Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?

- water and electric installations. Most things that usually break in a typical house can be easily fixed by the average person with some tools, water is easier, electricity is extremely risky if you don't know what you are doing, but fine if you do (you don't need a college to be an electrician). I would also mention some carpentry, but that requires more tools than what people keep around the house.

- build, maintain and repair a bicycle; it is extremely easy if you spend a bit of time doing it and it is extremely useful if you do mountain biking and you have a problem in the middle of nowhere; also it is a lot cheaper and quite fun to fix or upgrade your own bike or spend some good time with friends working on their bikes

- fixing small things on a car or motorcycle, like changing oil, brake pads, bleed the brakes. It does well with the bicycle skills, some are transferable.

- if you like hiking, knowing how to pack light, to find a good place to mount a tent, first aid and a bit of survival skills are useful

If you like hiking, depending on your country and area you spend time it would be a good idea to learn how to properly carry and use a firearm for self-defense against wild life. Where I go there are plenty of bears and boars, they are both stronger and faster than me, I had a few encounters but it was either from a distance or I was not on foot, so I left in a hurry :) Less applicable in West Europe (no bears, some boars) and in Eastern Europe (no guns allowed), but still something to think about

- cooking. It's a hit or miss, but you can try. Anyone knows how to make tea or some eggs, it's trivial to do French fries or a steak (not a good one, but something you can eat), so for me cooking means to do something more complicated than basic food.

Learn not only to drive a car, but a bicycle, a motorcycle, a manual transmission car and even a small truck. You never know when one of these can be useful and they are partially related, so it's not that much to learn.

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

I'd possibly leave out the militaristic stuff, but the rest of it is pretty much spot on :)