this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2026
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i'm quite sure average person doesnt have to deal with pressure differences, salinity, distilled water and such daily to such extent it makes water bad reference point, at least considering how we are basically made from water and life here is based on water.
The average person doesn't live at sea level. More than half of all people have a boiling point of more than two degrees lower.
Most water that people who live near sea level live near is salt water.
If you're willing to accept that level of imprecision, you may as well go with average human body temperature, since it's literally our temperature.
Both fahrenheit and Celsius are defined by relatively arbitrary standards in relatively arbitrary ways. One decided water should freeze 100 degrees from boiling, the other 180. Should ice be 2 orders of magnitude from boiling, or half a circle?
Celsius should be preferred because it's the standard. Some french people decided they liked powers of ten more that others, so here we are. Thanks Napoleon.
Neither system is adequate for the physically based goals of a modern unit system. Hence neither has any relationship to water anymore, instead being defined by actual physical invariants.