Ask Lemmy

Is nuance a skill?

Like, the world isn't black and white, left and right, right and wrong, etc, but too many people want to simplify complex issues down into binary choices and leave out any trace of nuance.

Critical thinking. Religion and our education system beat curiosity out of people and they end up being unable to process information on their own.

Also driving. People can't stay in their own lanes, stop three car lengths from an intersection because they don't understand that the 'see the tires in front of you' made sense in low sedans with sloped hoods and not their massive SUVs with flat hood, and don't bother signaling when changing lanes slowly.

I might as well go first: Basic troubleshooting and reasoning.

I mean, we're not talking debugging assembly language here. But at least you should be able to reply correctly to the question "is it dead or faulty?" when it comes to a computer. And when a your car has a weird noise, at least try to locate it for an obvious cause such as something rolling around under your seat.

EDIT: And one important aspect of troubleshooting many people don't get is how to narrow down the problem. Let's say your wifi isn't working - have you checked on any other device whether it's working there? Someone else mentioned binary search which has a lot of overlap with this.

Critical thinking.

Being aware of what’s around you. Whether driving and not looking before pulling out, blocking the middle of the supermarket aisle, stopping in the doorway, standing in the middle of the footpath playing with your phone; so many people are completely oblivious. The world doesn’t revolve around you, have some ordinary consideration and manners.

Making constructive, non-adhominem critique, and accepting such critique. Maybe calm debate/discussion in general.

Number 1 by far is knowing how to separate your opinions from your identity.

I've been thinking about this for years and I can't shake the thought that identity politics is the root of most major problems in western society (esp. US). It means people interpret criticism of their opinions as personal attacks instead. This overblown defensive reaction leads to turning around and conflating the opinions of others with their worth as human beings.

Yes, there some truth to that. If you hold hateful & bigoted opinions, I would say that makes you a shit person. But you're not necessarily condemned to that forever, because opinions can potentially change. This is tied in with Karl Popper's "Paradox of Tolerance", i.e. ideas should be tolerated unless they themselves are so intolerant as to undermine the wider marketplace of ideas.

When we equate (potentially temporary) opinions of others with immutable value, that's what leads to dehumanizing them and taking away their fundamental rights. And as has always been the case throughout history, the burden falls primarily on vulnerable groups (immigrants, ethnic or social minorities, children and the elderly, etc).

People need to understand that YOU ARE NOT YOUR OPINION. Others can and should criticize your opinions, but that doesn't mean they are attacking you personally. Defend the opinions, but don't turn around and go ad-hominem in response. And for fuck's sake, unless an opinion is so abhorrent or intolerant that it threatens someone else's existence (e.g. Nazis), you don't get to take away the holder's rights to citizenship, food, shelter, healthcare, etc.

EDIT: And yes I do consider this a skill that people have to learn. I think most should be capable by maybe... age 7.

Swimming, it'll save your life

Basic sewing

Also empathy

Communication. So many issues could be resolved by just talking to the person clearly and calmly instead of assuming they can read your mind and getting upset when they don’t respond the way you played out in your mind.

De-escalation. Even if you’re right, there’s a time and place where you need to let it go and revisit it at a more appropriate moment.

Reading comprehension. Not a day goes by where i don't see someone respond to a comment that they clearly did not understand completely.

Cooking. I don't mean heating up prepared food. I mean taking raw produce, spices, herbs, and starches to make your own food. Doesn't need to be extravagant. Start with an omelette or maybe properly made scrambled eggs. Move on to other "easy" dishes like grilled cheese sandwiches and spaghetti. I am constantly amazed when I hear fully grown adults saying shit like, "I could never make anything like Beef Wellington." Yes you can, just try and fail a few times!

Using a fucking PC properly.

People have said “critical thinking”. I agree, but we can be more specific than that:

• Formal logic to think clearly
• Relational frame training to think fluidly
• Human cognitive bias awareness and mitigation strategies to avoid magical thinking or otherwise systematic cognitive errors
• Discourse Analysis to be critical of any message https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LKiaYBVAEUk&pp=
• Mindfulness and acceptance skills to engage with what our thoughts and body tell us, regardless of whether it’s painful or difficult
• Visible Thinking Routines to make thinking and communication with others easier
• Research design (Joseph A. Maxwell) and system design (How to Design Programs) to seek information critically and how to systematically tackle challenges

Listening and empathy. Putting themselves in others' shoes instead of just seeing/speaking/thinking about I, me and myself.

Basic troubleshooting and repair knowledge. Like just how to use a multimeter and the basics of how electricity works and how to repair something.

Honestly just basic knowledge of everything in our daily lives would be useful. People should understand how their phone works and how it gets internet access, how their car works, and stuff like that.

Media literacy and reading comprehension. Specifically, the ability to infer an intended target audience for a particular piece of work. A large part of media literacy is being able to view a piece of media, and infer the intended audience. Maybe you see an ad for pink razors, and can infer that it is aimed at women who shave. But that’s just a simple example. It should also extend to things like internet comments.

People have become so accustomed to laser-focused algorithms determining our media consumption. Before, people would see a video or comment they didn’t resonate with, infer that it wasn’t aimed at them, and move the fuck on. But now, people are so used to their algorithm being dialed in. It is to the point that encountering things you don’t vibe with is outright jarring. People don’t just move on anymore. They get aggressive.

Maybe I make a reel about the proper way to throw a baseball. I’ll inevitably get at least one or two “but what about me? I’m in a wheelchair, on crutches, have a bad shoulder, have bad eyesight and can’t aim, etc… Before, those people would have gone “this clearly isn’t aimed at me” and moved the fuck on. But now they make a point of going “but you didn’t make this specifically for me.

It has gotten so bad that content creators have started adding disclaimers to their videos, news articles, opinion pieces, etc... It’s fairly common to see quick “and before I get started, this video is just for [target demographic]” as if it’s a cutesy little thing. But the reality is that if they don’t add that disclaimer, they’ll be inundated with “but what about [outlier that the content clearly wasn’t directed at]” types of responses.

Financial literacy

Binary search, there are so many instances where problems in life can be solved by eliminating half of a given set repeatedly.

Blender broken? There are only so many things that can go wrong, analyze the situation and try to find something that cuts your problem in half.

1. Is the light on? It’s not electricity and that's a huge chunk of what makes a blender work.
2. Light not on? Well now you've eliminated (temporarily) mechanical systems and electrical remains. Further splitting that part of the blender means either house power or internal blender power, check the outlet with another machine

This approach involves further splitting the problem into 2 as evenly as possible each time. It doesn’t make sense to whip out the multimeter if the on light isn't shining, you don't need to check on your house's breakers if the light is on, etc.

This system works for troubleshooting almost anything, all you have to do is find chokepoints and identify sections of your target. Toilet not flushing, faucet not on, car not starting, neck pain, allergies, it's almost harder to think of something it doesn't apply to.

The ability to process information. It seems like the reason need AI to summarize different things is because they never learned how to do it themselves.

Basic cooking skills

Reading comprehension

Listening to someone speak without interrupting

Remembering to let other people speak when having a conversation

I think that we should require more humanities courses for STEM degrees. I had to take some english courses but that was about it. Seems like a lot of STEM-lords (particularly the computer ones) need to take a cultural anthropology course and chill out a little. Or philosophy but that risks making them worse.

Proof reading what they post.

Looking at you OP :P

Listening (to one another).

Reading instructions would be another one that gets skipped due to stress or whatever the excuse is.

Or taking the time to properly read and reply to an email. I've learnt the hard way to never have more than one question per email, it's only the first or the last question that gets answered.

Sewing. Learn to sew! It's very helpful!

A sense of community, at least in the states. We have become a nation of de facto sovereign citizens, everyone competing with everyone. A society can't last long without social responsibility.

Critical thinking: We would be in a better world if more people were capable of it.

How to handle criticism. To take the best from it, learn from it, try to become more of what is important to yourself and leave the rest.

It's either not taking it at all, thinking everyone is wrong... or it's giving it to much attention. Like thinking the opinion of people that you don't respect at all, that you don't even like counts too. You'll never be right for everyone. But being criticised by people that care to make your life better is actually precious.

Basic problem solving. Even just the ability to Google something seems to be lost on so many people.

media literacy

For something very relevant to health: cooking, knowing how to measure food, and how to read a nutrition label. Obesity would be much less common if people were able to cook their own food more often, and knew how to actually measure out accurate portion sizes.

I totally get that time, upfront costs like cookware, and access to decent ingredients are MAJOR factors in whether or not someone can learn how to cook, but anyone can and should know how to read a nutrition label and know how to measure accurate portion sizes for the things they eat. If you are trying to lose weight or work on healthy habits, a food scale is infinitely more valuable than a body weight scale. Most people do not know what 28g of chips looks like.