[Retric]

Plenty of dumb people graduated collage in the 1950’s. The difference is we still value most of their skills while giving them a free pass for all the modern skills they don’t have. Take all that time you spent learning computers and apply it to other stuff and you would be more capable of that stuff.

So yes people on average where better at say mental math back then, but plenty of people still sucked at math etc.

[ghaff]

Of course, people did study engineering in 50s even though it mostly wasn't related to computers. (For that matter, I have an engineering degree from the late 70s and I barely touched--or mostly had access to--computers.)

[Retric]

Definitely, and many programs were highly selective, extremely rigorous, and had very high dropout rates. Some colleges just had vastly less demanding degrees and a reputation for wild parties, excessive drinking, etc.

I am mostly referring to the idea people have become less capable because fewer people know how to say repair their cars. Ignoring the fact cars just don’t break down as much and are also vastly more complicated today. So, basic car repair is both more difficult and less necessary.

[ghaff]

Car repair is just pretty far down the list of things it's important for most people to be able to do. I have a general notion of how cars work but there's relatively little I could do on my own. (And, of course, it's increasingly difficult for even indie garages to do a lot of things.)

I do wonder if selective schools have over-rotated in the theoretical direction though that's a debate with a very long history. I'm reading a bio of "Doc" Draper, for whom Draper Labs--which designed the Apollo Guidance Computer--is named. And I was just commenting to a friend literally last night that I bet a lot of the very hands-on engineers who tinkered as much as they did theory like Draper and Doc Edgerton (inventor the strobe) and others would probably never have gotten faculty appointments as prestigious universities today.

Personally, the courses where I did hands-on work are some of the ones I remember best.