Metrification for Dummy Activists (Metric System 5)

It used to be you could just pound out a few paragraphs of rubbish on your keyboard and rake in the cash at any content farm. The Google Panda update of 2011 changed all that; inserting some vague measurement of "quality" into the site's search algorithm. Immediately, wannabe freelancers began schooling themselves in SEO, branding, and a host of other buzzwords in an attempt to improve that "quality." What many of these freelancers failed to realize that the Panda update punished sites for bad content. So why did the hangers-on continue to publish utter bull? Because they already had that arrow in their quiver and it takes considerably more work to write good material. That's why hacks like DailyTwoCents.com's Deborah-Diane (sometimes known as Deborah Dian or Deborah Diane Carr) keep churning out twaddle like "The U.S. Needs to Convert to the Metric System."¹

Far be it from the Antisocial Network staff to argue against that point – we're wholly supportive of getting rid of the bizarre mixture of units and conversions presently in use (how many quarts are there in a gallon? pecks in a bushel? barrels in a hogshead?). But DD's arguments lack a certain... let's say "quality." Such as this figure caption at the top of the page:

"If the United States dropped the Imperial System of math (which even Great Britain no longer uses) and switched to the metric system, math would be so much easier for our children." We rather doubt that math would become easier. There would, of course, be lots of different math problems in their workbooks, but math itself wouldn't change. Dummy! Deborah-Diane sticks with this notion in her opening paragraph" "For this reason, the United States has found itself stuck with an archaic math system that holds back our young people and makes math much more difficult than it needs to be." Once again, feet/inches. gallons/cups, and the like are a system of measurements, not a "math system"! But she says it again! "We teach our children one system of math in school. Then, if they go into a career in medicine, science... they are required to learn the metric system as an adult."

Still with the "math system," not to mention that children get loads and loads of exposure to the metric system in school. Sheesh. One reason she thinks the country needs to switch over to the metric system, she says, is

"There have also been medical incidents that are attributed to people confusing the amount of medication that should be used … since the prescription dosage was written in milligrams, but the patients tried to use a teaspoon to measure the amount. In some cases, new medical personnel may have made critical errors. No one knows how many medical mistakes may have been caused by the failure of people to correctly use metrics."

We truly doubt that anyone has ever seen a prescription in milligrams and attempted to substitute teaspoons: milligrams are a unit of mass and teaspoons of volume, not to mention that a milligram is about the mass of the ink in the word "milligram." Dumbass!

DD closes by railing that

"Do Americans really believe we are too dumb to learn metrics … when it is the easiest math system there is? Don’t we think our children could pick it up? After all, even children in remote villages of China, South America and Africa have been able to learn metrics with little problem."

We're pretty sure here at the Antisocial Network that American kids – except perhaps a few who are homeschooled – routinely learn the metric system. Perhaps back in the nineteen-fifties... but not in the 21st century. For being, herself, ignorant of what the metric system entails; for confusing a measurement system with a "math system"; and for being ignorant of what's been happening in education over the past fifty years, Deborah-Diane wins the Dumbass of the Day; hands down.

¹ This website is now defunct, but you can see the post using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   http://dailytwocents.com/the-u-s-needs-to-convert-to-the-metric-system/

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MM - METRIC SYSTEM