Your friend Jim George thinks you'd be a great addition to Ricochet, so we'd like to offer you a special deal: You can become a member for no initial charge for one month!
Ricochet is a community of like-minded people who enjoy writing about and discussing politics (usually of the center-right nature), culture, sports, history, and just about every other topic under the sun in a fully moderated environment. We’re so sure you’ll like Ricochet, we’ll let you join and get your first month for free. Kick the tires: read the always eclectic member feed, write some posts, join discussions, participate in a live chat or two, and listen to a few of our over 50 (free) podcasts on every conceivable topic, hosted by some of the biggest names on the right, for 30 days on us. We’re confident you’re gonna love it.
Former Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee entered the Democratic side of the presidential sweepstakes yesterday. About his candidacy: Chafee’s also a former U.S. Senator and a former Republican. The niche
The primary argument in favor of the metric system (other than the self-evidently ridiculous “everyone else is doing it” argument) is the belief that base ten is the most logical system for all mathematical purposes. In truth the human mind naturally and intuitively thinks not in terms of tenths or percentages, but in terms of halves, thirds, and quarters. The most intuitive system for the way the human brain is naturally wired is base 12, as 12 is easily divisible into halves, thirds, and quarters. The only thing base 10 has going for it is its compatibility with the human hand.
Obviously a switch to base 12 would be even more disruptive than a switch to the metric system, but the so-called “imperial” measurement system is based on 12 and its factors.
What is 1/3 of a yard? 1 foot.
What is 1/3 of a meter? 33.3333333333333333333333333333333333333333(you get the idea) centimeters.
I guarantee you more people are going to want to know what 1/3 of a meter is than 1/10 of a yard.
“Slowly I turned…step by step…inch by inch…,“
I cannot upvote this enough. I’ve been advocating a duodecimal system since I figured this out in fourth grade, some thirty-five years ago!!
Although my usual objection to officially adopting the metric system is cultural—I LIKE American Standard English units!—I have a legal one, too. I think the Constitution doesn’t permit the Federal government to dictate what system of units we citizens use. The Constitution does let them establish the *standard* of weights and measures, but that simply means they can define how long a foot is, or a meter, or how many cups are in a pint, and so on. But it doesn’t say they can dictate the *system* of weights and measures. That might sound like a subtle distinction but those words mean totally different things.
Of course, I don’t expect Congress, or the Supreme Court…or most people…to get that there are real limits to Federal power.
My primary objection to the metric system–for everyday, non-scientific use– is that it substitutes an abstraction (meter) for what can be readily seen and experienced (foot and yard.) A meter is based on small fraction of the earth’s circumference. The foot and yard are human-scaled. I have no objection to the two systems existing side by side.
Americans are not Luddites. We happily count calories, run our 5k events, buy 9mm ammunition, and drink from two-liter bottles. My metric and SAE wrenches live happily side by side. But forced metrification is a political loser. Next they’ll be telling me I have to walk 1.6 km in someone else’s shoes.
Bootstrap, probably the most popular web styling framework, is based on a system of 12 columns for that reason – it’s divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6.
My wife is German and she prefers using the metric system, but having been born in the US, I prefer our customary units. Our house is filled with measuring devices of both units, and if I happen to grab one that’s metric, there’s no problem. It’s easy to move back and forth with a little practice, although sometimes I prefer one over the other. I’d typically rather measure in grams than pounds and ounces when cooking. But, I prefer to know the outside temperature in Fahrenheit, where I know that 100 is a hot day and zero is a cold day, along with the fact that it has a higher degree of granularity without resorting to fractions (the same reason I prefer grams to pounds and ounces for certain things).
(continued)
When someone starts on their metric-only diatribe with me, I always ask them why they don’t use a base-10 derived system of time. No one seems to want to address our units of time (hours, minutes, and seconds) and the related latitude/longitude (degrees, minutes, and seconds), which apparently come from a system developed by the ancient Sumerians. Try adding an arbitrary time interval to a date and time – it’s not easy.
As I mentioned above, my wife is German, and to her friends and family she speaks a dialect that many Germans outside her area find difficult to understand. Yet, she switches easily to High German when she’s speaking to someone from outside the area because she learned that in school. Humans are capable of operating in multiple paradigms when the situation requires. When operating in an international environment and we need to be universal, it makes sense to use metric. When you’re sharing a recipe with a friend or telling them how far to drive to get to your house, who cares?
Of course, the French (it would be the French) tried out metric time, too, right after the revolution. 10 hours in the day, 100 minutes in the hour, 100 seconds in the minute. That wasn’t far enough. The calendar’s so illogical, irrational, and traditional, too, isn’t it? So all months must have 30 days: 3 weeks of ten days each. 12 of these months gets you almost a year, but if you want to tie the year to our motion around the Sun (But why? We should have years of 100 days. Nature is so illogical!), you have five days left over. I don’t remember just what they did with the extra five days. On top of this, the months are named for Roman gods, emperors, numbers, and the like. They should all be renamed for things like the temperature or the planting time, or such. Finally, the years are numbered funny, starting from the birth of a savior they no longer believed they needed. Much better to renumber from the year of the Revolution.
I don’t know exactly why this didn’t catch on the way metric lengths and masses did, but eventually they gave up and reverted to that messy, irrational timekeeping we’ve been using for milennia.
Incredible.