Good grief.
Look, pot. I'm not the one constantly bringing up the "well, you'd have to clarify barrel or IMPERIAL barrel. That's why imperial sucks." I'm not saying it is you doing it, but that is one of the petty arguments against imperial, and you ARE the one that brought up LONG tons and short tons. I know pretty much the last country that still uses imperial has one ton that is also is known as a short ton in UK... the country that no longer uses imperial so why you keep bringing it up?
The UK, nor any other country bar those in North America ever used the term "short ton" or "long ton".
The Brits know what an Imperial ton is----2240lbs!
For some unfathomable reason, the USA uses both the local ton & the Imperial ton in commerce, & hence must distinguish between them.
But now here you are claiming "we just say ton, and everyone automatically knows it's a metric ton!!!! Even though there are at least two other tons that wikipedia says are still in use!! Cuz metric is magic!?!?"
No, it's because we live in a Metric country, so in general speech, there is not much likelihood of error----nor would it matter much, anyway,in everyday work, as the "Imperial ton" is only 1.6% larger than a "tonne".
Where it is important, such as doing trade with other countries, nobody relies on the spoken word, & it is obviously written as "tonne".
Anybody in the USA who is buying from a Metric country will know what "tonne' means, & make the required corrections into US "customary tons".
I'm seriously ok with you believing that, and wish you luck when you use ton, and you never get asked for clarification. Because everyone you ever talk with will never have known about any other ton.
Now, that's just silly when it comes to Australia, as there are still many people around who were adults in 1974 & knew Imperial tons well.
As I pointed out above, they are so close, it doesn't really matter for most everyday things.
What most of us never knew was that the US ton was different.(the gallon thing is well known)
Just by hearing you say "ton" means metric ton, I'm done with it. It's meaningless now. Maybe in some years, it will have a meaning again. If I were to need to use (metric) ton frequently, I'd be all over megagram, just to avoid confusion, esp seeing as other systems were already using ton at the time?!
Just call the bloody thing a "tonne", even pronounce it as it's spelled.
If other systems are using distinctly different "tons", you will always have to check which one, but a "tonne" is always the same, whether I pronounce it funny or not!
Nobody ever suggested you should use the more obscure prefixes.
I brought up the stupid exotic prefixes because of the idiots bringing up long tons and tower oz and rods and chains and hogshead. It cuts both ways.
Even the most obscure metric prefixes can be related back to familiar ones, by simply working out what the prefix stands for, & calculating what the measurement is in those familiar units, using powers of ten.
All the panoply of Imperial measures require individual translation.
Both calculations are tiresome, although the metric one is much less so, hence, in both systems, we avoid the exotic units.
Lots of folks tout the superiority of metric because you can "just shift decimal places to turn one unit into the other totally different unit with a different prefix!" But as you confirm, this is not really practical to use every type of unit in metric because it will create more confusion. There are only so many units you will want to commonly use before you start to have to pause and doublecheck what the heck you are hearing. In many real world uses of units, we stick with just one. As you agreed, when flying a plane or a glider or w/e, you will stick with just one. When driving a car, you don't change miles to feet, either. So this conversion issue really doesn't hardly ever mean anything in the real world daily usage. I think we agree then. That there is absolutely no reason for Americans to not use imperial for daily life. Unless you have some stake in the politics.
I wouldn't want to have anything to do with US politics---Australian ones are nightmarish enough!
Do whatever you like.
I only got into this because many of your arguments didn't hold water.
The way we use metric in the world in daily life is nearly identical to the way we use imperial units in real life. When you plan a hike, you picture it as a certain distance in km or miles, the number of which you can cover in so many hours. With so much effort, time, and food. We don't say, well, I can cover 1 meter in about 1 second. And I might need one almond and 1mL of water for that step. So multiply that by 1000.
The way we skip over centiliters and hectograms is the same way we skip over rods and perches and furlongs. Cuz like no one cares about saving a zero here or there.
The difference is, with rods, furlongs, etc, is that you don't save any zeros, you just end up with lots of odd numbers.
There is nothing magical about metric until you start doing physics or chemistry. And Americans (who do physics and chemistry) use metric for physics and chemistry. We have no problem using both systems. And no problem using metric when you want to attract or address a foreign audience.
As for ATC, I would be inclined to believe that no pilot has ever had to do mental conversion between feet and meters other than the ones that have to change.* If the pilot learned in feet, he flies the plane in feet. He didn't have to do a conversion to figure out how high that looks. He didn't know how high that looks until he got up there and looked at his gauge in feet. I would believe that the EU pilot that has already learned and got his license and experience will NOT want to change to metric. I mean, if I go up in the sky and come back down alive in feet, just once? I'm sticking with feet. But maybe I am wrong.
*Or flights between metric and imperial ATC. And since most of the world uses imperial, already....
Someone mentioned "why not use smoots for ATC?" If we already used them, then yeah. We would use smoots. And no one would be doing conversions of smoots to meters while flying a plane. ATC and pilots would know certain important altitudes in smoots. ATC would know how many smoots apart to place traffic to allow planes a safe circling pattern. Would you know this in meters without experience of increasing profits while not crashing planes? For years, while dealing with bad weather and other unforeseen problems and juggling 14 extra planes and trying to keep everyone alive? Then why do you need to convert it to meters in your head? Go to the smoots that ATC tells you, until it's your turn to land. Then extend the flaps at the # smoots you learned to for your plane. Then descend at the smoots/second that you learned. Then land and still be alive.
Maverick and Goose would have bragged that they flew right up to a mig, only X smoots away. Inverted!
But we already invested a lot of lives and experience in feet, so we continue to use feet. ATC has perfected this juggling act in feet. Changing to metric for the sake of metric will cost lives for... nothing important.