Things that people don’t know how to do anymore

[Waltesefalcon]

This thread is kind of depressing. Many of the things have simply become obsolete, like rewinding a cassette with a pencil, but many others, like changing a tire, are still useful skills.

 

[redpcar]

JwRosenthal

I showed my wife how to change her tire on her last car- the new one has run-flats so she’ll have to show me how to use a can of fix-o-flat.

My 28 yr old son called me from the roadside. Blow out in his new Toyota. Said there is no spare tire. I said B.S.
Sure enough, I googled the car and it doesn't come with one. They give you a flat tire repair kit. Doesn't help when there is no tire left to repair.
Luckily he had a friendly tow truck fella that gave him a lift home.

 

[felsby]

Read a 20-page paper without pauses checking Instagram.

 

[flw]

MRC

Here is part of a historical document written in English. I can't read it....

Looks like the Franklin's Tale, by Chaucer. I had to learn medieval paleography in grad school.

As a high school teacher, I am surrounded every day by adolescents whose ignorance of numerous mundane tasks astounds me. But perhaps it shouldn't. The world many of us here on the forum grew up in is changing. Probably one reason why we have an affinity for watches with tiny wheels, gears, and springs, that only tell the time and don't give us a weather report.

 

[ghce]

It sickens me when I see grown men not being able to do the most basic task that any one growing up in the 50's to 80's could do with out thought, and it's just not an obsolescence thing many of the tasks are quite mainstream, take for example the most obvious, reading and writing.
I suspect the blame falls squarely on the use of smart devices.
I believe their needs to be a societal movement to remove them from everyday life including work environments.
What really pisses me off most is that the dead heads that use these devices don't have a clue how they work, being brought up at a time when computers and micro technology was in it's infancy I know exactly how they work from the simplest hardware component to the structure of programs and how they run to achieve the results that the deadheads see on their screens.
One of the scariest results of this over reliance is the Governments control of their service delivery to citizens, IE if you don't have or don't understand the technology you can be totally disadvantaged in every aspect of your interactions with Government agencies to the point of breaking your obligations under statute as all interactions are ported through digital devices, I pity the old and the mentally marginal.

 

[Waltesefalcon]

flw

Looks like the Franklin's Tale, by Chaucer. I had to learn medieval paleography in grad school.

As a high school teacher, I am surrounded every day by adolescents whose ignorance of numerous mundane tasks astounds me. But perhaps it shouldn't. The world many of us here on the forum grew up in is changing. Probably one reason why we have an affinity for watches with tiny wheels, gears, and springs, that only tell the time and don't give us a weather report.

I don't know how, but I missed this before. It is from Chaucer, but it is part of the prologue. Chaucer is describing the Sergeant at Law. This bit starts off:

"Thereto he could compose and make a thing (document)

So that no living man could assail his writing

And every statute could he quote by rote

He rode but homely in a medley (many colored) coat

Girdled with a belt of silk, with small bars (stripes)

Of his array (clothes) I'll no longer tell..."

After this the description of the Franklin begins.

 

[STANDY]

Living a bit remote to most on here…

1) be smart enough to carry cash as a remote Gas station in the middle of the Australian outback won’t have a Wifi or phone service
1b) said Gas station won’t be open after 7pm
1c) same Gas station won’t have 99% of what a city one has




Oh the dumb shit I see….like tourists waiting for sun up as they arrived at 8pm and the service station shuts at 7pm. Only to realise they need a physical card to use the ATM and they can’t just use their phone swipe payment system or transfer money without wifi to anyone to pay for their fuel. Forgetting that they will need a full tank to get to the next similar place 350km away.

 

[simomega]

I had a student this week not know how to lick a stamp.

She’s 19.

 

[Dan S]

We have had tenants in their 20s who didn't know how to change a lightbulb. But I think that's due to being sheltered for their entire lives, not because people don't know how to change lightbulbs anymore. You don't need to change lightbulbs as often now, but you still need to change them.

 

[Pastorbottle]

Dan S

We have had tenants in their 20s who didn't know how to change a lightbulb. But I think that's due to being sheltered for their entire lives, not because people don't know how to change lightbulbs anymore. You don't need to change lightbulbs as often now, but you still need to change them.

Reminds me of the old gag…….”How many social workers does it take to change a light globe?”
Only one, but it all depends upon if the light globe really want’s to change!

 

[The Father]

The Father

Read
Write
Arithmetic
That about covers it

simomega

I had a student this week not know how to lick a stamp.

She’s 19.

did you volunteer to show how to lick her stamp

 

[gbesq]

Resolve disputes without gun violence. At least here in the U.S.

Write well. As a lawyer who works in an oversight capacity, I'm astonished at some of the pleadings written by other lawyers that come across my desk.

 

[timjohn]

Young people nowadays don't know how to do rose-tinted nostalgia for the unneccessary like us old folks.

 

[pdxleaf]

Both my daughters are smarter than me so I am more hopeful for the next generations.

My mom once told me that there comes a point when you give up trying to keep up. For her, it was programming her VCR. She told me this as I was trying to teach her how to set it up. Mom was reminded of her mother, who gave up at the microwave. Omi refused to use the microwave because she couldn't grasp how it could work.

It really is surprising to learn that something so basic to life has disappeared. We used to have a dial up phone for nostalgic reasons. Our daughter's friend wanted to have a sleep over so I said she should call her mom and to use the dial up phone. The poor girl picked up the receiver and held it upside down next to her ear. That was the first time I felt the world leaving me behind.

Their day will come.

 

[hen]

Make a flint tipped spear and use it to kill a woolly mammoth!

I don`t mind what people = youth don`t know how to do anymore, firstly technology moves on and I don`t need to know how to shoe a horse. Secondly What they don`t master it was our job to teach them.

What I really don`t like is people who forgot their upbringing in the 60 and 70. We where taught to be respectful and polite to everyone, and some people have forgotten that. They harass and yell at especially young waiters and cashiers.

 

[TIMElyBehaviour]

Just being a gentleman in general. I see so many young ones not opening doors for ladies, pulling out a chair for a lady, standing up when she leaves or just being polite. Mind you girls these days don’t expect nor like that kind of treatment so I guess we have become obsolete.

 

[BAJJ]

TIMElyBehaviour

Just being a gentleman in general. I see so many young ones not opening doors for ladies, pulling out a chair for a lady, standing up when she leaves or just being polite. Mind you girls these days don’t expect nor like that kind of treatment so I guess we have become obsolete.

Couldn't agree more, 'manners maketh the man' was what my father instilled in me. I had this conversation with my son recently and times are different, his female friends neither expect, or want this, they are equal they say, while i agree, I do think there is something just nice about old fashioned manners.

 

[lindo]

Hey you rubbishers of the young - it is all relative to the passage of time and social change.

There would have been times long ago when older generations complained that younger people could not
. write a letter in copperplate
. saddle a horse
. use a bow and arrow
. load a flintlock gun
. drive a horse drawn carriage or cart

 

[ghce]

lindo

Hey you rubbishers of the young - it is all relative to the passage of time and social change.

There would have been times long ago when older generations complained that younger people could not
. write a letter in copperplate
. saddle a horse
. use a bow and arrow
. load a flintlock gun
. drive a horse drawn carriage or cart

And yes you can add all of that to the list of things the current crop can not do whereas all of the above are likely to have been done by many of the older members on this forum though I have personally not yet had the occasion to drive a horse and carriage though I am certain its well with in my capabilities to do.

 

[p4ul]

It has all been said before….

Our sires’ age was worse than our grandsires’. We, their sons, are more worthless than they; so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt.

Book III of Odes, Horace
Circa 29BC


To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?

Marcus Tullius Cicero
Circa 10BC