Critical thinking.
They should teach basic philosophy in schools; common formal fallacies and such.
But then the eletorate would actually be making good decisions, how would the rich afford their 10th yacht?
Financial literacy
Listening and empathy. Putting themselves in others’ shoes instead of just seeing/speaking/thinking about I, me and myself.
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.
Reading the screen.
Seriously, about 90% of computer problems would be solved if people just read the fucking screen.
How to turn greenhouse gasses into pure drinking water. I wish I knew how to do that.
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.
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.
I had that stuck to my desk at work for years. And I haven’t even opened the link yet to see if it’s the one I think it is.
Yep, it was 😁
This grinds my gears super hard. I’ve had a few new hires come through and they can’t do anything unless someone tells them to do something or if its written out step by step. Absolutely no critical thinking, curiosity or even basic understanding of why we’re doing what we’re doing, the job might as well be severance lol. I have no idea whats going on, they interviewed well, had relevant experience and can do the basics but as soon as we have to troubleshoot or use our brains they just go dear in the headlights. Its something thats difficult to train.
Maybe they prefer the work to be mysterious (and important)
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
Yeah I know multiple adults who can’t swim, and I occasionally ask them if they’ve learned yet.
I remember seeing this video of two indian(?) guys drowning in a pond literally 2 meters from the shore. I mean… If I knew I couldn’t swim I wouldn’t go anywhere near water. It could just as well be lava.
Yeah. I’m amazed at how many people do not know how to swim.
Using a fucking PC properly.
I am engineer enough to use my fucking PC in whatever fucking way I want without some fucking smart-pants telling me what to do. Have a fucking nice day!
That’s the fucking spirit! Have a fucking nice day too!
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
This covers so many other things.
My usual specific go-to is how to search the internet for things. But not knowing how to search for hyper-specific things is the symptom of a lack of critical thinking skills.
other things
Interesting. So you’re saying that critical thinking is not what I mentioned, but rather it is something different (an “other thing”). What would you say critical thinking is?
Not at all, I’m saying that many smaller problems people often cite are simply symptoms of a lack of critical thinking.
Ah. It sounds as if you’re saying that critical thinking skills are the base of many skills. That’s actually an interesting issue: could you increase skills by skill and end up with someone that is a critical thinker? Or is critical thinking something fundamental that naturally manifests in many different skills?
Yeah, not revolutionary - critical thinking is a skill that’s fundamental to so much else. Its like learning to read or cook. The base skill let’s your learn more.
Fair enough. If it is fundamental, it affects many things. How do you think it’s best taught or developed? What are the specific activities that you as a teacher or as a student would do to improve it?
Not sure, other than a general combo of “question everything” and understanding the scientific method. I’ve never had to teach it before.
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.
If people were rational, 90% of movie plots wouldn’t exist
Basic sewing
Also empathy
