Tucker Carlson think measuring in millimeters is tyranny.

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Tucker Carlson think measuring in millimeters is tyranny.

Postby tinyrick » Thu Jun 06, 2019 6:52 pm

https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2019 ... zLY14WJtx4

Making every measurement simple by making it dividable by 10 is tyranny. My favorite part of the video is when he mispronounces kilograms as KYE-lo-grams and shakes his head like it's ridiculous. Americans also have a sort of metric system in place when it comes to our own currency. 100 cents=1 dollar. Simple. Maybe he prefers the 19th century British system of 12 pence to a shilling, 20 shillings to a pound, and every penny being worth 4 farthings. And every farthing was worth 18 terriwinkles. And every terriwinkle was 5 lillydops. and every lillydop was worth 30 bopbopalugaawabangbooms Tooty Fruity! Oh Rudy!
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Re: Tucker Carlson think measuring in millimeters is tyranny

Postby Absentia » Thu Jun 06, 2019 7:28 pm

This kind of insightful commentary is why Fox is willing to overlook his racism and sexism. You just can't silence a thinker of his caliber.
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Re: Tucker Carlson think measuring in millimeters is tyranny

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Thu Jun 06, 2019 7:48 pm

It has to do with science and academia, which the right hates, because why be a climatologist or a psychologist who disagrees with Ray Chandling and Charles Murray and isn't associated with the family research council when you can go the route Scott Walker advocates and bypass even basic licensing requirements (because community colleges with trade school programs are socialist)to become a plumber or mechanic who can't do basic math and misspells every single word on an invoice.
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Last edited by Deathclaw_Puncher on Thu Jun 06, 2019 10:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Tucker Carlson think measuring in millimeters is tyranny

Postby iMURDAu » Thu Jun 06, 2019 8:47 pm

Slow news day in Republicanville:

Metric system...
Prayer in school...
The Taxes Are Too Damn High!
Non-whites you should feel threatened by...
Whites you should feel threatened by...
Christians are being persecuted all over America...
Can you believe what this non-white actor/singer/athlete said?
Remember when life was exactly like either Leave it to Beaver or Happy Days or Walk the Line or Grease or Stand By Me or Ozzie and Harriet?
Whatever did happen to those manufacturing jobs and when will they be coming home?
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Re: Tucker Carlson think measuring in millimeters is tyranny

Postby cmsellers » Thu Jun 06, 2019 8:52 pm

I hate metric because I hate the base ten system.

But also because I find feet and inches more human-scale than meters, and out power-of-two-based volume measurements more useful for practical purposes than metric volume measurements other than liters. And I still find Fahrenheit degree measurements much more intuitive than Celsius ones.

I've lived in two countries which use the metric system, and I adapted to grams (well, really, I estimated things in 50-gram chunks), kilograms, and kilometers fine. I learned to use deciliters, centimeters, meters, and degrees Centigrade fine as well, I just hate them.
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Re: Tucker Carlson think measuring in millimeters is tyranny

Postby Krashlia » Thu Jun 06, 2019 11:20 pm

I'd side with him on this in part out of resentment for the Europeans, and out of a wish that we don't just do things just because everyone else (aka: Europe, which was somehow made out to be the unquestioned standard of rationality) does it.

But really, because the metric system isn't really an inherently more "rational" standard of measurement than the imperial system. "Oh, look! Its another consistent system of accounting for dimensions of space, but its based on some other totally not-arbitrary item in a whole universe of items! Its sciency and rational, guys!"
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Re: Tucker Carlson think measuring in millimeters is tyranny

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Fri Jun 07, 2019 1:25 am

cmsellers wrote:I hate metric because I hate the base ten system.

But also because I find feet and inches more human-scale than meters, and out power-of-two-based volume measurements more useful for practical purposes than metric volume measurements other than liters. And I still find Fahrenheit degree measurements much more intuitive than Celsius ones.

I've lived in two countries which use the metric system, and I adapted to grams (well, really, I estimated things in 50-gram chunks), kilograms, and kilometers fine. I learned to use deciliters, centimeters, meters, and degrees Centigrade fine as well, I just hate them.

You don't see how base 10 is more practical standard than a Norman King measuring his body parts?
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Re: Tucker Carlson think measuring in millimeters is tyranny

Postby cmsellers » Fri Jun 07, 2019 2:58 am

Deathclaw_Puncher wrote:You don't see how base 10 is more practical standard than a Norman King measuring his body parts?

A. All numeric base systems are base 10; that's literally how base systems work.
B. Whether or not those units were standardized based on an actual person's body part, they came into use because they represent quantities people are likely to use. In about half of cases, I feel metric units basically do this too, but they're completely artificial and arbitrary and it's a coincidence when this happens. Using a consistent scale makes large-scale math, as in science, engineering, and finance, easier, but those sectors are free to use metric anyways. I absolutely do not favor a move to less-intuitive units which are harder to divide by three and four.
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Re: Tucker Carlson think measuring in millimeters is tyranny

Postby Krashlia » Fri Jun 07, 2019 3:20 am

Deathclaw_Puncher wrote:You don't see how base 10 is more practical standard than a Norman King measuring his body parts?


I could see it. Anyone who can multiply by ten or knows a bit of latin could see it, I would think.

But all a rational system of measurements demands is some consistency. That things are the same from unit one to two and on and on, or bear some relation to the other collectively. And, What truly matters after that is whether it works, by measuring and providing scale for the things one needs it to.
So what if some Norman king was the basis from which it was derived (as opposed from some measurement from the planetary pole to the equator)?

And if the worst thing that can be said of it is that its not as easy to do, as opposed to some inconsistency that makes it useless and detrimental, then the case for changing it comes down to a matter of preference and convenience.

Edit:
So, we can just keep this one, for the things its utilized for still, just for the heck of it.

EDIT 2: That awkward moment where you answer a question directed at someone else...
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Re: Tucker Carlson think measuring in millimeters is tyranny

Postby tinyrick » Fri Jun 07, 2019 10:14 am

cmsellers wrote:I hate metric because I hate the base ten system.

But also because I find feet and inches more human-scale than meters, and out power-of-two-based volume measurements more useful for practical purposes than metric volume measurements other than liters. And I still find Fahrenheit degree measurements much more intuitive than Celsius ones.

I've lived in two countries which use the metric system, and I adapted to grams (well, really, I estimated things in 50-gram chunks), kilograms, and kilometers fine. I learned to use deciliters, centimeters, meters, and degrees Centigrade fine as well, I just hate them.


You are the very model of a moder Major-General.
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Re: Tucker Carlson think measuring in millimeters is tyranny

Postby Aquila89 » Fri Jun 07, 2019 5:06 pm

"Am I out of touch? No, it's the rest of the world that is wrong."

The "anti-metrite" Carlson interviews brings up the French revolutionary calendar, which used 10-day weeks, which was invented around the same time as the metric system. I think it's a great argument against his position. The revolutionary calendar was only ever used in France, and they abandoned it after 12 years. 200 years later, the metric system is used almost everywhere on the planet.

He also claims that "customary measures took us to the Moon". The calculations necessary for the Moon landing were actually carried out using the metric system.

Anyway, Carlson is late to the game. Ann Coulter already made the same arguments back in 2014 in a coloumn that was primarily about why liking football (which Americans call soccer) is a sign of a nation's moral decline.
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Re: Tucker Carlson think measuring in millimeters is tyranny

Postby cmsellers » Fri Jun 07, 2019 7:02 pm

A lot of bad ideas can last a disturbingly long time. And the metric system isn't bad, per-se. It's a little worse for day-to-day use and much easier for highly complex calculations. It just so happens that the elite, who tend to make the decisions about what system to use, are also much more likely to engage in these highly complex calculations often enough to make it preferable for them overall.

But the other thing to note is that the French Republican Calendar tried to replace a system which was already universal in Europe. The metric system replaced a bunch of regional standards for weights and measures across different parts of France. Its advantage was likely not so much in its consistency as in its universality.

Personally, since the Julian Calendar is kind of shitty, with a weird date for New Year's and unpredictable month lengths, I prefer the French Republican Calendar in some aspects. But the attempt to make weeks align with months through a ten-day week was idiotic, and by disrupting normal patters of activity and depriving people of half a day of rest each week, I think one of the main drivers of its failure. It would have made more sense to adjust the Julian months such that January, April, July, and October all begin on a solstice or equinox and leave the weeks alone.
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Re: Tucker Carlson think measuring in millimeters is tyranny

Postby CarrieVS » Fri Jun 07, 2019 7:22 pm

Americans: The metric system is terrible!
Europeans: The imperial* system is awful!

Brits:
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*or whatever it is in the US.
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Re: Tucker Carlson think measuring in millimeters is tyranny

Postby Aquila89 » Fri Jun 07, 2019 8:01 pm

cmsellers wrote:A lot of bad ideas can last a disturbingly long time. And the metric system isn't bad, per-se. It's a little worse for day-to-day use and much easier for highly complex calculations.


That's your opinion. I think a lot of it depends on what you learned first. I grew up with the metric system and the Celsius scale, and there's absoutely nothing inituitive to me about Imperial measurements and the Fahrenheit scale.
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Re: Tucker Carlson think measuring in millimeters is tyranny

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Fri Jun 07, 2019 11:48 pm

cmsellers wrote:
Deathclaw_Puncher wrote:You don't see how base 10 is more practical standard than a Norman King measuring his body parts?

A. All numeric base systems are base 10; that's literally how base systems work.

Joke's on you, all my math is base 2^1/2i!
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