Pokémon Go Is Secretly Teaching Americans the Metric System | Hacker News Reader

Pokémon Go Is Secretly Teaching Americans the Metric System

gizmodo.com

17 pointsgeromek12 comments

Oh, come on. I learned "the metric system" in elementary school in the United States of America nearly 50 years ago. I was in no way confused when it appeared in the movie Pulp Fiction.

It's not like Americans don't know the metric system, it's that there is no political will to change.

But it really doesn't matter. Large parts of industry in the USA are already "hard metric". Anybody in STEM certainly knows metric, because that's often what they exclusively use every day.

"Nearly 50 years ago" was the US made an effort to go metric. People thought the transition would be "soon". Highway signs were put up in both metric and miles.

I suspect that that was the high point in teaching metric in schools.

There's a difference between knowing metric and really having a feel for it. I speak as someone trained in physics, but that doesn't mean I had a real sense for what it means. What clothes should I wear for 23C weather? Is 13mm of rain in an hour heavy or light? Is a car which consumes 4.5L/100km one that is fuel efficient compared to most? How many centimeters tall are you?

Even now, living in a metric country for years, I have to think about some of these by translating into, say, 52 mpg.

It is a lot more difficult than folks think, that's for sure. I've only been living in a metric country for 3 years, and I am only beginning to get a feel for these things. Congratualations, me, you can no longer describe some bits of life and the world in relatable terms.

Here's a fun one the other way. I know what 80-100C means as sauna temperatures, and I prefer around 90C, but have to do some math to figure out that's 175F-212F, and I prefer around 195F.

(Okay, the 100C=212F is a gimme, but not the others.)

There is a huge difference in learning metric in school, using it for specific jobs, and actually having any realistic grasp on the metric system in daily life. Using it in STEM feilds narrows the use to very specific uses - I can measure something in any system giving me numbers, and memorize the system making it faster. It isn't hard to switch to metric mechanics tools. Every day life is a completely different ballpark.

I used 'standard' for some time, and now live in a metric-only country. I have little practical knowledge of the weather forecast, for example. I know 9C is colder than 12C, but it is rather difficult to assess what clothes I need to wear for that temperature change. I have no real notion for how far 350km is compared to miles or travel time.

A 2kg bag of flour isn't so different from a 5lb bag of flour, and 2 liter cartons of milk look to be about half a gallon. But measuring recipies in deciliters? How big an apartment is in square meters? How big is a cm compared to my thumb? How can I estimate lengths shorter than a meter (which is approximately a yard)? How do I know if I have a fever? What is normal comfortable room temperature?

Some of these questions folks in STEM professions will have some awareness of, but it is definitely not something that makes us fluent enough. And I think the only way to do this is to switch completely.

After living in Germany for a decade (I'm American), I've found that I'm mostly "bilingual," but like I do when I speak German (not quite fluently), I often translate in my head (5cm? 2 inches. 300 grams? 10 ounces.)

I learned metric in school and used it in college science courses, but didn't become fluent until I lived in Germany for a few years. It was trippy having "non-science" people talking about grams and centimeters. Metric fluency has come far more easily than German.

Oddly enough though, I've found that I react like the Germans around me to weather forecasts in Celsius (30 degrees - it's going to be HOT!) when if I heard it in Fahrenheit, I'd react more like a Texan (86 - pleasantly mild for a summer day)

Heheh. Thanks - I was pretty sure it'd just become easier, just takes a switch. I actually am starting to think in some of those same consraints - but with colder temperatures, likely a result of living in Norway. I'll think a temperature is fairly warm in Celsius (Ok, 10 isn't bad at all), yet 50F? Better put on warmer clothing. It isn't constant yet - I still have my 'stupid' moments (how warm is 10? I can't remember what that feels like!), but better.

Unfortunately, this looks like a localization bug that will probably be fixed soon.

It won't be "fixed" soon, this isn't the first Niantic game that does this.

People were talking about this even in 2012 when playing Ingress: https://reddit.com/r/Ingress/comments/13vjcw/the_real_nianti...

That's hilarious. For me, running track and cross country taught me the metric system. :)

Even as an American, it feels way more natural for me to express distances < 1km in meters, not "yards" (seriously the most wtf unit) or feet.

Out of curiosity, why is yards a WTF unit? It's within the realm of a meter (~10% smaller), and as far as I've seen, about the distance of a large gait. That's how my father and grandfather taught me how to estimate large distances (room/house sized distances here), via a large pace that roughly matches a yard (usually within 5%).

Now I really have no preference on feet-meter scale other than the fact that I find the need to fall back to decimal meters or tens of centimeters when I can use feet for a more round number. I'm terrible at gauging distances, so I have very little use for either without a direct measurement.

I wonder if this was done on purpose. Either way, I like it.

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