How to save billions of dollars.

[Kevin]

Even trained people screw up all the time. If I were really getting the 0.5 MG daily dose of tacrolimus that my prescription bottle claims, I'd be writing this on a Ouija board instead of a keyboard.

A normal daily dose of tacrolimus happens to 0.5 mg. If you think that's wrong for you, you should contact your doctor and not blame the metric system.

Note that you used the lower case m = milli and he used the upper case M = mega.

Lowercase mg is the official notation for milligram, and there is no such thing as MegaGramms. He used uppercase for emphasis.

No he didn't use it for emphasis. There is in fact a megagram MG, most people call it a tonne, but it is an SI unit the official SI unit in fact, it might not be widely used but it does in fact exist just because everyone calls it a tonne doesn't mean it doesn't exist. M = mega and m = milli saying it doesn't exist and has no meaning would be doing exactly what Pete was pointing out (not with this specific example but elsewhere in the post) that the system isn't self consistent. The fact that you can introduce large error just by using the case of a letter is drawback, though context should make that obvious.

And to an earlier point you made, while the kilogram is listed as the base unit that also breaks self consistency within the system. Gram is the word which to be consistent means it should be the base unit. To be consistent if the kilogram were the base unit then we should have millikilograms and kilokilograms, etc. Gram is the base word, it should be the base unit.

Now all that being said I'd still prefer a world standardization and I got very used to using grams, liters, and centigrade in course work I wouldn't mind all the road signs and such being changed and waiting another 100 years so for the mile and foot and inch and such to fade out completely. Yes it will take that long, I'm somewhat used to the metric stuff but since everything I run into in practical application is still the old imperial units that is still mostly what I "think" in and I figure I would adapt faster than other people to a wholesale change, but it won't happen overnight.