
teeja
One sure way to get metric passed in the US: tell all the 220-lb ladies that
their weight will drop to 100kg.

------
jonhendry
Never happen. The crazy right-wingers will see it as a another "sign" of the
UN trying to take over the US.

------
Zash
Please do this.

Regards, The rest of the World.

------
el_don_almighty
<http://wh.gov/UQye>

Help stop the metric system!

------
darkhorn
Well, you can make a change too. Don't use products that are not in metric.

------
JacksonGariety
Why do they have to make this page look like propaganda?

------
introspectif
US uses US standard measures, not imperial.

------
shmerl
Yep. It's long time overdue.

