AHC: Decimal Clock becomes standard

How else you split it up is neither here nor there, but it is the length of the second that is the deal breaker. Change the length of the second and you lose Meter-Kilogram-Second relations, all your SI units go floppy and all the physics and engineering that used to get done with them gets harder and crunchier; your direct equivalences are gone and it would be as bad, worse, as working in foot- pounds. The second is the key part of the system you absolutely need to keep.

100% true - but if we make the switch before SI units are introduced?
 
One meter is currently defined as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 second. I don't see why that definition can't use a decimal second instead.
The problem isn't with the base units (and their definitions)--it's with the derived units. One joule is exactly one kilogram times one square meter divided by one square second. If you want your base unit of time to be a different fraction of a mean solar day, you'll have to change your unit of mass or distance or energy as well, or else throw a conversion factor into that relation.
 
I still don't see why you can't change the definition of the joule, although it might be good to rename the unit if the definition is changing so much. Before the 20th century, it would be much easier to implement such changes.
 
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