Received: 01:37 PM PDT, 06/26/2013
From: "Martin Vlietstra" <vliets...@btinternet.com>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <usma@colostate.edu>
Subject: [USMA:52997] Re: comms: cultural diversity/distinctiveness
The guy who was whinging about thirds, quarters and the duo-decimal system actually has a point – the mathematician Lagrange also considered the situation. Lagrange was on the committee in France that advised the French Revolutionary Government on matters of measurement. In sorting out the mess that loosely passed as the French system of measure, Lagrange said that there were two options – replace the decimal system of counting with a duodecimal system or use a metric system of measure. Although philosophically the duodecimal system of counting was the more attractive, introducing a decimal system of measure was the more pragmatic.
From: owner-u...@colostate.edu [mailto:owner-u...@colostate.edu] On Behalf Of j...@frewston.plus.com
Sent: 23 June 2013 17:58
To: U.S. Metric Association
Subject: [USMA:52979] Re: comms: cultural diversity/distinctiveness
To all those who say 10 can’t divided by 3 (without at least one decimal place), I say, yes, and 12 can’t be divided by either 10 or 5 without one decimal place – so what? Usually shuts people up when they realise that to get around that, you have to start using factors – of ten! The fact is, decimal notation has been around for thousands of years, and will never change, as it’s so useful and by far the best. The metric system makes the best use that, imperial doesn’t.
John F-L
From:
Sent: Sunday, June 23, 2013 4:52 PM
Subject: Re: [USMA:52977] Re: comms: cultural diversity/distinctiveness
Eric,
You might find this forum a bit amusing.
http://z13.invisionfree.com/DozensOnline/index.php?showtopic=926
A metric supporter has approached the issue from an offensive position by pointing the success of metrication in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The metric opposers were put on the defensive and you can see by the last comment of 2013-06-20 by Icarus that he has a very incoherent angered response:
The man "Paul" in the OP says the customary system died a natural death. Nope. It was murdered by the Australian government. It died an unnatural death. Metric is a revolutionary system (not a compliment!) people half-thought it out and now we have to contend with dodging thirds and writing clumsy approximations. We have to deal with .1 being magical, with shoddy hundredths that shave precision from scaling up parts in software. A tenth isn't as basic as the half and third, yet metric tries to build its measurements, polishing off thirds and quarters as ,3 (in a single digit). The right thing to have done, the genius thing, would've been to produce a duodecimal system of measure. Instead Australia has a clunky, government imposed, jackbooted system. Good for them. I'll keep my traditional system, thank you, and decide for myself what's marketable.
Note, how he three times brings up the "division by three" argument.
I don't know where Icarus comes from but another poster there is Wendy Krieger. She is Australian and a virulent metric opposer. >From what I can see she is backed into a corner, spending oodles of time converting metric to imperial. She clings to the past as if it is the present. These people will never change, but as long as they suffer the effects of being out of step, that is fine. Metric must always be the standard and USC/imperial must always be the afterthought.
BTW, duodecimal is a moot point. Never will the world adopt it. I personally believe that dozenialists are nothing more than antimetric wolves in imperial/USC sheep's clothing. The only way for them to hope to see a resurrection of imperial/USC is by some slim hope of getting the world to go dozenal, which isn't even a attothought on anyone's mind.
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From: "Eric Kow" <eric....@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, 2013-06-23 11:02
To: "Kilopascal" <kilopas...@cox.net>
Cc: "U.S. Metric Association" <usma@colostate.edu>
Subject: Re: [USMA:52977] Re: comms: cultural diversity/distinctiveness
> Ah-ha! I see now my miscommunication, many thanks!
>
> On 23 June 2013 15:14, Kilopascal <kilopas...@cox.net> wrote:
>>> In other words, that we don't form our views from the arguments we hear, but
>>> choose the arguments we accept on the basis of their compatibility with our
>>> pre-existing views.
>>
>> The way I interpreted your statement is that metric supporters should choose
>> the topic of the argument and not let our detractors chose the argument for
>> us.
>
> No, what I meant by that statement was that we (meaning human beings,
> not the metrication community) have a natural tendency towards
> selective listening. In other words, that people tend to start with
> their minds already made up, and when faced with arguments for/against
> something will just give more credence to the arguments that fit in
> with their already-made-up minds. Throwing more arguments at people
> is sometimes counter-productive because it will just cause them to dig
> their heels further in. It doesn't mean that all hope is lost for
> changing minds, just that if this sort of polarisation is happening,
> then arguments have to be made in a way that accounts for this
> selective-listening effect. You have to tailor your arguments in such
> a way that they are not thrown away out of hand, in other words, meet
> people where they are.
>
> In the paper Cultural Cognition as a Conception of the Cultural Theory
> of Risk, Kahan talks about a pretty stunning experiment where people
> are shown different versions of different newspaper articles on
> climate change, one suggesting pollution controls as a solution, and
> one suggesting removing restrictions on nuclear power… As backwards as
> this sounds, people with hierarchical-individualist values were more
> likely to believe facts about climate change being a risk if the
> solution proposed solution was compatible with their values (nuclear
> power) than threatening (pollution controls).
>
> Logically it doesn't make sense that whether or not you believe in a
> problem depends on whether or not you like the solution, but that's
> people for you! Of course I may be mangling the work and way way
> overgeneralising from it. This after all one experiment, and was
> limited to the domain of risk communication (cf. vaccination, GMOs,
> etc), rather than general persuasion. Still, if this there is any
> value in the idea that communication is more likely to be successful
> if you do it in a way that affirms rather than threatening people's
> worldviews… and if we can maybe apply it to the metrication effort,
> maybe we have a bit more of a chance…
>
> --
> Eric Kow <http://erickow.com>
>
>
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