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esperentyesterday at 8:46 PM3 repliesview on HN

I moved from a cold climate to a tropical climate and let me assure you there's no human universal understanding of what's comfortably hot or cold, definitely not to the point of putting a percentage on it. I can walk around in a T-shirt and shorts at 17C (62f) while locals will be wrapping up in scarves and talking about how freezing it is. Meanwhile they'll be fairly comfortable at 35C (95f), at least if the humidity isn't high, and I'll be stuck in with the AC blasting.

So in other words Fahrenheit is a western centric measurement (or at least, temperature climate centric), while Celsius is universal.


Replies

nkriscyesterday at 9:51 PM

The subjective experience doesn’t really matter because many places in the US will experience a 100 degree F range over an entire year. So it’s not the “comfortable range” but the actual range you’ll get in many parts of the US (whether you like it or not).

WarmWashyesterday at 9:59 PM

Right, but "room temperature" is pretty universal everywhere because we are going with the "average human" rather than "outliers exist and maybe feel differently"

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jandrewrogersyesterday at 10:06 PM

The US has the widest range of temperatures of any country. Locations can vary by >50°C in a 24 hour period. Extreme temperatures are familiar to Americans and their society is well-adapted to it.

Calling Fahrenheit "western centric" is nonsensical. Every other country has a narrower temperature range that fits within the US temperature range.

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