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Presidential Candidate Lincoln Chaffee Proposes That US Go Metric
New submitter Applehu Akbar writes: The good news is that for the first time in years, a candidate in the next presidential cycle has proposed completing our transition to the metric system. Though unfortunately it's Lincoln Chaffee, let's all hope that this long-standing nerd issue gets into the 2016 debate because of this. Warning: Lame CNN autoplaying video.
It's a non-starter of a proposal from a non-starter of a candidate. There is no huge push in the US to go fully metric right now.
I don't know the stances of Lincoln on other issues, but trying to push the metric system is a great start and bound to fix the economy as soon as people can figure out how to measure things. Why can't one of the main stream candidates get this?
Place something witty here
It's great that he's finally talking some sense. I just wish he weren't doing it to an empty room with only his mom and kids present.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
I am surprised the republican field has not proposed we get rid of the english system for Biblical set of measures in units of Palms, Spans, and Cubits.
You're pushing an unimportant issue nobody cares about.
Really, with all the important issues that should occupy a president's attention, if this is even on your radar, you're not qualified for the job.
Go metric and your dicks will become about 2.5 times larger!!!
Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
I remember when all the interstate signs showed their metric equivalents (in smaller print under the miles/mph). It was sad to see those removed some years later.
All measurements systems are arbitrary.
the advantage of metric is that it is a global standard and the units are all divisible by ten.
That's it.
However in the US, we're familiar with the current system so it isn't a big deal... and the US has never really cared what was standard in other countries. We just don't care.
The US tried to go metric in the 1970s.
First, most people just ignored it and used the existing imperial system.
Second, it was the middle of a bad economic time and transitioning costs money because you have to change everything to suit the new system. It was just a tough sell in hard times.
Third... and this can't be stressed enough... I feel like the metric advocates really don't get this... Americans don't care about joining a global standard. At all. Not even a little.
When you factor it out, what you're left with is advantage of their divisible by ten units versus the more varied divisions in imperial.
That's pretty much it. And then you have to factor that Americans know imperial so it isn't a hardship to use it. And they don't know metric as well so it is inconvenient.
What does this leave us with? The US is not going metric any time soon. Just isn't happening.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Fewer than four liters in a gallon. 3.8 liters per gallon. Well, 3.78-odd, but close enough.
And at the time that gas stations tried to switch from gallons to liters, they were also going to the trouble of quietly raising the price of gas during the conversion - a buck a gallon becomes $0.30 per liter, for instance....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
And while we're at it, let's make the national sport SOCCER!
That's FOOTBALL you know... Problem is Americans have redefined that word, so you have your work cut out for you.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
And note that the US was one of the initial signatories of Metre Convention and that our "customary" units have been actually defined from Metric units since 1893. The problem being that the people have been rather slow to stop using the customary units and the government hasn't really done much to encourage a total switch.
Well except in the 70's, Carter got blamed for that even though it was Ford who signed the legislation. The Reagan administration that came after was full of nostalgia addled traditionalists including the president himself, so the encouragement ended.
http://rs1img.memecdn.com/why-...
All the nuts and bolts in my car and bike are metric. The bike is made in the good old US of A. Everyone knows what a 2-liter soda is, why can't they figure out what a 2-liter bottle of milk is? We are partially converted. We use 35mm film (old people, at least) and 9mm ammo. Anyone who has been in the military has done everything in metric, it's not that difficult. It is hard to change everything. Even countries you changed decades ago still use old units. England and Ireland are full of examples of that. The most noticeable change will be road signs. It's not that hard to learn that 60 mph is 100 kph. We will have to watch out during the transition. A Canadian airliner ran out of fuel half way due to bad conversions from gallons/pounds to liter/kilograms during their changeover.
Nice try. The word "soccer" was invented by the British as an abbreviation for "association football". The Brits just stopped using it out of spite when we took it up :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...
I'll resist this with every ounce of my being.
I'll resist this with every gram of my being.
I won't give an inch on this issue.
I won't give 5 centimeters on this issue.
They came at us with a shit ton of rockets and mortars!
They came at us with a shit kilogram of rockets and mortars!
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
An gram of prevention is worth a kilo of cure.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
First, the US is officially metric.
The problem most non-Americans can't understand is that the US government/system ostensibly has few tools to compel this transition, CERTAINLY none that are worth political cost of using on an issue that most people don't give two shits about.
In short: the people who need/want metric use it.
The people who don't would strongly resist doing so.
Second: there's no "automatic" value inherent in the metric system. It's a SHIT TON easier to use with computers and calculators, certainly, as it's all decimal. But otherwise its less wieldy in daily use as 10 doesn't divide neatly by 3 or 4.
If your pro-metric argument is about the value of universalization, hell, we can't even agree that we should all speak ENGLISH in this country, and the 'universalization' value of that would be orders of magnitude more useful/immediate than all switching to a measuring system most of us don't use in the first place.
-Styopa
Even going just partial metric can also lead to big problems.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
What school in the US teaches engineering in US Customary? I am doubtful of this anecdote.
What? My Engineering degree is 30 years old. We did almost everything in school in Metric.
After school it's industry specific. But all common metric parts are readily available.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Every civil engineering school there is? It gets worse when you go to surveying. Those guys use stupid units like "US Feet" which are ever so slightly different than "International Feet" but both of which are defined in terms of the Meter.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
A flaming turd in a paper sack couldn't be worst than Hillary.
Time to offend someone
"They could require ... all sorts of things to force the change"
You've put your finger on the main difference between the US and Europe. Europe seems to have no problem with top down forced changes, while the US is fairly resistant to that.
When we go and have a drink in our fine metric country, we don't ask for a specific measure (like a pint) of beer. I mean, that would just be awfully geeky. No, we ask for a "tuoppi" which means a glass of beer. (It's generally 500 ml, if you really need to know.)
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
unfortunately it's Lincoln Chaffee
On the front page of any site, other than to get conservatives excited about someone they can bash? Besides, the conservative majority here already knows that Chaffee is not one of them, they would have seen his name and jumped in to tell us what a terrible evil person he is without needing the lead-in in the summary.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Come to the UK and temperature is in Celsius when its cold and Fahrenheit when its hot.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)