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

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

#231

Post by lotsofpulp »

mandeepj wrote: post #223
bob1029 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is by far the most important thing I can think of, followed shortly by being able to maintain a regular, high-quality exercise regimen. Meal prep is the key to keeping the discipline in terms of cooking cheap, high-quality meals for yourself. If you understand some fundamentals about how to store food and scaling recipes up, you can leverage your time very well. In a given week, I spend ~2 hours in the kitchen t…

> In a given week, I spend ~2 hours in the kitchen total. I have been thinking about it because I spend significant more time than that. Maybe, you make only salads

2 hours in the kitchen for a weeks' worth of meals is ludicrous if you're doing anything that I would call cooking. The cleanup on some days alone takes 1 hour. And if you're using more than a handful of ingredients, how would you even cut and peel and blend.

And definitely no baking or fermenting or any other chemical processes.

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

#232

Post by AA-BA-94-2A-56 »

war1025 wrote: post #226
AA-BA-94-2A-56 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to be religious, but I came to a point where I just didn't believe it anymore. Religion is no longer useful to me, not because it was ever real, but because I've convinced myself it's not real. I've replaced it with philosophy and meditation-- it actually seems to do the job much better, and doesn't require any particular leaps in logic on my part.

> I've replaced it with philosophy and meditation Philosophy and meditation are just religion by another name in my opinion. At least in terms of the practical application of religion, which is sadly neglected by most branches of modern Christianity.

> Philosophy and meditation are just religion by another name in my opinion.

I agree that they may be similar in practice, but I want to make sure you understand that they are fundamentally different in every other aspect. The biggest difference is that religion believes it has a monopoly on an explanation of the metaphysical, and therefore shuts out other philosophies. This is the height of human hubris.

There are many different philosophies, and all of them are merely ideas, and none of them claim to be the exclusive explanation of the metaphysical.

Meditation is just the practice of looking inward, and many studies show benefits. Whereas, many of the reported benefits of religion come from the practice of it, and are most likely due to placebo.

So yes, in practice they are similar and they have many of the same benefits. What I can not get behind are the potential/probable drawbacks of religion. The narrow mindedness and the arrogance come to mind.

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

#233

Post by mailshanx »

gotaran wrote: post #211

If you're single, dating. Especially online dating. Depending on you upbringing, this is similar to personal finance, where nobody really teaches you what to do, and there's a lot of "seduction" or "red pill" toxic nonsense out there. Dating is also a relatively recent modern construct, and it's a skill that doesn't come naturally. There's a certain etiquette to it that might vary from place to place and in time you'…

Can you recommend any resources to learn this better?

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

#234

Post by ejolto »

m0zg wrote: post #205
momokoko wrote: post #76

In the modern era the single most important skill is to manage distractions. There are so many things, this site included, that can prevent you from accomplishing your goals via distraction. Obviously a little distraction and fun is good. But these days it easier than ever to waste an entire day or two watching Netflix and staring at your phone.

> entire day or two watching Netflix and staring at your phone More like years, nowadays. Some people (most?) never recover at all, because it's cheaper and more addictive than smoking. Apple's detailed time tracking was a revelation. We discovered that my wife (who is currently out of a job due to COVID) was speding 8+ hours every day on her iPhone and iPad alone, and I myself was spending entirely too much time on…

What do you do with all your extra spare time? Are you learning some skill or are you relaxing in some other way not related to technology?

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

#235

Post by nicbou »

woopwoop wrote: post #163
dlandis wrote: post #101

Enough carpentry and building skills to be able to build decks, porches, sheds, renovate rooms in your house, etc. If you're a homeowner and can improve your home with little help from contractors, you will be able to affordably increase the value of your house immensely, as well as the quality of your home life and that of your family. The return on investment can be crazy -- imagine being able to take a couple week…

So, more generally, you could say that you can save money by doing a task yourself that you usually leave to a professional specialist. In most cases, this is clearly ridiculous. I'm not going to start sewing my own clothes, or doing maintenance on my car beyond maybe changing my own oil. What makes home repairs different?

It's not just about the money. Doing things yourself is rewarding. It also makes you good at more things than making and spending money. This could be useful if the economy goes south, or if you lose the ability to work.

Fixing things yourself also means that you don't need to deal with professionals, which can be hard to pick and have weird schedules.

Also keep in mind that you pay other people with your post tax income. If you both charge the same rate, you'll need to work for more than one hour to buy one hour of their time.

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

#236

Post by AngryData »

woopwoop wrote: post #163
dlandis wrote: post #101

Enough carpentry and building skills to be able to build decks, porches, sheds, renovate rooms in your house, etc. If you're a homeowner and can improve your home with little help from contractors, you will be able to affordably increase the value of your house immensely, as well as the quality of your home life and that of your family. The return on investment can be crazy -- imagine being able to take a couple week…

So, more generally, you could say that you can save money by doing a task yourself that you usually leave to a professional specialist. In most cases, this is clearly ridiculous. I'm not going to start sewing my own clothes, or doing maintenance on my car beyond maybe changing my own oil. What makes home repairs different?

Maintaining your own car is not ridiculous. Ive spent less on vehicle repairs over the last 15 years than most people spend in a single year on car payments for something "reliable". How much does getting your brakepads replaced cost you? For me it is $15, and I buy better brakepads than most. The tools consist of a set of sockets and a jack. Some random sensor goes bad? I can get 4 different sensors that are literally are plug and play for the same cost as just having a mechanic tell me I got a bad sensor. In some cases you could replace every major sensor in your car for less that the cost of having a mechanic find and replace a single bad sensor himself.

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

#237

Post by m0zg »

ejolto wrote: post #234
m0zg wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> entire day or two watching Netflix and staring at your phone More like years, nowadays. Some people (most?) never recover at all, because it's cheaper and more addictive than smoking. Apple's detailed time tracking was a revelation. We discovered that my wife (who is currently out of a job due to COVID) was speding 8+ hours every day on her iPhone and iPad alone, and I myself was spending entirely too much time on…

What do you do with all your extra spare time? Are you learning some skill or are you relaxing in some other way not related to technology?

There's plenty to do: I can have hobbies again. I have finished a lot of old projects in the past 6 months, some of which sat in my garage for almost a decade. It's really satisfying. I'm practicing on the guitar again, too. That alone will soak up all the spare time you might have.

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

#239

Post by philwelch »

codq wrote: post #168
falcor84 wrote: post #14

Here's Lazarus Long's list, from Heinlein's "Time Enough for Love", which I had actually just posted on another thread recently: "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 man…

Is there a wiki-how compilation for all of these? I've got the first one down, but lose steam at "plan an invasion".

My dad was an officer in the Marine Corps and spent time working on contingency planning—basically, planning invasions just in case they had to carry them out. He ended up being resentful about the Grenada intervention because his plan (written in the 1960’s) was far more efficient than what they ended up doing.

The only actionable advice I remember is basically to think critically about the information you’re given. If your plan hinges on storing fuel in a tank that seems to exist in the middle of a farm for no obvious reason, investigate a little more deeply. Maybe it’s a sugar cane farm and a tank of molasses. If so, not a solution for storing fuel.

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

#240

Post by snak »

biren34 wrote: post #124

1. How to spend less than you earn. Lots of people desire “financial freedom”, meaning they can spend what they want when they want it. Solving this via revenue leads to the hedonic treadmill, and you’ll never out earn your growing wants. Instead solve this by controlling your wants, and you’ve achieved financial freedom immediately. 2. How to take risks. Finding the balance between recklessness and absolute risk avo…

First time I've heard about "hedonic treadmill". Found a little bit of information about the concept, very interesting, but can't seem to find a similar concept/translation in spanish.
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