At 01:26 PM 1/29/2002 -0800, Ma Be wrote: > > Jim Elwell wrote: > > If I have a company that has millions of dollars of > >assets and huge amounts of institutional knowledge and capabilities that > >are tied to colloquial measurements, I would be nuts to switch to metric > >without some monetary justification... > > >Indeed.... What's missing then from some sectors of the economy is a >little bit of goodwill and courage to do the same in their respective areas.
I think that what is missing is education. There are very few businesses who, if they saw a financial benefit in a reasonable time, would not start switching. However, the financial benefits to metrication, although real, are not all that obvious to many people. >?? I honestly couldn't follow your rationale, Jim, sorry... Adrian's >point was that they all succeeded in adopting the SI *thanks to regulatory >models*, and NOT thanks to 'market forces'! What I am saying is this: even if you believe that other countries could ONLY have metricated via interventionist methods, that does not mean the same applies to the USA, because the economic environment the USA faces at this point in time is substantially different than faced by these other countries. > >>[Adrian]Bottom line, if all the countries in the world would be ifp do > you think > >>they would ever change to SI just by the drive of the economy? If this was > >>the case not even Star Trek would be metric! > > > >[Jim Elwell] Ah, here is the crux: if all countries were IFP, it would > be incredibly > >foolish for anyone to switch to metric!! > >[Marcus] But here I must vehemently disagree! Jim seems to be forgetting >that if entire industries today ended up adopting the SI as their *new* >'standard' they did so because of SI's merits (largely)! I don't think >Jim would call these industries 'fools' because they did it in spite of >the overwhelming presence of ifp, would you, Jim?... ;-) I did NOT forget how other countries or industries ended up metricating, but that is not germane to the premise Adrian posted: he said "if ALL countries were IFP." If you disagree with my conclusion to that premise, Marcus, then are you saying that some country (or industry) in the world should switch to some more rational time measurement system, the rest of the world be damned? I stand by my statement: switching to a different measurement system contrary to everyone else in the world is foolish. If you disagree, do you have some kind of metric clock in your house? >In other words, I honestly cannot find ONE reason that would be enough to >call someone's plans to switch to metric 'foolish', even if the *entire >planet* used ifp!!! Why? Because of the fundamental advantages that the >SI system provides its users! Soon enough those that switched would start >kicking competitors' butts by being able to cost produce products in much >more economically-advantageous ways. I think this is a mighty narrow view. If you are using a system that is so out of step with the rest of the world, then you will be dealing with substantial *increases* in costs, as well as the benefits derived from your "better" system. A blanket statement that the benefits are so wonderful ignores a big part of the cost equation. > > Like it or not, IFP is a perfectly > >workable measurement system, just like our base-60 time and our base-360 > >angular measurement, and probably lots of others. > > >Yes and no, actually. Technically speaking obviously, but practically >speaking? Forget it! I think the economic success of the USA proves you wrong on this point, Marcus. Jim Elwell
