Pit bulls - The Breed of Peace

Hoss_sl said:

You continue to misunderstand (is it on purpose). I mock the necessity of doing that calculation in your head. Not mocking some random theoretical math question at all.

Metric is not superior to people who grew with and understand imperial measurements. I know how long feet and inches are. If something gives me a measurement that a thing is 2 feet away from another thing and it's 3 inches in diameter, I don't need to do any conversions to find it. If that's given as .66666 meters and 8 cm, I do. The math itself is not a problem, the problem is using measurements everyone isn't familiar with. The people who build my stuff are americans, the people I sell my stuff to are americans and it makes no sense to require everyone to use unfamiliar units.

Metric can be superior to people who grew up using it, that's fine and understandable. But I maintain that the easier math argument is hollow. In my experience people who are bad at math still can't handle the math when it's metric.

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The question wasn't whether you understand imperial measurements better than metric. Nor was the question whether the math involved in performing conversions is difficult, or whether Billy-Bob down the street from you is best served in imperial vs metric when you sell him something. The question is whether metric is superior to imperial in performing scientific calculations and conversions. Imperial units are not made "superior" just because you "know them" and the "math is easy", just like metric is not superior simply because someone who has learnt it doesn't know imperial conversion rates. It's superior simply because from a calculation efficiency standpoint it is quicker, and doesn't depend on arbitrary conversion values.

If you were to take someone who had ZERO knowledge of either system, teach one metric and the other imperial, then give them the above physics questions you mocked, not only would the Metric student learn the conversion values between metric units in a fraction of the time the imperial student is memorizing the conversion rate between yards, furlongs, and meters-- but when actually solving each question the metric student will solve it quicker. That's called a better system.

Again, there is nothing wrong with Imperial, and the math isn't hard, it's just entirely superfluous and unnecessary.

lendarios_sl said:

Oh parenthesis where art thou
.

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Holy shit, the metric system has caused people to completely forget order of operations. The metric system has to be STOPPED before it results in even more math illiterates.

Or you can avoid the need for a calculator altogether and just use metric..

Hoss_sl said:

Go ahead and show us how you do 1.456 miles + 300 feet with the metric system. Without a calculator pls.

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You don't since those aren't metric units. Theequivalentmetric calculation requires no calculator. 1.456 KM + 300 meters is simply 1.456 +.3=1.756 KM. Your imperial calculation requires (1.456*5280+300)/5280. Again, the argument here isn't the difficulty of the math required (it's trivial), it's the amount of effort/time involved. If you can do that imperial calculation in your head as quickly as the metric one, then I'll happily concede defeat.

10

Hoss_sl said:

OK cool. So you flat out can't handle it if the units you're given are imperial. For the record, it's just as easy for me if someone were to give me metric units. Maybe slightly more difficult because I would have to look up the conversion factor. But like I said earlier, life is an open book test where you can use any calculator you want.

Also, people who are bad at math (PWABAM) will get that conversion from meters to kilometers wrong distressingly often. Cause moving decimal points can be hard too. Wouldn't have surprised me at all if someone had answered 1.459.

But we're not arguing about this anymore. There's no use in either of us trying to convince the other one.

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You realize that your entire argument is predicated on the basis that a calculator is responsible for imperial being on par or better than metric right? Think about that for a second, hard. Your only argument for the calculations being as simple as moving decimal places is because you've got a calculator in RL. That's not a better system, that's just a worse one facilitated by technology.

hoss_sl said:

Also, people who are bad at math (PWABAM) will get that conversion from meters to kilometers wrong distressingly often. Cause moving decimal points can be hard too

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If this is true then I weep for this country.

So basically you're saying calculators enable people with sub grade 3 level math skills to do problems that someone competent in multiplication/division (to 4 decimal places) would require minutes to do by hand, and that's "better" than a system whose only requirement is moving a decimal point and doesn't require a calculator.

OK

EDIT: Lendarios beat me to it