this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2025
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I grew up with metric and moved to an imperial country as an adult. I now have a different view of the systems and honestly prefer imperial. Hear me out.
Imperial organically evolved over centuries to better match the lived human experience. The major units used now are more useful to the average person. The fact they are not base 10 is due to the fact that the main uses for each aren't related in that way.
For temperature, 1 degree Fahrenheit is the minimum I can feel. 50 F is a middle temperature outdoors for many temperate climates: 0 F is very cold and 100 F is very hot. The temperature at which water boils or freezes at sea level is not as useful to my daily experience and the difference in a degree Celsius is too large.
I like inches, yards, and miles. I prefer ounces and pounds. Pints, quarts, and gallons now make more sense to me. I am not a scientist or engineer (who absolitely should use metric), but a guy trying to deal with weather, get places, and buy things to eat/drink.
Of course, if I learned an aircraft type was designed in imperial only, I wouldn't get on it. Metric has its purpose. It's just not as good for daily life.
To me, kilometers and miles are in a similar class; I don't have a reason to prefer one over the other. Same with kilos/pounds. Even though a kilo is more than double a pound, it's used to measure the same kinds of things. As with Centimeters/inches, quarts/liters, yards/meters.
Metric seems to do better at measuring very small things, or very precise things, but lacks middle measures that help with day to day life like Ounces and Feet. If there was a metric foot, like a quarter or third of a meter, it would be more useful. Same if there was a metric ounce, lets say 25 grams (an actual ounce is slightly over 28 grams).