Why life’s basic skills are dying

SeaBreeze said:
I wonder if the electric grid went down in the US and there was no electric or computer services, how many people would be able to survive on their own making due with the resources they had available?
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Sad thing is that the people of Puerto Rico are going through that now. Seems that they have been forgotten by FEMA. Not sure why
 

kburra said:
The question is, is that enough?
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NO....
because relearning 'the basics' will not help the youth of today
and even if we do manage to rekindle the spirit of young people
entering a blue collar profession the jobs will not be there!

​
….for a long time I used to think it was me when something I owned stopped working but I have since learned better. Case in point my mid 2007 iMac computer that has done yeoman's work for me over the years but is now one temperamental hunk of aluminum and silicone capable of frustrating me at the drop of a hat.



I have for the past two weeks been editing, (trying to edit), a short video for my blog about the world ice art festival in Fairbanks, but it has been one step forward two backward during that time. The computer always gives me enough progress and hope just before it crashes, freezes or tells me to bug off. Now in the world of computers anyone that is still using a decade old computer it is only happening because of a miracle.



The computer manufactures do not build their machines to last.... they are built to have you continually invest more money in eventually unsupported programs or 'better' hardware upgrades. Think of it like your cell phone where you are constantly upgrading, (getting deeper into the hole), because you have been told the newer model is way better and your friends will think you are cheep if you don't upgrade.

This is the era of built in obsolescence
gone is the way of the pay-phone
or even land-lines
and when was the last time you saw
an appliance repair shop
we have entered the age where
its cheaper
to replace than repair.

I guess we should watch out
next thing you know
our jobs will be gone/upgraded or shipped overseas
funny thing
we must have blinked
because that's already happened.


Have we indeed come full circle.
tech5.jpeg
https://kl1hbalaska.wordpress.com/
​
 
StarSong said:
Posts like these disturb me greatly. I remember being the younger generation that older generations loved to complain about, and now see members of my generation doing the same. Yuk.

Life skills are what are needed to navigate during one's own lifetime, not the lifetime of someone who lived 50 or a 100 or 1000 or 5000 years earlier. So what if checks and handwritten notes are largely out of fashion - dare I say approaching obsolescence? Future generations are entitled to carve out a world that they're comfortable in, just as previous generations did. For all our blowing and going about what a swell generation we were, we're leaving our descendants an ecological disaster to sort out.

BTW, I have three kids who are Millennials. All have at least bachelor's degrees, are gainfully employed and self-sufficient. Not that it matters, but all can - and do - cook and bake from scratch. Maybe they're tired of a lifetime of our generation's corporations who have been force-feeding them processed and junk foods via advertising and poor example.

Whatever it is that they can and cannot do belongs on the doorsteps of previous generations. We raised them and by our hand they learned what to value.
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Qft, post of the week.
 

Pete said:
NO....
because relearning 'the basics' will not help the youth of today
and even if we do manage to rekindle the spirit of young people
entering a blue collar profession the jobs will not be there!

​
….for a long time I used to think it was me when something I owned stopped working but I have since learned better. Case in point my mid 2007 iMac computer that has done yeoman's work for me over the years but is now one temperamental hunk of aluminum and silicone capable of frustrating me at the drop of a hat.



I have for the past two weeks been editing, (trying to edit), a short video for my blog about the world ice art festival in Fairbanks, but it has been one step forward two backward during that time. The computer always gives me enough progress and hope just before it crashes, freezes or tells me to bug off. Now in the world of computers anyone that is still using a decade old computer it is only happening because of a miracle.



The computer manufactures do not build their machines to last.... they are built to have you continually invest more money in eventually unsupported programs or 'better' hardware upgrades. Think of it like your cell phone where you are constantly upgrading, (getting deeper into the hole), because you have been told the newer model is way better and your friends will think you are cheep if you don't upgrade.

This is the era of built in obsolescence
gone is the way of the pay-phone
or even land-lines
and when was the last time you saw
an appliance repair shop
we have entered the age where
its cheaper
to replace than repair.

I guess we should watch out
next thing you know
our jobs will be gone/upgraded or shipped overseas
funny thing
we must have blinked
because that's already happened.


Have we indeed come full circle.
View attachment 54814
https://kl1hbalaska.wordpress.com/
​
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Remember when being a TV repairman was a good job???

A friend of mine used to work for the local phone company. He repaired phone booths , made a good living, fed his family & himself for some 30+/- years. He retired just about the same time i did...[2000] ....just in time!
 
Marie5656 said:
When I was in high school, we had a Consumer Economics class. I do not remember everything we were taught in the class, but I remember there were basic skills like check writing, keeping a household budget and that kind of stuff.

Hey ladies, speaking of a dying art, did any of you take shorthand in school? I never got the hang of it.
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I took shorthand (Gregg) in school and for many years it was an entre into getting better and better jobs, even when it wasn't really necessary to the job. I became very skilled and fast with it. It was my break into the legal field, when a senior partner at a law firm thought he needed someone who could take shorthand.
 
Growing and canning vegetables is getting to be less and less popular it seems, but that is true among many seniors as well. I was encouraged though recently when we had excess canning jars to sell. The people who bought them were in their 20s with young children and talked about their gardens.
 
On some reality tv shows, such as "I'm a celebrity, get me out of here" in the UK (where people get paid a fortune to rough it in the Australian jungle for a week or two) there are "bush tucker trials" of varying degrees of ridiculousness.

One trial is killing and then gutting, (removing the inedible parts from inside the carcass ), and then cooking said animal, usually a chicken.

How those of my parent's generation would have laughed at such incompetence in what would have been a very simple procedure when they grew up, for most country dwellers at least.
 
Watch them try to make change. I love doing this, if the bill is $1.44 I give them the 4 cents (because I don't like having pennies) then stare at them as they struggle desperately to figure out how much money to give me back. It works nearly every time.
 
rkunsaw said:
Growing and canning vegetables is getting to be less and less popular it seems, but that is true among many seniors as well. I was encouraged though recently when we had excess canning jars to sell. The people who bought them were in their 20s with young children and talked about their gardens.
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Canning jars, lids, rings, have out priced themselves
Noticeably cheaper to just buy the canned stuff in the store

But

we still can
so does the twenty something down the path
it all tastes better
 
fmdog44 said:
Watch them try to make change. I love doing this, if the bill is $1.44 I give them the 4 cents (because I don't like having pennies) then stare at them as they struggle desperately to figure out how much money to give me back. It works nearly every time.
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You know that behind your back they're saying, "It's such a riot. I love watching the old old geezers trying to work their cell phones! They've got to pull out their reading glasses, peer at the screen for 30 seconds while trying to figure out which icon button to push. And they do it nearly every single time they're in the store. I don't know how the old coots find their way home..."
 
Even with the computer register giving them the info...
6.11 order at Mickey Ds,handed her 11.00 and 11 cents,she started to give me change,I said just a 5.00 bill,please....
 
Has anyone of you seen the picture of a cell phone for seniors with a dial for phoning someone instead of buttons? lol
 
I can't start a fire without matches, a cigarette lighter, or a magnifying glass and sunshine. :eek:nthego:
 
Over the course of my lifetime I've never been in a position to have to navigate using only the sun, stars or a compass, field dress a moose, start a fire without human-manufactured assistance, make my own shoes from cowhide, thresh my own wheat, create glass from sand to grind my reading eyeglasses or clear part of a forest and grade land to build a house.

Had I wanted to live like the Amish (a group for whom I have great respect), I've always been clear where I could find them.
 
StarSong said:
You know that behind your back they're saying, "It's such a riot. I love watching the old old geezers trying to work their cell phones! They've got to pull out their reading glasses, peer at the screen for 30 seconds while trying to figure out which icon button to push. And they do it nearly every single time they're in the store. I don't know how the old coots find their way home..."
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Watch a Youtube video of three teens being asked "If you were traveling at 80 mph how long would it take to travel 80 miles?" Tragic.
 
fmdog44 said:
Watch a Youtube video of three teens being asked "If you were traveling at 80 mph how long would it take to travel 80 miles?" Tragic.
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How many kids do you suppose they filmed before they came across three who couldn't think on their feet when a camera was pointed in their direction? What generation do you suppose was responsible for educating them?

Enjoy yourself while feeling smug and believing our generation to be superior to Millennials. Me? I think they're turning out quite well especially considering the mess that we've made of raising them.
 
StarSong said:
How many kids do you suppose they filmed before they came across three who couldn't think on their feet when a camera was pointed in their direction? What generation do you suppose was responsible for educating them?

Enjoy yourself while feeling smug and believing our generation to be superior to Millennials. Me? I think they're turning out quite well especially considering the mess that we've made of raising them.
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Absolutely!
 
Shalimar said:
quote_icon.png
Originally Posted by StarSong
How many kids do you suppose they filmed before they came across three who couldn't think on their feet when a camera was pointed in their direction? What generation do you suppose was responsible for educating them?

Enjoy yourself while feeling smug and believing our generation to be superior to Millennials. Me? I think they're turning out quite well especially considering the mess that we've made of raising them.

Shalimar wrote:
"Absolutely!"
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Not wanting to rain on anyone's parade too much, but didn't they tell you in school that mankind would destroy itself by 2050, and maybe again not wanting to be too pessimistic but our oceans filling up with plastic for which we're all guilty, while some try to claim stopping free single use shopping bags (sensible measure though it was to charge for them), makes a happeth of difference if almost everything you put in the bag is covered in plastic.

Are our kids really moving towards a solution for that kind of problem, whilst "we're training them to be little consumers"?
 
Any student of history recognises that mankind has been on the edge of disaster of one kind or another for thousands of years, yet here we are. The average Millenial has far fewer expensive consumer items than their parents or grandparents. For many,

buying a house or a good car is no longer affordable. It may take decades to pay off student loans, and for many, professionals, or in the Trades, wages are no longer keeping pace with cost of living. Also, the young are increasingly

environmentally conscious, embracing a green lifestyle, planting urban gardens, on apt balconies, or allotments. They eat far less red meat than previous generations, are more globally aware than our generation ever was. There is a long standing

tendency for many older folks to embrace pessimism, to slam the young, and look at the past through rosecoloured glasses. The Egyptians did so in their hieroglyphics long ago. I believe much of it comes from an unacknowledged resentment of the limitations of aging and approaching mortality. It is time to pass the torch, and many people hate it. I rejoice in their

committment to improving the lives of all human and animal kind, their view of the planet as our mother, not a resource to be raped. Perhaps they can undo what previous generations have wraught. These are the basic skills which are relevant today.
 

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