Cool thought. And good reasoning.
But maybe by the year 3000 the whole world will adopt the universal idea of digits.
The average adult pointer finger tip is about 1 inch before the first knuckle. I frequently use my finger as a measurement tool when I'm too lazy to grab a ruler.
Therefore we could simply adopt a universal measure of one pointer tip. And portions and multiples of said digit.
One tip, two tips, three tips, half a tip, quarter of a tip, etc. that would be 1, 2, 3, 0.5, 0.25, etc for those who prefer decimal.
Half the world uses their fingers to add numbers anyway lol.
And the best part is we won't need a tape measure. Just use your finger.
I'm now sending in patent and trademark request for "digits" and "tips" as they relate to units of measure. Lol.
Hmm.... And for bigger measurements, we'll call 5 fingers a hand. Damn... Now I have to register that too.
That one will be a little trickier as 5 fingers is already associated with the unit of measurement equivalent to zero. (We'll see how many of you have used that discount method lol).
Hmm, hands, what a novel concept for a measurement unit.
While we're at it, let's figure out the length between the average adult man's middle finger to elbow, and then the distance from fingertip to fingertip with the arms outstretched.
Neither of those have really obvious names, though, that we could come up with...so maybe we can the finger to elbow length a "Cubit" and the outstretched arm length a "fathom."
We can have some other fun with this, too. Let's call 110 fathoms a "furlong" and we can call 24 furlongs a "league".
Let's throw some more fun stuff in, and create a standardized "chain" length. We could make this 10 furlongs long. Then, if we want to measure area, we could measure out an area equal to ten chains squared. A chain is awfully long, though, so we could break each chain up into 4 "rods." Since we've used up some other obvious things to call these, we could call this area an "acre.".
BTW, the above post is tongue-in-cheek but all of the units I mentioned with the exception of the Cubit are still in common use even in the allegedly "enlightened" Metric countries. The caveats on these, though, is that a hand is defined as 4", and a fathom is exactly defined as 6 feet. The caveat, though, with fathoms is that in practical use the length of a man's outstretched arms is often used in place. If I go to the hardware store or auto parts store and ask for 2 fathoms of wire, hose, or whatever else they have that's sold in bulk by the length, I'd be perfectly content if the person cutting it used the "arm stretch" method to measure. I was in NAPA the other day, though, and asked for two fathoms of fuel hose and the clerk(without my asking) proceeded to measure out 12 feet with a tape measure(plus the traditional "bonus" couple of inches that most places will give you as they'd rather give you too much rather than not enough).
Even so, acres are ubiquitous in measuring land area, although most folks don't break them down into their rod and chain dimensions.
Some of the above mentioned units are universal in the equestrian business. Horse heights are almost always quoted in hands. Furlongs are quite common in describing racing distances with some races(primarily shorter ones) being denoted by their length in furlongs. Even in a longer race(such as the 1 1/4 mile KY Derby last weekend) distances are typically called in furlongs during the course of the race. Wins and win spreads are often quoted in "lengths" which, in a horse racing contest, is defined as 8 feet.
