• vaguerant@fedia.io
      25·
      1 month ago

      Something that bothers me about a lot of people’s sense of empathy is that they’re only able to employ it by directly relating events to themselves. It’s like a stereotypical “How would you feel if this happened to your daughter?” thing, where people can only extend empathy as far as a situation that it’s possible for them to get into.

      I also hear this a lot around disasters, whether they be natural, terrorist attacks, etc. If you’re around somebody who has been anywhere near the location of the event, get ready for the “Gosh, that’s so awful. I was only there six years ago, it could have been me.” Can’t you just fucking care about the wellbeing of things that aren’t you? Feel bad because a bad thing happened, not by making it about yourself.

      • brrt@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        7·
        1 month ago

        where people can only extend empathy as far as a situation that it’s possible for them to get into.

        I wonder if there is a distinguishing term for this.

        Empathy = The ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes (no matter how different they are from you)

        ? = The “ability” to imagine yourself in a situation that someone else, who’s very similar to you, experienced.

      • carg@feddit.orgEnglish
        1·
        1 month ago

        I don’t see what’s wrong with that. That’s also empathy, just not everybody follow the same way to feel it.

      • nomad@infosec.pubEnglish
        3·
        1 month ago

        In guilty of this. I usually know what they want to say at word 3 or 4. Waiting it out is exhausting. Not waiting it out is rude. Hard either way, not talking to people, way easier.

  • wieson@feddit.orgEnglish
    28·
    1 month ago

    Imagining the potential of a prototype.

    “So with this prototype I want to explore aspect A”

    “I don’t like it. I don’t want this as a final product.”

    “Ok. Do you like aspect A? Imagine all other things were finished as you like it.”

    “No, I don’t like this product.”

    • fakeaustinfloyd@ttrpg.networkEnglish
      12·
      1 month ago

      Same for apps and sites. Having to explain to someone multiple times that I’m not trying to force their users to be bilingual just because there is “lorem ipsum” text on the page is rough.

  • Mothra@mander.xyzEnglish
    26·
    1 month ago

    Math, and I mean basic math: adding, subtracting, multiplication, division. Basic understanding of fractions, basic understanding of percentages.

    I’m not amazing at math but I consider this basic and with relatively regular day to day application. I’m not saying people should be able to make these operations without a calculator on the fly, I certainly couldn’t in many cases. But I would expect people to know what math you need to apply to, say, calculate a 20% discount. I would expect people to know if, say, two thirds is more or less than three quarters. But no. Nope

    • bizarroland@fedia.io
      6·
      1 month ago

      I frequently do blatantly inaccurate math just to spitball, and when I say the numbers that I’m computing out loud, people get amazed that I can keep track of so many numbers when I’m only tracking the result of the previous calculation and the operator that I’m about to perform.

      I’m like, dude, if you accounted for the rounding errors, you would realize how fucking wrong I am, but this math is not precision-important, and so I’m just trying to get an idea of the scope of the numbers that I need to address whatever problem I’m working on.

      For instance, if you asked me to spitball how far it is from Los Angeles, California to Atlanta, Georgia, and how long it would take you to drive that, I would assume you would average about 50 miles an hour after breaks and whatnot that you would be able to drive approximately 12 hours a day, which means you could clear 600 miles, and off the top of my head I would guess it’s about 3,200 miles between Los Angeles and Atlanta, assuming that you stay on the 40 as much as you can once you get to Amarillo, TX, so I would assume that the average driver would take five days and approximately four hours to drive that distance.

      This is very off the cuff, off the top of my head, I could be 600 miles off on the distance in either directions, I could be 10, 12 miles an hour in drive time off in either direction, and I could be off 4 or 5 hours or not even account for a co-driver on the trip.

      You can do the trip in like 2ish days. I have done the trip in like twoish days.

      But, reality and guesstimation are two separate things, and there’s no reason to be amazed by somebody’s guesstimation capabilities. It’s very basic math that doesn’t require any skill greater than your multiplication tables.

      I don’t know why more people aren’t good at it.

    • Landless2029@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      1 month ago

      People being bad at math isn’t a new thing but it is getting worse now with everyone having a calculator (phone) in their pocket.

      Also. Great time to dust off this old gem.

      • Mothra@mander.xyzEnglish
        4·
        1 month ago

        I’m not sure if having a calculator available makes it worse. The calculator only does the operation. It doesn’t reason which operation needs to be done, it just does what you tell it to do. And that’s where people fail at, understanding the concept behind the operation.

        • Landless2029@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          1 month ago

          Yep. I agree. Knowing the logic behind math, namely what values need to be where in a formula and processing it in order, is a problem.

          I think this is one of the reasons a bachelors degree in comupter science is so highly valued for too many jobs. The degree has a good amount of math requirements even though they’re not needed for programming. I think the reason behind that is succeeding in that much logical thinking means you can learn/follow the rules/syntax of coding languages.

          In the business world they hope people with that much understanding in math have a good head on their shoulders.

    • nomad@infosec.pubEnglish
      1·
      1 month ago

      I’m an engineer by training which includes a lot of higher math training. Also have been running my own company for years. But still learned this basic stuff way later. This is something that should taught in school.

      • Mothra@mander.xyzEnglish
        1·
        1 month ago

        … you got an engineering degree not knowing basic percentages and fractions?

        … isn’t this taught in schools? I definitely learned it before age 12

        • nomad@infosec.pubEnglish
          1·
          1 month ago

          Applications in daily things like taxes, rebates and the like. It is, but somehow it only sunk in late in life.

    • Boomkop3@reddthat.comEnglish
      1·
      1 month ago

      Where I live this skill is normal. I was on vacation to the usa once, and people were amazed I could add two digit numbers at an arcade. I only realized how odd that was in retrospecr

    • filcuk@lemmy.zipEnglish
      61·
      1 month ago

      Eh, it depends. I don’t know how to sew, except to fix a hole in my sock. Couldn’t make a coat, never needed or wanted to.
      My mother can’t use a computer besides checking her emails and finding a movie to watch, which is all she needs and wants to know.
      Now, if it’s your job to use one effectively and haven’t got a clue? I expect you’d end up in management in no time.

  • spicy pancake@lemmy.zipEnglish
    24·
    1 month ago

    very basic sewing repair, like reattaching a button or sewing back down a popped seam

    but then again fast fashion makes these skills seem worthless to many people

    • Shellbeach@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      1 month ago

      Honest question: what is there to learn? You’ve got a thread, a needle, you put the thread in the needle and then you stab the things that need to fit together with it. The only thing that i was told during such stabbing to a button once was that i should wrap the thread around the button when done, but it hasn’t prevented me to attached them so far?

      • Mesophar@pawb.socialEnglish
        7·
        1 month ago

        You would be surprised how many people are unable to do that, who are physically capable of doing it.

        • spicy pancake@lemmy.zipEnglish
          4·
          1 month ago

          At least where I live there’s a cultural learned helplessness around sewing. “Nobody does it anymore so how am I supposed to have learned?” or “doesn’t sewing something cost more than just buying a new garment?” (both I’ve personally heard people say)

          • Mesophar@pawb.socialEnglish
            2·
            1 month ago

            For sure it’s likely either a learned helplessness or a passive indifference. People like to give up before they even try.

    • faythofdragons@slrpnk.netEnglish
      6·
      1 month ago

      Agreed, fast fashion and it’s equivalents have pretty much killed off basic repair in general. My great grandmother taught me how to rewire a lamp, and I think I’m the only person in my friend group that can do it. Most people just toss them when they stop working.

      Nana was in her early 20s when the great depression hit, and her influence is probably why I’m so in favor of right-to-repair.

  • RebekahWSD@lemmy.worldEnglish
    20·
    1 month ago

    How to cook? Or even follow a recipe. Not like hard stuff either, a simple casserole recipe or cookie recipe. Not even find a good recipe, that’s actually very hard online these days what with bullshit generators and stuff. I hand you a recipe.

      • Valmond@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        1 month ago

        Makes me remember that old boomer joke “My wife cooks water in the evening so that the next day I just need to warm it up for my tea”

    • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      1 month ago

      With something like cookies there’s actually a bit of assumed institutional knowledge, like what “cream together sugar and butter” means. Sometimes the devil is in the details and those details you kind of need to have seen every episode of Good Eats to get.

    • Boomkop3@reddthat.comEnglish
      1·
      1 month ago

      I can cook great, I suck at following recipes. Not because I can’t follow instruction, but because so many recipes are written full of jargon

  • ambitious_bones@lemmy.world
    English
    17·
    1 month ago

    To do very basic home repair and DIY. I keep wondering how people get through life without being able to drill a hole, fix a clogged drain or even change a light bulp. Do they get some sort of service technican for all these things?