Why Does the US Cling To Imperial Measurements?

PhunkySchtuff writes "As one of only three countries on Earth that hasn't converted to a metric system of units and measurements, there is a huge amount of resistance within the US to change the status quo. Whilst the cost of switching would be huge, there is also a massive hidden cost in not switching when dealing with the rest of the world (except for Liberia & Burma, the only other two countries that don't use the metric system) With one of the largest organisations in the US, the military, using metric units extensively, why does the general public in the US still cling to their customary system of units?"

Comments

Re:Ronald Reagan

[LurkerXXX]

Yep. Just to give more background for the young-uns, I was a very young school kid in the 70's. We were told to learn the metric system and get used to it, because before we were out of high school, the country was going to be converted over entirely to the metric system.

That proclamation from our teachers was after congress passed The Metric Conversion Act in 1975. They created the U.S. Metric Board to oversee the conversion.

1979 - The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms required wine producers/importers to switch to metric.

1980 - The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms required required distilled spirits producers/importers to switch to metric.

1982 - Reagan disbands the Metric Board, and fires everyone associated with it.

So we have Reagan to thank for our reliance on an outdated system of measurement. As well as the new trend for Republicans to deficit spend like mad, ballooning the National Debts as never before, and getting religious nut wings involved in politics like never before.

Re:morons

[Technician]

Metric is easier. The big thing that put a big halt on the adoption was the gas crisis in the 1970's when gas creeped to $1.00 gallon. The difficulty was having to compare two standards against each other and the new standard was much more expensive for consumers. As gas pushed $1.00 per gallon. the display on many pumps could not display the higher prices. To prevent buying new pumps, some switched to Liters. Consumers soon found the cheap 35 cent / Liter gas was more expensive and later quit trying to compare prices as common knowledge was the metric gas was more expensive.

In products where we are not comparing metric and US, the metric standard has become the standard. Soda pop is only sold in metric sizes now. 12 and 16 oz are pretty much gone with 1 Liter 500 ml, 2 Liter etc sizes. Most bottled water is now in the 500 ml bottle. All hardware for mounting your flatscreen TV is all metric. Car engines are almost all metric. Serous, when was the last time you wanted to know how much your soda was in price per gallon? All comparison shopping is done is price per Liter for soft drinks except at the soda fountain where the cups are still 16, 32, 48, 64 oz.

The slow conversions is in entrenched measurements such as gasoline, kitchen recipes, temperature, etc where one is the standard and people still try to convert units. You tell them it is 24 degrees out and they want to know what that means in F. Having lived in another country I'm fine with metric as I was immersed in it and did not bother to convert. 21-24 is comfortable. 30 is really hot and 10 is time to grab a warmer coat.

If we started tearing down miles signs and mile markers and replacing them with Metric KM signs and changed the speed signs to 90, the country would soon adopt it. Most cars now can display either clicks or miles.

Re:Building Industry

[tm2b]

Bucky Fuller wrote about this, in the context of how quickly humans adopt new technologies. The sequence you describe is exactly what he believed: in essence, the more frivolous a technology is to our live and safety, and the shorter the product cycle, the faster humans can adopt that technology. Thus, food - fast product cycle, beverages - fast cycle and purely luxury, we can change quickly over a matter of years. Automobiles have a medium life cycle and are of varying criticality to our lives (compare rural Texas with Manhattan or urban Chicqgo), so they will be a medium length of time tomadopt - decades, plus or minus. But housing? That's a very long product cycle and we have a very strong emotional connection to our shelter, so we are very conservative about how we build them. It'll take a century (let's say, from 1960-1980ish) to change.

It was a very interesting discussion in his book, _Critical Path_, where he concluded that for certain kinds of inventions, the inventor wishing to help humanity should publish his housing inventions (the geodesic dome and the dymaxion house, in this case), perhaps work to promote them for some special purposes to get them into intellectual circulation (he worked to get them used by scientific and military organizations), and then move on to other topics - because without a specific adaptive pressure (eg, (my example) PEX to replace now-expensive copper plumbing) housing inventions would take more than a lifetime to go into general use.

Bucky Fuller was a dozen kinds of awesome.