Comment by skissane | Hacker News Reader

Comment by skissane | Hacker News Reader

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> The US being an exception that failed or successfully resisted switching is a false premise in the first place, based on obscure and pedantic definitions of metric acceptance.

I disagree it is a false premise. If you look at major economies – other than the US and UK – >80%, >90% of units encountered in everyday life are metric. In the US, it is more like the other way around. The UK and the US are both outliers from the global average on this, but the UK to a lesser degree than the US is. No other major economy (for any reasonable definition of "major") is an outlier in that sense.

> We learn the metric system in school,

In the majority of countries worldwide, people only learn the metric system at school. The US is an exception in having an education system which still teaches non-metric measurements.

> Sure, Americans also use non-metric units, but that's not as unique as is claimed. First hit for "site:.uk mpg" is "MPG stands for miles per gallon and is used to show how far your car can travel for every gallon (or 4.55 litres) of fuel it uses".

That's not a very good argument – the US and the UK are the only major economies to use miles for road distances (and hence also speed, fuel efficiency, etc). All other major economies use kilometres, not miles.

People say the US, Liberia, and Myanmar are the only countries to reject metric.

If this wasn't bullshit, then people would be able to spontaneously state the criterion that produced this specific list.

I mean, the criterion exists, and therefore the list is technically correct, but nobody researches it before repeating the meme, and it's not at all obvious without research.

If the reasoning doesn't come to you naturally and intuitively, endorsing it I think is insincere. Like the redefinition that demoted Pluto from planethood.

>The US is an exception in having an education system which still teaches non-metric measurements.

This is too vague to even determine if true. Also the implied premise is getting silly. Teaching non-metric measurements needs to be stamped out? Do people learn about miles and gallons in hedge schools in proper countries? If so, is that to be emulated? Is it bad to teach languages other than your preferred one? Do French people know what CV stands for?

> If this wasn't bullshit, then people would be able to spontaneously state the criterion that produced this specific list.

Let's forget about Liberia and Myanmar and just focus on major economies. People can argue about the definition of "major", but for the purposes of this discussion, let's define it as G20 members.

In how many G20 members does the average person make significant, regular use of non-metric measurements in their daily life? To the best of my knowledge, the answer is "only two" (US and UK), and for the US that usage is significantly more than the UK. So, there is a very real sense in which the US (and to a lesser extent the UK) are outliers on adoption of the metric system in everyday life. That's not "bullshit".

> >The US is an exception in having an education system which still teaches non-metric measurements.

> This is too vague to even determine if true.

I have lived my whole life in Australia. Here, non-metric measurements are not part of the government-mandated curriculum. That was true when I was a child and is true for my own children who are at school today. Schools and teachers are free to teach whatever they want (within reason), but if it isn't part of the official curriculum, there is no incentive for them to spend any significant time on it, so the vast majority won't. Most school children have heard of inches/miles/etc, but for most of them their understanding of it is limited to "outdated stuff we don't use any more but Americans still do"

Most countries worldwide are closer to Australia on this than to the US. I mean, how much time do schools in France or Germany or Japan spend on teaching how many ounces in a pound or how many yards in a mile? How many countries – other than the US – have learning details of how to use non-metric measurements in their standard school curriculum?

> In how many G20 members does the average person make significant, regular use of non-metric measurements in their daily life? To the best of my knowledge, the answer is "only two" (US and UK), and for the US that usage is significantly more than the UK.

Canada as well. Usually I'd assume no one cares but you did say G20.

Yes, I forgot about Canada.

So I’d break it down like this: of the 19 countries directly in the G20 (so not counting those only indirectly in it via the EU’s membership) - 1 has high degree of everyday use of non-metric measurements (US), 16 have low, and the other two are in-between, we might say medium (UK and Canada). That leaves over 80% of the G20 in the “low everyday use of non-metric measurements category”.

Unlike the UK, Canada uses kilometres rather than miles for roads, so in that regard is more metric than the UK. Although I’ve also heard that some Canadians do crazy things like use Celsius to measure room temperatures but Fahrenheit to measure oven temperatures.

>In how many G20 members does the average person make significant, regular use of non-metric measurements in their daily life?

This is an interesting question. The amount of usage would need to be quantified. The definition of "average person" would need to be explicit. You have data?

Whatever the data might show, I am confident it won't show a stark division between the US, Liberia, Myanmar, and every other country. But if I'm wrong, that would be interesting.

>Here, non-metric measurements are not part of the government-mandated curriculum

That's exactly what I mean about a hyper-technical argument.

Does the US have a government-mandated curriculum; is it an apples to apples comparison; does its treatment of metric measurements translate to actual classrooms, &c, &c, &c...

>how much time do schools in France or Germany or Japan spend on teaching how many ounces in a pound or how many yards in a mile

That might be interesting to compare with the US. If you have such a statistical analysis, would you share it?

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