Editing Encyclopedia:Measurements Debate (section)

==colonialism?==
I'm curious about the persistent colonialism here. Why bully others? ''"Everyone except a few people in the US?"'' A few? Certainly more than the entire population of your country. And who cares if the EU has a big economy? ''"What's that got to do with ... rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?"'' And [[Ar'n't I a Woman?|ain't we human]]? Let us be. Why this desire to dominate? We have units. You have units. All God's children got units. No one's asking to exclude whatever-the-hell those SI things are. Don't insist that we be excluded either. Behaviour, Behavior, Whatever. (Oh! And don't think that the issue is resolved. Where'd France's newfangled decimal hours and weeks go? Persistent and influential dissent is sometimes more powerful than bullies. And UTC is overridden every time it disagrees by one minute with the true GMT standard. SI is a little bogus. You know what I mean?) [[User:Arthur3030|Arthur]] 02:42 Mar 20, 2003 (UTC)
:Would that be metric, or Imperial colonialism ? -- [[User:Derek Ross|Derek Ross]]

::I quote: ''"We have units. You have units. All God's children got units. No one's asking to exclude whatever-the-hell those SI things are. Don't insist that we be excluded either."''

::I bet the Incas would have agreed! But the Europeans massacred them anyway. [[User:Arthur3030|Arthur]] 03:42 Mar 20, 2003 (UTC)

:::oops! one more comment. Perhaps the European murderers merely wanted to ''"drag [the incas] kicking and screaming into the"'' [[16th century]] (how patronizing of them). I prefer not to killed by poison blankets, if you please.  [[User:Arthur3030|Arthur]] 04:42 Mar 20, 2003 (UTC)
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Some of the authors on this page argued that one system was more intuitive than the other. I don't think this is true. It only depends on where (and with which system) you were raised. To take the Fahrenheit example: For me - being raised with Celsius - Fahrenheit is a complete mystery with (seemingly) no fixed points: The upper limit is slightly above body temperature, whereas the lower limit is at some place I really can't imagine why anyone could be interested in this particular temperature. On the other hand I know that 0° Celsius means that water becomes ice, and 100° means that water boils (well, if you're somewhere near sea-level). Perfectly intuitive for me. 

But that's the point: It is only intuitive to me because I was raised with this system and never knew something else. If I were born in Northern America I would surely think differently. But I'm not, and so all those inches and miles and pints and gallons seem very strange to my metric, decimal brain. So we should keep in mind that whenever we use only one of the systems, we make it difficult for a lot of the people out there to understand about what we are talking.

Something about standardization: This is a good thing because it avoids ambiguity and in the long run it makes it easier to understand each other. There is nothing imperialistic or patronizing about trying to agree to international standards. And let me add that my [[Syria]]n baker around the corner surely has a different definition of imperialism than you, [[User:Arthur3030|Arthur]]. 

We now use the Euro more than a year here in Germany and sometimes I still find myself calculating the "real" DM prices. But when you visit other European countries, you see the benefits of standardization however hard the migration seemed. If you never intend to leave your country, you might see no benefit in this, and yes, you could be right that standardization makes things more difficult for you, personally.

But even though standardization is a good thing in theory, at the moment most people are used to only one system. So why not using the pragmatic approach that is already outlined in the [[Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)|Manual of Style (dates and numbers)]] and provide both units for convenience. That's the great thing about Wikipedia. If you stumble across a unit you don't understand, just look it up and update the page.

Just my 2 Cents (your decision if Euro or Dollar). [[User:Maksim|Maksim]] 19:44 25 May 2003 (UTC)