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from the would-you-like-fries-with-that? dept.
the Good Housekeeping Institute's recent publication of a dishwashing guide for all those young people (2 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds in the UK) who have never learned the ancient art of washing up. In a nutshell, use hot water and rubber gloves, pre-scrape and soak dirty pans, change your water halfway through, and wash in the following order: glasses, mugs, cups, saucers, side plates, dinner plates, cutlery, serving dishes, pans, roasting tins.
While not knowing how to wash dishes is kind of a big deal, it's the whole idea of not being to handle oneself as a versatile, independent adult that is most concerning. Young people lack a wide range of practical skills these days, as revealed in a recent study by YouGov. More than half of young people (18-24) do not know how to set up utility bills upon moving to a new place; 54 percent cannot replace a fuse in a plug; 34 percent can't reset the fuse box after a switch has tripped; 37 percent do not know how to defrost a freezer; and 11 percent is clueless when it comes to changing lightbulbs. (You can see the entire sad list here.)
So what? There's an app for that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 06 2017, @06:32PM (11 children)
There was no shame because sometimes there should be no shame. If someone has simply never had occasion to learn something so what? Did they ask you to do it for them? Cause that's when I would find it annoying and let them know how easily they can do it themselves.
Urban centers have a completely different focus culturally, much of that because of the massively different environment than rural areas. Neither is better or worse, urbanites tend to produce a lot of culture and media that you rural folks tend to like (ten years late but no judging ;) and urban people probably have a lot of skills/knowledge that would make you look like a ... what's the phrase? Oh yeah, "country bumpkin". Woops, dropped my tolerance card, sorry bout that.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 06 2017, @06:49PM (10 children)
No worries. You're only obliged to be tolerant of other urbanites.
Seriously though, our major divide in the US isn't so much Red vs. Blue as it is Urban vs. Rural. Having different cultures, economies, and points of view wouldn't be a problem but the urbanites genuinely can't get it through their heads that most of the world lies outside cities. This is a huge problem when it comes time to pass legislation.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Touché) by WillR on Friday October 06 2017, @07:03PM (8 children)
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 06 2017, @07:10PM (7 children)
Yeah, that statistic is massively wrong though. It counts everything inside an incorporated township of any size's borders as Urban. Are suburbs urban? How about that town of 35K over an hour away from the nearest real city? How about every podunk town of less than 10K without a single stop light between them?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 06 2017, @07:31PM (6 children)
If you live in a town / small city you're still urban. You may interact with more rural dwellers, but that is a shade of gray.
I hope you realize that my comment about no shame was not trying to cast judgment against rural folks, but it was pushing back against a judgment against urban types. Per usual you have to twist reality to fit your own world view.
I like that Runaway has a more realistic view of reality. Clueless people abound everywhere.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 06 2017, @07:54PM
And that outlook right there is why there is a problem. You think people living in a town of 3-4K, half an hour from the nearest town with a fast food restaurant consider themselves urban or have anything at all in common with the residents of Chicago? No. But city dwellers demand legislation that doesn't take them into account at all. Anyone not in a major city is given zero consideration.
Look, there's only one thing you need to keep in mind for the majority of strife to disappear: that the US is not remotely homogenous and we should not legislate like it is.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Friday October 06 2017, @08:39PM (4 children)
You mean you may actually condescend to speak to the Farmer selling produce at the Saturday Morning Farmer's Market?
The difference is much deeper than that.
If you live in an apartment building, flat, condo, you expect the building and the people who manage it to take care of you.
You don't mow grass, (hell you probably never walk on grass), you don't paint, you don't fix leaks, replace flooring, change a faucet washer, or snake your own toilet. You call somebody, then ridicule the butt crack after he leaves. You have no tools of your own beyond the wrong size screw driver.
If you live in suburbia or in the countryside you expect to take care of the house. You do all those necessary things, maybe even occasionally move an outlet or install another. Not only do you have a lawn mower, you also know how to maintain it. You can mend a fence, or build a new one. You have the tools, and you know how to use them to do most home maintenance tasks. You've probably put up shingles, done some plumbing, poured some cement, dug a garden, trimmed your trees. Maybe you call someone to do big jobs or jobs requiring costly tools, or dangerous work.
Dependency and skill-deficit starts at the edge of town and grows increasingly more severe as you work your way inward. You can measure it by counting the buildings with more than two floors. When the neighborhood is composed mostly of buildings 3 stories or higher the basic ability of permanent resident's to take care of their selves and surroundings has fallen essentially to zero.
The more high-tech the world appears, the more low skilled the occupants are.
Cities exist to keep excess population out of the way of industry and farms.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @12:35AM
> Cities exist to keep excess population out of the way of industry and farms.
Is this really what it's come to? Originally I believe cities were for mutual defense. When the industrial revolution started up, factories were built in cities because everyone had to walk to work.
(Score: 2) by WillR on Monday October 09 2017, @02:00PM (1 child)
Maybe in "the countryside" (which, again, is huge but doesn't have all that many people living in it), but in suburbia everyone has a lawn service (and a plumber, and a fence guy, and a tree guy and so on and so forth) now.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 09 2017, @02:24PM
Unaware of the huge portion of our population that do not live even in the suburbs of a major city, are we?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday October 09 2017, @10:08PM
The key thing you are missing is that as a rural person, you also rely in very tangible ways on the cities. However, because you don't actually see what they're doing, it makes it easier for you to pretend you don't need them.
Some examples of this:
- Any time you buy something from a store, you're relying on that store's distribution network. That network is often run out of offices in or near cities and has warehouses and distribution centers in cities, because cities are nice centralized locations for finding lots of people willing and able to work for your office or warehouse.
- Any time you buy something mail-order, you're relying on the postal services to get them to your house. And guess where the postal service is managed? Sure, your local mail carrier is a nice enough guy you went to high school with or something, but he's getting the towns' mail mostly from a distribution system he doesn't manage.
- Any time you use a credit or debit card for any reason, you're using a city-based financial system.
- Tools and materials you used to put in that new electrical outlet or whatever were made in factories in, wait for it, cities. Probably Chinese cities these days, but cities nonetheless.
- That network management center you are relying on to connect the Internet? Yup, that's in a city, too.
- The power company that is almost definitely keeping your house running (unless you're running a Tesla roof/battery system or something)? City-based.
It's really easy to be living in your house on a rural road somewhere thinking "I don't need anything besides my land and my family and my stuff". I know because I live in a house on a rural road somewhere. But the simple fact is that that impulse is not true, and never has been. For example, if you read some of that 19th century pioneer literature, and you'll see references after references to relying on neighbors for all sorts of things and going into town to buy stuff from the general store that homesteaders couldn't make themselves.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by rylyeh on Friday October 06 2017, @11:51PM
I'm shocked - but I actually totally agree with that idea.
Those who live in big cities really are a different culture than those who do not.
I live in Washington state - and the sparsely populated areas of the state get little money or attention from the populous urban zones.
Their needs are essentially ignored, and the always vote GOP - because they seem to represent the sparse zones interests.
The urban areas always vote Dems - because their issues align far better.
Tyranny of the majority is one of the things that our government is supposed mitigate - but the conversation becomes muddied by both sides when the Liberal/Conservative bullshit machine gets going. This ridiculous dog and pony show distracts us from substantive dialogue about problems and reduces us the the level of a shouting match.
This distraction from real debate also allows nefarious shitheads who use rhetoric to get their filthy hands on money and power they do not deserve. These greedy, soulless, thieves are able divide the public against itself - and cash in!
Less dogmatism from ALL political parties and voters seems the only rational path - but from the looks of things that's not happening anytime soon.
Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. - Ambrose Bierce
"a vast crenulate shell wherein rode the grey and awful form of primal Nodens, Lord of the Great Abyss."