• Light/Dark
  • Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
  • We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.

Metric vs Imperial: which system do you prefer?

Which one?

  • Metric

    Votes: 1,247 94.0%

  • Imperial

    Votes: 80 6.0%
  • Total voters
    1,327
Lant_War

Lant_War

Classic Anus Game
The Fallen
Jul 14, 2018
23,577
Inspired by the other thread about some dumbass saying that he was an anti-metrist because the metric system was a globalist conspiracy, let me ask you Era: which system do you prefer?

I've always used the metric system, so I'm obviously biased. I seriously don't get what the point of feet and pounds are, but for everyday use Farenheit actually seems a little better. Of course, for anything that involved maths I'd much rather get temperatures in °C.

So, which one do you prefer?
 

iRAWRasaurus

Community Resettler
Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,729
I only prefer metric since I use it all the time in science stuff. But I like temperatures in °C.

edit: I feel like I should mention, I grew up with imperial system.
 
kennyamr

kennyamr

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
3,587
New York, NY, USA
Well, I wasn't born in the US so, personally, I'm extremely biased in favor of the metric system. I still have trouble with imperial measurements sometimes.
 
Vulcano's Assistant

Vulcano's Assistant

Member
Oct 29, 2017
13,502
I prefer metric, but there are a few things that I only do in imperial because I live in the US, anything that has to do with the dimension of a house. For instance, if I buy an Ethernet cable to route inside the house I don't try to think how long it is in meters, just keep it imperial. Still use Kilometers over miles, and probably will never use yards for anything tho.
 
Fat4all

Fat4all

Woke up, got a money tag, swears a lot
Member
Oct 25, 2017
92,782
here
Lant_War said:
Dog paw
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
RTdmkWy.gif
 
Claire Delune

Claire Delune

10 Years in the Making
Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,284
Greater Seattle Area
Metric is objectively superior. My only preferences for imperial units are because that's what I've always used and don't really have a 4 decade-long frame of reference for how long a kilometer is or Celcius temperatures.
 
Felt

Felt

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
3,210
Grew up with imperial, work in engineering so use metric. Prefer metric but I'm still holding onto miles because America.
 
KentP

KentP

Member
Oct 28, 2017
703
The UK uses a weird amalgam of the two, so I measure my height and weight, as well as distance/speed in a car in imperial

Pretty much everything else is in metric

Also - screw Fahrenheit! Never really understood it, and probably never will!
 
Siggy-P

Siggy-P

Avenger
Mar 18, 2018
11,865
Metric.

Why would I use Imperial? What am I? Some sort of barbarian savage or something?
 
TheWooniestWoona

TheWooniestWoona

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,797
KentP said:
The UK uses a weird amalgam of the two, so I measure my height and weight, as well as distance/speed in a car in imperial

Pretty much everything else is in metric

Also - screw Fahrenheit! Never really understood it, and probably never will!
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Just look at 0-100 F as being the range of temps you'd normally encounter as weather during the year, and then it makes more sense.
 
APerfectOrganism

APerfectOrganism

Sky Van Gogh
Member
Dec 23, 2018
1,315
Washington State
I'll be the one. I like imperial. The reason is simple...I group up with and don't work with math often. I can gauge speed and distance by using imperial but not metric. In my head I can grasp imperial measurement better then metric.

I know metric is logical. Base 10 everything is convenient. But I grew up with imperials and it just makes sense, even though mathematically is less sensible.
 
Irminsul

Irminsul

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,039
As a European, metric of course. I really wish the US were either less culturally dominant or switched already. It's mind-numbing reading websites and having to do conversations in your head, because often enough, they're not provided. On ERA, I mostly try to provide Imperial measurements, but it would be really nice if there wasn't any need to do so.
 
Allietraa

Allietraa

Prophet of Truth
Member
Mar 13, 2019
1,901
I'm used to Imperial so I "prefer" it but if the US decided to swap to metric I'd be on board so fast.
 
captainpat

captainpat

Member
Nov 15, 2017
877
I really depends. for the most part I like metric but there's some stuff that I want measure with imperial. Like height. Like saying someone is 5'9 ft is a lot easier for me to process than saying they're 152cm (is it cm for people's height?)
 
hobblygobbly

hobblygobbly

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,571
NORDFRIESLAND, DEUTSCHLAND
I mean there are only 3 countries in the world that use imperial lol.

so 95% of the world would prefer metric because it's all we have ever known lol. I guess UK uses imperial sometimes, but they all know metric any ways.
 
supremeplatypus

supremeplatypus

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,887
London
Serious question, why does the US not switch over. Any presidential candidates say anything about switching, at least in weights and measures. Pounds and ounces are arcane units. It's already pretty dumb that the UK still uses imperial to measure distances on roads. I have seen signs in metres and one in yards a short distance away from each other.
 
LL_Decitrig

LL_Decitrig

User-Requested Ban
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
10,334
Sunderland
I was raised on Imperial measure during the sixties so I can still tell you all about chains, furlongs and whatnot. There was a serious push towards metrication in the seventies so I've got used to mentally translating quantities back and forth. Curiously, one of my kids keeps exotic animals and sincea lot of the literature is written by and for Americans I'm always being brought in to translate Celsius to Fahrenheit, centimetres to inches and vice versa. It seems that mental arithmetic skills are not nearly as heritable as you'd think.
 
makingmusic476

makingmusic476

Member
Oct 26, 2017
2,706
New Orleans
I'm an American and I prefer metric.

Working at an alcohol importer for years made me realize how dumb it is to have to convert simple volumes (330ml, 500ml, 750ml, and 1L) into Imperial (11.2oz, 16.9oz, 25.4oz, etc.).

And did you know that a US pint and a UK pint are different sizes? Imperial isn't even consistent with itself!
 
3bdelilah

3bdelilah

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
1,615
Does the imperial system even have any redeeming qualities whatsoever when compared to the clearly superior metric system? There's very little in common with miles, yards, pounds, stone, inches, feet, ounces, and what have you. It just seems unnecessarily confusing and arbitrary. How do Americans even remember how many what's in a what?

I'm sure the metric system isn't perfect, but it's much better than that shitshow the US has. There's a reason why the scientific community uses it as a primary system. Why not at the very least teach current students both systems, then when the older generation fades away, fully adopt the metric system. Shouldn't take more than 50 years before children of that generation can't even imagine how life was with the imperial system.

Also, obligatory:

1480671654864cdkic.png
 
Stinkles

Stinkles

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
20,459
Metric is objectively better as a system but imperial still has huge literary and emotional resonance in the West- but it's beton antiquated- which is why utterly bizarre and arbitrary sounding numbers are so powerful-

Easiest example is:

0-60mph

You know instinctively that it's an extremely important measurement of a vehicle's performance- but why 60?

Because of course 60 mph is almost 100 kmph.

The most famous imperial number in automotive history was already in a sense a more meaningful and scaleable metric number translated for the culture of the time. There's more to it than that including speed limits and vehicle safety and fuel efficiency but that's still an underlying fact.

One way to get idiots and politicians to finally make the switch might be to just let them have the stupid words.

"Sure billy Ray you can call a kilometer a mile if you want. And hey this change makes your truck almost twice as fast and fuel efficient as it was yesterday!"
 
You must log in or register to reply here.