Dumb. The International System is far superior to the idiotic system of hogsheads and gills. The American public, collectively, does not seem have the mental capacity to adopt another system.
The metric system was invented by French revolutionaries to get rid of anything that could be traced back to a king—like the length of his foot. So they contrived something like 1/10,000,000 the distance from pole to equator. Which turns out to be close, but not usably close to a yard, the distance from your nose to your outstretched hand (which is how cloth was measured). It is also just a bit too long for an average-sized man’s stride. Playing out line at sea using fathoms (distance between tips of fingers of outstretched arms is a whole lot easier than measuring line in meters.
Yes, the old system appears to be more chaotic, but measuring a horse’s height by using ‘hands’ (4 inches) just seems to work better than scaring said horse with a tape measure. While the metric system is great for the lab, it can be awkward in the real world. Fahrenheit offers us a whole lot fewer negative numbers in our lives than Celsius does.
It is interesting that the metric system has to be imposed by governments. It is rarely demanded by people who are ok using pounds, feet, etc.
Carpentry is a good example of why metrics is for nerds. Real men think in fractions.