What do you think of HN's cstross take in his novel _Saturn's Children_ ?

> Please excuse my lack of depth; I'm a generalist, not a specialist.

> Why bother learning all that biochemistry stuff --- or how to design a building, or conn a boat, or balance accounts, or solve equations, or comfort the dying --- when you can get other people to do all that for you in exchange for a blow job?

(to me, it seems to be more a blow job specialist's view than that of an actual generalist, but ...)

Have humans really changed in the last 2000 years? You can still find books today published back during Roman times complaining about kids these days and how they mispronounce latin.

I’d add:

  - write an effective contract and be able to tell if one that someone hands you is reasonable
  - be able to explain to people you feel some responsibility towards how to install and operate a VPN
  - have a grip on basic statistics and economics
  - cook a tasty meal from grains, legumes, vegetables and/or fungi

Fair enough, nowadays you're probably better off writing a non-rhyming poem as opposed to a sonnet (at least if you're trying to be trendy). However I think a lot of the other skills are attainable and even worthwhile.

I don’t know know if anything has changed but sometimes it feels like most people today can’t do a single one of those things. Maybe it was always an unrealistic expectation, though.

Maybe the specifics have changed but I'd argue the general sentiment remains valid. And at least half of those specifics still apply.

It's more relevant than ever.

You can replace some parts of it, but the core message is timeless.