Hi, Michiel!

Michiel van der Vlist - Wayne Harris  writes:

> Hello Wayne,
>
> On Monday August 17 2020 17:45, you wrote to me:
>
>  BF>>> what could possibly go wrong? Especially with international
>  BF>>> projects.
>
>  MV>> An airplane running out of fuel and crashing because the captain
>  MV>> ordered 5000 kg of fuel and the ground crew delivered 5000 pounds?  A
>  MV>> Mars lander crashing because of a mix up of feet and metres?
>
>  WH> [With] all due respect, sir, are you serious?
>
> Björn asked what could possible go wrong and I gave two examples of
> something actually going wrong. I didn't make that up, these are real
> life examples. Sure I am serious.

I believe you and concede.  However, we could surely argue here that
it's really not clear the units are the problem.  If you work with
multiple units, it becomes your job to verify.  Still, see below.

>  WH> If people might be ordered 5000 kg and deliver 5000 pounds, they might
>  WH> just as well mistake 5000 for 50000 too.
>
> Unlike Björn I never had a pilot license myself, but my father had one
> and I spend many hours in the right seat acting as his informal
> copilot. I can tell you that while people can always make mistakes, it
> certainly is not that easy to mistake 5000 kg for 50000 kg of fuel and
> let the mistake go unnoticed until it is too late...

No reasonable person would want to make things more difficult.  I'm
reasonable.  If it might create problems and surely wouldn't create
other problems by using standard units, surely it makes sense to change.

But let's ask this.  Must the population change their units because
pilots might get things wrong?  I'd think the pilots should change join
the standard and let people drink their pint of beer.

I don't think it a bad thing for people to go through the change.  I
actually think it would be healthier for them to do it.  Change is a
good thing.  But I think they don't really wanna do it and pilots should
protect themselves --- so they should change.

My reasoning is usually of the following form.  (Just an example.)
Industry complains that colleges don't teach students industry skills.
I say colleges are not the industry --- they don't understand the needs
of the industry, the mind of the industry.  Colleges don't suffer if the
industry does.  The sensible thing is for the industry to work on their
problems.  It's not a college problem.  It's an industry problem.

If pilots could improve anything about their jobs, they should.  Just
like anybody else.

>  WH> To a scientist, whether you use the metric system or the imperial
>  WH> system it seems a small detail.  To the population, though, it would
>  WH> be a major project to go for such a change and I don't actually see
>  WH> much benefit.
>
> People often do not see the benefits until they actually are the
> situation. I sure see the benefits of not having to deal with of local
> measuring systems and I am very glad my predesessors of a 100 years
> ago did see it that way too and acted on it by doing away with local
> measurements and adopting a universal system.

That sounds reasonable. If an American puts himself in your shoes, he'd
grow up in a culture that's using a universal system.  He would perhaps
be thankful as you are.  If you put yourself in an American's shoes,
you'd have grown up in a culture that's using the imperial system.
Perhaps you'd want to change it!  That's very likely to happen because
that is happening!  Indeed, you wouldn't see the benefits of _not_
changing because you're not their situation! :-D (Don't take it
personally.  I am having fun, but not at your expense.  Seriously.)

Seriously, though, of course I see what you mean.  It's true.  They
don't go through the change, so they don't see the benefits.  Of course.
You can't see things clearly from a pure deductional stand point.
Mathematicians, for example, they all lay out their ideas in a deductive
fashion, but that's of course not at all how they arrive at them.  They
do a lot of trial and error and immerse themselves into the ideas and
the more they are the situation, the more clearly they see it.

> You know, here in Europe two or three hundred years ago, we had local
> measuring systems. We "Rijnlandes voet, "Utrechtse voet", "Amsterdamse
> duim". Etc, etc. Napoleon ended that and he introduced the meter end
> the kg. And science, technology and trade accepted it. I sure see the
> benfits.

That makes perfect sense.  Let's take UTF-8 --- if you're the Internet
type of person.  Nearly everyone in Western countries are using it.  It
makes a lot of things work well.  I was remarking just the other day
that I can never quite understand which encoding Björn is using.
Sometimes it displays just fine, but there are places in Bjorn's own
messages that do not.

> From a global POV, you guys across are still using local measurements....

You think I'm an American! :-)

>  WH>   -- Ah, I see!  If you take the kids seating at two of these smaller
>  WH>      2/3-girl-tables and put them all together at this larger table,
>  WH> you
>  WH>      end up with a table where 4/6 kids are girls, from which we may
>  WH>      safely deduce that 2/3 + 2/3 = 4/6.  Right?!
> [..]
>  WH> Now, I don't know what you'll make of this story.
>
> All I can say is that I am glad that half a century ago I decided that
> teaching was not my thing and I avoided a carreer in education...

Well, let me tell you something, sir!  Nobody can get out of a career in
education!  I think education is a responsibility you cannot delegate or
get away from.  Whether you want it or not, you are teaching yourself
and others.  In fact, I'm afraid teachers have very little influence in
the intellectual lives of people, unless we consider their negative
influence.  As I see it, what teachers mostly do is turn children,
teenagers, adults away from intellectual matters.  Not an exciting
picture.

That's why most people find it all so tedious.  Parents and schools are
tedious.  Parents are tedious because they grew up like that too.  They
do what they can and they can little.  People have a strong sense of
incapacity.  (Though I don't think this would be true here in Fidonet or
NNTP servers.  People here are very curious.)

---