Switch to Metric? Yes or No

[Steve Demuth]

If it ain't broke don't fix it

Arguably, it is broke. As I said earlier, if you're just building something in your home shop from wood, you're mostly using length, and in makes only marginal difference whether you use metric decimal, Imperial - with binary fractions, or inches decimal. I sometimes use 2 or three in a single project.

But one key value of a system of measurement is agreement between parties on how big, how much, etc - and Imperial is the odd ball on that. As long as you're completely local in the United States, it doesn't matter, but as soon as we're interacting with the rest of the world, Imperial is broken, because it's the different one and forces us into conversion land.

The other sense in which it is broken is if you're needs go beyond simple length and volume measurements. The metric / SI system is vastly easier to navigate for anything involving energy, power, force or related concepts, and is already the standard even in the United States for electrical measurements. The inter-relatedness of those units with the basic units of length and mass is greatly simplifying.