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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14841802
It's absolutely true that a lot of modern-day problems with being tired come from bad sleep habits. What I'm talking about is a real phenomenon that isn't being in front of a screen too close to bedtime. If anyone wants to know more, here's a 3-minute video from AsapSCIENCE about what research shows.
I hate it, whenever this shit comes up. We didn't use body-based measurements because of the EVIL TYRANNY OF THE HORRIBLE EVIL BAD EVIL KING.
We used them because, while the king might have been a bit taller than the average man, he was still basically the same size as most people. And so the measurements were actually conveniently sized, based on the scale of the human body (ALSO, THE KING'S CUBIT WAS A STANDARD MEASUREMENT, WHICH IS A GOOD THING. SEE MY EDIT, BELOW).
But the supposedly logical metric system calibrated the meter as one ten-millionth of the distance on the Earth's surface from the north pole to the equator.
That's arguably mathematically beautiful. Arguably. But it's not useful to people. It's not based on the human body. I object to that. I think it was a deeply anti-populist decision, made by haughty nobles, who quite rightly got their heads chopped off, right after they came up with that shit.
Those nobles had no idea how common people used measurements. They didn't consider the people who actually built houses or tables or ships. They were planning on using the metric system to do pure science. That's fine. That's good. We need that. But there's no reason the scientists can't use a measurement that is also good for engineers and carpenters.
But no, the aristocrats were going to pick something they thought of as numerically lovely, and never spared any fraction of a thought for the real people, who would have to use the measurements to do real-world shit. Again: it's good that they had their heads chopped off. They were pieces of shit.
When that revolution was happening, we should have revamped the metric system based on a Universal Standard Cubit. I think we should have gone and measured the cubit lengths of a million real people, from all cultures, all regions, all faiths, all races, and taken the average of them. That would have been useful and appropriate.
EDIT: I'm just saying, if you're going to hate on the nobility, at least be consistent. A lot of people are like "Cubits? No, because kings bad."
But then you're like "Metric system good. Metric system forced on us by SMART aristocracy."
EDIT 2: PEOPLE ALSO FAIL TO REALIZE THAT THE ANCIENT CUBIT WAS A STANDARD MEASUREMENT, WHICH PROVIDED MOST OF THE BENEFITS OF MODERN STANDARD MEASUREMENTS, LITERALLY THOUSANDS OF YEARS BEFORE THE FUCKING METRIC SYSTEM.
It's TURBO DISHONEST to extoll the fucking virtues of metric standardization, then go "oh, stupid bad evil stupid evil dumb king was such an egotist that he FORCED his people to measure things using his arm."
MOTHERFUCKERS, IT WASN'T ABOUT THE KING'S PRIDE. IT WAS THE INVENTION OF A STANDARDIZED UNIT.
You guys think standard units are good! That's what the cubit was! People had literally been using their own forearms, but some genius was like "nah, we need a standard one...but we should keep it about the size of the arm. Might as well use the ruler's arm as a ruler, that way he'll probably pay for a bunch of them to be made, with his massive gold stash."
Hard disagree. There is far too much variability in the body size of adult humans, especially when taking sex into account. Sure, maybe my foot closely resembles the foot-size of said monarch but my 5 ft tall wife's doesn't.
There's no reason to use body paste measurements for nearly any purpose in the modern day. You can't build a house based on the rough size of someone's arm when you have half a dozen people minimum working on a project. You need a standard unit which would need to be measured using a standard unit measuring device. Either way you need to use a measuring tool, so why not use a standard that makes the math easier.
Yeah, that's why you have to choose between three different door sizes, when you go into any building. And why cars have to have different steering wheel sizes, for different sized people. Oh wait, no. That's not how it works, at all. People's average body size IS basically the same, if you exclude the actual dwarves and the actual NBA players.
Yes. That's why I suggested a Universal STANDARD Cubit. It would be a standard length, just like the meter. But it would be based on the PEOPLE. Not some random, useless fraction of the distance from the pole to the equator. How is that useful to anyone? Pegging the definition at least in the AREA of a human arm's scale HAS to be better than that.
Funny you should bring that up, too. The metric system should been based on 12, not 10. Dividing things by numbers other than 2 and 5 can be useful. And, by the way, you could ALWAYS multiply things by 10, just by adding a zero or removing a zero. That's not some special thing that the metric system invented. I don't know why people think that it is.
I read the edits on your original comment. I think you're missing the point that the metric system at least scales in a reasonable and expected way, which is not the case in the imperial system of measurement.
And to your point about averaging a human arm and using that as a measurement standard, no, it's not necessarily better. You still need an exact standard that you have to measure against for any kind of precision. Making it similar to the size of a human body part doesn't matter unless you're estimating, which isn't how anything is built anymore.
There are reasons the old standards were abandoned.
THAT'S WHAT THE OLD CUBIT WAS.
Go look it up. The Egyptians, Sumerians, and Israelites had standard cubit-sticks that they would keep in the palace and use to make the ruler-sticks, for actual use. That is the SAME CONCEPT OF STANDARDIZATION THAT MAKES THE METRIC SYSTEM USEFUL. Let's be clear about that. These were carefully calibrated tools. That's why you could use them to build highly functional irrigation canals, large buildings, and fucking pyramids. They weren't estimating, based on the human body. The cubit was a STANDARD MEASURE, which brought almost all the benefits of standardization, as soon as it was invented.
That concept of standardization was not invented by French motherfuckers, thousands of years later. It was already a thing.
But you get that shit twisted. When French aristocrats in the 18th Century re-discover standardization, you're like "AHHH, YES. MARVEL AT THE SUBTLE GENIUS OF THE MODERN EUROPEAN MIND."
Then, when the cubit comes up in conversation, you're like "STUPID OLD KINGS, FORCING THEIR EGO-MEASUREMENTS ONTO THEIR PEOPLE. SO DUMB AND SO TYRANNICAL."
You can interpret standardization as either convenient and useful or as "OMG YOU'RE FORCING PEOPLE TO ACCEPT YOUR FOREARM AS A MEASURMENT." Again: you're choosing to see the modern metric standards as useful and the ancient standards as evil and/or stupid. For some reason that I don't understand.
To belabor the point I made in my final edit, I'm certain that the reason the king's forearm was chosen as the template was so that THE ROYAL FAMILY WOULD FUND THE CREATION OF THE STANDARDIZATION SYSTEM. That's pretty fucking smart, on a number of different levels. It was the true invention of standard units AND it was a brilliant way to corner the government into supporting it. And it made sure people didn't have any choice but to start USING the standards, because otherwise they could be seen as badmouthing the king. Fucking genius.
I'm also pretty sure the standard cubits weren't changed to fit each new monarch's body. They just kept the standard calibration rods and maybe, like, claimed that all the kings were the same size. That didn't really matter. The point is, the standard measurement system retained the backing of the ruling dynasty. And as for different kings and regions having different cubits, THAT didn't matter at all. You didn't cooperate on building projects with your neighbors, in the ancient world. You were either trading with them for commodities that weren't measured in anything other than quantity and weight, or else you were fighting them. You never ran into any problem that could have been solved by a global standard cubit.
Just...please at least go confirm all this on the wikipedia page for the cubit. Please understand that it's literally the opposite of "dumb king body measurement, because dumb king's ego was big."
Literally. The concept is literally the actual opposite of that.
Literally the first thing on wikipedia: The cubit is an ancient unit of length based on the distance from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger.
I'm pretty sure the dude is trying to say that the measurement is not accurate. I'm not surprised that it could be accurate and standartized from one town to the next. As soon as the first dissagreement starts, it's gonna get standartized. Otherwise it's useless as unit.
Meter has a bonus that it doesn't allow people to use his body parts for almost precise measurement. Actually blocks a lot of retards from saying "Nuh uh, I myself measured it, so I'm right and your ruler is wrong!"
Now when I think of it, Cubit is more or less exactly like the inch. It doesn't match basically anyones finger, different countries had their own standard. You can and many people do use it as a measurement. Side-effect, seeing memes about Napoleon being a dwarf. XD
So you just chose to ignore all the awesome pictures on that article, showing the standard cubit bars that formed the basis of unit standardization and allowed people to start making building projects larger than two huts next to each other?
Can you explain WHY you chose to ignore that whole concept?
EDIT: Wait, you did mention the standardization of cubits, a little bit.
But it wasn't "from one town to the next." It was across WHOLE KINGDOMS AND EMPIRES.
Nobody collaborated on building projects with the kingdom next door until LITERALLY THE MODERN ERA. It didn't matter that one kingdom's cubit and/or foot standard was different from the next kingdom's standard. People thinking Napoleon was shorter than he actually was MIGHT ACTUALLY BE THE ONLY EXAMPLE OF ANY PROBLEM EVER ARISING FROM THAT SITUATION, BEFORE THE STEAM AGE.
After the industrial revolution, sure. We absolutely did need to put the world on the same unit standard. And guess what? That's what we did! Yes, even America. Almost all of the actual collaboration that the USA does with other nations IS done with metric units. Yeah, except for that Mars orbiter thing. That was a big fucking oof.
Look, I'm not saying we should still be using cubits. I'm saying that it BOTHERS ME when people say "pfffft, imagine being so dumb that you'd let a dead king determine how long your stuff is."
When people say that shit, they're taking the THING THAT IS GREAT ABOUT BOTH MODERN METRIC STANDARDIZATION AND ANCIENT CUBIT OR FOOT STANDARDIZATION AND PRETENDING THAT IT'S STUPID.
Again: it's silly and dishonest to roast ancient cultures, because the king "forced them" to use his body parts as measurements, then turn around and praise that same standardization when it shows up as the basis of the modern SI system.
It's silly and dishonest to cast the ancient world's standardization methods as the primitive OPPOSITE of the modern SI system, when the modern system GREW OUT OF THE OLDER ONE.
Do you get that? Is my thesis finally becoming clear? I'm not saying "cubit good, meter bad." I'm saying "don't badmouth the cubit for reasons that are vastly and embarrassingly dishonest."
Also, I don't think anyone was ever going to keep using his actual arms and feet as measuring sticks, after the proliferation of fucking rulers. Nobody did that 4,000 years ago and nobody did that when the SI meter became standard. So there would be no danger inherent in the base unit being closer to a human-body scale.
For a Chill Dude I do love your fire! Your thesis is (was before I entered the chat) clear as day. I really don't have much to add here. Unless this might be interesting:
There is a fun thing that arised from moving towards SI units in my country (1920). Some old information was lost from the common citizen. There was a unit Gorčius (around 4 litres). There was another unit Saikas (equals to 6 Gorčius). The funny part is that we have a saying "Gerk su saiku" which translates "Drink in moderation". Taking it literally, it's slightly funny knowing that the other person just suggested you to drink around 20 litres (usually alcohol is the context).
That's HILARIOUS.
Google informs me that your language is Lithuanian. I seem to remember reading somewhere that Lithuania was one of the last holdouts in Europe, where the people preferred their pagan religions over Christianity.
Finally adopting the new "universal" religion isn't all that different from adopting a new measurement system, when you really think about it. There were probably some funny stories about that, too. And probably some really not funny ones, too.