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Imperial Wastes So Much Time
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this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2025
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This thread is full of middle schoolers who don’t realize that you can measure things in whatever system you want, regardless of country. The whole premise of this circlejerk is faulty.
You can but there are real examples where mixing units results in failure. NASA lost a 125 million dollar mars probe in 1999 because JPL and NASA use metric but Lockheed Martin added acceleration data in American imperial units.
It might be a circle jerk but it is also best practice to use a standard system and there's really only one holdout on not using that system. I say this as an American who wishes people would just use metric because it's just easier unless you just fucking love fractions of an inch.
Your example of not mixing systems up within projects is somewhat valid, but not applicable to the whole. There are a lot of uses for Imperial, and using Imperial in landscaping does not have a chance of causing catastrophic failure in rocket science.
Other than it being “cultural” and laziness there’s no point in keeping imperial. Stop using an obsolete system so we Canadians can switch our stoves to Celsius without having to worry about you yanks cooking with our equipment and hurting yourselves.
I’m going to use metric for height and weight. I don’t care if some wanker American complains they can always head south if they want or visit Liberia for a getaway, get with the times already.
The metric system, base 10, is not easily breakable into thirds without irrational numbers. In aesthetic fields, such as landscaping or interior design, the ability to break something into exact thirds, quarters, halves, fifths, sixths, and so on, is invaluable. It’s not just cultural. It sounds like it is to you, which is weird… why are you personally identifying with a unit of measurement?
I also don’t understand your Liberia reference. Could you elaborate?
Liberia, until 2018, used the imperial system. They were one of three countries that used the imperial system, Myanmar being the third one. They are currently in the process of using metric, but it appears they are using both for now.
Not sure why you can only go to Liberia, I’m sure you can buy a meter stick when you arrive in Europe.
Man, we should all just use the same currency so we don’t have to do all these crazy conversions! Maybe we all start just using the US dollar? /s
I was just explaining the Liberia part of the comment, I was not the commenter. I am American and like both metric and imperial. I prefer metric for baking and applications where higher precision is useful, but use imperial for most other things since that is what is commonly used around me.
Says the metric that freaking uses fractions...
Find me a fraction on a meter stick, go ahead!
anyone can do whatever on their own, but if it affects anyone else than that one person its not just that one person's business. I cant see the insistence of using imperial system as anything else than america has used it in the past, and therefore its american system and because america is the best it must be the best system to use and to claim anything else is to hate america.
I’m sorry that you can’t seem to see it any other way, but that is just not reality. The imperial system has many uses that the metric system is not apt for.
for example?
Base 10 measurement systems such as the metric system cannot divide distances into thirds or sixths without creating irrational numbers. This can be a problem for interior designers and landscape designers, for instance, who regularly need to create drafts for projects that break up measurements that way. The imperial system is more versatile in this particular instance because you can break a foot into 12 inches, which is divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (yes, still wouldn’t be irrational), and 6. Much more versatile when your contractor needs to actually go out and make a measurement in the real world. While metric could be “good enough” for that purpose, it is not the most ideal.
i'd say its still easier to just choose desired level of precision with 3.333333333 than deal with imperial's conversion maddness, even if you can divide them evenly. I guess imperial is ok if you dont ever have to use it with any other system, but lack of combitability is quite isolationist.
With imperial, every unit is like it's own singular instance where in metric each unit is part of the system. Trying to convert between them seems like a nightmare (i dont want to even try, but i assume those who use imperial just have to.)
Like, how many inches are on 1000 miles? Try to convert that exactly in your head without using calculator or paper and within 10 seconds. How many square feet are on 37 acres? How much does 5,5 gallons of water weigh in stones?
Or lets say we have container with measurements of 3x3x3 inches (i'll be merciful and use same unit for each dimension) MysteryLiquid™ (use calculator for this one if you try to calculate it) with density of 3,337 pounds / ...perch..? or more commonly 0,00625 acres (not many area units in imperial). How much does the MysteryLiquid™ in the container weigh in stones?
In metric the density would be about 301 kg/m3.
3 inches is 0.0762 metres so container would be 0.0762^3^ which is 0,000442450728m3 which is 442.450728 cm³
So m =p x V = 301kg x 0.000442m3 = 0.133kg, try calculating that whole thing in imperial, using crazy different units without ripping out your hair. I used sensible units for metric in this one, but i could have used nanograms, mm^3^ and decimeters instead and it would just mildly inconvenience me when calculating, and also produce way bigger numbers but at least the conversion factors would remain same.
Not being able to divide some measurements in even numbers is very small price to pay for being able to calculate things more easily.
You can use both without using them in the same project. Yes, I understand how conversions work.
You can make the same argument going the other way. Isn’t is complicated to go from metric to imperial? May as well just use imperial! See, it’s not a good argument.
well my point was to make those calculations using only imperial units, not randomly go between metric and imperial. Metric calculation was there to just illustrate how it would go using metric units.
It’s wonderful that this one single example is easier to handle in metric than imperial. It doesn’t negate my point which is that any human with a functioning brain can use either one depending on the circumstance, and the idea that you need to pick one or the other is a smooth brained take.
There is no point in continuing this since you dont want to argue with logic.
Suit yourself, looks like you’re not reading my comments anyways.
Yeah, I get the idea that 12 is nicer than 10 to divide by 3, 4 and 6, but I'm pretty sure that 2.4 is an irrational number.
Edit: Is this what makes it somewhat useful anyway?:
So, for instance,
would still be useful?
Been ages since I was in a math class and I misquoted why it’s useful. It’s not that it is rational, as 10/3 is also rational. However, 10/3 is not an integer, and therefore cannot be found on a measuring stick or tape measure. There are projects where being able to divide into exact thirds, 6ths, etc are required, and metric is not as useful for that. In a country that also uses imperial interchangeably, it makes sense to use it with projects that are better served with imperial.