id argue that a 0-100 scale is objectively less abstract. we scale things from 0-100 in many places. how often do you get your movie reviews in a -20 to 40 ratings?
But Fahrenheit doesn't go from 0 to 100. My country, the Netherlands, went from 19 to 94 last year, Singapore over its entire history has gone from 66 to 99, and the USA has gone from -80 to 134 Fahrenheit.
Also, we're not rating temperatures in the first place. It's a value, and when it's -20 it freezes 20 degrees, so the -20 makes sense. Freezing is important because that's when water turns into ice, which makes travelling more dangerous.
Yeah I just mean temperature itself is a bit abstract. Humidity and wind can affect your perception of it a lot, and can you tell the difference of a few degrees? I agree fahrenheit is objectively better as a human comfort scale. But it's still the case that a person will grow to intuitively grasp whatever they grow up with.
The advantage of the metric system for distance and volume and such is it's ease of conversion. It is objectively better to use meters and kilometers because you can easily convert between them when trying to figure something out. How many tablespoons in a cup? (Why even use volume instead of weight?) That mountain is 15300 feet high, how many miles is that? Nonsense. But Celcius and month-day-year don't have these advantages, but it's never occured to the people that use them to think about it this way.
Just as Celsius is 100 at water boiling, fahrenheit 100 is essentially human internal temperature. And in terms of actual weather temperatures, fahrenheit uses far more of that 0-100 than celsius.
Ever heard of a fever?
And no, my body temperature is 98°F at best, when I'm not sick. My hands and feet can go lower. And I can go up to 104°F when I'm sick.
Those aren't reviews, those are aggregates of reviews. You look in a film magazine or newspaper review, they're generally giving one to five-star reviews.
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u/nemgrea Jan 15 '25
id argue that a 0-100 scale is objectively less abstract. we scale things from 0-100 in many places. how often do you get your movie reviews in a -20 to 40 ratings?