this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
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Read the xkcd comic. There are plenty of metric associations you can make in your mind, too.
Metric came out of the French Revolution, which was caused by the underclasses rising up and overthrowing "a bunch of rich French people". And then saying, "Hey, let's try doing things rationally for a change. Like our systems of measurement."
Because the bourgeoisie that lead the French Revolution famously remained 100% in lockstep with the underclasses. There was never a moment where the needs of the rulers diverged from the needs of the masses and a whole new regime of class strife arose from it, no sir.
The metric system was applied top-down to french society by its ruling class, it was not some grassroots attempt to make the world better.
There's nothing quite as intuitive as a table of numbers and associations that you can memorize by rote. Pass me my flash cards!
Notice that despite the presence of many people who grew up with and use the metric system none are complaining about how hard it was to intuit metric units?
If you stop telling people what they should find intuitive for a moment and actually listen to people telling you about their experiences then you might find that this is not an issue.
As I said elsewhere anyone can get used to anything. I was also propagandized in school by teachers who insisted over and over for years that metric was better and that using anything else was a waste of time - it was only when I became an adult and started making shit for myself that I realized the truth.
I'm not sure if you should be arguing against the metric system because it was applied top-down across Europe by Napoleon, considering the history behind how the imperial system was spread to what is now the USA. I mean, it's literally called the imperial system.
The metric system was applied across the entire world and wiped out almost every single indigenous standard of measure that existed previously. The English unit of measures has a similar history vis a vis the British Empire spreading it, but my argument would be that indigenous measurements writ large should have been retained, not that they should have been wiped out once and for all by a second, even more imperial system.