> If you use fractions often or work with weirder fractions anybody who is worth their grain of salt will build custom temporary rulers or helper systems anyways.
My point is a system with less need for that because it can handle more common divisions easily would be good.
> I can see how anybody who grew up with inches likes that one better
I tried to be very explicit in that I was not promoting the imperial system. I'm not even promoting imperial distance over metric distance. I'm purely using feet because there's a base 13 for inches to illustrate how a full base 12 system might work. Feet and inches are much worse than metric even in this case because that conversion only happens at one spot, not at regular orders of magnitude.
All I was saying is that since it's a fact there are some things that can be done in base 12 that can't be done in base 10 but not the other way aroubd, it would be really interesting (and extremely unlikely) if we somehow shifted to a base 12 metric-like system. That wouldn't be imperial (which has a different conversion every time you blink).
I learned a lesson though. People are very protective of the metric system. Even opining about fictional future possibilities with mathematical facts will lead to downvoting into oblivion and people misinterpreting clear assertions as something they aren't.
> My point is a system with less need for that because it can handle more common divisions easily would be good.
My point was, that from a practicle standpoint this doesn't really matter. If you need to tick of a third of a meter somewhere just a few times, everybody would just happily make a mark at 333.33mm – if you need to do this 50 times, building a temporary ruler is a good idea in any measurment system, because it reduces both cognitive load and the likelyhood of mismeasurement. This is especially true if you are building something that involves many steps that are repetitive, similar, but different enough to ruin your day if you fuck up.
For me one of the best things about the metric system is, that it in fact is base10 because it eases the conversion and calculation between units and has cool effects that imo outwheigh the cool things you would get from going base12.
Going base12 in a good way would mean going base12 fully, including temperatures, currencies, voltages, weight, etc. and this would mean turning a whole culture of knowledge upside down and inside out. If we would have a world dictator they might try something like this. From a distribution perspective it is desirable to have one standardized unit system that makes sense.
So my pain point isn't exactly metric vs imperial, but that in 2018 we still need to deal with these two systems and the conversion between them. Metric is far more wide spread than imperial and this has reasons, some historical, some political, some practical. If you are one who thinks national unilateralisms are a waste of energy and potential, you are certainly in favour of the metric system, just because it would be easier for the world to agree on going fully metric, than it would be for the world to go fully imperial.
And I am not talking about everybody having to use it in their day to day life – just look at the UK. I am talking about certain space agencies, industry, electrical engineering etc, where these things can have real graspable consequences, maybe even deaths.
My point is a system with less need for that because it can handle more common divisions easily would be good.
> I can see how anybody who grew up with inches likes that one better
I tried to be very explicit in that I was not promoting the imperial system. I'm not even promoting imperial distance over metric distance. I'm purely using feet because there's a base 13 for inches to illustrate how a full base 12 system might work. Feet and inches are much worse than metric even in this case because that conversion only happens at one spot, not at regular orders of magnitude.
All I was saying is that since it's a fact there are some things that can be done in base 12 that can't be done in base 10 but not the other way aroubd, it would be really interesting (and extremely unlikely) if we somehow shifted to a base 12 metric-like system. That wouldn't be imperial (which has a different conversion every time you blink).
I learned a lesson though. People are very protective of the metric system. Even opining about fictional future possibilities with mathematical facts will lead to downvoting into oblivion and people misinterpreting clear assertions as something they aren't.