I can’t imagine not having tools or not being able to use them. I don’t do everything around the house, but I do a lot of it, and it gets done to my quality level. I don’t look down on people that can’t DIY but personally I prefer to be as self reliant as I can.
Imagine not having tools.
- Thread starter dwasifar
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Meursault74
Well-known member
Yes, sure. Guess I didn't really notice that tone.
I sometimes can't understand why people do or don't do certain things, but I don't have the energy to go further and put them down for it.
I've helped one of my neighbors with his bicycle. I'd put air in his tires many times and "tuned" it a few times as a favor. I thought it odd that he didn't have a pump since bike tires pretty much need weekly topping off, but he told me he doesn't do these things, that he usually hires out to the pros for work. Oh well, I certainly didn't think less of him. He's a good guy, I wouldn't have done the favors otherwise. If he wants to ride around on soft tires between times he catches me in my garage that's his deal. I think he'd take it to the bike shop sometimes, but catching me in the my garage was easier. Plus he'd usually give me a sugary snack as a thank you.
Kscardsfan
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Or at least a knob.
toyotadriver
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Humans are becoming more and more incapable of working with their hands. It's pretty pathetic.
finn
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But they’re getting better and better at working with their brains, so maybe it’s a net positive.
The last couple weeks I've been working in the shop repairing equipment.
It's annoying to be using shop tools vs my own stuff.
Like I needed to drill out some rivets on hood latches I was pulling on a machine that burnt to use on a good machine.
Quick job with a cordless drill and decent bits and some soft as butter Chinesium bits.
Took me an hour to round up 300ft of extension cords, a drill with a chuck that barely grips
It's annoying to be using shop tools vs my own stuff.
Like I needed to drill out some rivets on hood latches I was pulling on a machine that burnt to use on a good machine.
Quick job with a cordless drill and decent bits and some soft as butter Chinesium bits.
Took me an hour to round up 300ft of extension cords, a drill with a chuck that barely grips
So you do your own dental work, right?
Ton ton
Well-known member
I agree.
ArcReactorKC
Well-known member
Only when they tell me it'll be a week before they can pull my infected tooth. Then it's whiskey and channelock time.
finn
Well-known member
Glad I wasn’t in the vicinity when he did his own vasectomy.
I watched a video, I want to say "Dead River Summer Time"
Was about 2 woodsman in Maine in the ~1950s.
Guy pulled out a rotten tooth, didn't want to spend the $5 at the dentist.
nadogail
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To be without tools is like having your hands in bandages.
toyotadriver
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Actually, people are getting dumber and dumber and especially Americans. If you think Americans are getting smarter then you clearly haven't been paying attention to what's going on in the school system. We are seeing the rapid DECREASE of intelligence. Idiocracy was supposed to be a funny movie not a "how to".
toyotadriver
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toyotadriver
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For all the people who seem to be offended by people here making fun of those who cannot work with their hands....you do realize this is the GARAGE JOURNAL forum. This forum is specifically for those who like to work with their hands in their GARAGES. Perhaps this is the wrong place for you if you are offended by those who work with their hands.
Those are Famous Last Words if ever I heard any.
Meursault74
Well-known member
joseywales
Well-known member
My in-laws just moved to an apartment. FIL is 85 and replaced his own water heater a few months ago. I was very sensitive to ensure he took tools with him. In fact, he took some out, saying he wouldn’t need them. I told him, we’re 10 minutes away, I’m your Home Depot now! He’s loving it.
finn
Well-known member
Not offended a all by people working with too. I find it rather enjoyable.
I do feel it’s rather juvenile to make fun of people that don’t have that same interest.
It’s uncalled for and boorish.
Sort of like me disparaging you because you aren’t a Packers fan. How could you be so stupid?
finn
Well-known member
I don’t think you have any data to support that statement.
Last guy I knew who said that ended up dropping 20K on Implants. Had a bunch of tools though, for relevancy sake. Snappy box even!
I make fun of people who work with their hands, and I am one, we're the biggest idiots going. Five to six figure outlay in tools so we can get treated like ****, beat up our bodies and get called to fix broken equipment in the dead of night in -30°c. All for mediocre pay, maybe benefits and matched contributions if you get into one of the "better" outfits.
I'm mildly envious of folks where tools are an elective in their lifestyle. Good friend of mine took the gold collar path to my blue. We make similar money, he's got exponentially more free time than I do, and spends it out on his road bike which he pays a bike mechanic to keep tuned up for him or travelling. His "toolbox" has a flashlight, some pliers and a 6 in 1 screwdriver.
I love my job, and I don't have a bad life by far...but the only reason I wrench is I'll get far too bored working in an office.
It’s fun to think that we are better than everybody else.
My dad made a good living for 25 years repairing other peoples cars so this idea that “back in the good old days” everybody was DIY is just horse ****.
Do I want my brain surgeons hands, Swollen all tore up and gnarly, from changing his own wheel hub bearings?
hell no
Kscardsfan
Well-known member
My parents are both college professors, they say each successive class is getting dumber. This is just observation, but I feel like they’re being honest with their assessment of it all.
Flared Base
Well-known member
Part of your parent's anecdote could be explained by the relaxation of entrance requirements in the pursuit of greater equality. Basically a larger swath of people can be admitted than the past which could bring the average intelligence of the classroom down without the actual intelligence of society at large going down as well.
ArcReactorKC
Well-known member
Humans should be able to do both. I can rebuild a diesel engine, build a shop or a house without a contractor, farm land, raise cattle, and many more "working with your hands things" but at the moment I'm sitting at a desk with GJ on my laptop screen and programming automation for a data center on the other two screens. To think that people should be pigeon holed into one or the other is the problem. People that are technologically savvy look down on those that work with their hands and vice versa. I grew up believing and still do that a person should not let themselves become so specialized they become handicapped elsewhere.
And to say those computer nerds make more money than the guys with lots of tools is laughable. There are many a tool collector that has millions in the bank/401k.
Although I believe you are generalizing and I am nit picking.
They are going to be even dumber, if that is possible. In CA, we no longer need to submit SAT, ACT or any other form of standard tests. Even in school records, we can choose to only show 'pass/fail' vs a letter grade. That is the clear way to nowhere. When nations build neuclear weapons, nobody gives you extra credit if it is built with race or gender diversity. We really need god's blessing if this country wants to stay competitive.
I wonder if your parents college professors thought the same thing of their generation?
seems to be a common theme.
As I read this thread it comes to mind how hard we have worked as a society to remove all the drudgery of life. We have developed consumables so that we don't have to repair, adjust, clean, and fiddle with things just to keep them going. Think back a hundred years even fifty years. I'm now near seventy and raised on a farm. Fifty years ago we had to do our own maintenance of most everything. Forget about weekends off. That was time spent repairing and fixing things. So many spent so much time keeping things going and hands on was the only way.
You youngsters of today look back at the good old days through rose colored glasses. Those of us who lived them thank God the drudgery is gone. Me, I gladly traded a wrench for a keyboard.
You youngsters of today look back at the good old days through rose colored glasses. Those of us who lived them thank God the drudgery is gone. Me, I gladly traded a wrench for a keyboard.
Kscardsfan
Well-known member
Dad believes it’s more to do with how they’re being prepared to enter college. They’re taught to the test, they don’t have any critical thinking or analytical skills when they enter college and they’re scared to guess the answer to a question and be wrong.
Kscardsfan
Well-known member
Considering how few people of their generation went to college, and that most of them were the first generation to go to college in many cases (Post war baby boomers) I doubt it. As someone said above, the requirements to enter were much tougher, and kids were much more appreciative of a college education since it wasn’t a given like it has been foe the last 15-20 years.
Compressed
Well-known member
I'd still be karate chopping timber to build my house,
Use to listen to my uncle gripe how easy we had it with a Hole Hog, "When I was your age It was drilled by hand " We'd laugh and pull the trigger and bore holes with ease.(until a knot or nail slammed you against a stud)
Use to listen to my uncle gripe how easy we had it with a Hole Hog, "When I was your age It was drilled by hand " We'd laugh and pull the trigger and bore holes with ease.(until a knot or nail slammed you against a stud)
joseywales
Well-known member
Schools have lowered the academic bar. No doubt about it. I don’t believe students are dumber, just unchallenged and untapped. There’s hope, because the tween generation is beginning to see it and they’re pissed off.
They’re tired of being called racist, lazy, entitled, etc., etc.
my youngest daughter has good sense, likes tools, and is good with her hands, so I’ll help her capitalize on that. Her boyfriend attends a high school with a 3% acceptance rate. He’s disappointed because he missed 2 questions on his SATs last week.
This is one man’s story. there is hope my friends.
They’re tired of being called racist, lazy, entitled, etc., etc.
my youngest daughter has good sense, likes tools, and is good with her hands, so I’ll help her capitalize on that. Her boyfriend attends a high school with a 3% acceptance rate. He’s disappointed because he missed 2 questions on his SATs last week.
This is one man’s story. there is hope my friends.
Kscardsfan
Well-known member
I think coach Frank Martin said it best:
“You know what makes me sick to my stomach? When I hear grown people say that kids have changed. Kids haven’t changed. Kids don’t know anything about anything We’ve changed as adults. We demand less of kids. We expect less of kids. We make their lives easier instead of preparing them for what life is truly about. We’re the ones that have changed. To blame kids is a cop-out”
He is startlingly accurate with this I feel.
lovetap
Well-known member
Where have I heard this argument about the lazy new generation before...
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.” - Socrates
As yes, the lazy entitled snowflake youth..."The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind." - Nietzsche
lovetap
Well-known member
I think some have no interest in mechanical issues, other have no aptitude, and others no experience or mentors. My brother and I grew up in the same environment, with our father who built and repaired almost everything himself, building houses and fixing cars and snowmachines, woodworking, welding, etc. I learned from him and the ethos of self-reliance and curiosity was imprinted. My brother, through lack of desire or aptitude, did not pick up the same traits. However he has natural abilities and inclinations I could never achieve, primarily in music and art.
Others like some of my close friends have the desire to build, fix, or just generally wield tool-shaped objects, but never had mentors like I had and just lack experience, but they are on their way now. Anyway you cut it, no man is an island and I generally find no fault in people who follow their own proclivities which require no use of tools. What does grind my gears however are people who use tools to rip-off the mechanically UN-inclined, whether through run of the mill price gouging, deceit, or even worse, shear hackery.
Others like some of my close friends have the desire to build, fix, or just generally wield tool-shaped objects, but never had mentors like I had and just lack experience, but they are on their way now. Anyway you cut it, no man is an island and I generally find no fault in people who follow their own proclivities which require no use of tools. What does grind my gears however are people who use tools to rip-off the mechanically UN-inclined, whether through run of the mill price gouging, deceit, or even worse, shear hackery.
Kscardsfan
Well-known member
My brother never had a drive towards mechanical stuff growing up, he greatly preferred sports and video games to working on cars or fixing the house etc. Now that he is approaching middle age and is a home owner I get texts and calls about what he’s working on or what needs fixed. The world is funny sometimes.