Why the US never adopted the metric system | Hacker News Reader

Why the US never adopted the metric system

businessinsider.com

2 pointsTheAuditor6 comments

I think a bit of it has to do with the manufacturing sector. The 'industrial revolution' in it's beginnings was quite crude really. Today's space age technology was essentially led by America, and that in and of itself, I believe to be the contributing factor in our adherence to an essentially non-metric system. Take the term TITS for ex.: Total instrument tolerance supplement. Even though the tech industry is primarily metric, the term itself alludes to getting the absolute maximum precision from whatever you are using to measure with regardless of the scale.

Quoting the article:

> Then around the late 1870s, U.S. manufacturers of high-end machine tools effectively blocked the country's metric conversion. By that time they were using a measurement system based on the inch and argued that retooling would be prohibitive.

I read that but the high tech toolers of today are metric understandably. My point was that the industry may have balked but the populace just don't care enough. It's not like the tech industry makes the rules.

I've a pet peeve. Many people seems to think that "now" is high-tech and advanced. And it is. But many of the intermediate stages were also high-tech and advanced.

For example, people know say they are overwhelmed by "Big Data". But historically that's been the case since at least the 1940s, with people expressing how they can't keep up with the "torrents of information and data" that created an "information explosion."

So when you wrote: "a bit of it has to do with the manufacturing sector. The 'industrial revolution' in it's beginnings was quite crude really.", you managed to trigge that peeve.

Yes, the article mentioned your first point. But no, the late 1800s were well after the beginnings, and no longer "quite crude." Nor was 'space age technology' a driving factor against the conversion; most of the opposition to the Metric Conversion Act was social.

Otherwise, what prevents the US from switching from F to C, at the very least?

US shall adopt the SI units to remove the unnecessary trade barrier.

Its not too late.

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