Basic Life Skills No-One Has Anymore

[MasterRyan]

The skill I'm lacking is the ability to not feel guilty. I feel guilty really easily.

you know every time you search the web, resources are wasted that could have gone to help starving children in africa or power the equipment in hospitals.

you can feel guilty now.

ok now thats kinda sick, your on the computer too, dont go depressing people, if you care so much go fly over there and help them, or give em your pc
away from that, I always wish that my dad taught me something like hunting or something, but its banned in n. ireland, YOU CANT EVEN HAVE A HUNTING KNIFE! in america they can carry a rifle over their back! the closest thing i got is a keyring

 

[tkioz]

My parents (or at least my dad) taught me how to cook, although I'm not the best at sharpening knives. I can mend small holes in clothing and apply patches to larger ones, but I generally reserve such garments for yard work or hiking and neither I nor either of my parents can darn socks, although I can so well enough to occasionally make my own clothes, so I could probably just look it up if I ever needed to. Honestly, though: Who has the time to mend socks these days?

Well when I said "fix a sock" I meant it because it's actually perhaps the easiest garment you can fix, they usually split along a seem, or need a patch, once you know how to fix a sock you can pretty much fix anything else, with a little up-scaling, kind of like needing to know how to turn on a computer before you start learning how to send an email.

 

[Silva]

Was it because I was raised by my grandparents, people from a generation who valued those skills?

How many people here lack those skills and why do you think they are vanishing?

More to the point, said grandparents bother to teach these skills, whereas modern parents couldn't be bothered. They're too busy making us teach them, for the third or fourth time, how to send an email to teach us knitting.

But then, I kind of like that about them. It forces us to learn things the hard way.

I know how to do basic little repair jobs with clothes and patch things. It's not something you couldn't teach yourself anyway, it'd just take longer that way. As for cooking, no problem there either.

In the Western world, only spoiled rich people never learn how to cook (and to be fair, with their money, they don't need the skill so much). But in the early 20s right now, a lot of people haven't learned the basic jobs of life, because they've had others do it for them. (Why else would they be making Facebook status messages quoting bad music all day?)

Check again when they're 25 or 30 and they will know all of it, and probably be more realistic and hard-working, because they learned it all the hard way. Which isn't necessarily the wrong way (on the contrary, it's a way of despoiling these very people), though it does cause skill leakage and forgotten ideas over the generations.

 

[SimuLord]

The phenomena illustrated by the OP is one of several "awesome" byproducts of the baby boomers, which the world is very slowly starting to recognize as one of the worst generations in the history of everything.

Generation Y are worse. I mean, the baby boomers were bad, but Generation Y are just morons. We're going to fuck up the world big time. One of my mottos is "Don't trust anybody under 30." That's for a good reason.

Speaking as a Generation Xer caught in between our greedy, useless Boomer parents (whom I'd like to pulp into Soylent Green as a fix for Social Security) and our shallow, materialistic, intellectually and morally bankrupt Milliennial younger siblings and children, I'm kind of wondering if a massive genocide (tell the Boomers there's a Tea Party rally, tell the kids they'll be on a reality show, then gas the whole lot of 'em) followed by all the women currently in their thirties press-ganged into spending the rest of their reproductive years repopulating might not be such a bad idea.

Note: Survivors of previous action, either because they're Boomers who aren't complete assholes or Millennials who have rebelled against their generation's sloth, get to be part of this new world Generation X order. But the rulers are all between 31 and 45.

 

[Sronpop]

I was too busy playing video games to learn any of practical real life skills. Although I do have pretty awesome video games skills.

I would like to be able to make a fire from scratch, that would be awesome.

 

[hawkeye52]

i can fix comps, cook myself basic meals, general house maintanence (cooking,cleaning etc) and anything else i can try and learn to do with a little help from my good old friend the internet

 

[tkioz]

well maybe sharpening a knife isn't a basic life skill. I mean, I'm sure if it was basic then we wouldn't be able to live without it, but that guy clearly does.

I really hate when people go on about shit like this. The older generation acts as though they've always had the right idea and can't grasp the fact that:

1. Not everybody grew up like them
2. That not everyone has to act like they do
3. Not everybody has the same values as they do.

And they get SO SHOCKED whenever anyone doesn't know how to do things that they think everyone should know how to do BECAUSE THEY ARE THE ONLY ONES WHO GOT IT RIGHT LOOK AT ALL THESE STUPID KIDS BEING SO DUMB. WHEN I WAS A KID I DID THINGS LIKE THIS BUT THEY DON'T THIS IS SO OFFENSIVE TO ME AND THEY MUST ALL BE STUPID.

Honestly, know one gives a fuck. Jesus christ.

why am I so angry? I'm usually not.

The rage is strong in this one. As for being in the older generation... I turn 30 next month... I don't consider myself that old. Nor do I look "down" on people who don't know this stuff, it's shocking to me because this stuff is so bloody easy, it's not rocket science people, it's called basic for a reason, it takes very little time to learn how to do this stuff, yet so few people are taught or know how to do it.

When I moved out of home I was 19, I did okay, did my own washing, fixed things around the house, did my own cooking, all by myself, yet when I visited friends of the same they were scraping by one week out of every two because they didn't know how to cook for themselves, so they'd eat well the first week after getting paid on fastfood, frozen food (which is deceptively expensive, it doesn't look it but it is), etc. the next week they'd make do with stale bread and baked bean, they'd have ratty clothes with holes in them, etc.

I finally got so fed up with it one week I asked a mate how much money he had left, he said $15, we went to the corner store and I got enough food for him to last a week after I was done cooking. Sure it was mostly rice and pasta, but damn, it's not hard to cook for one person.

This is all easy, basic stuff I learnt at the knee of my grandparents, it's not hard, that's exactly why it's so mind boggling that no-one knows this stuff!

 

[TheGreatCoolEnergy]

Know what is dead? Common sense and problem solving. Back in the day one could figure that out even if they didn't know how

 

[Kevlar Eater]

The name of this topic seems like something that could be made into a Cracked article. Well, I do know how to prep a fish for cooking, but I can't sew for crap.

 

[someotherguy]

Certain things have become unnecessary to know as time wears on. And, theres a guide for everything now.

 

[someotherguy]

How about handwriting?

There was an article on Gizmodo (I think) that stated some young Chinese people forgot how to write certain characters.

In a language with several hundred characters used for common words, and thousands in total, I'm not surprised. The Japanese have similar problems with kanji.

Oh trust me it will be. Top Gear has been able to get a hold of an automatic Liana, Lacetti and Cee'd for the odd star that just can't drive a stick. That alone says they're coming, so get ready. 20 years from now even you'll be seeing a sea of PRNDLs in new car lots.....

Those cars aren't made for new drivers, who in a lot of cases - particularly young males, who are often gung-ho about their driving - want a manual rather than an automatic, if only because you can't drive manual cars on an automatic licence. Those automatics are made for old biddies who have forgotten how to drive properly.

I don't even know how to pump my own gas. Is that a "basic skill" that I'm terrible for not knowing?

Yes. Yes, it is. It's a very simple mechanism, with a trigger on the pump handle which accepts different level of pressure for different flow rates. It's not difficult to figure out.

Anyway, there are a lot of people on this thread with far superior survival skills to me, and I feel somewhat ashamed. A lot of the skills that I've specialised in are really rather pathetic in comparison - computer skills, primarily. I'd much rather that society valued mechanical skills over the ability to use a computer, because they seem like skills you could have pride in, rather than shame. Of course, nobody is ever going to call upon my ability to use extremely obscure computer operating systems either.

You've just gotten trolled terribly.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

The phenomena illustrated by the OP is one of several "awesome" byproducts of the baby boomers, which the world is very slowly starting to recognize as one of the worst generations in the history of everything.

Generation Y are worse. I mean, the baby boomers were bad, but Generation Y are just morons. We're going to fuck up the world big time. One of my mottos is "Don't trust anybody under 30." That's for a good reason.

My point is that the baby boomers fucked up their kids.

The "Greatest Generation" were a bunch of scrappers and badasses. They survived legitimate hardship, and they busted ass to make the world a better place for their children.

The boomers took that better world for granted. They became spoiled and entitled, spent well beyond their collective means, failed to back any of it up with honest labor, and are currently foisting the whole mess on Gen Y.

Don't trust anyone under 30? Fuck everyone under 64.

 

[Funkysandwich]

The phenomena illustrated by the OP is one of several "awesome" byproducts of the baby boomers, which the world is very slowly starting to recognize as one of the worst generations in the history of everything.

Generation Y are worse. I mean, the baby boomers were bad, but Generation Y are just morons. We're going to fuck up the world big time. One of my mottos is "Don't trust anybody under 30." That's for a good reason.

It's funny how every previous generation has though exactly the same thing about the one following it.

Though I can't talk, I hate gen Y as well. And I'm 20.

Pull in, roll window down, when attendant walks up say something like "Fill 'er up, 87 octane please" and shut engine off. When it's full, hand money to attendant, get change/card back, thank them and out ya go.


Simple enough and I've never even seen a full service gas station, let alone used one.

87 Octane! That'd just about kill my engine!

I put 91 octane in it once and it ran like a lawnmower.

I'm not in favor of automatics myself, I think they are horrid. Besides, most of my friends who bought auto cars when they got their licenses don't seem to be as aware as drivers and have crashed their cars. Either that or they've blown their autos up because they don't realize they need to be serviced.

 

[tkioz]

I've seen a few people who don't know how to properly order gasoline because they're so used to self service.

Pull in, roll window down, when attendant walks up say something like "Fill 'er up, 87 octane please" and shut engine off. When it's full, hand money to attendant, get change/card back, thank them and out ya go.


Simple enough and I've never even seen a full service gas station, let alone used one.

Sad thing is where I live now there aren't any full service stations around, where I use to live had a few, I never had any trouble using them, nor because I'm lazy, I hate it because the smell of petrol, even a little bit gives me a headache, the same with a lot of "chemical" smells, I once had a room mate who used body spray all the bloody time and I was constantly getting headaches thanks too it, I can't stand the smell of most perfumes or aftershaves either... it's odd.

 

[gh0ti]

The way I see it, the fact that so many people are so ignorant of so many of these 'basic' skills shows how superfluous a lot of them have become.

For instance, I'm not sure how valuable knife-sharpening is these days. I've had my set of kitchen knives for eight years or so and have never felt the need to sharpen them. The day I do, I'll have got enough use out of them to justify (to myself at least) buying a new set.

Cooking? Personally I'm a pretty good cook. In my experience, most people from my kind of background (lower middle-class) can make at least a couple of things they like to eat, and if you can do that, then it's no great difficulty to follow a recipe to make something else once in a while.

For the OP, can you split logs? Do you know when they're seasoned enough to burn? Can you get a fire going from scratch? Hunt, kill, skin game? If you can, great. But I wouldn't get high-and-mighty about it - these are skills that, barring apocalypse, are optional in the century we live in.