Comment by Sol on The Majority Is Always Wrong · 2007-04-03T13:57:47.000Z · LW · GW

Hmmm... this fits with my theory on why English units still survive in a world with the metric system. (Which the time question makes me think of.) Which is to say, it seems to me that the metric system is vastly more convenient for doing math across different units -- not surprisingly, as the system is optimized for that. But in general, the units in English measure are more conveniently sized for everyday use. (Take temperature, for instance -- 0F to 100F is nearly perfect for everyday temperatures, at least here in Michigan -- temperatures outside that range are rare events (just a couple days a year, usually), whereas temperatures from 0-10 and 90-100 are much more common.)

The fun thing here is you can make the argument both ways depending on the scale of your comparison -- either the metric system survives in the scientific community in the US because it is superior for scientific matters, or the English system survives in the US (against the world) because it is superior in everyday use.