Comment on Banana for scale

• SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Like, I’m at a shop right now, and outside the window are some scooters.

  How many scooters?

  I think in units of scooters, not pieces of metal in scooter shape that add up to a volume of mass and energy. Because that’s not what I’m thinking about right now, I just see six scooters, and you instantly know that there are six scooters.

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  • petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    But you don’t measure the number of scooters by gram, either.

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    • SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      This is true, but that’s because everybody has accepted the unit of scooter as the accepted unit count for scooters…

      Okay that’s a bad example, because just counting things is the way to count things. But also, maybe that’s the point - maybe, counting things is just super simple, and why direct or single-level abstract measurements is the difference: metric = relating everything to a single point, and imperial = just counting. Yeah? Maybe?

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      • petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I’m not really following. What, are we counting feet, then? Mine?

        Feet are just really entrenched in the way Americans think about lengths. It may not sound like it’s abstract, but it is. If I said “yeah, it’s about sixteen hands long”, people would have to parse wtf I’m talking about, but then have to grapple with how long a “hand” is exactly and what 16 of them means.

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    • HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      since we’re talking hypotheticals, sometimes you order sausages by the unit, sometimes you order them by weight.

      honestly idc which really, i am the best sassage eater on the team just give me the damn wurst. give me the damn wurst.

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      • petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I like to measure a number of wursts by how excited I am to receive them, which can be challenging because this is not a linear function.

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  • HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    There are four scooters

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    • SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      My heart yearns for the humanity, passion, integrity, competence, and empathy that that show promised me.

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• SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I expanded my comment, but, basically, you can get used to any system. Humans are incredibly adaptable.

  But for the same reason we’re bad at conceptualizing how rich a trillionaire really is, metric may not be better than imperial. Or, maybe imperial is the reason we’re bad at conceptualizing! I haven’t thought about that before! But it’s an interesting idea!

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