this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2025
266 points (96.8% liked)
Casual Conversation
3146 readers
66 users here now
Share a story, ask a question, or start a conversation about (almost) anything you desire. Maybe you'll make some friends in the process.
RULES (updated 01/22/25)
- Be respectful: no harassment, hate speech, bigotry, and/or trolling. To be concise, disrespect is defined by escalation.
- Encourage conversation in your OP. This means including heavily implicative subject matter when you can and also engaging in your thread when possible. You won't be punished for trying.
- Avoid controversial topics (politics or societal debates come to mind, though we are not saying not to talk about anything that resembles these). There's a guide in the protocol book offered as a mod model that can be used for that; it's vague until you realize it was made for things like the rule in question. At least four purple answers must apply to a "controversial" message for it to be allowed.
- Keep it clean and SFW: No illegal content or anything gross and inappropriate. A rule of thumb is if a recording of a conversation put on another platform would get someone a COPPA violation response, that exact exchange should be avoided when possible.
- No solicitation such as ads, promotional content, spam, surveys etc. The chart redirected to above applies to spam material as well, which is one of the reasons its wording is vague, as it applies to a few things. Again, a "spammy" message must be applicable to four purple answers before it's allowed.
- Respect privacy as well as truth: Don’t ask for or share any personal information or slander anyone. A rule of thumb is if something is enough info to go by that it "would be a copyright violation if the info was art" as another group put it, or that it alone can be used to narrow someone down to 150 physical humans (Dunbar's Number) or less, it's considered an excess breach of privacy. Slander is defined by intentional utilitarian misguidance at the expense (positive or negative) of a sentient entity. This often links back to or mixes with rule one, which implies, for example, that even something that is true can still amount to what slander is trying to achieve, and that will be looked down upon.
Casual conversation communities:
Related discussion-focused communities
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Fahrenheit is a perfectly cromulent unit of measure when the use case is for referencing human comfort.
The rage it incites in others on the internet is just a side benefit. It's hilariously awe-inspiring just how wound up some people get over a personal preference for a unit of measure. Mr. Fahrenheit should be proud of what he accomplished.
The best is the one you're used to.
You feel like Fahrenheit is good enough because it's what your used to. Just say that and it's all good.
I use Celsius for weather because a) I'm used to it and b) where I live, knowing the temperature relevant to the freezing point of water is extremely relevant when considering the weather. You use Fahrenheit for the weather only because you're used to it. There's no benefit other than that.
I do use Fahrenheit for cooking, but not because it's better in any way, but simply because I'm used to it. I know the effect setting the oven to 400, 350, 300, etc, will have. It's not a better unit of measure, I'm just used to it, and in the context of using my oven, it's not worthwhile to me to learn the equivalents in Celsius.
It's ok to say you prefer something simply because that's what you're used to using. But Celsius is a better unit of measure, just you're not used to it. You know what 70F, 80F, 90F, 100F feels like from experience, ie. you're used to using that scale. It's fine... just weird to say something is better simply because it's what you're accustomed to.
The problem with Celsius and it's relation to the freezing and boiling point of water is that water is a rare chemical that is less dense as a solid so it will freeze AND boil at different temperatures depending on pressure.
Freezing temperature isn't 0 at 1500 meters and it doesn't boil at 100 either.
Edit to add examples:
On Mount Everest water boils at 72 degrees
In Denver, Colorado water boils at 94 degrees
I don't live on the top of Mount Everest LOL.
Nobody ever said you did, but billions of people don't live at sea level and because of that water doesn't boil or freeze at 0 and 100 for them.
Do you think water boils at 212F at high altitudes? No matter which temperature scale is used, the "billions of people" living at high altitudes need to understand how pressure affects the boiling point of water.
I think the billions of people you imagine living on top of Mount Everest understand they may need to make adjustments to cooking instructions regardless of what temperature scale they're using. If they don't, using Fahrenheit won't solve their problems.
My hell dude, you're missing the point so hard you're either a troll or so belligerent you're not worth talking to. Never once did I say Fahrenheit was better, it's like you're just shadowboxing with yourself at this point.
I never said Fahrenheit was better, just that it was perfectly acceptable for use as a measure of human comfort.
I'm not going to get into what I usually go into because I only commented to answer OPs question, not start a(nother) internet flame war. A lot of people who use Celsius go absolutely NUTS when someone so much as hints that Fahrenheit has some usefulness.
It's a deprecated unit of measure. In a lot of forums like this one, there's a lot of people that work in the technology field and we're always annoyed by people that insist on sticking with something that's deprecated because people invent rationalizations for why the thing they're used to is better. I use Fahrenheit for cooking but I'm not telling people I do that because it's better in some why, I know I'm using a deprecated unit of measure solely because I'm used to it.
Ok
The issue is not in the accuracy, ease, and convenience of describing and being compatible with the human experience. It has never been that.
The issue is Fahrenheit's/imperial units' compatibility and division factor of 10's compatibility with other units, and all of those scales and units being consistent and predictable.
It's literally just two philosophies of going about seeing the world.
To disclose my bias, I was brought up with imperial units. The problem in most discussions of these two ideas facing off is that nobody discusses the real topic: The pros and cons of unification vs. the rote arbitrariness of the human existence and whether or not we want to stand behind yet again another self-centered description of the universe.
Measuring horses with hands is fucking weird, but because we experience horses from our own perspective, which is limited to our physical body, measuring in hands is a really easy way to understand that unit of measurement, as opposed to decimals of meters.
However, I must point out, Celsius is not metric. It's been adopted as the step-child of SI, but it's not metric. You can't meaningfully multiply and divide degrees Celsius; 100°C is not ten times hotter than 10°C Celsius. Sure. you can use the metric prefixes, just like i could measure things in kiloinches, that doesn't make it metric. It's just as arbitrary as Fahrenheit, and people have to make arguments regarding water and life to try to pretend otherwise. True, it's officially defined in terms of Kelvin, but then, so is Fahrenheit.
I was watching a video just before where an american measured two impact craters on a piece of steel, read off some gibberish fractional inches for each one then commented "my math isnt great, but i think that one is about double". My dude, your calipers read off approximately 5mm and 10mm, your life would be so much easier if you toggled it to metric units.