>"the USA has a weird hybrid system, where officially everything has to be done metric, but then translated to imperial for public consumption."
What "offical" requires that? DOT does stuff in miles, NOAA does stuff in Fahrenheit...
My car speedometer uses mph. I've heard NASA refer to "Nautical miles". I don't think "everything" has be done metric. Science and medicine use metric anyway. I think beverage sellers are required to have liters on their products, and all food products need to have nutritional stuff on the package which is in metric, but I don't know which dept. requires that (maybe the dept of agriculture).
@Pat , your car speedo is made with parts that use the metric system. 10mm nuts, not 3/8ths. Your brakes are held on by a 17mm bolt. The legislation that defines how the car has to perform in a crash is written in metric tons of force.
@Pat there are literally government regulations on this. Often so we don't crash another hundred million dollar probe onto Mars. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-oct-01-mn-17288-story.html
...or make a big space telescope that's out of focus. 😂
@Pat , slightly different story with Hubble, that was a part of the surface grinder that was put in upside down... but ya. Mistakes like that are compounded by having to convert units.
@Pat NASA. Auto makers use metric. Pharmacies use metric. Science is all metric.