>>surpri+(OP)
A mile is exactly 1000 paces, or 4000 feet. You may disagree, but consider: the word mile come from latin for "one thousand". Therefore a mile must be 1000 of something, namely paces. I hope you find this argument convincing.
>>f33d51+RC1
Maybe after society has collapsed and been rebuilt we'll end up with km and cm having a weird ratio to the meter. Same for kg. At least celsius is just about impossible to screw up.