Why is the USA the only country who doesn’t use the metric system?

I’m old enough to remember when they tried to convert us to metric. I can tell you why.

People tried to force it on us and we don’t need the metric system for daily use. Trying to force people to use it isn’t going to work. Now, personally, I’d prefer if measurements on rulers and in cars were still given in both systems.

Metric advocates tend to be smug and insulting towards anyone not using the metric system. I have seen this myself more than once. Calling a whole nation stupid because they use a different but functional system of measurement is hardly a good strategy for converting them to your system.

I learned the metric system in school. I understand that the metric system is superior in many sciences. I have strong interests in anthropology. And here I am at 55 and I have never, not once, needed to use metric. Bone measurements are often given in metric but it’s not such a big issue that I need to wholly convert to metric.

My question is, what’s the big deal? Is the metric system a religion? I’ve seen evangelical Christians less intent on converting people. Why?

The main reason it annoys me is because a lot of English-language recipes online are written by USAmericans and therefore use imperial units that I have to convert. I’ve also noticed that they seem to measure everything in cups even for things where it makes no sense to use volume (flour is a common one—isn’t baking supposed to be precise? Flours can have different densities, air pockets, etc). I find ounces really confusing because they can be volume or mass.

Also, imperial is not standardised, so different countries have different amounts for a cup, an ounce, a pint, etc. I guess I can check the recipe author’s country and then convert to metric. But I just find it confusing. Can’t we just all use the same units that are nice and easy to use together since they’re powers of 10?

It’s way easier to bake in ounces, IME

Metric is designed more for calculating on paper. For things using your hands like baking and carpentry, customary units are better. They’re designed for that.