Do you think we should make an effort to systematically adopt metric units? Why or why not? Support your post with what advantages do you think it would have? What potential problems do we avoid or create?

Carter Hicks

Personally, I think that it would be beneficial for the US to adopt the use of the Metric System, if only to be on the same page as (most) of the rest of the world. As time goes on, the world is only going to become more connected, and the refusal to use the same system as everyone else almost creates its own kind of “language barrier”. As new discoveries are made in collaboration with people from all over the world, a truly universal metric system would make communicating these new ideas significantly easier. I do understand that the time and money it would take to make a change like this possible is substantial, to put it lightly, and I know I would personally struggle to get used to the new units if this change happened in my lifetime. But, ultimately, I think people would get used to a “new normal”. I don’t know if it’s the most practical idea financially, like I said, but I definitely think the idea of adopting the Metric System has its merits. 

Dominic Weaver

I think we (The United States) should make an effort to systematically adopt metric units just to try it out. But since The United States is one of two countries that still uses the British unit system, and the fact that we have all grown up with the British system would make it semi-difficult to adapt to metric units. Even though it would be semi-difficult to adapt to metric units, I think should switch over to it because 1) it would be easier on anyone who is visiting or moving into the United States so that they don’t have to memorize a completely different system of units. And 2) The rest of the world is using the metric system so if we were to adopt it, I feel like it would be easier to do scientific formulas, equations and experiments rather than have to go back and forth through both British units and metric units. I think the only problem that we would have if we adopted the metric system (and the reason we haven’t adopted it yet) is because we are so used to the British system that if we were to switch over, we would have great difficulty adapting to the metric system and all the common people would have mental breakdowns. But other than that, I think we would be fine.