Miyazaki: “Stone Age Skills More Important Than Literacy”

He does have a point and is in fact right.

@Anon 6:31

You may invest in response teams but outsourcing ALL those basic skills to trained professionals is very damaging to the children. The survival skills do not only come in handy in case of global apocalypse, just in case that's the impression you may have.

By the way, why do children at school learn about higher math and chemistry but not how to save a person with first aid?

Why do they now how to root an Android mobile but not how to make a fire?

I suppose that's the message Miyazaki was trying to convey.

@ HouseLife

When I was in scouts, they made it pretty clear it was more about learning to be a responsible American than survival or an "expanding perspective on nature."

@HouseLife
I disagree. If you have the time to teach children survival skills, then why not just invest it in improving your local emergency response service? Surely qualified rescue personal would be much more useful than someone who learned how to start a fire in the event of emergency which, let's be honest, is the only situation that would require survival skills from city dwellers.

Now if you are the adventurous type, you should be educating yourself about survival before taking up risky travels. But in the end, it's nobody's fault if a healthy thinking adults kill themselves out of recklessness, and it's the parent's fault if children do so. By no stretch of imagination is it a social issue.

Either way, teaching everyone basic survival has very low time investment to potential benefit ratio. Better tech these children something useful, like science or something actually beneficial like PE.

The sad part is his point is a great one, just said with the eloquence and purpose of a fool.

The concept of the Cub Scouts and such was to teach more than just survival, but also about expanding perspective on nature and increase understanding of the world around them. Unfortunately the focus became about dumbass badges due to the reward system built around American children, but they still learned. I wouldn't say that it's at all necessary to do it before learning to read or write, because the progress of our civilization makes that fundamentally unnecessary, but I agree that giving fundamental respect to the elements we take for granted is a good idea.

Unless of course Miyazaki-sama understands something about the zombie apocalypse that we do not. And by the nature of that shit-eating grin up there, I think I should brush up on my knife fighting skills...

Oh no we created pyromaniacs

@7:50

You may invest in response teams but outsourcing ALL those basic skills to trained professionals is very damaging to the children.

The polite thing to do when you make a claim is to give some kind justification. How does it damage me that I cannot start a fire with a bunch of sticks and stones, or whatever other survival skill you would have me master?
Kids are taught how to react to common dangers in the city (criminals, fires in buildings, etc...). You can't ready them for every possible situations nor should you. Some people are going to die because they never knew something, but that's acceptable compared to stirring social progress to a halt just to teach kids how to live as cavement.

The survival skills do not only come in handy in case of global apocalypse, just in case that's the impression you may have.

Don't put words in my mouth. I never said anything that remotely hints at the possibility.

By the way, why do children at school learn about higher math and chemistry but not how to save a person with first aid?

You call school level math "higher"?
But on the point, they learn it because math is the foundation of pretty much any science course they would ever take in university. As for chemistry, it's taught because it's one of the fundamental sciences and it's very basics should be common knowledge. School is supposed to arm you with a wide assortment of fundamental knowledge in different areas, not teach you practical stuff. Weather you agree with this mindset is another matter.

Why do they now how to root an Android mobile but not how to make a fire?

Too much free time. Go complain to their parents, it's their problem. And, that doesn't justify why they should be learning survival skills in school. You are introducing a completely unrelated issue.

@anon at 7:50

Because those math, chemistry, and Android-rooting skills are actually useful in our advanced civilization. Knowing how to start a fire without the use of a $1 cigarette lighter isnt.

I can make a fire... I looked it up on google

FUCK YEAH!! FIRE!!

Send this guy to an isolated island and see if he can survive for a month alone.

i dare you to do it

Well, he does have a point. In this age, anything can happen in a blink of an eye. It's definitely necessary to have a set of basic survival skills at hand. Even I can do all that except climbing trees.

However, denying technology and calling it the reason for the kids' loss of power is just childish. In fact, I believe that technology has given children more power than before... or that children never had much power to begin with. Hell, most people don't have power as well.

Also, what a hypocrite.