Jim:
I think the danger lies in unwittingly putting words into one another's
mouths (something others have done to you on quite a few occasions).
You wrote: "I do not see where I made a leap. John wrote:
> >... And extending
> >the logic to metric, the people are not knowledgeable of metric and
> >therefore oppose it.
Does this not clearly say "if you are not knowledgeable about something,
you oppose it"? I merely applied it to languages as an example: If you do
not know French, you are anti-French, etc."
No -- simply because languages are not analogous to a system of weights and
measures (notwithstanding the fact that, here, we sometimes refer to SI as
the "international language of weights and measures"). For one thing,
natural languages are not universal (although English is approaching that
status). Unless you are planning to move to a French-speaking country, you
don't see a danger of that language being imposed on you. The people (real
or hypothetical) to whom John refers apparently do see a "danger" of SI
being "imposed" on them and having to learn something they believe (wrongly)
to be difficult. I honestly cannot see John applying that to a language and
I don't see his words as implying that one would or should do so.
You also wrote: "He has also made it clear in another post
("no hot or cold, you are with me
or against me", etc.) that he feels that if you do not actively support
metric, then you are against metric."
and:
"I believe, and clearly some other list members agree with me, that is
flawed reasoning. I also believe it is counter-productive to our
metricating this country."
Here, I agree with you and disagree with John. He is making an unwarranted
generalization (and a different one from the one you made) from his
particular example (in which, incidentally, he doesn't define the scope of
"the people"). Although his example is probably a good one (validated,
incidentally, by my own experience with numerous people) with respect to a
large segment of the population (including many or even most supermarket
employees, builders, carpenters, etc.), it is by no means applicable to the
entire population of the metric-unaware.
I hope all of that isn't too big a mouthful. <g>
I do know that we should move on from this discussion.
Bill Potts, CMS
Roseville, CA
http://metric1.org [SI Navigator]
