My problem isn’t the arbitrariness of the unit, it’s the applicability of the unit to real life. Meters make more sense on paper, but I think that the traditional units of measure being based on things we interact with every day made more sense in practice.
in a sane country that went metric like 200 years ago, you interact with meter long things all the time. 1m is also very much in the human body range of lengths.
a foot or an inch arent really more body-centric than a meter and a centimeter. so you get absolutely nothing in real world application but at least it’s very stupid on paper.
my foot is like 27 cm, what’s that got to do with the US/UK foot? i know how tall i am, i know how much less that is than 2m, so i know what a meter is at that scale. for smaller scales? you know how you know what 4inches is? we know what 10cm is like. we know what 1cm is like (little finger or so, but everyone can find their own comparison on their body).
bonus: one of my knuckles happens to be exactly 4cm long.
this is exactly my point. you think a foot is the size of a foot cos you grew up with it. it aint.
if we’re dropped to some random country as a child, we’re clever enough to learn the language, absorb the culture and grow to use its system of measurement intuitively. this is true for any time in history.
so there’s no difference in ease of use here, you’re just making the math worse.
My problem isn’t the arbitrariness of the unit, it’s the applicability of the unit to real life. Meters make more sense on paper, but I think that the traditional units of measure being based on things we interact with every day made more sense in practice.
I was only joking, but I personally prefer the simple conversions in metric.
that argument is nonense.
in a sane country that went metric like 200 years ago, you interact with meter long things all the time. 1m is also very much in the human body range of lengths.
a foot or an inch arent really more body-centric than a meter and a centimeter. so you get absolutely nothing in real world application but at least it’s very stupid on paper.
Really? A foot isn’t more body-centric? I realize people’s feet vary in size but please enlighten me as to which body part corresponds to a meter.
my foot is like 27 cm, what’s that got to do with the US/UK foot? i know how tall i am, i know how much less that is than 2m, so i know what a meter is at that scale. for smaller scales? you know how you know what 4inches is? we know what 10cm is like. we know what 1cm is like (little finger or so, but everyone can find their own comparison on their body).
bonus: one of my knuckles happens to be exactly 4cm long.
We’re talking about different things. Anyone could get used to any measurement system if they were immersed in it and interacted with it every day.
this is exactly my point. you think a foot is the size of a foot cos you grew up with it. it aint.
if we’re dropped to some random country as a child, we’re clever enough to learn the language, absorb the culture and grow to use its system of measurement intuitively. this is true for any time in history.
so there’s no difference in ease of use here, you’re just making the math worse.