The factor you're ignoring is that when a person is assaulted with a gun, they are 7.5 times more likely to die. Banning guns or at least taking steps to keep them out of the hands of people who are likely to use them to assault other people is harm reduction.
Or worker safety for criminals.
Shockingly, criminals won't be rushing to turn their guns in if there ever were a blanket ban. On the other hand you will be taking them out of the hands of the people getting assaulted so at least it'll be safer for the people doing the assaulting.
There's simply no need for a killing advantage unless your intention is to kill.
Because when a disabled person or someone who is physically weak is being attacked by a person who is fit and strong they clearly need no advantages at all.
I suppose they should just call the police and hope and pray the police show up in time to do anything but fill out the paper work. Of course, they aren't likely to show up in time so I guess it'll be paperwork then.
Because it is impossible to do it with knives or more likely gas bombs or half a dozen other things any of us could easily think of?
Many years ago, I was walking through town with a freind of mine (who happened to be quite good at wing chun), and a guy pulled a knife out and asked for our wallets. My friend took a single step forward, plucked the knife right out of his hand, and then asked him if he wanted it back. If someone had pulled a knife in my school, he'd either have been floored by half the rugby team in seconds, or he'd have been battered from all sides with school chairs.
Congrats. You proved that skilled and strong men can defend themselves. I'm sure this is a shocking revelation to many people.
Now, change that to a single woman or a not strong or skilled guy and now what happens? Change that rugby team for a room full of grade school kids. Now what?
This kind of idea keeps coming up again and again. "Well, (insert strong or skilled person) can defend themselves so it is okay to take away the guns!" It comes in different flavors but it always ignores the fact that not everyone has the strength or skill to defend themselves with merely their hands from a mob or even an armed individual.
On the other hand practically everyone from the age of 8 can use a firearm to defend themselves. While I realize some may call this flamebait the fact is that a call for gun control is a call for the domination of the weak by the strong or many. It is a statement that you, in the general sense, don't give a rats ass about the weak and defenseless. You just want to pass a law that will make you feel better and like you've done something.
Attack the problem from both fronts. Help nutcases become not-nutcases, and make it harder to find effective weapons.
That only works if you're willing to accept the fact that you're also denying people the ability to adequately defend themselves. Not everyone is a 180 pound lean fighting machine.
You would not be able to kill as many people with a knife, because people would fight back and/or run away. I seriously doubt you could make any useful lethal gas bomb from a liquor store, but even then people could run away from the gas.
Besides all these items (knife, chemicals) has useful purposes other than killing, a gun has only one purpose to kill people.
That is true. No one has ever used one to defend themselves.
While that defense does at times result in someone getting killed it often does not. Somehow I doubt that is what you meant when you said it only has one purpose which is to kill people.
Thank you for your wonderfully informative and thought out response. How in any way is it not true that reducing the numbers of guns in society will reduce the total number of nutcases who end up in possession of a gun. Are you trying to tell me that basic statistics do not hold?
No, I'm trying to say that if the goal is "reduce number of nutcases doing bad things" then "ban guns" doesn't accomplish that goal except possibly as a side effect.
Drunk driving is a major problem and actually kills far far far more people than have ever been killed in mass shootings. We don't discuss banning or even really severely limiting cars despite the fact that their use kills lots of people through negligent or incorrect use. While cars are clearly highly useful to everyone the irony is that restricting their ownership would virtually eliminate drunk driving deaths and injuries in a way that banning guns would not eliminate acts by nut cases.
The core problem is we're discussing tools and not users. At best/worst guns make it more convenient to commit suicide by mass murder but are far from the only way to do so and not even the most spectacular way. They, like cars, also have many good uses and in fact their good uses outweigh their bad by staggering margin.
This is not the debate we should be having. We shouldn't be debating bans and laws that impact millions of people while trying to deter a tiny tiny fraction of people from committing terrible acts that they could just go ahead and commit anyway with some other tool. What we should be debating is how can we prevent or reduce such tragedies in a meaningful way without turning the country into a police state. For instance we could prevent, or reduce, such tragedies by monitoring where everyone is at all times but I'm pretty sure no one wants that.
It's not that guns are the only way to cause mass death and fear, it is that they make it easier.
Nutcase+ability to do lots of damage=a bad day. If we reduce the number of nutcases (by making access to mental health more prevalent) and reduce the number of ways to create lots of damage (partly by restricting guns) then we will reduce the number of bad days we have.
Thing is, that isn't really true and it has the side effect of impacting the rights and abilities of millions of people who were never a threat.
You're still blaming the instrument and not the user. Zero people were killed by guns. Lots of people were killed by someone using a gun. The difference is critical and important as it tells where the likely solution is.
No one died in China in that attack and that is a wonderful thing. It is also down to luck more than anything else.
Actually, the problem is the guns. Or, rather, it's that guns are so widespread and easy to obtain that any nutcase can get one.
Because it is impossible to cause large scale death and destruction with absolutely nothing else? Because it is impossible to do it with knives or more likely gas bombs or half a dozen other things any of us could easily think of?
The problem is not guns. The problem is nutcases. Until guns, or anything else, is capable of independent action the problem will always be nutcases. As long as people insist on blaming objects and ignoring the real problem nothing will be solved.
The definition of cronyism is rewarding your allies or dependents with benefits they did not earn or deserve. Usually crony capitalism is used as a buzzword to attack government since 2009 due to the relationship Barack Obama has with Chicago and the imagined relationship he has/had with the supposed Chicago political machine.
Now in this case we're looking at a government that barring some hidden kickback that directly rewarded a government official as just a bad loan. It cannot be "crony capitalism" without directly rewarding the crony of the giver.
Whereas strictly speaking cronyism can occur outside of government influence Crony Capitalism pretty much requires it. It was also around long before the current administration. Hell, the wikipedia article on it alone goes back to 2005 and I doubt the history of the term starts there.
I suppose the difference comes from why they wanted to print it and make such a big deal about it. All things considered it was another attempt to demonize a segment of the population they don't care for and would like to go away. It wasn't news. It was an attempt at intimidation.
So you'd like to have the government analyze a speaker's intention and then decide whether or not to suppress their speech? And if the government decides the speech is intended to demonize a segment of the population (or simply "wasn't news") - for example, criticizing the efficacy of a particular congressional majority or the policies of a sitting president - then you're comfortable with that speech being suppressed?
Of course not and I didn't advocate for such either. Rereading the chain of statements I suppose how you could think that was what I was saying but it wasn't. Nonetheless my original point still stands. The purpose for which they wanted to publish that information and the form in which they did so was clearly for the sole purpose of intimidation. It wasn't news and they were simply trying to demonize their hated demographic. I'm not asking the government to stop them, just pointing out their likely motivations.
Crony capitalism is what actually happens when you implement captialism in the real world. Capitalism is the theory, cronyism is the practice.
Crony capitalism is what you get when government gets too big for its pants and big enough to get involved with things that are not the proper role of government. Crony capitalism requires an out of control government and it cannot exist without it.
Government is and always has been the problem and at best a necessary evil that must be constantly kept in check.
The government knows what car you have. So they do have the right to know what you own. And another thing: you need a driver's license to drive a car. Wouldn't it be logical to need a license to wield a gun? And to have all guns registered?
Your logic isn't logic. The government knows what car I have for the purposes of paying taxes for using public roads. If I want to buy a car, pop it on a trailer and then drive it around on my land (silly, I know) I don't have to tell them anything. The same applies for driving a car, you only need a license to drive one on the public roads not to own one and not to drive one around on your private property.
Thus, even if they were equivalent then logically you'd only need a license to carry a gun in public and would only have to register them for the purpose of paying taxes. Since it has long been recognized that a tax on a right is unconstitutional beyond that which is necessary for administration a tax on guns simply to enact registration would likely fail a Constitutional challenge. Additionally while one may be able, and likely could, extract a right to own a car (either specifically or as general property) from the Ninth Amendment I don't know of a case which as yet done so. Owning a gun on the other is undeniably a right guaranteed by the Constitution and as such laws impacting such ownership are under far greater scrutiny.
And what do you call the response they got from those gun owners?
You mean the alleged response they supposedly got? We have no proof beyond their saying a "menacing" email came from apresumed gun owner. The email was so threatening the police said they couldn't do anything. In short, it clearly wasn't much of a threat presuming it even really came from a gun owner. On the other hand, we know for a fact what they published and we can reasonably deduce their motivations.
It also should not protect your ability to publish whether or not I legally purchased a gun, since that is very likely to result in me being unjustly harassed by anti-gun nuts like you.
Could you draw a line between which publicly available information (such as New York gun registrations) shall be reprintable and which you'd like the government to suppress?
I suppose the difference comes from why they wanted to print it and make such a big deal about it. All things considered it was another attempt to demonize a segment of the population they don't care for and would like to go away. It wasn't news. It was an attempt at intimidation.
What a twat. The archetype of what's wrong with America.
The archetype of what's wrong with America is someone who doesn't roll over and give up their rights on demand by some government bureaucrat? There is exactly nothing wrong in what the previous poster said. Government has no rights and they absolutely have no right to know what I, or anyone else, do or do not own.
You're absolutely right. Put another way, it's too complicated for most people to remember. And that is why we should scrap it in favor of the intuitive Y.
If that is the case, why is there no general call to convert? I'm not really arguing against it so much as pointing out the lack of motivation and desire. Speaking for myself converting between different units in the customary system isn't particularly hard and has some advantages over metric units. Which is to say that most of the day to day customary units are virtually intuitive. Even if you don't know that a cup has eight ounces you likely can imagine how large a cup is or something pretty close. Then if I say half a cup or a third or what not that too is pretty easy to imagine. I suppose the same could be said if you grew up with metric and whatever the metric equivalent would be. I don't mean the conversion of a cup to metric (236ml) but whatever the customary unit in metric. To wit, most baking or other mixing tasks may say half a cup or two cups or whatever and frequently refer to such amounts and measuring spoons are made in such amounts. I imagine there are metric equivalents of frequently used amounts. Of course, all of that intuitiveness could simply be because I grew up with customary units.
Aren't there still loads of unemployed people in the USA? Instead of putting them to work digging holes and filling them in again, why not employ them to convert the nation to metric? Like one of those Depression-era construction schemes, e.g the Hoover Dam.
There's a huge amount of work to be done, changing highway signs, changing settings on scales in stores.... sure, it's not rocket science, but it's better than sitting idly collecting a welfare check, and it educates the disadvantaged about the metric system, thereby making them more employable in the future. Surely it also has a positive effect on your economy, by making US exports more competitive with the rest of the world...
While not a dreadful idea, it doesn't address the lack of benefit for the man in the street. He grew up with miles, feet and yards and is provided with virtually zero benefit to converting all that. So what is the motivation?:)
"have you really met many people in the street cursing the system they've used and are used to for all their lives?"
Yes. I have, countless times. Try it yourself. Get up, and ask the first person you see how many tablespoons are in a fluid ounce, how many ounces are in a cup, how many cups are in a pint, and how many pints are in a quart Ask them how many feet are in 3 miles. If they get those, ask them how many cubic inches are in a pound of water at STP..
Similar conversions are trivial in the metric system.
I've often heard this argument which for some reason strikes me as a "people are too stupid to remember X". People who deal with such things frequently, or use measuring cups, aren't likely to have this issue more than once or twice. Not rocket science. As to "how many cubic inches are in a pound of water at STP", really? You're just looking for a more and more obscure use case to prove the point.:p
While the plural of data is not anecdote I still have a hard time believing there are that many people cursing the current system. If there were, why are there no mass calls, or any really, for change? There are no mass calls, therefore people are clearly not that upset about things. QED.
That, or they said that there is little benefit for the man in the street to convert and there are giant costs involved. So, with little benefit in one hand and a giant cost in the other, what would you do?
You consider the future. Who was it who said "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish"?
The fall from enterprising pioneers to decadent reactionaries went quickly - a mere two generations.
It's not a matter of being a reactionary. It is a matter of looking at the negligible benefits for the average person and coming to the conclusion that it isn't worth it. If the US were in Europe and the average person were constantly interfacing with people who used metric it would be different. But it isn't and they don't. So what is the benefit for everyone who isn't in the manufacturing business?
Yes, and their voice was "Ooh, change makes my head hurt. Leave me alone and give me tax cuts and reality TV".
The last days of the empire, indeed.
That, or they said that there is little benefit for the man in the street to convert and there are giant costs involved. So, with little benefit in one hand and a giant cost in the other, what would you do?
Or perhaps certain campaign sponsors have spoken many times...
Outside of certain industries have you really met many people in the street cursing the system they've used and are used to for all their lives? Doubtful. There is nearly zero public outcry to change and that is why there is no change.
It's an interesting article, but having been to China, people talk distances between locations in km, and the weights in the market are in grams. China is SI, even if China still officially recognizes ancient measures. Have you, in your Chinese travels, ever seen anything that wasn't measured in SI units?
Slashdot. The only site where Wikipedia trumps reality (at least the OP posted it tongue in cheek).
Actually yes. But not all that often and most often only at informal markets. Though I have seen taels and cattys (catties?) in use in tea markets, some traditional drug stores and even a super market or two. So, yeah.
Slashdot Mirror
The factor you're ignoring is that when a person is assaulted with a gun, they are 7.5 times more likely to die. Banning guns or at least taking steps to keep them out of the hands of people who are likely to use them to assault other people is harm reduction.
Or worker safety for criminals.
Shockingly, criminals won't be rushing to turn their guns in if there ever were a blanket ban. On the other hand you will be taking them out of the hands of the people getting assaulted so at least it'll be safer for the people doing the assaulting.
There's simply no need for a killing advantage unless your intention is to kill.
Because when a disabled person or someone who is physically weak is being attacked by a person who is fit and strong they clearly need no advantages at all.
I suppose they should just call the police and hope and pray the police show up in time to do anything but fill out the paper work. Of course, they aren't likely to show up in time so I guess it'll be paperwork then.
Because it is impossible to do it with knives or more likely gas bombs or half a dozen other things any of us could easily think of?
Many years ago, I was walking through town with a freind of mine (who happened to be quite good at wing chun), and a guy pulled a knife out and asked for our wallets. My friend took a single step forward, plucked the knife right out of his hand, and then asked him if he wanted it back. If someone had pulled a knife in my school, he'd either have been floored by half the rugby team in seconds, or he'd have been battered from all sides with school chairs.
Congrats. You proved that skilled and strong men can defend themselves. I'm sure this is a shocking revelation to many people.
Now, change that to a single woman or a not strong or skilled guy and now what happens? Change that rugby team for a room full of grade school kids. Now what?
This kind of idea keeps coming up again and again. "Well, (insert strong or skilled person) can defend themselves so it is okay to take away the guns!" It comes in different flavors but it always ignores the fact that not everyone has the strength or skill to defend themselves with merely their hands from a mob or even an armed individual.
On the other hand practically everyone from the age of 8 can use a firearm to defend themselves. While I realize some may call this flamebait the fact is that a call for gun control is a call for the domination of the weak by the strong or many. It is a statement that you, in the general sense, don't give a rats ass about the weak and defenseless. You just want to pass a law that will make you feel better and like you've done something.
Impossible? No. Harder? Yes.
Attack the problem from both fronts. Help nutcases become not-nutcases, and make it harder to find effective weapons.
That only works if you're willing to accept the fact that you're also denying people the ability to adequately defend themselves. Not everyone is a 180 pound lean fighting machine.
You would not be able to kill as many people with a knife, because people would fight back and/or run away. I seriously doubt you could make any useful lethal gas bomb from a liquor store, but even then people could run away from the gas.
Besides all these items (knife, chemicals) has useful purposes other than killing, a gun has only one purpose to kill people.
That is true. No one has ever used one to defend themselves.
While that defense does at times result in someone getting killed it often does not. Somehow I doubt that is what you meant when you said it only has one purpose which is to kill people.
Thank you for your wonderfully informative and thought out response. How in any way is it not true that reducing the numbers of guns in society will reduce the total number of nutcases who end up in possession of a gun. Are you trying to tell me that basic statistics do not hold?
No, I'm trying to say that if the goal is "reduce number of nutcases doing bad things" then "ban guns" doesn't accomplish that goal except possibly as a side effect.
Drunk driving is a major problem and actually kills far far far more people than have ever been killed in mass shootings. We don't discuss banning or even really severely limiting cars despite the fact that their use kills lots of people through negligent or incorrect use. While cars are clearly highly useful to everyone the irony is that restricting their ownership would virtually eliminate drunk driving deaths and injuries in a way that banning guns would not eliminate acts by nut cases.
The core problem is we're discussing tools and not users. At best/worst guns make it more convenient to commit suicide by mass murder but are far from the only way to do so and not even the most spectacular way. They, like cars, also have many good uses and in fact their good uses outweigh their bad by staggering margin.
This is not the debate we should be having. We shouldn't be debating bans and laws that impact millions of people while trying to deter a tiny tiny fraction of people from committing terrible acts that they could just go ahead and commit anyway with some other tool. What we should be debating is how can we prevent or reduce such tragedies in a meaningful way without turning the country into a police state. For instance we could prevent, or reduce, such tragedies by monitoring where everyone is at all times but I'm pretty sure no one wants that.
It's not that guns are the only way to cause mass death and fear, it is that they make it easier.
Nutcase+ability to do lots of damage=a bad day. If we reduce the number of nutcases (by making access to mental health more prevalent) and reduce the number of ways to create lots of damage (partly by restricting guns) then we will reduce the number of bad days we have.
Thing is, that isn't really true and it has the side effect of impacting the rights and abilities of millions of people who were never a threat.
You're still blaming the instrument and not the user. Zero people were killed by guns. Lots of people were killed by someone using a gun. The difference is critical and important as it tells where the likely solution is.
No one died in China in that attack and that is a wonderful thing. It is also down to luck more than anything else.
How would you kill 30 people with a knife? Where can you buy lethal gas bombs?
The problem is the guns, they are extremely effective at killing large amount of people within a very short time.
In a grade school classroom it'd be pretty easy to do in large numbers of people with a knife.
Where can you buy a lethal gas bomb? Your nearest liquor store for one. Any place that sells glass or certain types of plastic bottles for another.
Actually, the problem is the guns. Or, rather, it's that guns are so widespread and easy to obtain that any nutcase can get one.
Because it is impossible to cause large scale death and destruction with absolutely nothing else? Because it is impossible to do it with knives or more likely gas bombs or half a dozen other things any of us could easily think of?
The problem is not guns. The problem is nutcases. Until guns, or anything else, is capable of independent action the problem will always be nutcases. As long as people insist on blaming objects and ignoring the real problem nothing will be solved.
Yes, finding a job when you don't have an address, money, food or means will be a snap!
The US street are littered with kids whose parent did that instead of actual get professional help.
.
Apparently "coddle your children to adulthood" is Insightful these days?
Yeaaaahhhhhh, no.
The definition of cronyism is rewarding your allies or dependents with benefits they did not earn or deserve. Usually crony capitalism is used as a buzzword to attack government since 2009 due to the relationship Barack Obama has with Chicago and the imagined relationship he has/had with the supposed Chicago political machine.
Now in this case we're looking at a government that barring some hidden kickback that directly rewarded a government official as just a bad loan. It cannot be "crony capitalism" without directly rewarding the crony of the giver.
Whereas strictly speaking cronyism can occur outside of government influence Crony Capitalism pretty much requires it. It was also around long before the current administration. Hell, the wikipedia article on it alone goes back to 2005 and I doubt the history of the term starts there.
I suppose the difference comes from why they wanted to print it and make such a big deal about it. All things considered it was another attempt to demonize a segment of the population they don't care for and would like to go away. It wasn't news. It was an attempt at intimidation.
So you'd like to have the government analyze a speaker's intention and then decide whether or not to suppress their speech? And if the government decides the speech is intended to demonize a segment of the population (or simply "wasn't news") - for example, criticizing the efficacy of a particular congressional majority or the policies of a sitting president - then you're comfortable with that speech being suppressed?
Of course not and I didn't advocate for such either. Rereading the chain of statements I suppose how you could think that was what I was saying but it wasn't. Nonetheless my original point still stands. The purpose for which they wanted to publish that information and the form in which they did so was clearly for the sole purpose of intimidation. It wasn't news and they were simply trying to demonize their hated demographic. I'm not asking the government to stop them, just pointing out their likely motivations.
Crony capitalism is not capitalism
Crony capitalism is what actually happens when you implement captialism in the real world. Capitalism is the theory, cronyism is the practice.
Crony capitalism is what you get when government gets too big for its pants and big enough to get involved with things that are not the proper role of government. Crony capitalism requires an out of control government and it cannot exist without it.
Government is and always has been the problem and at best a necessary evil that must be constantly kept in check.
The government knows what car you have. So they do have the right to know what you own.
And another thing: you need a driver's license to drive a car. Wouldn't it be logical to need a license to wield a gun? And to have all guns registered?
Your logic isn't logic. The government knows what car I have for the purposes of paying taxes for using public roads. If I want to buy a car, pop it on a trailer and then drive it around on my land (silly, I know) I don't have to tell them anything. The same applies for driving a car, you only need a license to drive one on the public roads not to own one and not to drive one around on your private property.
Thus, even if they were equivalent then logically you'd only need a license to carry a gun in public and would only have to register them for the purpose of paying taxes. Since it has long been recognized that a tax on a right is unconstitutional beyond that which is necessary for administration a tax on guns simply to enact registration would likely fail a Constitutional challenge. Additionally while one may be able, and likely could, extract a right to own a car (either specifically or as general property) from the Ninth Amendment I don't know of a case which as yet done so. Owning a gun on the other is undeniably a right guaranteed by the Constitution and as such laws impacting such ownership are under far greater scrutiny.
And what do you call the response they got from those gun owners?
You mean the alleged response they supposedly got? We have no proof beyond their saying a "menacing" email came from a presumed gun owner. The email was so threatening the police said they couldn't do anything. In short, it clearly wasn't much of a threat presuming it even really came from a gun owner. On the other hand, we know for a fact what they published and we can reasonably deduce their motivations.
It also should not protect your ability to publish whether or not I legally purchased a gun, since that is very likely to result in me being unjustly harassed by anti-gun nuts like you.
Could you draw a line between which publicly available information (such as New York gun registrations) shall be reprintable and which you'd like the government to suppress?
I suppose the difference comes from why they wanted to print it and make such a big deal about it. All things considered it was another attempt to demonize a segment of the population they don't care for and would like to go away. It wasn't news. It was an attempt at intimidation.
What a twat. The archetype of what's wrong with America.
The archetype of what's wrong with America is someone who doesn't roll over and give up their rights on demand by some government bureaucrat? There is exactly nothing wrong in what the previous poster said. Government has no rights and they absolutely have no right to know what I, or anyone else, do or do not own.
Who is the twat I would say?
"people are too stupid to remember X"
You're absolutely right. Put another way, it's too complicated for most people to remember. And that is why we should scrap it in favor of the intuitive Y.
If that is the case, why is there no general call to convert? I'm not really arguing against it so much as pointing out the lack of motivation and desire. Speaking for myself converting between different units in the customary system isn't particularly hard and has some advantages over metric units. Which is to say that most of the day to day customary units are virtually intuitive. Even if you don't know that a cup has eight ounces you likely can imagine how large a cup is or something pretty close. Then if I say half a cup or a third or what not that too is pretty easy to imagine. I suppose the same could be said if you grew up with metric and whatever the metric equivalent would be. I don't mean the conversion of a cup to metric (236ml) but whatever the customary unit in metric. To wit, most baking or other mixing tasks may say half a cup or two cups or whatever and frequently refer to such amounts and measuring spoons are made in such amounts. I imagine there are metric equivalents of frequently used amounts. Of course, all of that intuitiveness could simply be because I grew up with customary units.
Aren't there still loads of unemployed people in the USA? Instead of putting them to work digging holes and filling them in again, why not employ them to convert the nation to metric? Like one of those Depression-era construction schemes, e.g the Hoover Dam.
There's a huge amount of work to be done, changing highway signs, changing settings on scales in stores.... sure, it's not rocket science, but it's better than sitting idly collecting a welfare check, and it educates the disadvantaged about the metric system, thereby making them more employable in the future. Surely it also has a positive effect on your economy, by making US exports more competitive with the rest of the world...
While not a dreadful idea, it doesn't address the lack of benefit for the man in the street. He grew up with miles, feet and yards and is provided with virtually zero benefit to converting all that. So what is the motivation? :)
"have you really met many people in the street cursing the system they've used and are used to for all their lives?"
Yes. I have, countless times. Try it yourself. Get up, and ask the first person you see how many tablespoons are in a fluid ounce, how many ounces are in a cup, how many cups are in a pint, and how many pints are in a quart Ask them how many feet are in 3 miles. If they get those, ask them how many cubic inches are in a pound of water at STP..
Similar conversions are trivial in the metric system.
I've often heard this argument which for some reason strikes me as a "people are too stupid to remember X". People who deal with such things frequently, or use measuring cups, aren't likely to have this issue more than once or twice. Not rocket science. As to "how many cubic inches are in a pound of water at STP", really? You're just looking for a more and more obscure use case to prove the point. :p
While the plural of data is not anecdote I still have a hard time believing there are that many people cursing the current system. If there were, why are there no mass calls, or any really, for change? There are no mass calls, therefore people are clearly not that upset about things. QED.
That, or they said that there is little benefit for the man in the street to convert and there are giant costs involved. So, with little benefit in one hand and a giant cost in the other, what would you do?
You consider the future. Who was it who said "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish"?
The fall from enterprising pioneers to decadent reactionaries went quickly - a mere two generations.
It's not a matter of being a reactionary. It is a matter of looking at the negligible benefits for the average person and coming to the conclusion that it isn't worth it. If the US were in Europe and the average person were constantly interfacing with people who used metric it would be different. But it isn't and they don't. So what is the benefit for everyone who isn't in the manufacturing business?
perhaps the people have spoken...many times...
Yes, and their voice was "Ooh, change makes my head hurt. Leave me alone and give me tax cuts and reality TV".
The last days of the empire, indeed.
That, or they said that there is little benefit for the man in the street to convert and there are giant costs involved. So, with little benefit in one hand and a giant cost in the other, what would you do?
Or perhaps certain campaign sponsors have spoken many times...
Outside of certain industries have you really met many people in the street cursing the system they've used and are used to for all their lives? Doubtful. There is nearly zero public outcry to change and that is why there is no change.
It's an interesting article, but having been to China, people talk distances between locations in km, and the weights in the market are in grams. China is SI, even if China still officially recognizes ancient measures. Have you, in your Chinese travels, ever seen anything that wasn't measured in SI units?
Slashdot. The only site where Wikipedia trumps reality (at least the OP posted it tongue in cheek).
Actually yes. But not all that often and most often only at informal markets. Though I have seen taels and cattys (catties?) in use in tea markets, some traditional drug stores and even a super market or two. So, yeah.