posted in Asklemmy
Why is the USA the only country who doesn’t use the metric system?
posted in Asklemmy
Why is the USA the only country who doesn’t use the metric system?
Replying to @Confidant6198@lemmy.ml
My theory is that the federal nature of the US leads to a default popular attitude of hostility toward any policy that originates above the state level, unless there are commercial interests willing to pay for the marketing and campaign contributions to sell it to the people and/or legislators. And businesses aren’t that interested in an improvement that only marginally affects their profits.
One of the very first things the US govt standardized was the size of screws because it was wreaking havoc with shipbuilding efforts.