Metric works in the US where it was practical and was cheap to switch out to use it. In many instances it does not really mater. In some instances it is historical (such as property and distance).

Metric is also a historical thing. The US basically came along and mandated it for most other countries that had recently been destroyed in WW2. It was a good time to 'reset' and get things changed over. The US planned on doing it too but found other uses for the money allocated to do it.

This sort of argument is the same as with CO2 emissions. When it is cheaper to switch over the US will do it. You will have to justify switching out billions of dollars worth of signage, inconveniencing millions of people to do it, millions of man hours to switch out docs and change one number from something to another, other than some notion of 'its better'. It can be done however, this is not a cheap thing people are asking for.

Unfortunately the US has to change from the United States customary system to Metric, not Imperial to Metric. This is much harder! /s

Based on the content of that article, and another post in this discussion[1], I don't think "Canada switched from Imperial to Metric between 1970 and 1985" is a fair statement at all. Canada tried but only partially succeeded, leaving it with a hodgepodge of metric and non-metric units.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24330792

I'm in the age group that was one of the first cohorts who only learned Metric in school in the 1970s.

While we do use Imperial for stuff here, I would still say the conversion was successful in that everyone in my cohort and later knows/remembers/understands the metric unit alternatives to the Imperial units that we still use.

Obviously we still use a lot of Imperial units due to our proximity to the US, but if the US were to completely convert to metric, there wouldn't need to be much (if any) re-education for Canadians younger than 50.

> I'm in the age group that was one of the first cohorts who only learned Metric in school in the 1970s.

From the Wiki article, it sounds as though this is not universally the case any longer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_Canada#Educatio...

Anyway, my point is I don't think its fair to call a nation converted when it still has both officially-recognized non-metric units and official uses for them (such as in aviation). I also disagree that these are driven entirely by the US, as Canada still uses a few non-metric units, like the Avery bushel, that the US does not.