okay I’ve found the impasse here. from your first post:
but old measuring standards were arbitrary impositions from old ruling classes
I disagree with this premise. Certainly some of them may have been, but the majority of measurements that people used were used for thousands of years, and were honed over that period by actual craftsmen doing actual craftswork.
The oft-cited examples of English kings defining feet using their own feet and stuff like that wasn’t the ruling class arbitrarily imposing measurements on the lower class, it was the ruling class taking measurements that already existed and choosing an arbitrary reference point to standardize to. As I said elsewhere, I think standardization is fine and good, it’s the taking measurements away from what people came up with because it was useful and replacing it with something a bunch of aristocrats invented because it made math slightly easier that I don’t like.
even right after clarifying this shouldn’t matter (and doing apologetics for the medieval equivalent) you return to this false standard and it isn’t even true! SI is tied to universal constants so anybody in any condition can work with it, without even having to procure a copy of the standard. it’s literally not arbitrary, or developed by out of touch aristocrats who never worked with their hands.
“actual craftsmen doing actual craftswork” because everyone has the same size of hands and feet? have you heard of sexual dimorphism? this is so childish, absolutely none of your arguments hold water (if you even stick to them) and are colored by a completely falsified version of history. instead of crafting unbelievable appeals to working people and cultural heritage, perhaps ponder why you’re in disagreement with the vast mass of humanity and socialist thinkers. wonder about the billions of workers and craftsmen who get on just fine without your units
There is no need to be upset, though perhaps it is your reading comprehension that needs work.
I asserted that pre-metric systems of measurements weren’t ordained top-down, and that they were in fact developed bottom-up. An aristocrat got involved at some point, but they took measurements that were already in the culture and standardized them, which is a different action from inventing all new measurements and imposing them.
Furthermore, “the length of the path traveled by light in a vacuum in 1/299792458 of a second” is equally as arbitrary as “about three feet placed front to back”. Yes, people’s feet have different lengths, which is why someone eventually said “lets all agree to use the King’s foot as the standard”. See the previous paragraph.
perhaps ponder why you’re in disagreement with the vast mass of humanity and socialist thinkers
This is a terrible argument to make. Socialist thinkers are themselves in disagreement with the vast mass of humanity - if they weren’t we wouldn’t be on this niche ass website, would we?
the length of the path traveled by light in a vacuum in 1/299792458 of a second
it’s also 1/1000000th of the distance from the pole to the equator, you can do this math yourself with basic tools to “everyday” acccuracy, just like a kilogram being a litre of water (with a much fancier process to get it physicist-calibrated). not equally arbitrary. a hand or a foot is a distance that has never existed in a replicable form beyond a single body, the dimensions and physical characteristics of observable, stable natural phenomena are the same for everybody, everywhere.
but lets get back to your absurd sequence of events "someone eventually said “lets all agree to use the King’s foot as the standard” that someone being the King, the “agreement” was the coercive power of the state to enforce that ruling. what if the king’s foot was unusually short/long? you had to use it all the same. this fantasy you’ve constructed about the humble ole’ conventional units doesn’t agree with the basics of how states work, no matter how euphemistically you present “the guy who draws and quarters people for not bowing low enough decided his foot was a standard of measurement” there was absolutely nothing democratic or ‘bottom-up’ about it. you want to hear about democratic processes? how about the hundred republics that have gone metric without the threat of force? the peoples republics, the soviet union, the dozens of countries that became independent from britain and adopted it?
okay I’ve found the impasse here. from your first post:
I disagree with this premise. Certainly some of them may have been, but the majority of measurements that people used were used for thousands of years, and were honed over that period by actual craftsmen doing actual craftswork.
The oft-cited examples of English kings defining feet using their own feet and stuff like that wasn’t the ruling class arbitrarily imposing measurements on the lower class, it was the ruling class taking measurements that already existed and choosing an arbitrary reference point to standardize to. As I said elsewhere, I think standardization is fine and good, it’s the taking measurements away from what people came up with because it was useful and replacing it with something a bunch of aristocrats invented because it made math slightly easier that I don’t like.
even right after clarifying this shouldn’t matter (and doing apologetics for the medieval equivalent) you return to this false standard and it isn’t even true! SI is tied to universal constants so anybody in any condition can work with it, without even having to procure a copy of the standard. it’s literally not arbitrary, or developed by out of touch aristocrats who never worked with their hands.
“actual craftsmen doing actual craftswork” because everyone has the same size of hands and feet? have you heard of sexual dimorphism? this is so childish, absolutely none of your arguments hold water (if you even stick to them) and are colored by a completely falsified version of history. instead of crafting unbelievable appeals to working people and cultural heritage, perhaps ponder why you’re in disagreement with the vast mass of humanity and socialist thinkers. wonder about the billions of workers and craftsmen who get on just fine without your units
There is no need to be upset, though perhaps it is your reading comprehension that needs work.
I asserted that pre-metric systems of measurements weren’t ordained top-down, and that they were in fact developed bottom-up. An aristocrat got involved at some point, but they took measurements that were already in the culture and standardized them, which is a different action from inventing all new measurements and imposing them.
Furthermore, “the length of the path traveled by light in a vacuum in 1/299792458 of a second” is equally as arbitrary as “about three feet placed front to back”. Yes, people’s feet have different lengths, which is why someone eventually said “lets all agree to use the King’s foot as the standard”. See the previous paragraph.
This is a terrible argument to make. Socialist thinkers are themselves in disagreement with the vast mass of humanity - if they weren’t we wouldn’t be on this niche ass website, would we?
it’s also 1/1000000th of the distance from the pole to the equator, you can do this math yourself with basic tools to “everyday” acccuracy, just like a kilogram being a litre of water (with a much fancier process to get it physicist-calibrated). not equally arbitrary. a hand or a foot is a distance that has never existed in a replicable form beyond a single body, the dimensions and physical characteristics of observable, stable natural phenomena are the same for everybody, everywhere.
but lets get back to your absurd sequence of events "someone eventually said “lets all agree to use the King’s foot as the standard” that someone being the King, the “agreement” was the coercive power of the state to enforce that ruling. what if the king’s foot was unusually short/long? you had to use it all the same. this fantasy you’ve constructed about the humble ole’ conventional units doesn’t agree with the basics of how states work, no matter how euphemistically you present “the guy who draws and quarters people for not bowing low enough decided his foot was a standard of measurement” there was absolutely nothing democratic or ‘bottom-up’ about it. you want to hear about democratic processes? how about the hundred republics that have gone metric without the threat of force? the peoples republics, the soviet union, the dozens of countries that became independent from britain and adopted it?
Get their ass