
Why the US never adopted the metric system - TheAuditor
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-the-us-doesnt-use-metric-2016-6?IR=T
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hackney
I think a bit of it has to do with the manufacturing sector. The 'industrial
revolution' in it's beginnings was quite crude really. Today's space age
technology was essentially led by America, and that in and of itself, I
believe to be the contributing factor in our adherence to an essentially non-
metric system. Take the term TITS for ex.: Total instrument tolerance
supplement. Even though the tech industry is primarily metric, the term itself
alludes to getting the absolute maximum precision from whatever you are using
to measure with regardless of the scale.

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dalke
Quoting the article:

> Then around the late 1870s, U.S. manufacturers of high-end machine tools
> effectively blocked the country's metric conversion. By that time they were
> using a measurement system based on the inch and argued that retooling would
> be prohibitive.

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hackney
I read that but the high tech toolers of today are metric understandably. My
point was that the industry may have balked but the populace just don't care
enough. It's not like the tech industry makes the rules.

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dalke
I've a pet peeve. Many people seems to think that "now" is high-tech and
advanced. And it is. But many of the intermediate stages were also high-tech
and advanced.

For example, people know say they are overwhelmed by "Big Data". But
historically that's been the case since at least the 1940s, with people
expressing how they can't keep up with the "torrents of information and data"
that created an "information explosion."

So when you wrote: "a bit of it has to do with the manufacturing sector. The
'industrial revolution' in it's beginnings was quite crude really.", you
managed to trigge that peeve.

Yes, the article mentioned your first point. But no, the late 1800s were well
after the beginnings, and no longer "quite crude." Nor was 'space age
technology' a driving factor against the conversion; most of the opposition to
the Metric Conversion Act was social.

Otherwise, what prevents the US from switching from F to C, at the very least?

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ezoe
US shall adopt the SI units to remove the unnecessary trade barrier.

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dmfdmf
Its not too late.

