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by Highlander is semi-retired from AB on August 5th, 2007

Highlander is semi-retired from AB

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Europe and Canada are on the metric system. Do you think the U.S. will ever change? Do you think this would be a waste of time?

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  • by Babycakes Deux on August 5th, 2007

    Babycakes Deux

    They tried once and were unsuccessful. I don't believe if they tried again, it would fare any better.

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  • by tomsims on August 5th, 2007

    tomsims

    30 years ago we were supposed to be making the switch. There was great resistance. It would be an extremely costly proposition to the economy (and a profit boom to those who created new products to facilitate it). I don't think there is a desire on the part of the people to make the change.

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  • by MvL on August 5th, 2007

    MvL

    I have a hard time believing the US will change any time soon. People think in terms of the standard system in this country, and are very resistant to change. I also don't think the government will ever really apply that much effort towards the goal of conversion.

    We need to face it - the larger the country's population, and the more spread out, as in the US, the more what I call "cultural inertia" exists, and the harder it is for anything to change, other than spontaneously over time. Waxing and waning religious sentiment, or adherence to one or more political parties or mantras, may occur over time, because these things have people's passion and their hearts, but even these are generally shallow changes. The metric system will never really tug at anyone's heart strings.

    After all, it's just a measuring system, and ours works fine. Even if it is disappointing we can't all try to join the rest of the world in using this far simpler system that is used in the sciences exclusively, joining the rest of the world traditionally has never been very important to the US.

    I can see it happening in individual states though - we're far too hung up on the "US", the federal level, and we often ignore that we are, actually, a federation of states, and each state knows best its own local needs and capabilities, and is far more qualified to institute these sorts of changes. If the federal government implemented cutbacks and other benefits, such as additional funding, to states that moved to implement conversion to metric, then over time many, but not all states, would make the change, I think. But again, no one cares enough to make this a campaign platform. We'll always have better things to spend our time and money on, and it might even hurt a politician to suggest it, especially at the federal level.

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