Basic Life Skills No-One Has Anymore

[Dirty Saint]

I can't say the reason, just that you're referring to "common sense". Nowadays, it's a goddammed superpower.

 

[joshuaayt]

The skills are vanishing because they are not so important now. Sharp knives can be bought cheaply, as can new clothing and most of anything. Cooking is less complex- it is very possible (And even common among students and the like) to live purely on microwaved goods from a supermarket.
And I say why not? Now we can focus on our new innovations, like video games. In fact, I can safely say that I'd rather just play video games.

 

[snow]

Meh, I lacked in a lot of general fields of knowledge when I was younger. It wasn't the fault of my parents or schooling, I just didn't really care at the time.

Usually once you move out, the little know hows of this and that come at you full swing. Which is surprising for me to say, I've become Mr. Fix-it at the apartment when 3 or 4 years ago I wouldn't have the slightest clue.

 

[gl1koz3]

I certainly don't know how to cook, but... man... not being able to sharpen a knife...

Agreed on parents being at fault. Part of them worship their kids. Which is wrong.

 

[Danallighieri]

Whiel I can't mend clothes, I can cook well enough and know how to sharpen blades

 

[Coranico]

Is the ability to mourn a life skill?
I want that one, even through everything bad that has happened to me and others around me it hasn't affected me in any way.

Also the skill of being entertained by a wheel and a stick, that skill is slowly dying...

 

[Ironic Pirate]

The skill I'm lacking is the ability to not feel guilty. I feel guilty really easily. Although this is also kind of good, as it means I rarely let people do things for me. I don't know why this is though, maybe it's because I was pretty much raised by a babysitter that was incredibly kind but also very poor.

EDIT: Yes! 1600th post, which is important because as everyone knows 1600 is one of the best numbers.

Well now you went and ruined it by posting somewhere else. Nice job, Dango.

Joking aside, motherfucking writing, yes that counts as a basic life skill. It's like some people picture what they want to say, think happy thoughts, and then start pounding on the keyboard for a few seconds. Damn it!

 

[Amethyst Wind]

Lessee....what do I know how to do that's practical?

I can cook. (not chef level but not McDonalds either)
I can do the dishes (undervalued), also can sharpen knives with steel, never tried it with a stone but I can only assume the principle is similar.
I can do the laundry.
I can properly clean a place. (top to bottom. Floors/glass/surfaces/walls/bathrooms)
I can change a tyre/oil/car lights/air filter/brake fluid/brake shoes. (Still not great on the engine, I tend to pick these things up as and when the problem arises, so I'm just waiting on my sparkplugs/etc to go) All the car stuff I learned from my dad, and I'm looking into getting myself a sweet ratchet set like he has.

I wouldn't mind learning how to sew/mend clothes as I've lost a few buttons on some of my favourite pieces. Re-wiring plugs wouldn't be unwanted either (think I'll get on that today).

Don't know much outdoor stuff, areas I've lived in have all been too urban. I might see if anyone I know can teach me how to fish, I'm not that far from the ocean.

One of the main life skills I'm proud of is my ability to properly shop for food. None of this buying today's meal alone when you're hun........okay I still do that but I can do it properly too: Budgeting, buying for the week/month etc, buying a range of meats/veg/staples/fruit/sweets etc so as not to be eating crap all the time.

I have to say I quite like this thread, quite introspective, useful to see what relatively easy skills you can muster/learn to aid and impress.

Also the skill of being entertained by a wheel and a stick, that skill is slowly dying...

In a similar vein, the ability/desire to like playing outdoors with the other guys/gals/kiddies (age dependent) rather than staring at a screen all day.

 

[Sebenko]

I have had six---SIX!---ex-girlfriends to whom I have had to teach the skill of "how to write a check."

Isn't that her way of hinting she expects YOU to be paying?

Hints are for pussies. And that's a pretty terrible hint anyway.

 

[Denamic]

It's a trade-off.
Luxuries makes you lazy while the easy access to information makes you smarter.
Of course, sometimes this luxury is abused and the information intake is reality TV shows.

 

[Socius]

basic survival abilities:
1: Is a good cook.
2: knows about most herbs and plants in the area.
3: can find locations based by landmarks and stars.
4: is quite handy with a knife.
5: know how to escape blizzards.
6: can fix clothes.
7: can create small hutt's for shelter.


In return I'm pretty useless with technology.

Please a longer explanation on number 5.
Where do you live when you know that?

I'm Norwegian, have spents lots of time on the mountains during winters.
So I have learned how to dig yourself down and create caves that keep a liveable temprature.
It's quite easy actually, just create a normal snow cavewith "beds" that are above the entrance of the cave, that way you lie in the warmest air and that can reach up to 20+ celcius.

Alright, that explains it ^^ Hello neighbor. (I'm Finnish)
I think Scandinavian people do great in this thread.

agreed!

 

[Varrdy]

The OP is actually making a rather valid point.

Sure in this age of internet, smartphones, flatscreen TV's and microwave ovens, who needs "skills" right?

Every-bloody-body!

As much time as I waste sat at my desk, I still like to get out and know how to do things and I find it rather pathetic when I have to teach my peers who to do simple things such as change a wheel or make a brew.

I think it's just a sense of complacency that has let older skills be forgotten and yet when you consider we live in an age when religious extremism can be backed up with a laser-guided bomb, I shudder to think how we'd cope if it all went to shit.

Sure there is no real need to know how to light a fire and skin a rabbit when you can just go to the shops, buy a read-meal and stick it in the microwave but, as many people have said, "you never know what tommorrow may bring". I'm not saying we should all take up hunting because, right now, there is no need and I have nothing but the deepest loathing for those twat-sandwiches who hunt for "fun" - rednecks usually fit this category - but there is a difference between that and knowing how to cope if civilisation does come crashing down.

Years ago I was given a book called "Hatchet" by Gary Paulson and I urge anyone to read it. The main character is a city-boy who is left stranded after a plane crash with no idea where he is or where to go. Usually the useless city-boy would starve to death inside twenty minutes but Brian learns to adapt and improvise and winds up surviving many months.

Of course the OP wasn't talking about things of such extremes but the point still applies.

I wouldn't blame parents as much as I would blame society as a whole. It's not a bad thing that the vast majority of us now live in reasonable comfort with cheap socks and fuel-efficient vehicles but it has made us rather dependent.

I agree with tkioz that it's really just a little bit pathetic when people can't do such simple things anymore. I've known people take their car to a garage to get a dead lamp or blown fure replaced and I want to clip them round the earhole, especially when they whine that they wouldn't know where to start.

Thankfully I always wanted to learn such things and I have parents who could teach me such things and my grandparents also imparted a lot of knowledge and passed on their skills. I'm talking things like making a cup of tea, doing my own laundry, wiring a plug, fixing my car, cooking, cleaning, sewing (although I suck at it!) - all simple, basic things that we should all know how to do but so many people today don't.

It's...sad...really.

Wardy

 

[Jack_Uzi]

Before I left my parents house they teached me some of these skills. I am very happy I know them now. Most of the things that show a minor defect I'll try and fix miself.
Some things that work very dubious (works for x time, then it doesn't), I tend to smash to shit to spare me the frustration and the delusion I could know what is broke.

 

[GothmogII]

Spoiler

The OP is actually making a rather valid point.

Sure in this age of internet, smartphones, flatscreen TV's and microwave ovens, who needs "skills" right?

Every-bloody-body!

As much time as I waste sat at my desk, I still like to get out and know how to do things and I find it rather pathetic when I have to teach my peers who to do simple things such as change a wheel or make a brew.

I think it's just a sense of complacency that has let older skills be forgotten and yet when you consider we live in an age when religious extremism can be backed up with a laser-guided bomb, I shudder to think how we'd cope if it all went to shit.

Sure there is no real need to know how to light a fire and skin a rabbit when you can just go to the shops, buy a read-meal and stick it in the microwave but, as many people have said, "you never know what tommorrow may bring". I'm not saying we should all take up hunting because, right now, there is no need and I have nothing but the deepest loathing for those twat-sandwiches who hunt for "fun" - rednecks usually fit this category - but there is a difference between that and knowing how to cope if civilisation does come crashing down.

Years ago I was given a book called "Hatchet" by Gary Paulson and I urge anyone to read it. The main character is a city-boy who is left stranded after a plane crash with no idea where he is or where to go. Usually the useless city-boy would starve to death inside twenty minutes but Brian learns to adapt and improvise and winds up surviving many months.

Of course the OP wasn't talking about things of such extremes but the point still applies.

I wouldn't blame parents as much as I would blame society as a whole. It's not a bad thing that the vast majority of us now live in reasonable comfort with cheap socks and fuel-efficient vehicles but it has made us rather dependent.

I agree with tkioz that it's really just a little bit pathetic when people can't do such simple things anymore. I've known people take their car to a garage to get a dead lamp or blown fure replaced and I want to clip them round the earhole, especially when they whine that they wouldn't know where to start.

Thankfully I always wanted to learn such things and I have parents who could teach me such things and my grandparents also imparted a lot of knowledge and passed on their skills. I'm talking things like making a cup of tea, doing my own laundry, wiring a plug, fixing my car, cooking, cleaning, sewing (although I suck at it!) - all simple, basic things that we should all know how to do but so many people today don't.

It's...sad...really.

Wardy

Doesn't that mention of 'Hachet' kind of deflate your point a bit though? That is, if it's supposedly about about at boy who didn't have those skills before hand and yet adapted and survived. Wouldn't that be more an illustration of the survivability of humans without any prior training?

If this synopsis from wikipedia is anything to go by:

Spoiler

Brian Robeson is stranded alone in the Canadian wilderness after the pilot of the single-engine Cessna 206 Stationair plane in which he is traveling suffers a fatal heart attack. Brian is forced to try to land the plane, but ends up crash-landing the plane into a lake. He just manages to escape as the plane sinks into the remote lake.

Brian figures out how to make fire. He forces himself to eat whatever food he can find, such as turtle eggs, fish, berries, fruit, some rabbits, and even a couple of birds. He deals with a porcupine, bear, skunk, moose, and a tornado. He eventually becomes quite a craftsman, crafting a bow, arrows, and a spear. He also fashions a shelter out of the underside of a rock overhang. During the story, he struggles with memories of home, and the bittersweet memory of his mother, who Brian has discovered was cheating on his father.

When a tornado hits the woods and lake, it draws the plane wreckage toward the top of the lake. Brian makes a raft from a few broken off tree tops to get to the plane. When Brian is working his way into the plane, he drops his hatchet in the water. He realizes how critical the hatchet is for his survival. After diving twice, he retrieves the hatchet and narrowly avoids drowning. Inside the plane, he finds a survival pack, which has an emergency transmitter, many packs of food, a first aid kit, a pot, and .22 survival rifle (likely an AR-7 ). Brian activates the transmitter, but not knowing how to work it, he thinks it is broken. As he is eating the food packs, a fur buyer arrives in a float plane some time after because he caught the transmitter's signal. Finally, after reaching his father, he is no closer to being able to tell him about the mother's affair than at the novel's beginning.

The book is actually demonstrating the opposite of what you think it is. But hey, it's fiction, I'm sure anyone who got into that situation in real life without survival training would be dead within hours, right?

 

[monnes]

EDIT: Yes! 1600th post, which is important because as everyone knows 1600 is one of the best numbers.

Sweet sixteen(hundered)!

 

[Druyn]

The skill I'm lacking is the ability to not feel guilty. I feel guilty really easily. Although this is also kind of good, as it means I rarely let people do things for me. I don't know why this is though, maybe it's because I was pretty much raised by a babysitter that was incredibly kind but also very poor.

EDIT: Yes! 1600th post, which is important because as everyone knows 1600 is one of the best numbers.

Sixteen-double-bagel. On Roger's planet, its one of the most important birthdays, if Steve doesnt fuck it up.

OT: Just luxuries. Whenever something breaks, we in the united states at least have enough of a surplus to just throw it away and get new ones. We dont need to know how to fix it. I think thats all it boils down to. The basic life skills arent needed in the US because we have the money to make it so that they dont matter. In third world countries, the situation is different Im sure.

 

[Varrdy]

Doesn't that mention of 'Hachet' kind of deflate your point a bit though? That is, if it's supposedly about about at boy who didn't have those skills before hand and yet adapted and survived. Wouldn't that be more an illustration of the survivability of humans without any prior training?

The book is actually demonstrating the opposite of what you think it is. But hey, it's fiction, I'm sure anyone who got into that situation in real life without survival training would be dead within hours, right?

Fair point. Looking back on my post I realise I left out a rather critical point that I intended to go after my mentioning of Hatchet.

What I meant to say was that a lot of people in today's society seem to be pre-programmed to replace rather than repair and when anyone challenges them to do such a simple thing as sew on a button or change a wheel, their immediate response seems to be "I wouldn't know where to start!" even though, if they at least stopped and thought about it, they might surprise themselves. OK so Hatchet was fiction but it still has a valid point to make in that the simplest skills and tools can come in very handy and we should all take the trouble to at least try and learn them.

Wardy

 

[Akirai]

What's happened to the world? People have grown up in the current generation, a generation I'm part of, without learning basic skills, what happened? Was it tech? Was it parents simply not passing them down? Or something else?

Price. I have absolutely no incentive to mend socks. I know how, I taught myself. But I can also just buy a brand new pair for 50 cents and be done with it. I don't consider saving that expenditure of money worth my expenditure of effort, thus, I don't do it. Sharpening knives is definitely not a basic skill btw, if I need my knives sharpened I take them to my shoe repair man who has all kinds of crazy gear. Again, low financial expenditure means little incentive for taking the effort.

(Also not being able to fry an egg is just sad)