Customary American vs Metric

submitted by GaiusHelenMohiam from (self.whatever)

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[–]FediNetizen 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (10 children)

Americans should retain their customary measurements because cultural diversity is good.

This man is definitely not an engineer. Yes, lets just remember a bunch of arbitrary figures rather than adopting an intuitive system! Brilliant!

[–]pulverize 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

Because the meter as defined by the path traveled by light in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second isn't arbitrary at all.

[–][deleted]  (6 children)

[deleted]

    [–]pulverize 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

    And we use duodecimal, base 12, to measure time.

    [–]NatSoc_Fren 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Indeed, the metric system is arbitrary. However, vis a vis the American system, metric is much less arbitrary

    [–]FediNetizen 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

    No we fucking don't. We use the decimal system for time just like we do for everything else. You seem to be confusing an actual duodecimal system with the fact that a clock, which measures the progression of a day, turns over in 12/24 hours intervals.

    [–]pulverize 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

    I could explain it to you but I can't understand it for you

    [–]FediNetizen 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Nothing about the concept of a base-12 system is actually hard to grasp, and you possess no actual "understanding" here. All you're doing is performing mental gymnastics, trying to avoid acknowledging that you had no real understanding of what "base 12" actually meant in the first place.

    Let me give you a list:

    Binary.

    Octal.

    Decimal.

    Duodecimal.

    Hexadecimal.

    That's base 2, 8, 10, 12, and 16. We measure time in one of those bases. The base we measure it in sure as fuck isn't 12. If you're not retarded then you know which base it actually is.

    Or you can keep pretending that "duodecimal" is a difficult concept to grasp. Apparently it is for you, since you think that's the system we use to measure time.

    [–]FediNetizen 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

    The beauty of this terrible argument is that the foot has been defined as a constant fraction (0.3048) of a meter for over 50 years now.

    The meter was redefined to be the distance covered by light over this interval for a reason.

    [–]jet199Instigatrix 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    The trouble is the speed of light isn't constant.