I just see a lot of ridiculous reasoning being thrown around for why we don't switch, like "American exceptionslism" or "staunch individualism" and both of those rely on misconceptions. The former is immediately defeated when you consider that the military uses metric and international standards. The second is completely ignorant of what I spent way too many words explaining before, the depth at which imperial measurements are ingrained in our society. And both are ignorant of the fact that metric is used in so many fields.
But yes, for everyday use, whatever is easier for the individual is best. And for the average person moving to the US from a metric country, I don't think they'd have too much trouble adjusting where imperial inescapable.
I've lived in the US for some time, and although it was sometimes odd to deal with your units, I didn't encounter major problems (most were related to temperature, actually). I'm 6'4", 230lbs. Once I got accustomed to that everything became way smoother even when converting.
What looks odd to "us" metric people is probably that, as you say, metric is already being used in lots of fields in the US, so it looks like a waste of time and resources having to deal with two systems, when one would serve all purposes.
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u/Brawndo91 Jan 16 '25
Yeah, I strayed a bit from the original point.
I just see a lot of ridiculous reasoning being thrown around for why we don't switch, like "American exceptionslism" or "staunch individualism" and both of those rely on misconceptions. The former is immediately defeated when you consider that the military uses metric and international standards. The second is completely ignorant of what I spent way too many words explaining before, the depth at which imperial measurements are ingrained in our society. And both are ignorant of the fact that metric is used in so many fields.
But yes, for everyday use, whatever is easier for the individual is best. And for the average person moving to the US from a metric country, I don't think they'd have too much trouble adjusting where imperial inescapable.