Hi,
With respect, I don't think you'll make much headway with these
arguments. You won't convince people to change as long as you present
it as needing to conform to other people's (i.e. foreign) requirements,
or to win approval from abroad or to accommodate immigrants. You need
to present it in terms of not being at a disadvantage because of an
insistence on using obsolete tools.
A measurement system is simply that - a tool. It is not an expression
of culture, as a language is (another reason to clearly keep measurement
and language apart), nor should it be a badge of nationhood. It is
simply a tool to perform a function: to compare the physical properties
of objects, and switching to a better tool should be a no-brainer.
Using an obsolete or inefficient tool will hold you back. Why have so
many American corporations gone metric ? Not because they want to look
good to Europeans, or satisfy a liberal craving, but because of the only
thing that interests them: the bottom line. Going metric - particularly
in an increasingly global market - improves profits. No other
justification will be considered by corporate entities.
So if large companies improve their efficiency and benefit their
shareholders, why shouldn't the government do the same for its taxpayers
and metricate itself ? You need to point our that failing to metricate
is costing money - money that is in increasingly short supply. Those
who resist this, cloaking their inertia in some kind of
pseudo-nationalistic fervor are actually the ones showing lack of
patriotism. Don't they want the best for their country ? Don't they
want their companies and their labor force armed with the most efficient
tools, and their youth educated to allow them to compete in a fiercely
competitive world ?
As for accepting foreign ideas, point out that long before the French
though of decimalizing the length of a road, the first widespread
application of the Power of Ten in modern history took place under
Thomas Jefferson, when his newly introduced currency replaced pounds
shillings and pence with a decimal based 100 cents to the dollar. This
brilliantly innovative idea - in contrast to the major currencies of the
time and probably a large part of the inspiration of the metric system
-- spread so quickly and thoroughly that it is now the norm nearly
everywhere, and few people would think of doing it any other way (the
last holdouts being the UK and Ireland in 1970, largely due to the same
not-invented-here stubborness). Just as Americans have no problem in
converting $1.23 to 123 cents by shifting a decimal point, they should
easily be handle meters and kilograms.
Why not complete the work that Jefferson started ?
*From: *Harry Wyeth <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
*Date: *November 25, 2012 10:00:55 PST
*To: *[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject: **Non-metric America*
If you lived in a country with less than 5 percent of your planet's
population and spoke a language that the other 95 percent did not
understand, and you could learn the 95 percenters' language with ease
with thirty minutes's study, is there any conceivable reason why you
wouldn't learn it and discard your former language? The metric system
is absolutely simple to learn, logical and user-friendly. Americans
who travel abroad and spend a few days with kilometers, liters, and
kilograms realize how backward the U.S. system is. I believe that the
degree to which our country adopts the metric system in this century
will be an excellent gauge of our overall progress and world leadership.
HARRY WYETH
Grass Valley, CA
--
Tom Wade
[email protected]
