[Chaos]

Where I grew up lives all sorts of handy guys with all kinds of practical skills. Already from a teenager if you can't repair your own motorbike you are considered as a handicapped whimp who need to ask for daddy's help like a girl.

Later in life the same thing goes. If you can't repair your own car, build your own house or understand how to do some basic construction work people will look down on you and be called whimp or retard who is born with a thumb in the middle of the hand. People will laugh at you and mock you for being stupid.

I guess this is often a question if you are from a city or from the countryside.

I remember when I was in the military when guys from the city got mocked on and laughed at bigtime when they didn't even know how to chop firewood or light a bonfire.

I've done my share of work in the construction and in garages and peoples stupidity is unreal. It never stopped to amaze me. Some people can't even fix the most simpliest thing.

Practial skills is something people often are born with. Yes, you can learn some skills but you will never be as smart as a "natural".
I wonder if practical skills is something that has been lost in modern time, or if it's always been like that.

Can you take care of yourself or do you need to call for help even for putting a simple bookshelf together?

Are you a practical person or not?

[mikado]

edit:delete

[mikado]

(07-31-2014 08:29 AM)mikado Wrote:  

I am not. I am quite horrible when it comes to my hands (except for fucking )

I think it's partly because I was quite "intellectual" from a young age, and only cared to solve the maths problems I was given.
But I think it's also because my dad was never here, and even when he was there, he never taught me anything "practical" as you call it.

And I was the sole male in my family, with no paternal figure.

[Mage]

No people are not born with practical skills of manual labor. They learned it. Some learned it early in childhood some learned it later.

You display a fixed mindset, because you have found a niche where you can feel superior to many other men. That's it.

With game I can AMOG most of the dumb "naturals" who don't even know the reasons for their high school success. Similarly with technical skills.

In my upbringing I was not thought many practical skills. I had no problems attaching a bookself, but car maintenance was not something I could figure out on my own. But when I started to consciously better myself I have learned most of practical skills by myself. I learned some by trial and error, some by looking in internet and some by asking advice to more experienced guys also to those "natural" guys who were often very annoyed about it and some did display a negative attitude implying me being a loser for not knowing this stuff. I took this mental abuse patiently and learned to do the stuff that they could, knowing that while they are just manual masters of this one trade I am also master of game and know of computer programming, philosophy and spirituality and many other things that these "practical naturals" who are also almost always alcoholics and TV-holics know nothing about. In the end I can do plenty of manual staff and also a lot more.

You are a negative naysayer and I have learned to keep distance from people who negatively try to destroy motivation by saying that this and that cannot be learned and you are bound to fail if you don't succeed from the start and so on. Being a man is all about pushing one's limitations not about how you had an alcoholic blue collar daddy who tough you how to change a tire when you were 5 years old, while another guy who's daddy was a poet only learns it in his twenties when he buys his first car.

There is nothing hard about learning this stuff.

[Saweeep]

The world is stocked full or ornaments, art and buildings that if not impossible to produce today would be nigh on.

[Baphomet]

Could not agree more. I am shocked by the number of guys that I know who cannot unclog a drain, much less install a new faucet.

A friend needed to have the trim - just the TRIM mind you - replaced around one of her doors. This is maybe a 30 minute job once you have the materials. Another guy told her that she needed to call a CONTRACTOR to have that done. She asked me if I knew a contractor. When I heard what she needed I told her I could do it then we could go to lunch. (Man, she was appreciative!!)

There is no reason for any man not to have basic carpentry, plumbing, and electrical skills, but damn if it doesn't seem rare these days.

[Grit]

Yeah I have yet to meet a girl who will stick her hand into a toilet tank, even after knowing that it is fresh water. Don't even try to have women figure out what the flush mechanism actually does.

But on a different note, a lot of shit in the city you don't work on simply because its stuff you don't own. You would never learn how to cope molding because you don't own the place you live in.

The "rentier" class of people I have come to despise; people who let shit get dilapidated because 1. The landlord doesn't care, they will still find some sucker willing to take it 2. The tenant doesn't care, because they are lazy and willing to live in filth.

Nothing more unamerican than that, and I'm never hesitant to call people out on their dirtiness, and remind them that there is a clear distinction between American behavior and third world behavior.

[Glaucon]

Yeah, my father never teached me anything useful.

Could you point me to books where the basics are laid out? I want to learn....

[Mage]

(07-31-2014 08:54 AM)Baphomet Wrote:  

Could not agree more. I am shocked by the number of guys that I know who cannot unclog a drain, much less install a new faucet.

A friend needed to have the trim - just the TRIM mind you - replaced around one of her doors. This is maybe a 30 minute job once you have the materials. Another guy told her that she needed to call a CONTRACTOR to have that done. She asked me if I knew a contractor. When I heard what she needed I told her I could do it then we could go to lunch. (Man, she was appreciative!!)

There is no reason for any man not to have basic carpentry, plumbing, and electrical skills, but damn if it doesn't seem rare these days.

I have never changed door trims, but I am sure I would figure out/ learn to do this without paying someone else if it was my own house. I would consider it a new opportunity for me to learn something new and I would not give my money away for something I know I can do myself.

But I wouldn't do it for a woman who hasn't slept with me and hasn't cooked for me. Too beta a way to get in her panties. I would recommend her to call a contractor, too.

[The Beast1]

My step dad taught me a lot of basic construction work. I have enough tools to finish renovating just about any thing. I can (and do) also repair my car. I enjoy car work quite a bit.

Surprisingly, I've gotten girls by helping them do construction like stuff. I make them do a little bit of the work

[scorpion]

This has everything to do with increased urbanization, the explosion of single mom households and video games/technology, and nothing to do with any sort of inborn moral or character deficit with boys/young men of today.

People simply respond to the environment they are placed in and make adaptations to it. If you're being raised by a single mom in an apartment in the year 2014, how are you going to learn these sort of traditionally masculine skills? Who is going to teach you? You certainly aren't going to be motivated to run around outside and go looking for adventure. First of all, your mother won't let you (she might get arrested for child neglect, and even if she did, you wouldn't have anyone to hang out with anyway since all the other kids would be inside playing video games). Oh, and good luck trying to find mentoring from an older male outside of your family. Even given the time and the inclination, most guys are scared away from doing so by the fear of being accused of or even perceived as being a pedophile.

Most young guys today are just completely fucked on every level growing up. It goes far beyond game and not being told how to properly interact with women. It's a total failure of being instructed in masculinity at all. But like I said, this is simply unavoidable when you have single moms raising boys who have nothing to do but sit inside and play video games. It's really terrible, both for the individual boys who grow up this way and for society as a whole.

And as Mage said, the reality is that these sort of practical, traditionally masculine skills are not hard to pick up. It's just not something you can really learn or practice on your own, especially as a kid or teenager. Boys don't know really what they should be doing, they rely on older men to show them the path to walk. If there aren't older men around to do that then it's no surprise that boys become aimless, adrift and largely devoid of practical skills. This is, in a nutshell, why fathers are so incredibly important, and it explains why single mother households are such a destructive element of modern society.

[spalex]

Man, I am still shocked and happy at the fact that when I was in Norway, people would be paying me like $400 to go to their house and change a fuse or flip the switch on a circuit breaker.
I literally made a living out of doing that for about 3 months (I'm an electrician by trade).

Then I worked for Caterpillar for a while. So now I know a lot about engines. I must say, i cant believe the shit mechanics will get away with.
I would tell my girlfriend to get her car serviced, it would come back more fucked than when she took it in.
Changing your oil, changing your oil and fuel filters, changing you tires, topping your up your coolant and changing your light bulbs is seriously the easiest fucking thing!

I am still shocked at how much people pay for this stuff!

Its just, some people out there... my last 3 housemates in Norway, they literally spent about 7 hours building their beds from Ikea. The simplest, cheapest design too!
Moving house with them was a fucking nightmare, they didn't want to take their bed apart to take it out of the building and put it in the truck... You should have seen these guys trying to maneuver a double bed down 4 flights of stairs.

Some people just have no fucking idea.
It amuses me that these are also the people that think they are so intellectual and look down on others who seem more blue collar. But they would literally be homeless if they couldn't write an essay / report to impress their boss.

[Nemencine]

Apart from personal enjoyment and *money savings*, i am not impressed with the "practical" skills. To me the *practical* skills is the one that helps with your survival, if it doesnt add value to your life, then it is impractical.

If you live in an environment where programming computers add more value to your life than carpentry, then C++ is more practical than carpentry. That automatically makes C++ the practical skill. Especially, if learning carpentry subtracts from precious time for other important tasks.

Growing up, i learned farming, building traps for animals, gutting and skinning animals, carpentry, mixing cements and creating brick mortars, starting fires without matches, building clay kilns, etc. I can make a soap for you from scratch using palm oil, and i know what herbs/barks of trees to look for to treat fever, cold, etc. So bloody fucking what? None of these things are relevant in america. In america, you dont need to learn how to make a soap from scratch using palm oil; you can just buy one for $0.99 at a store next to your house.

In america, i simply taught myself other stuff from plumbing works to repairing a panasonic inverter microwave. That is why i agree with Mage-- you can learn these things quickly. While changing the cartridge of a leaky bathroom faucet saves money, it is not fucking brain surgery. It doesnt impress me at all. And unless you are totally lacking in manual dexterity, you can pick these "practical" skill up fairly fast.

Anyways, I will finish with a post i did on high IQ vs regular skills.

(11-01-2013 03:14 PM)Nemencine Wrote:  

.... Another thing i want to add with regards to regular skills vs IQ, is that IQ create skills, when those skills are dumbed down, that is when we have the so-called "regular skills" that the average joe like to boast soo much about. What do i mean? Take automobile for example. The lads who invented and perfected the automobile were high IQs, they worked out the heat engine cycle equations in thermodynamics for that stuff. Which was later refined through the american/german genius breakthrough of Gibbs-Helmholtz equation. There is soo much math and scientific/engineering breakthroughs that went into the invention and perfection of a car it is not even fucking funny. Now, after it has been systematized and dumbed down, any random joe can be a mechanic(understand and repair) a car. However, the origin of the skill was high IQ based.

With all due respect, skills that people of average intelligence tends to boast about are, in general, initially discovered and systematized by people of higher IQ... then later dumbed down for use by regular joe. To put it another way, it has to be made "user-friendly". The same with the oil rig skills. With all due respect, high IQ people made it soo user-friendly that a truly dumb ex-con can operate some of the oil rig machineries.

The same with computers. In the beginning, physics and math PH.Ds were needed to operate the earliest computers(ENIAC) that filled an entire room. Now, any dumb blonde bimbo can operate a 4G phone and post selfies at a funeral. It has been dumbed down and systematized for common use.

Even the concept of numbers: 1, 2, 3....8, 9, 0. was a monumental work of mathematical genius, especially the concept of "zero" or 0... Now, any stupid cunt with down syndrome can count to 10.

These things tend to be top down. It has to be made "user-friendly" for common consumption.

In fact, i am willing to bet that the the wheel was first invented by a high IQ caveman. Even the club that the caveman used to kill with was probably first invented by an einstein caveman. However, it later doesnt take an einstein to use the wheel or the club. Same with guns, arrows, tank. etc.

And speaking of the jungle.... surviving in the jungle is not a picnic. I will know. I have had to do it.

regards,

Nemencine

[Baphomet]

(07-31-2014 09:12 AM)Mage Wrote:  

But I wouldn't do it for a woman who hasn't slept with me and hasn't cooked for me. Too beta a way to get in her panties. I would recommend her to call a contractor, too.

Noting: Bangs from "handyman game" = beta.

Thanks. I'll try to keep up!

[Sp5]

It was a pastime and a point of pride among my high school friends to do our own car mechanical, electrical and body work, for the lowest cost, up to browsing through junkyards and buying dentpullers and Bondo.

I also had military jobs that involved maintaining and fixing various mechanical devices with engines, hydraulics, pumps, generators, etc.

I still do my own car work unless some expensive specialized tool or a lift is necessary. I always have a Chilton's manual for my car. I also do house repairs, some plumbing, appliance repair, etc. It's relaxing - most of the time.

Even specialists, i.e. mechanics, electricians and plumbers often don't know what they're doing. Some can't or won't read the fucking manual and can't troubleshoot. The good ones can and also have all that practical experience that I don't have.

To me, the most important practical skill is to be able to read a technical manual and translate it into action in three dimensions.

[Mage]

(07-31-2014 10:22 AM)Baphomet Wrote:  

(07-31-2014 09:12 AM)Mage Wrote:  

But I wouldn't do it for a woman who hasn't slept with me and hasn't cooked for me. Too beta a way to get in her panties. I would recommend her to call a contractor, too.

Noting: Bangs from "handyman game" = beta.

Thanks. I'll try to keep up!

Do not misunderstand. If it works for you then do it! Just don't be a tool and make sure that the woman intends to repay with more than just "thank you".

[Pantheon Dweller]

For bikes and cars, another reason is that they are now far less fixable than before. Most of the time the problem is electronic and you need gear that cost thousands and only work on a few models. Local mechanics are dying for a reason.

I can fix an old car or a semi-old motorbike, but new ones... you can maintain them but when they break down you can't fix them.

As for the house, it's useful to have some skills if you own, but as landlords have to repair your things, I don't see why renters would try to fix them.