Man, why so melodramatic? Is the US adhering to a global standard that has been proved to work better than all the previous versions a token of resignation?
Come on! You should celebrate.
Erm, no. First off, you read to much into "take a knee." It's not a matter of pride to me. I could give a shit.
Changing the definition of an inch from "that piece of metal" kept in a dark safe at a specific temperature and humidity in our department of national weights and measures to being a derivative of cm has nothing to do with metric being better or worse.
It won't be a "derivative of cm"-----in the S.I.system, the cm is a "deprecated unit", so the inch would probably be expressed in mm.
If you want a tomato to be a tomato no matter what country, you have to choose one or the other to be the standard. Aside from having more traction, the thing that is nice about metric is how it is "calibrated." If you get into a squabble with someone else over what a kg actually is, you could theoretically actually do the measurements rather than have to take the word of the guy that has "that piece of metal."
Once you've agreed on that, you ought not care if some other people prefer to express height on a drivers license as 1.49 meter, or 14.9 decimeters, or 149 cm.
Again, the SI system wouldn't like any of those options, but would prefer the height be 1490mm.
Common usage (& sense) has settled upon 149 cm, but I would personally prefer 1.49 metres.
Or feet, or inches or hands. As long as the conversion has been defined, and the calibration is from the same standard. This standard which we've all agree upon is derived from the earth, which we all have equal access to.
Pray tell!
The metre used to be defined as a fraction of the circumference of the Earth at the Equatot, but that changed many years ago.
You think we won't need to know how to use ratios and do conversions, anymore, if we convince stupid Americans to convert to the "superior" metric system?
The reason imperial will take centuries more to die out, if it ever does, is because it's not a big deal. Other than a few exceptions, say brit pints vs US pints, imperial has all its hens in order, and has had them that way since centuries before metric was even born.
The US "customary" measurement system (which is from about the same era as the original Metric system), maybe, but the Imperial system in a wider sense is nightmarish, with such delights as "Chains" ( there are 22 "links"in a chain), or "Furlongs", or the one with three names ("Rod", "Pole"or "Perch"), or the "Stone(14 lbs) or "the"hundredweight" (112 lbs)!
All leaving out the ones which it has in common with the US system, like "Troy ounces" & "Nautical Miles"
If there were many kinds of imperial (and/or other alternatives) measurements, then it would be a bigger deal. The reason France invented metric and europe adopted it is because they were living with hundreds of different competing standards, at the time.
The units I have mentioned are exactly that, "many types of Imperial".
The US customary system was, in its day, a brave effort to cut through the dross the Imperal system had accumulated over the centuries, but it didn't go far enough.
A misstep was to choose the gallon quantity used in the British brewing industry, instead of the water one!
I'm starting to see a common thread here---- the Sydney colony in Oz had a "Rum Rebellion"
Maybe the Brits thought that they could control their fractious colonists by keeping them drunk!