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The most recent candidate under the DNC banner is Lincoln Chafee who interestingly, besides being the lone Republican (he switched parties) to vote against the Iraq war, is vehemently pro-metric system. I remember when I was a kid, the freeway signs for distance and speed were printed in both English and metric. Converting all those signs from miles to km (again) would cost money, but then, using the English measurement system costs money too, forever -- according to a random guy I googled up without putting any real effort into it because I'm not that interested in proving myself wrong (Paul Naughtin), somewhere between six billion and a trillion. There are without a doubt, critics who might call that somewhat of a wide margin but as one witty commenter noted: "It is probably impossible to give an upper bound on that, however I can give you a lower bound: 500 Million Dollars for the loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter by NASA".
Now, I'm neither a firm GOP nor DNC voter... but I'm tempted.
takyon: Former Governor of Rhode Island Lincoln Chafee joins a number of other candidates seeking a 2016 U.S. presidential nomination.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2015, @03:42PM
Wow. You are an arrogant prick, aren't you?
It probably wouldn't happen anytime soon because there is no clear benefit to switch. International commerce is already metric. Science and engineering have been metric for 100 years. Medicine has been metric. The US isn't a small land locked country surrounded by four different countries and things like this (and multilingualism) don't get forced upon it out of necessity like it does in other countries. What is the real benefit of switching? So you don't feel somehow inferior? If the switch is ever made, it will have to be forced, there will be some bitching, and life will go on and people like you will have to find some other reason to hold Europe up over the US.
Why doesn't the EU all switch to the French language? It would make so much more sense if they all spoke the language that has been declared the standard. The English and German exceptionalist types will utterly refuse to consider it, solely because that's what the French uses. Dumb people will refuse to consider it because they don't want to learn French. And politicians will mostly dismiss it because they don't want to have the great success of Charles de Gaulle administration.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday June 06 2015, @06:00PM
Medicine is metric but not all pharmacists are and mostly all patients aren't:
http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/unit-mixups.html#dose-errors [colostate.edu]
That incident didn't cause any medical problems, but the issue arises again and again in ways that do: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/07/14/3459703/metric-system-overdose/ [thinkprogress.org]
I hate kids, but ... think of the children
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Saturday June 06 2015, @07:00PM
Wow. You are an arrogant prick, aren't you?
Um, no, he or she has just given the correct assessment of the situation. And evidently you are unaware that French was and is the language of international diplomacy, which has not much to do with the fact that it is spoken by French people. So, "people like you"? What sort of people did you have in mind? Non-metric people? What kind of people are you?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 07 2015, @01:45AM
When his assessment of the situation is stated as eloquently as he did in the commented section, yes Virginia, he is an arrogant prick. Because you may agree with his points doesn't make him any less of an arrogant prick.
And I think you missed my point about the French language. Do you agree that the EU and countries beyond will all rally about and adopt the French language for the same obvious stated reasons that metric adoption is so grand?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday June 07 2015, @10:09AM
Tu quoque, mon AC? Methinks thou dost protest too much!