Dear Al,
I am an outside observer of metrication in the USA. I live in Geelong
Australia. I have interspersed some remarks in the emails sent to me
by Jeremiah MacGregor and in your responses. I will write them in red.
On 2009/03/02, at 1:04 AM, Jeremiah MacGregor wrote:
Alan,
I can't help you in your request, but I'm sure members of the USMA
forum can. I don't know why you sent me this in a private message
since it has mass appeal, so I am forwarding it on to the USMA to
see if someone there can provide an answer.
Jerry
From: Al Lawrence <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2009 6:42:20 PM
Subject: RE: true metrification is systemic
A logical systematic approach won't work, but a stealth approach can.
This is simply not true. Logical systematic approaches do work and
there is ample evidence for this from Australia, New Zealand, India,
Pakistan, and South Africa for examples; there are many others who
were also quickly successful with their upgrade to the metric system.
Already lots of products are sold in metric units and metric
containers (most bottled water, some soda, mouthwash and shampoo,
for example).
These are also examples of where a logical systematic approach works
and works well. Consider the cases you mention and how they came to be
predominately metric. Someone inside the factory was doing a routine
chemical test of the company's products and to do this he/she had to
change all the old pre-metric measures to metric units to carry out
the chemical tests because chemical tests have been done — only — in
metric units since the mid 1800s (say about 1850). Our testing chemist
might have asked, 'Wouldn't all of these tests be easier (and probably
more accurate and precise) if we didn't have to do all the conversions
— we could save the company a lot of money.
Some companies took this advice and produced the 2 litre bottle. This
is called 'direct metrication'.
Other companies chose to bear the additional unnecessary costs and
kept labelling their products in old-pre-metric measures. This is
called 'hidden metric' because the product is prepared in metric units
and then these are dumbed down for the public. I recall being in a
brewery in Colorado where one of the beer vats had a sign facing the
public that said, 52,840 gallons. Everyone who worked in the factory
knew this quite naturally as 200 000 litres. Brewery calculations are
quite difficult to do using old pre-metric measures and so simple to
do using metric units that I don't know of any brewer in the world who
does not use the metric system internally. Only in the USA and the UK
are these internal calculations then dumbed down to things like 12 oz.
bottles or cans and pints. As I said this process, that is peculiar to
the USA (and the UK where they dumb the metric beer into 'pints') is
called 'hidden metric'.
If the metric-only labeling option amendment can be passed more of
that will be done, and maybe products like the two liter soda bottle
and water bottles will only be labeled in liters. Everyone knows
what a two liter bottle is and almost no one knows how many pints
quarts or gallons that is.
True!
Changing road signs and public education programs will just turn
people off, but labels on supermarket products can be changed
gradually without upsetting anyone and eventually everyone will know
what a gram, kg and liter is. Then additional changes can be
considered.
Changing road signs has on many occasions proven to be best done in a
day. This is how it was done in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa,
and most recently in Ireland. Prior to the day of changeover some
people who have little or no experience in road traffic matters will
claim, 'there will be carnage on the roads' and similar conjectures.
These simply do not happen. All the examples I listed went smoothly;
they were almost completely finished on the designated day; and they
didn't stop the conjecturers who then moved on to other aspects of
metrication to attack (such as 'Bring back the pound and the pint!').
I am confidant that when the USA secides to change road signs to
metric, they will follow the successful examples from all around the
world and do the job in a single day. By the way, most nations call
these m-days, meaning M for metric days.
I am looking for a group that is trying to promote that, but does
NOT waste time talking about road signs, education programs or
metric conversion programs. All those things are nonproductive at
this point, and might even be counterproductive. Just change
supermarket labels first and don't scare people with that other stuff.
I don't know what you mean by non-productive. Anywhere that there is
an honest open metric sign that gives good honest open metric
information to the public then that is a positive step forward for the
metrication process.
The current situation in the USA is that almost all measurement is
done using the metric system as the basis. This is then dumbed down
for the public. I think of this as a thin veneer of dishonesty.
As an example take something simple like your height. As you no-doubt
know, the feet you use for you height are metric feet that are defined
in the USA as 304.8 millimetres exactly, and the inches you use are
defined in the USA as 25.4 millimetres exactly. The use of feet and
inches in the USA is simply a way of hiding the fact that the USA is
already almost completely metric.
Alan Lawrence
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:30:11 -0800
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: true metrification is systemic
To: [email protected]
Yes, it seems like we can't handle a systematic approach to anything
we attempt. I just hope in the long term we don't end up on the
bottom looking up.
Jerry
From: Al Lawrence <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2009 7:37:54 PM
Subject: Re: true metrification is systemic
While a systemic approach is undoubtedly the correct and logical way
to convert to the metric system pushing for changing road signs,
changing package sizes to round units, selling gas in liters and so
on is not a good idea for the US. That would just play into the
hands of the anti-metric people who can then rant about costs and
confusion and inconvenience and get their Congressmen to vote
against anything metric.
It might be useful for you to refine your idea of anyi-metric people.
It usually only takes one or two people to prevent metrication
progress in the USA. These are usually, according to the best of my
study and research, not organised into groups. Consider the killing
off of the Metric Conversion Board which was accomplished by the
activities of only two men (see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/28/AR2006032802142.html
and http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench/news/2893/keeps-metric-system-down
The Food Marketing Institute (FMI) might be a similar case. Many of
the FMI members clearly use metric units in designing, developing, and
marketing their products yet the FMI claims that it is opposed to the
option of metric only labelling that many FMI members might support.
My suspicion is that the FMI anti-metric position arises internally
within its bureaucratic structure — perhaps from a single individual.
Australia was committed to conversion and did it right,
True, Australia did have the non-political party commitment to
metrication. This was important but it was nowhere near as important
as the fact that we chose a few simple processes that worked well. We:
* avoided metric conversion (see http://www.metricationmatters.com/metric_conversion.html
)
* chose prefixes for almost all trades, crafts, and professions so
that measurements could be in whole numbers rather than common or
vulgar fractions and decimal fractions. You, in the USA, did this with
your liquor in millilitres and your soft drinks in millilitres. These
worked so quickly that most citizens of the USA did not notice the
change to metric in these areas and probably could not now remember
when they occurred. If you want long term befuddlement it is best to
give people a choice of which metric unit to use; centimetres are good
for this (see http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/centimetresORmillimetres.pdf
)
but anyone who has traveled abroad knows how provincial Americans
can be. We will not have that kind of commitment in the US. The
government can’t even get Americans to convert their on-air TV’s to
digital after 18 months of advertising, public service announcements
and government mailings of coupons.
Change is always difficult if you enjoy the fog that conjecture can
bring to any change discussion. Watch for the interplay of the media
in this as they will automatically try to generate a debate about any
issue as they thrive on the debate rather than the substance of the
issue. The upgrade of the USA to the metric system is inevitable, and
to a very large extent it has already happened (but it's hidden) but
that does not make good copy for the media.
Just get the metric-only option labeling amendment through. Don’t
cause public panic by talking about changing road signs and package
sizes. Metric labeling has to be common before there is any hope
of making any significant progress.
Not true. Metric progress is being made daily. Sure, the metric-only
labelling option is important but much more important is the approach
that you choose to take for your metrication process for yourself,
your group, your work place, your company, your industry, or your
nation. I have identified four approaches to metrication that you can
find at http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/ApproachesToMetrication.pdf
The four approaches to metrication are:
1 Direct metrication
2 Hidden metrication
3 Metric conversion
4 Ignore it and it will go away
The first of these works, it works well, it works quickly, and it will
save you a lot of money. The other three approaches have yet to show
any major results after a little over 200 years (2009 - 1799 = 210
years). The best you can hope for if you choose one of these three
approaches is the extremely slow, painful, inefficient, and costly
metrication that you see all about you in the USA. One of the
executives at the FMI (Ty Kelley) once referred to this slow choice as
'metric creep'.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has
helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the
modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they
now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for
their businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many
different trades, crafts, and professions for commercial, industrial
and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA.
Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST,
and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. See http://www.metricationmatters.com
for more metrication information, contact Pat at [email protected]
or to get the free 'Metrication matters' newsletter go to: http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter
to subscribe.
