Hah, tents. Those can be broken or lost, utterly unreliable. Best just cover yourself in leaves when the rains come.

Sarcasm, of course. But this manly-man "gotta be self sufficient" thing always strikes me as so peculiarly limited. Why assume that this piece of gear will be lost but not that one? Why should we believe that, when all the restaurants have gone and civilization has collapsed, the grocery stores will still be open? That by the time a software engineer cannot be found at all their skills will be at all relevant?

I get being a well-rounded person and the desire to be useful in a pinch, but let's not delude ourselves about how prepared any of us really are for The End Of The World. Certainly none of us should be getting up on soapboxes about it.

It's nothing to do with manliness, but just common sense. If you don't know the sun sets in the West and is at its highest point roughly at noon in your local timezone what else is there that you don't know? Basic practical knowledge comes in handy all the time. There isn't a skill that I have that I have not used (and not just to use it when some better alternative was available) and there are still plenty that I'd like to acquire and it has nothing to do with the end of the world but mostly with living in the one I am in right now.

> If you don't know the sun sets in the West and is at its highest point roughly at noon in your local timezone what else is there that you don't know?

And how many more things I do know

> Basic practical knowledge comes in handy all the time.

It doesn’t. The ability to strike a tent, roast a grizzly bear, read weather from moss and bird patterns comes in handy about 0% of the time.

Even knowing that the sun sets in the West has zero practical applications in urban settings.

> Even knowing that the sun sets in the West has zero practical applications in urban settings.

Certainly not zero. If I know I'll be coming back to my car in the late afternoon, knowing roughly where the sun will be means I can park in a spot where the shadow will probably be, possibly even in an unfamiliar lot.

Here's another one. The first step in cell phone navigation is frequently something like "Head West on such-and-such street". In the absence of any other markings, the sun can tell you which way that is.

> Even knowing that the sun sets in the West has zero practical applications in urban settings.

I use it to decide where to sit when eating outside - will the table be more in the sun or the shade after an hour or so?

Unless you care about whether you are going to be in the sun or shade ...

It's not about preparing for the Zombie apocalypse, it's simply a matter of attaining and retaining skills that might come in handy in one or several fairly unlikely scenarios. Very few preppers expect to actually survive armageddon on their own; if the shit hits the fan for real then then only way to survive AND thrive will be as a part of a group.

Being able to set up some basic shelter and navigate in the wilderness is more likely to be handy if your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere and your cell phone battery is flat.

> but let's not delude ourselves about how prepared any of us really are for The End Of The World.

What does that even mean? Is there an upcoming mass extinction event that comes with a detailed list of skills required to survive it? All the parent was talking about was basic practical skills that lets you solve day to day problems. You can chose to solve them differently, or avoid those problems altogether.

> Good luck finding your way out of the national park with your empty phone.

That's why the national park is full of clearly marked trails.

If you're backpacking through unmarked wilderness, you need a navigation system, and you know you need it. That's 0% of people to several significant figures.

I have ended up in neighbourhoods in cities I'm not familiar with, which all have "clearly marked roads", but knowing I'm on the corner of Smith St and 22nd Avenue isn't the same as knowing how to get back to somewhere I know where I am.

Having a very coarse idea of compass directions lets you do things like "I just need to keep heading east until I hit the railway line, then follow it to a station", or "I can head to the coast then turn right and I'll eventually end up at Cliff House, and I know how to get home from there".

It is still a useful skill, especially if you ride a motorcycle, where those strategies are often "good enough" that it's not worth stopping to pull out your phone (even if you do have coverage and battery...)

Even just being at a large event like a festival, and being able to look at a map with north indicated and then go, "yeah, so we need to go _that way_ to get to the stage we need next" is better than trying to match landmarks from the map to choose which direction to go (in my opinion...)

I assume you haven't gone hiking in many places. In national parks and similar areas the trails are often vague, poorly marked, and easily confused with animal paths. Get just a few steps off the path and it's easy to become completely disoriented, especially in dense forest where you can't see anything but trees.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/hawaii-hiker-amanda-eller-apologi...

I agree. There are some trails that are poorly marked. Other times, spring snow-melt will create what looks like a trail, misleading people. Flash floods can wipe away whole sections of trail. I've had fallen trees, yet to be cleared by trail maintenance, obscure the actual trail and I end up following an animal path or an otherwise deprecated path. Hiking in snow presents yet another problem. There are several places I've hiked above the timberline that are wide-open scree fields with no discernible markings. There are plenty of "unmaintained" trails -- they're on maps, but not the beneficiary of any upkeep. Even with a flashlight, hiking at night in thick cover can be a real challenge at times. Many trails are well marked, but there are many instances in which they're not.

>> If you're backpacking through unmarked wilderness, you need a navigation system, and you know you need it. That's 0% of people to several significant figures.

I semi-regularly backpack through unmarked wilderness with no navigation and no map, and I have friends who do as well. But as you said, perhaps I'm in the 0% to several significant figures.

> I semi-regularly backpack through unmarked wilderness with no navigation

If this were true, you'd be lost. I'm including things like "keep the mountains on your left" in the category of "navigation".

The people complaining about forests are correct in that regard -- in a forest, you can't see the mountains, the sun, or the stars, and getting lost, unless you have very good training in forest navigation, is pretty much inevitable. (If there's a river, you _can_ still see that.)

as someone who has gone hiking in most of the national parks in the west of the US I can tell you that trails are marked pretty well and whenever you’re in doubt you should just go back. most people that get in trouble are a little too adventurous for their own sake (or just plain stupid in their decision process)

I live in NYC and live pretty much my entire life in dense urban cities. Why on earth would I need to know how to make a tent, tell the time via the sun, or other things you probably view as crucial like starting a fire or knowing how to fish. Heck, for me it is a waste to learn how to drive.

It is very self centered of you to think everyone's lives are similar enough to yours that this skill even has a chance d being used once, less so being necessary.

By the same reasoning I could argue that everyone should know how monetary policy in the united States works, because it effects everyone in the world, even if you don't live in the USA. We have finite time and energy to learn things, it would be a waste to use them on learning how to do something you will never have to do.

I haven't had to setup a tent in well over 20 years. I hate camping and have no plans to ever go again. So... No. I fully disagree that it's necessary to be able to do everything you've mentioned.