Yeah I think at that point it would be easier to just go metric.
Most Americans actually seem to be five with metric and probably would not mind it too much if we just switched. The objections are basically: 1) it’s too expensive to switch now (okay), or 2) it’s part of our identity (doubt). I swear to God everything is a culture war with some people.
More rational people, especially in STEM where it’s already the standard, prefer it.
In general though, I would argue that Americans know metric better then Europeans know US customary, for what that’s worth
It’s mostly about what you’re used to. Americans buy soda in liters, run 5km and do drugs by the gram. But we buy gasoline and milk in gallons and our recipes call for flour by volume. It’s mostly inertia. At the end of the day you have to communicate with people around you so you use units they understand.
Saying its too expensive to change is bullshit. Metric is common enough that most people who care about units at all end up having one set of tools for each system so they can use both as needed. This includes industry and machinists. It wouldn’t actually cost anything to change at this point we could just stop designing new things in imperial units and in a couple decades we would barely need imperial tools anymore, except to work on old stuff. Some engineers are just as pig headed as anyone though, so they just keep using imperial even though they know both, use both, and still run into problems with imperial.
Yeah I think at that point it would be easier to just go metric.
Most Americans actually seem to be five with metric and probably would not mind it too much if we just switched. The objections are basically: 1) it’s too expensive to switch now (okay), or 2) it’s part of our identity (doubt). I swear to God everything is a culture war with some people.
More rational people, especially in STEM where it’s already the standard, prefer it.
In general though, I would argue that Americans know metric better then Europeans know US customary, for what that’s worth
It’s mostly about what you’re used to. Americans buy soda in liters, run 5km and do drugs by the gram. But we buy gasoline and milk in gallons and our recipes call for flour by volume. It’s mostly inertia. At the end of the day you have to communicate with people around you so you use units they understand.
Saying its too expensive to change is bullshit. Metric is common enough that most people who care about units at all end up having one set of tools for each system so they can use both as needed. This includes industry and machinists. It wouldn’t actually cost anything to change at this point we could just stop designing new things in imperial units and in a couple decades we would barely need imperial tools anymore, except to work on old stuff. Some engineers are just as pig headed as anyone though, so they just keep using imperial even though they know both, use both, and still run into problems with imperial.