Here's the real reason the U.S. doesn't use the metric system

National Geographic ^ | June 18, 2024 | Erin Blackmore

[DoodleBob]

…Most other nations dutifully adopted SI, changing road signs and packaging and teaching the metric system in schools. Even the United Kingdom, which had lagged for years, mostly embraced the system in an effort to keep pace with other European Union nations. (Since the U.K. left the EU, metric opponents there have argued the nation should stop using metric units, a controversial proposition that has yet to be adopted.)

Despite international adoption and increasing federal policy encouraging the use of metric units, the U.S. continued to drag its feet. Resistance was fueled in part by industrialists who argued the system was too complicated and expensive to implement, legislators suspicious of “foreign” influence, and controversies over whether wide-scale federal adoption might infringe on states’ rights.

The end result was confusion. Though the U.S. officially declared SI the nation’s preferred system through the 1975 Metric Conversion Act, even federal agencies were slow to adopt metric in industry, education, commerce, and daily life. One example is road signs: Though federal officials attempted to turn a new interstate in Arizona into an SI poster child in the wake of the Metric Conversion Act, even giving it kilometer markers instead of mileposts, transportation officials never extended metric-only signage to the remainder of the federal highway system.

…

Nonetheless, Benham still believes voluntary metrification in the U.S. is possible—and encourages individuals to look for the metric measurements that already surround them…

Ultimately, says Benham, a full transition to the metric system won’t be possible until individuals take the plunge and decide to use it in their daily lives. That’s why she focuses on education at her job—and has switched to the metric system in her daily life, setting her smartphone to measure length in kilometers instead of miles and using degrees Celsius instead of Fahrenheit.

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TOPICS: History; Science; Society
KEYWORDS: euroweenies; metrication; metricsystem

[DoodleBob]

I bet if a poll was taken, the majority of leftists would say “yes” if asked “Are you embarrassed that the US has not embraced the Metric System?”

They tried to jam meters, grams, Celsius, and liters down our throats in the 1970s. The only foothold they gained was the 2-liter soda bottle.

[SkyDancer]

Congress said it would confuse the old folks.

[Paladin2]

I use the Metric system when doing F=ma stuff.

[Red Badger]

They are old folks!..................

[Paladin2]

I still prefer to buy a dozen eggs.

YMMV....

[stanne]

Nat B
Washington explaining the American system

https://share.google/f6Zp1TpKmjuiX9XX0

[Sequoyah101]

So just how far do I have to read to find out the real reason?

[Allegra]

I grew up as a Navy brat. We lived in Italy when I was in junior high and the American school there taught us the metric system.

I remember some of it but I don’t use it much, so I’ve gotten rusty.

[Libloather]

Another dumbass Jimmah Carter move. Metric is superior.

[MotorCityBuck]

We have been using the Metric System in Automotive exclusively since the Mid-Eighties.
Heavy Truck and Military may still use it. However I doubt it.

[johnnygeneric]

The only thing around the world that has not caved to the metric system is nominal pipe sizes. With the only exception being Germany, all countries around the world use inches for pipe diamter. 2” pipe - regardless of schedule in the USA is the same as 2” pipe of the same schedule in South America. The ONLY country that uses metic is Germany. They have the DINN standard for pipe. This has a strong historical background going back to the days of the GP Industrial Revolution that then expanded to the rest of the world. No one wants to change over.

[DesertRhino]

It’s less precise and less useful than base 12....

[Jim Noble]

Can’t believe they gave up the tuppenny bit for decimal currency.

[DoodleBob]

[ansel12]

After World War Eleven we were the only ones with the bomb, we should have forced the world to use our measuring system, drive on the right side, and to quit using hard to pronounce words for their names and other things.

[Paladin2]

AI sez:

“In Germany, eggs are most commonly sold in cartons of 10 (the standard size) or 6. While 12-packs exist, they are less common than 10-packs, and larger trays containing 30 eggs are also standard for bulk purchases.”

[Fai Mao]

I can go back and forth between the two having lived over seas for many years.

I prefer F to C because, as those promoting meters and grams say about metric measurement, it’s a finer scale. In fact, F I almost twice as fine as C.

The real problem with the metric system is that none of the measurements directly relate to real world object the way say a cup, a foot, and an inch do. That, to me is why it seems so foreign. I had to work to overcome that sensation

[DoodleBob]

The Metric Conversion Act of 1975 was voluntary.

And we Americans are stubborn folk.

[Fungi]

The author starts the first sentence without defining what the acronym “SI” means. He is not a journalist, wait, yes he is, a very poor one.

[Paladin2]

And the French stole almost all of the vowels from Eastern Europe and use them in useless, wanton abundance.