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RedstripeRhapsodyHP t1_j63cjkz wrote

Reply to comment by RandoCalrissian11 in TIL to decide what measurement system America should use, John Quincy Adams took 3 1/2 years to produce a 268 page Report on Weights and Measures that ultimately concluded changing to the French metric system would be too difficult for the young nation. Congress took no action on the report. by iamveryDerp

> The equivalent would be how many meters in a mile.

No, it wouldn't, because the entire argument is conversions within a system, not between systems. They aren't saying metric works better with customary, they are saying metric works better and so why use customary at all? This isn't hard to grasp - a yard is to a mile and a meter is to a kilometre - you don't mix them. The metric system means you don't need to know metres in a mile, because you wouldn't ever think or measure in terms of miles (you'd use kilometres). For instance, it is not a weakness of customary that miles do not have a clear relationship with hectares - they are separate systems not intended to be used together - the weakness is instead that miles have no clear relationship with acres.

Are you being deliberately disingenuous? Surely you understand miles have no place in the metric system, so you don't need to convert to them?

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RandoCalrissian11 t1_j63hod4 wrote

A mile is an arbitrary distance we agreed to call a mile. It’s the exact same distance no matter what method of measurement you are using. So, if you use metric to measure that distance, it doesn’t help you at all. In day to day life being able to convert within a system really doesn’t matter, and even more so today when you can do it on your phone in seconds or via Alexa or the like.

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RedstripeRhapsodyHP t1_j63lw9i wrote

You are either profoundly stupid, or trolling.

The point is that you wouldn't ever refer to miles. You would refer to kilometres. Being able to convert within a system is useful all the time, don't be ridiculous.

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RandoCalrissian11 t1_j63zjcb wrote

You don’t need to refer to it as a mile, you only need to know how many meters are in it, which you don’t, thus proving knowing how many feet are in a mile really isn’t necessary in most applications.

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