At first I thought that Hawaii had switched to the metric system... then checked and it's a CBC broadcast.

The road and electricity don't matter nearly as much as the metric system because they are geographically bound.

Generally, you drive in one country at a time, and most countries with land borders drive on the same side of the road.

With electrical appliances, they usually stay in one country and the ones that do travel (i.e. laptops, phones, etc) generally will accept any voltage.

When it comes to these things I want 3 things to happen in my lifetime:
* US to switch to metric system.
* The world to agree on common household electricity voltage.
* The world to drive on the same side of the road.

Maybe there's no logical reason to have different systems but the reasons to have only one system are kind of thin. I am perfectly capable of using more than one system and I find that I prefer different systems for different uses. I can use imperial measurements when I build a shed and metric when I do engineering calculations. When I cook, I might use cups and tablespoons to make chili but I use grams to measure ingredients when I bake bread. And if you prefer one or the other, I can adapt. Humans are good at that. ;-)

Extend the argument and it's not logical for the world to speak more than one language. Translating between languages is a whole lot more work than translating temperature scales. We should all speak Mandarin, because it's the most spoken language in the world. But my best friend's 2 year old speaks Mandarin AND English. I suspect he'll be just fine.

Anyway, long story short, I agree we should all know how to use the metric system. That doesn't mean we all need to use it for everything.

I think they tried to teach us the metric system in fifth grade. Don't recall them trying all that hard. Pretty useless as i don't recall anything being metric in the 70's in America. The only thing i ever recall (sometimes) was engine sizes.

I'm completely comfortable with the metric system despite being from the US and living in Myanmar. I also recognize its clear advantages, like any rational person would.

But, feet and pounds are still intuitive for me because of my primary education. The US will only shift when they refuse to teach USC units to schoolchildren.

Not exactly... grams measure mass, not weight. Imperial Units have the 'slug', which doesn't change based on where you are measuring.

The metric system DOES have units of measurement that change based on where you are at on the globe, called newtons.

This only applies to the metric system. For the empirical system, it gets even more confusing. Here's a simple quote from NASA's Pre-Jesus era website:

The effective acceleration of gravity at the poles is 980.665 cm/sec/sec while at the equator it is 3.39 cm/sec/sec less due to the centrifugal force. If you weighed 100 pounds at the north pole on a spring scale, at the equator you would weigh 99.65 pounds, or 5.5 ounces less.

Whenever we talk about weight in pounds, we need to define where with respect to the center of our little bluey.

That's what happens when you use the metric system.

Here's a weird thing: I'm passionate about measurements.
This is a good, informative video. What pisses me off is the use of volumetric measurements. I know it's a regional thing but I can't just accept it. Volume is such a shitty base for measuring stuff compared to weight! Why can't everybody just use weight to measure recipes? It's much more accurate and even if you refuse to use the metric system, it's still the better choice. I just don't get it. What the fuck, America?

sugar->metric system->which side of the road to drive on->jousting

Fuck yeah, videosift... epic thread!

@RFlagg, I'm almost certain I read somewhere that Napoleon changing the road side is an urban legend.

You better start using the metric system then.

On the other hand, the list of countries that don't use the metric system is:
- the US
- Myanmar
- Liberia

Oh yeah, that's a list you want to be on.... USA! USA!

We'll start using the metric system when other countries start driving on the correct side of the road.

Correction: No one in America understands the metric system. The rest of the world doesn't have a problem. Granted this is an American issue, but still... use the fucking metric system America, is all I'm saying...