Just so I understand correctly... Your argument is that Celsius measurement is too simple and that we should maintain the Fahrenheit system to keep things challenging? I can't tell who is joking on this board anymore.
Kind of, yeah. I was using it as an example to show how everything has become overly simplified. No one remembers phone numbers any more because they're all programmed into their cell phone. No one knows how to read a map anymore because the GPS does it. No one knows how to spell anymore because autocorrect fixes it for you. With technology doing everything for us these days, peoples brains are turning to mush. Having to remember two little numbers like 32 and 212 should be the least of expectations. Besides, everyone already remembers 32 and 212. Most of us know what 85 F feels like, but we couldn't tell you if 30C is hot, cold, or in between. To change to Celsius isn't merely changing some numbers around, it requires an entire change in perception. That's a hard, if not impossible change to make. I'm fine with meters and kilos. I already think in kilos most of the time because a lot of our weights in the gym are in kilos. Meters are pretty similar to yards, so that's an easy to relate to. F to C, though? Bah.
I use the metric system and Celsius temperature scale 6 months out of the year, and I prefer it. Once you make a few basic comparisons in your head (16C = 60F, for example), it's really easy to figure out what things will feel like. And I do know that 51C is fucking hot as balls.
We did pick one- and by "We," I mean every country in the world that matters, including the United States. WE PICKED METRIC! The US officially went to metric in the 1970's, but you'd never know it. Everyone just kept using imperial measurement. Take a gallon of milk. Instead of selling you a slightly larger 4 liter container, they sell you the same thing they always have with the metric equivalent in fine print on the label and then say "look, we're using the metric system!" They started putting a kilometer/hour scale on car speedometers, but didn't bother to change any of the speed limit signs to metric. Despite all of my pro-USA flag waving, I think that Imperial measurements are stupid in the modern day.
I feel like if you modeled a house it would have a puzzle you needed to solve every time you use the bathroom and a stone twice the owner's bodyweight that would have to be physically pushed to get the car in and out of the driveway.
Ladies and Gentlemen, We've solved global warming. Focus: Way back in the olden days (1975) I sat in my 5th grade classroom and listened with alarm as we were told that all measurements in the U.S. would be converted to metric within 10 years. And day now . . . . . . . Metric is certainly more logical, and in the lab I'm way more comfortable with metric units of volume, weight and distance. In everyday life, despite how comfortable I am with metrics from my science background, it's still a matter of just being used to expressing things in Imperial measure. But yes - change it or don't just make everything uniform.
Also, lets not forget: "Degrees C" is short-hand for "Degrees Communist" "Degrees F" is short hand for "Degrees Freedom"
Given that I am not a scientist and that I consider my own mild inconvenience to be of far greater importance than anyone else's gains or losses, fuck the metric system.
That's just because they don't have a metric to imperial conversion for "days served" that you could use to shorten your sentence.
I have to use SI units for all my science classes, because SI is the standard scientific measure. I still use Imperial (technically it is the "American System," but a lot of the units are the same) in my brain though. It's almost like being fluent in a second language. Even if I can speak it freely, I still have to translate on occasion in my brain, or compare words to their counterpart in my own language. SI units are very logical in their nature as they are all based around multiples of 10. Unfortunately, the US is a pretty large country and we have a LOT of infrastructure tooled around Imperial units. Think about speed limits, car speedometers, product packaging, books, etc. It's all in Imperial and I suspect it would cost about all the money this country has, both in private and government money, to install new objects that are labeled and tooled to the SI system. I think there are a lot of other problems this country has without creating a new one. At this point, simple conversions are a minor inconvenience. We're in a deep recession. Let's do something about that before thinking up new ways to spend money.
For the record, I refuse to call it by those contrived size names. Grande is a small? Grand sounds large! I call them small, medium, and large, and the baristas probably think that I am a hick.
"My car gets 20 rods to the hoghead, and that's how I like it." to quote Abe Simpson. I'm with Nett. Its highly dependent on what I'm doing or thinking of. For weather related temperature, I strongly prefer celcius, yet when I put a chicken in the oven I'm thinking 375F. For weight I generally think in pounds, but for doing engineering calcs I much prefer metric. In fact, as a general rule I do all my calculations in metric. Don't talk to me about kips and BTU's; I want Newtons and Watts. Anything car related I prefer imperial (weight, horsepower, torque) with the exception of speed and fuel economy which is driven by the fact that all our signage is km/h and the gas pump reads litres. For length I prefer metric and typically design in metric. But when doing anything construction related I'm basically forced to work in imperial; I go to the Home Depot to buy 2 x 4' studs, 4' x 8' sheets of plywood, 12" x 12" tiles, etc. Below is a link to website I use occasionally in my day to day work life. It provides conversions for just about everything you can think of. http://www.onlineconversion.com/
How is it possible that you're arguing about metric dumbing everything down, and yet, arguing in favour of keeping the imperial system because it would be too hard for people to adapt? It's not as though other countries haven't been able to successfully switch from metric to imperial and have pretty much the entire population figure it out.
Despite the fact we're "supposed" to use metric up here, I have always used Imperial. Nothing against metric, it's a super-easy system that always adds up perfectly, but feet and miles just make more sense to me, and if you're measuring something you had better ALWAYS use feet, yards or inches goddamn you.
I think of it with the same mentality as used in the circumcision thread: people are going to prefer what they're used to, regardless of what proponents of the alternative have to say. I use the imperial system for everything, but I wouldn't mind seeing a universal change to metric. Yeah, it'd be a damned difficult switch at first, but so is everything else when you first try it. I liken it to learning to speak a new language, on a smaller scale. Get some conversions down (inches to centimeters, miles to kilometers, etc.) and go forward from there.
And don't forget, it's more manly to hit someone in the back of the head with a 2 x 4 than a 50.8 x 101.6
We already use metric for scientific applications, as we should. What's the big push otherwise? Is it somehow mission-critical that we think of a basketball player as being 2.12 meters instead of (checks google) 6'11"?
Fuck Celsius, if you're not going to go full Kelvin don't even bother bringing that weak shit in here. Farenheit is far more precise within the range of human experience, and Kelvin is more useful in scientific applications. Celsius is the bastard child of a bastard Frenchman's bastard ideology.