- Agroforestry Agriculture and food Essential for producing foodEssential for the century aheadEssential for rebuilding society
Growing trees and crops together deliberately.
- Agronomy Agriculture and food Essential for producing foodEssential for the century aheadEssential for rebuilding society
Field crops: soil, rotation, yield.
- Animal husbandry Agriculture and food Essential for producing foodAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding society
Keeping livestock healthy and productive.
- Aquaculture Agriculture and food Essential for producing foodEssential for the century aheadEssential for rebuilding society
Farming fish and shellfish.
- Baking Agriculture and food Essential for life as it is nowAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding society
Bread and pastry, where process matters more than recipe.
- Beekeeping Agriculture and food Essential for producing foodAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding society
Keeping bees for pollination and honey.
- Brewing and distilling Agriculture and food At risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding society
Fermenting and concentrating alcohol, including for non-drinking uses.
- Butchery Agriculture and food Essential for producing foodAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding society
Breaking down a carcass without waste.
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Preserving milk as a stable food.
- Composting Agriculture and food Essential for producing foodEssential for life as it is nowEssential for rebuilding society
Turning waste into soil.
- Cooking Agriculture and food Essential for caring for othersEssential for a life worth livingEssential for life as it is nowEssential for managing your own bodyEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Turning ingredients into meals, reliably.
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Managing milk from animal to product.
- Fermentation Agriculture and food Essential for producing foodAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding society
Controlled microbial transformation of food and drink.
- Fishing Agriculture and food Essential for producing foodEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Taking fish, from a line or a net.
- Food preservation Agriculture and food Essential in a crisisEssential for producing foodAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Making food last without refrigeration.
- Food safety Agriculture and food Essential for caring for othersEssential for life as it is nowEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Not poisoning people.
- Foraging Agriculture and food Essential in a crisisAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Identifying wild food, and what will kill you.
- Forestry Agriculture and food Essential for making physical thingsEssential for the century aheadEssential for rebuilding society
Managing woodland for timber, fuel, and continuity.
- Horticulture Agriculture and food Essential for producing foodEssential for life as it is nowEssential for rebuilding society
Growing plants intensively, at garden scale.
- Hunting Agriculture and food At risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Taking wild animals for food, lawfully and cleanly.
- Irrigation Agriculture and food Essential for producing foodEssential for the century aheadEssential for rebuilding society
Getting water to crops without wasting or salting the land.
- Milling Agriculture and food Essential for producing foodAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding society
Turning grain into flour at usable scale.
- Permaculture Agriculture and food Essential for producing foodEssential for the century aheadEssential for rebuilding society
Designing food systems to need fewer inputs each year.
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Losing less of the crop, without poisoning the field.
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Making more plants from the ones you have.
- Seed saving Agriculture and food Essential for producing foodAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding society
Keeping a crop reproducible without buying in.
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Performing a character convincingly.
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Motion built frame by frame.
- Architecture Arts and design Essential for a life worth livingEssential for maintaining what already existsEssential for rebuilding society
Designing buildings and the spaces between them.
- Calligraphy Arts and design Essential for a life worth livingAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding society
Writing as a deliberate visual craft.
- Ceramics Arts and design Essential for a life worth livingAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Forming and firing clay.
- Cinematography Arts and design Essential for earning a living
Telling a story with a camera.
- Musical composition Arts and design Essential for a life worth living
Making new music.
- Dance Arts and design Essential for a life worth livingAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding society
Movement as form and as social practice.
- Drawing Arts and design Essential for a life worth livingEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Putting down what you see, or what you mean.
- Fashion design Arts and design Essential for earning a living
Designing clothing as object and as signal.
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Designing rules and systems people choose to inhabit.
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Arranging type and image so a message lands.
- Illustration Arts and design Essential for earning a living
Images made to accompany or explain.
- Industrial design Arts and design Essential for earning a livingEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Designing objects to be made and used.
- Interior design Arts and design
Designing the inside of buildings for use.
- Landscape architecture Arts and design Essential for producing foodEssential for the century aheadEssential for rebuilding society
Designing land for people and for water.
- Music performance Arts and design Essential for a life worth livingAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding society
Playing an instrument or singing, well.
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How music is constructed and notated.
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Colour, surface, and image.
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Making images with light and a lens.
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Reproducing an image many times by hand process.
- Screenwriting Arts and design Essential for earning a living
Writing for the screen.
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Form in three dimensions.
- Sound design Arts and design Essential for earning a living
Constructing what a thing sounds like.
- Textile arts Arts and design At risk of being lost entirelyEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Making and decorating cloth.
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Live performance, from text to staging.
- Typography Arts and design Essential for earning a livingAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding society
Letterforms, and setting text so it can be read.
- Accounting Business and economics Essential for earning a livingEssential for life as it is nowEssential for not being exploitedEssential for rebuilding society
Recording what a business owns, owes, and earned.
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Paid persuasion at scale, and how to recognise it.
- Auditing Business and economics Essential for maintaining what already existsEssential for not being exploitedEssential for rebuilding society
Independently checking that the numbers are true.
- Banking Business and economics Essential for life as it is nowEssential for not being exploitedEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for understanding society
How deposits, lending, and payment actually work.
- Business strategy Business and economics Essential for earning a living
Choosing where to compete and what not to do.
- Cooperatives and mutual organisation Business and economics Essential for civic participationEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for understanding society
Owning and running things collectively.
- Corporate finance Business and economics Essential for understanding society
How firms raise and allocate capital.
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Selling online, and the platforms that mediate it.
- Entrepreneurship Business and economics Essential for earning a living
Starting something that pays for itself.
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Pricing money across time and risk.
- Hospitality management Business and economics Essential for earning a livingEssential for rebuilding society
Running places that feed and house people.
- Human resources Business and economics Essential for earning a livingEssential for not being exploited
Hiring, paying, and dismissing people lawfully.
- Insurance Business and economics Essential for navigating institutionsEssential for life as it is nowEssential for not being exploitedEssential for rebuilding society
Pooling risk, and reading what is excluded.
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Deploying savings, and understanding what you are charged.
- Logistics Business and economics Essential in a crisisEssential for maintaining what already existsEssential for rebuilding society
Moving and storing physical things at scale.
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Getting work done through other people.
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Finding and persuading buyers.
- Negotiation Business and economics Essential for earning a livingEssential for life as it is nowEssential for not being exploitedEssential for rebuilding society
Reaching agreement without leaving value or dignity behind.
- Operations management Business and economics Essential for earning a livingEssential for maintaining what already existsEssential for rebuilding society
Running a process that produces reliably.
- Organisational behaviour Business and economics Essential for earning a livingEssential for understanding society
Why institutions behave unlike the people in them.
- Personal finance Business and economics Essential for earning a livingEssential for life as it is nowEssential for not being exploitedEssential for rebuilding society
Running your own money deliberately.
- Project management Business and economics Essential for earning a livingEssential for maintaining what already existsEssential for rebuilding society
Delivering something finite with a deadline.
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Land and buildings as an asset and an obligation.
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Selling to the public, in person and at margin.
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Getting agreement to an exchange.
- Supply chain management Business and economics Essential in a crisisEssential for maintaining what already existsEssential for the century aheadEssential for rebuilding society
Getting inputs to where they are needed, on time.
- Taxation Business and economics Essential for civic participationEssential for navigating institutionsEssential for life as it is nowEssential for not being exploitedEssential for rebuilding society
What is owed, to whom, and on what basis.
- Adult education Education and pedagogy Essential for earning a livingEssential for rebuilding society
Teaching people who have jobs, habits, and fear.
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Finding out what someone actually knows.
- Curriculum design Education and pedagogy Essential for rebuilding society
Deciding what is taught, in what order.
- Early childhood education Education and pedagogy Essential for raising a childEssential for rebuilding society
The years that set the trajectory.
- Educational psychology Education and pedagogy Essential for raising a childEssential for thinking clearly
How learning works, empirically.
- Instructional design Education and pedagogy Essential for rebuilding society
Building learning materials that work without you present.
- Teaching literacy Education and pedagogy Foundational for everything elseEssential for raising a childEssential for rebuilding society
Getting a person from not reading to reading.
- Pedagogy Education and pedagogy Essential for earning a livingEssential for raising a childEssential for rebuilding society
How to teach so that people actually learn.
- Special education Education and pedagogy Essential for caring for othersEssential for raising a child
Teaching where the standard approach fails.
- Aerospace engineering Engineering and technology
Flight, inside and outside the atmosphere.
- AI safety and alignment Engineering and technology Essential for thinking past a human lifetimeEssential for the century ahead
Making capable systems do what was intended.
- Appropriate technology Engineering and technology Essential for making physical thingsEssential for the century aheadEssential for rebuilding society
Solutions matched to local materials, skills, and repairability.
- Artificial intelligence Engineering and technology Essential for living onlineEssential for the century aheadEssential for understanding society
Systems that perform tasks previously requiring human judgement.
- Automotive engineering Engineering and technology Essential for maintaining what already existsEssential for rebuilding society
Vehicles and their drivetrains.
- Biomedical engineering Engineering and technology
Devices that go in or on bodies.
- Chemical engineering Engineering and technology Essential for maintaining what already exists
Running chemistry at industrial scale.
- Civil engineering Engineering and technology Essential for maintaining what already existsEssential for rebuilding society
Roads, bridges, dams, and the built environment.
- Computer architecture Engineering and technology
How a processor is actually built.
- Computer graphics Engineering and technology
Producing images by computation.
- Computer networks Engineering and technology Essential for living onlineEssential for maintaining what already exists
How machines talk, from cables to protocols.
- Computer vision Engineering and technology Essential for the century ahead
Getting machines to interpret images.
- Cryptography Engineering and technology Essential for living onlineEssential for not being exploited
Making messages unreadable to everyone but the recipient.
- Cybersecurity Engineering and technology Essential for living onlineEssential for maintaining what already existsEssential for the century aheadEssential for not being exploited
Defending systems against people who want in.
- Databases Engineering and technology Essential for earning a livingEssential for maintaining what already exists
Storing data so it can be queried and trusted.
- Distributed systems Engineering and technology Essential for maintaining what already exists
Coordination when no single machine knows everything.
- Electrical engineering Engineering and technology Essential for maintaining what already existsEssential for rebuilding society
Generating, moving, and using electrical power.
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Circuits that compute, sense, and control.
- Embedded systems Engineering and technology Essential for maintaining what already existsEssential for making physical things
Software running inside physical devices.
- Environmental engineering Engineering and technology Essential for maintaining what already existsEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Water treatment, air quality, and waste.
- Geotechnical engineering Engineering and technology Essential for maintaining what already existsEssential for rebuilding society
What the ground will bear before it moves.
- Human-computer interaction Engineering and technology Essential for living online
Designing systems around how people actually behave.
- Heating, ventilation and air conditioning Engineering and technology Essential for maintaining what already existsEssential for life as it is nowEssential for rebuilding society
Keeping indoor air liveable.
- Industrial engineering Engineering and technology Essential for earning a livingEssential for maintaining what already existsEssential for rebuilding society
Making processes and workplaces work better.
- Machine learning Engineering and technology Essential for earning a livingEssential for the century aheadEssential for understanding society
Fitting models to data so they generalise.
- Manufacturing and production Engineering and technology Essential for earning a livingEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Making many of something, repeatably.
- Marine engineering Engineering and technology Essential for rebuilding society
Ships, propulsion, and staying afloat.
- Mechanical engineering Engineering and technology Essential for maintaining what already existsEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Machines that move, and the forces inside them.
- Mechatronics Engineering and technology Essential for making physical thingsEssential for the century ahead
The junction of mechanical, electronic, and software design.
- Metallurgy Engineering and technology At risk of being lost entirelyEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Extracting, alloying, and heat-treating metals.
- Natural language processing Engineering and technology Essential for the century ahead
Computation over human language.
- Nuclear engineering Engineering and technology Essential for thinking past a human lifetimeEssential for maintaining what already existsEssential for the century ahead
Reactors, fuel cycles, and containment.
- Operating systems Engineering and technology Essential for maintaining what already exists
The layer that manages hardware for everything else.
- Power systems Engineering and technology Essential in a crisisEssential for maintaining what already existsEssential for rebuilding society
Grids: generation, transmission, and keeping frequency stable.
- Programming Engineering and technology Essential for earning a livingEssential for life as it is nowLoad-bearing for other subjectsEssential for the century ahead
Instructing a computer precisely.
- Quantum computing Engineering and technology Essential for the century ahead
Computation exploiting superposition and entanglement.
- Refrigeration Engineering and technology Essential for producing foodEssential for maintaining what already existsEssential for rebuilding society
Moving heat out of things, which is how food keeps.
- Renewable energy technology Engineering and technology Essential for maintaining what already existsEssential for the century aheadEssential for rebuilding society
Capturing energy from sun, wind, water, and heat.
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Machines that sense, decide, and act.
- Signal processing Engineering and technology
Extracting information from noisy measurements.
- Software engineering Engineering and technology Essential for earning a livingEssential for maintaining what already exists
Building software that survives contact with other people.
- Structural engineering Engineering and technology Essential for maintaining what already existsEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Making sure buildings stand up under load.
- Surveying Engineering and technology At risk of being lost entirelyEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Establishing where things are, precisely.
- Systems engineering Engineering and technology Essential for maintaining what already existsEssential for the century ahead
Managing complexity when the parts must work together.
- Telecommunications Engineering and technology Essential in a crisisEssential for maintaining what already existsEssential for rebuilding society
Carrying signals over distance.
- Water treatment Engineering and technology Essential in a crisisEssential for maintaining what already existsEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Making water safe to drink and safe to return.
- Web development Engineering and technology Essential for earning a living
Building things people use in a browser.
- Biodiversity Environment and sustainability Essential for thinking past a human lifetimeEssential for a life worth livingEssential for the century ahead
What is being lost, and why it matters instrumentally and otherwise.
- Circular economy Environment and sustainability Essential for making physical thingsEssential for the century aheadEssential for rebuilding society
Designing so that outputs become inputs.
- Climate change Environment and sustainability Essential for thinking past a human lifetimeEssential for the century aheadEssential for scientific literacyEssential for understanding society
The physical basis, the projections, and the uncertainty.
- Disaster risk reduction Environment and sustainability Essential for civic participationEssential in a crisisEssential for the century aheadEssential for rebuilding society
Reducing what a predictable disaster costs.
- Energy systems Environment and sustainability Essential for maintaining what already existsEssential for the century aheadEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for understanding society
Where energy comes from, and what it costs to move.
- Environmental monitoring Environment and sustainability Essential for maintaining what already existsEssential for the century aheadEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for scientific literacy
Measuring what is happening to air, water, and soil.
- Environmental science Environment and sustainability Essential for the century aheadEssential for understanding society
The biosphere studied as an interacting system.
- Land management Environment and sustainability Essential for producing foodEssential for the century aheadEssential for rebuilding society
Using land without destroying its capacity.
- Renewable energy systems Environment and sustainability Essential for maintaining what already existsEssential for the century aheadEssential for rebuilding society
Building an energy supply that does not burn carbon.
- Sustainability Environment and sustainability Essential for civic participationEssential for the century aheadEssential for rebuilding society
Meeting present needs without foreclosing future ones.
- Waste management Environment and sustainability Essential for maintaining what already existsEssential for the century aheadEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Dealing with what is thrown away.
- Water resources Environment and sustainability Essential in a crisisEssential for the century aheadEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Allocating a finite and unevenly distributed supply.
- Abstract algebra Formal sciences
Groups, rings, and fields — structure stripped of content.
- Algebra Formal sciences Foundational for everything elseLoad-bearing for other subjectsEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for scientific literacy
Reasoning about quantities you do not yet know the value of.
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Systematic procedures, and the cost of running them.
- Arithmetic Formal sciences Foundational for everything elseEssential for life as it is nowLoad-bearing for other subjectsEssential for not being exploitedEssential for rebuilding society
Counting, the four operations, fractions, and percentages.
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Updating beliefs in proportion to evidence.
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Rates of change and accumulation.
- Category theory Formal sciences
Structure-preserving maps as a language for mathematics itself.
- Combinatorics Formal sciences
Counting arrangements, and proving you have counted them all.
- Complex analysis Formal sciences
Calculus over the complex numbers.
- Computability theory Formal sciences Essential for thinking clearly
What can be computed at all, and what provably cannot.
- Computational complexity Formal sciences Essential for the century ahead
What can be computed in reasonable time.
- Control theory Formal sciences Essential for maintaining what already exists
Keeping a system on target despite disturbance.
- Mathematics of cryptography Formal sciences Essential for living onlineEssential for not being exploited
The number theory and algebra that make secrets keepable.
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How data is arranged so it can be found again.
- Differential equations Formal sciences Load-bearing for other subjects
Describing systems by how they change.
- Differential geometry Formal sciences
Curvature and manifolds; the language of general relativity.
- Dynamical systems Formal sciences Essential for understanding society
How systems evolve, and when small differences stop being small.
- Formal languages and automata Formal sciences
Grammars, machines, and what each class of machine can recognise.
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Decisions where the outcome depends on what others choose.
- Geometry Formal sciences Load-bearing for other subjectsEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Shape, distance, angle, and proof.
- Graph theory Formal sciences Essential for understanding society
Networks of nodes and edges, and what can be computed on them.
- Information theory Formal sciences Essential for the century ahead
Quantifying information, compression, and the limits of communication.
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Vectors, matrices, and the mathematics behind most computation.
- Mathematical logic Formal sciences Essential for thinking clearly
Formal systems, validity, and the limits of proof.
- Number theory Formal sciences
The integers, primes, and the arithmetic that secures modern cryptography.
- Numerical methods Formal sciences
Getting usable answers when exact ones are unavailable.
- Operations research Formal sciences Essential for maintaining what already exists
Mathematics applied to logistics, scheduling, and allocation.
- Optimization Formal sciences Load-bearing for other subjects
Finding the best option under constraints.
- Probability Formal sciences Load-bearing for other subjectsEssential for not being exploitedEssential for scientific literacyEssential for thinking clearly
Reasoning quantitatively about uncertainty.
- Real analysis Formal sciences
The rigorous foundations under calculus.
- Set theory Formal sciences
The standard foundation on which the rest of mathematics is built.
- Statistics Formal sciences Essential for life as it is nowLoad-bearing for other subjectsEssential for not being exploitedEssential for scientific literacyEssential for thinking clearly
Drawing conclusions from data, and knowing when you cannot.
- Topology Formal sciences
Properties preserved under continuous deformation.
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Relating angles to lengths; the basis of surveying and navigation.
- Type theory Formal sciences
Formal systems where every term carries a type; the basis of proof assistants.
- Addiction medicine Health and medicine Essential for caring for othersEssential for managing your own bodyEssential for understanding society
Dependence, withdrawal, and what actually helps.
- Clinical medicine Health and medicine Essential for maintaining what already existsEssential for rebuilding society
Diagnosis and treatment of disease in individuals.
- Clinical psychology Health and medicine Essential for caring for othersEssential for a life worth livingEssential for managing your own body
Assessment and non-pharmacological treatment of mental distress.
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Teeth, and the systemic consequences of neglecting them.
- Emergency medicine Health and medicine Essential in a crisisEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Acute care when time is the binding constraint.
- First aid Health and medicine Essential for caring for othersEssential in a crisisEssential for life as it is nowEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Keeping someone alive until help arrives.
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Medicine for old bodies, which fail differently.
- Herbalism and traditional medicine Health and medicine At risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding society
Plant-based treatment as historically practised, and what evidence supports it.
- Medical ethics Health and medicine Essential in a crisisEssential for a life worth livingEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for understanding society
Consent, autonomy, triage, and the limits of intervention.
- Midwifery Health and medicine Essential for caring for othersAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding society
Care through pregnancy, birth, and after.
- Nursing Health and medicine Essential for caring for othersEssential for maintaining what already existsEssential for rebuilding society
The continuous care that determines whether treatment works.
- Nutrition Health and medicine Essential for life as it is nowEssential for managing your own bodyEssential for not being exploitedEssential for raising a childEssential for rebuilding society
What food does in a body over years.
- Occupational health Health and medicine Essential for earning a livingEssential for maintaining what already existsEssential for not being exploitedEssential for rebuilding society
Illness and injury caused by work.
- Paediatrics Health and medicine Essential for caring for othersEssential for raising a childEssential for rebuilding society
Medicine for growing bodies.
- Palliative care Health and medicine Essential for caring for othersEssential for a life worth living
Care when cure is not the goal.
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What disease does to tissue, and how it is identified.
- Pharmacology Health and medicine Essential for managing your own bodyEssential for not being exploitedEssential for rebuilding society
What drugs do, at what dose, and what they interact with.
- Physiotherapy Health and medicine Essential for caring for othersEssential for managing your own bodyEssential for rebuilding society
Restoring movement after injury or illness.
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Medical treatment of mental illness.
- Public health Health and medicine Essential in a crisisEssential for maintaining what already existsEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for understanding society
Health at the population level: water, vaccines, surveillance, policy.
- Reproductive health Health and medicine Essential for life as it is nowEssential for managing your own bodyEssential for not being exploitedEssential for raising a childEssential for rebuilding society
Fertility, contraception, pregnancy, and sexual health.
- Sanitation and hygiene Health and medicine Essential in a crisisEssential for maintaining what already existsEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Separating people from waste, which saves more lives than medicine.
- Sleep science Health and medicine Essential for life as it is nowEssential for managing your own body
What sleep does and what its absence costs.
- Sports science Health and medicine Essential for managing your own body
Training, load, recovery, and performance.
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Treating by physical intervention.
- Veterinary medicine Health and medicine Essential for producing foodEssential for rebuilding society
Animal health, including the animals people eat and work with.
- Aesthetics Humanities Essential for a life worth living
Beauty, taste, and what art is for.
- Ancient history Humanities Essential for cultural literacyEssential for thinking past a human lifetime
The earliest societies with written records.
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What was made, when, and what it meant then.
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Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Classical Chinese and their kin.
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Greek and Roman language, literature, and thought.
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Literature read across languages and traditions.
- Creative writing Humanities Essential for a life worth living
Making things out of language deliberately.
- Epistemology Humanities Essential for not being exploitedEssential for scientific literacyEssential for thinking clearly
What knowledge is and when belief is justified.
- Ethics Humanities Essential for civic participationEssential for a life worth livingEssential for life as it is nowEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for thinking clearly
What we owe each other, and how to reason about it.
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Cinema as form, industry, and record.
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How history is written, and by whom.
- History Humanities Essential for cultural literacyEssential for thinking past a human lifetimeEssential for thinking clearlyEssential for understanding society
What happened, how we know, and why accounts differ.
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How knowledge was actually established, mistakes included.
- History of technology Humanities Essential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
How tools and processes developed, and what depended on what.
- Language learning Humanities Essential for cultural literacyEssential for earning a livingEssential for a life worth livingEssential for life as it is nowEssential for rebuilding society
Acquiring a language you were not raised in.
- Library and information science Humanities Essential for living onlineEssential for maintaining what already existsEssential for rebuilding society
Organising knowledge so it can be found again.
- Writing systems and palaeography Humanities Essential for thinking past a human lifetimeAt risk of being lost entirely
Scripts, their decipherment, and reading old hands.
- Literature Humanities Essential for cultural literacyEssential for a life worth livingEssential for thinking clearly
Reading closely and reading widely.
- Medieval history Humanities Essential for cultural literacy
The long middle of the recorded past.
- Metaphysics Humanities Essential for a life worth living
What there is, and what kind of thing it is.
- Military history Humanities Essential for understanding society
War, and the institutions built around it.
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The last few centuries, which produced the present arrangement.
- Musicology Humanities Essential for cultural literacy
Music studied as history, structure, and practice.
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The stories cultures tell to explain themselves.
- Oral history Humanities Essential for cultural literacyAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding society
Recording testimony before the people holding it die.
- Philosophy Humanities Essential for cultural literacyEssential for a life worth livingEssential for thinking clearlyEssential for understanding society
Careful argument about the questions other subjects assume answers to.
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Consciousness, intentionality, and the mind-body relation.
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What makes an explanation scientific, and what science cannot settle.
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Language used for compression and effect.
- Political philosophy Humanities Essential for civic participationEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for understanding society
Legitimacy, justice, liberty, and the grounds of authority.
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Religions described from outside, comparatively.
- Rhetoric Humanities Essential for civic participationEssential for earning a livingEssential for not being exploitedEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for thinking clearly
How persuasion works, from both sides of it.
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Religions reasoned about from inside.
- Translation Humanities Essential for cultural literacyEssential for earning a livingEssential for rebuilding society
Carrying meaning between languages, and what is lost.
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The past told without assuming one region is the centre.
- Archives and preservation Interdisciplinary Essential for thinking past a human lifetimeEssential for maintaining what already existsAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding society
Keeping records readable across centuries.
- Bioethics Interdisciplinary Essential for a life worth livingEssential for the century aheadEssential for understanding society
Moral questions raised by biology and medicine.
- Bootstrapping technology Interdisciplinary Essential for thinking past a human lifetimeEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
The dependency chain from hand tools to industry.
- Cartography Interdisciplinary At risk of being lost entirelyEssential for not being exploitedEssential for rebuilding society
Making maps, and the choices a map conceals.
- Cognitive security Interdisciplinary Essential for civic participationEssential for living onlineEssential for the century aheadEssential for not being exploited
Defending populations against manipulation at scale.
- Complexity science Interdisciplinary Essential for the century aheadEssential for thinking clearlyEssential for understanding society
Systems whose behaviour is not readable from their parts.
- Digital humanities Interdisciplinary
Computational methods applied to cultural material.
- Disaster response Interdisciplinary Essential for civic participationEssential in a crisisEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Coordinated action when normal services have stopped.
- Existential and catastrophic risk Interdisciplinary Essential for thinking past a human lifetimeEssential for the century ahead
Threats that would end or permanently diminish humanity.
- Futures studies Interdisciplinary Essential for thinking past a human lifetimeEssential for the century aheadEssential for thinking clearly
Thinking rigorously about what has not happened yet.
- Indigenous knowledge systems Interdisciplinary Essential for cultural literacyEssential for thinking past a human lifetimeEssential for producing foodAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding society
Long-tested local knowledge held outside academic institutions.
- Innovation studies Interdisciplinary Essential for earning a livingEssential for understanding society
How new things actually get adopted.
- Nanotechnology Interdisciplinary Essential for the century ahead
Engineering at the scale of molecules.
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Structure and dynamics of connected things.
- Science communication Interdisciplinary Essential for civic participationEssential for not being exploitedEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for scientific literacy
Explaining findings honestly to people outside the field.
- Space settlement Interdisciplinary Essential for thinking past a human lifetimeEssential for the century ahead
Living off Earth, and what it would require.
- Standards and interoperability Interdisciplinary Essential for maintaining what already existsEssential for rebuilding society
Agreeing on specifications so things fit together.
- Synthetic biology Interdisciplinary Essential for the century ahead
Engineering organisms to specification.
- Timekeeping and calendars Interdisciplinary Essential for maintaining what already existsAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding society
Measuring time and agreeing on it.
- Administrative law Law and governance Essential for civic participationEssential for navigating institutionsEssential for not being exploitedEssential for rebuilding society
Challenging decisions made by public bodies.
- Civil procedure Law and governance Essential for navigating institutionsEssential for not being exploitedEssential for rebuilding society
How a dispute actually moves through a court.
- Constitutional law Law and governance Essential for civic participationEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for understanding society
The rules that constrain the state itself.
- Contract law Law and governance Essential for earning a livingEssential for life as it is nowEssential for not being exploitedEssential for rebuilding society
When a promise binds, and what happens when it breaks.
- Criminal law Law and governance Essential for civic participationEssential for life as it is nowEssential for not being exploitedEssential for rebuilding society
What is prohibited, and what the state must prove.
- Diplomacy Law and governance Essential in a crisisEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for understanding society
Managing relations short of force.
- Electoral systems Law and governance Essential for civic participationEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for understanding society
How votes become seats, and why the rule matters.
- Employment law Law and governance Essential for earning a livingEssential for life as it is nowEssential for not being exploitedEssential for rebuilding society
Rights and duties between employer and worker.
- Environmental law Law and governance Essential for civic participationEssential for the century ahead
Legal constraints on damage to the commons.
- Law of evidence Law and governance Essential for not being exploitedEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for thinking clearly
What a court may consider, and why.
- Family law Law and governance Essential for navigating institutionsEssential for life as it is nowEssential for not being exploitedEssential for rebuilding society
Marriage, separation, children, and money between them.
- Human rights law Law and governance Essential for civic participationEssential in a crisisEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for understanding society
Claims held against the state by virtue of being a person.
- Intellectual property Law and governance Essential for living onlineEssential for earning a livingEssential for not being exploited
Copyright, patents, trademarks, and licensing.
- International law Law and governance Essential for understanding society
Rules between states, and their limits.
- Jurisprudence Law and governance Essential for rebuilding societyEssential for understanding society
What law is and where its authority comes from.
- Legal reasoning Law and governance Essential for civic participationEssential for not being exploitedEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for thinking clearly
How legal arguments are built and tested.
- Parliamentary procedure Law and governance Essential for civic participationAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding society
Running a meeting so decisions are legitimate.
- Property law Law and governance Essential for life as it is nowEssential for not being exploitedEssential for rebuilding society
Ownership, possession, and the difference.
- Public administration Law and governance Essential for civic participationEssential for maintaining what already existsEssential for rebuilding society
Running the state's machinery.
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Rule-making for industries, and who captures it.
- Tort law Law and governance Essential for life as it is nowEssential for not being exploitedEssential for rebuilding society
Civil wrongs and compensation for harm.
- Anatomy Life sciences Essential for caring for othersEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
The structure of bodies and where everything is.
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What animals do and why.
- Bioinformatics Life sciences Essential for the century ahead
Computation applied to biological data.
- Biotechnology Life sciences Essential for the century ahead
Engineering living systems to do useful work.
- Botany Life sciences Essential for producing foodEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Plants: identification, structure, and function.
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The unit all living things are built from.
- Conservation biology Life sciences Essential for thinking past a human lifetimeEssential for the century ahead
Keeping species and habitats from disappearing.
- Developmental biology Life sciences
How one cell becomes an organism.
- Ecology Life sciences Essential for producing foodEssential for the century aheadEssential for rebuilding society
How organisms interact with each other and their surroundings.
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Insects, including the ones that pollinate and the ones that destroy.
- Epidemiology Life sciences Essential in a crisisEssential for not being exploitedEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for scientific literacyEssential for understanding society
How disease moves through populations, and how you would know.
- Ethnobotany Life sciences Essential for producing foodAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding society
What particular peoples know about particular plants.
- Evolutionary biology Life sciences Essential for cultural literacyEssential for thinking past a human lifetimeEssential for scientific literacyEssential for understanding society
Descent with modification, and why it explains so much.
- Genetics Life sciences Essential for the century aheadEssential for scientific literacyEssential for understanding society
Inheritance, variation, and the molecule that carries them.
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How bodies distinguish self from threat.
- Marine biology Life sciences Essential for the century ahead
Life in the sea.
- Microbiology Life sciences Essential for producing foodEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Organisms too small to see, most of which matter enormously.
- Molecular biology Life sciences Essential for the century ahead
How DNA becomes protein, and how that is regulated.
- Mycology Life sciences Essential for producing foodAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Fungi: decomposition, fermentation, medicine, and poison.
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The nervous system, from ion channels to behaviour.
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Organisms that live at the expense of others.
- Physiology Life sciences Essential for caring for othersEssential for managing your own bodyEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
How the parts of a living body actually work.
- Toxicology Life sciences Essential for managing your own bodyEssential for not being exploitedEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Dose, exposure, and harm.
- Virology Life sciences Essential in a crisisEssential for the century aheadEssential for understanding society
Viruses, their replication, and their spread.
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Animals: diversity, anatomy, and behaviour.
- Argumentation and debate Meta skills Essential for civic participationEssential for thinking clearly
Holding a position, and changing it when you should.
- Attention Meta skills Essential for living onlineEssential for a life worth livingEssential for life as it is now
Defending your own focus from things engineered to take it.
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Systematic errors your own mind makes.
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Working with people who are not like you.
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Producing options nobody handed you.
- Critical thinking Meta skills Essential for civic participationFoundational for everything elseEssential for not being exploitedEssential for thinking clearly
Evaluating claims and arguments on their merits.
- Decision-making Meta skills Essential in a crisisEssential for life as it is nowEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for thinking clearly
Choosing well under uncertainty and time pressure.
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Starting from the person who will use the thing.
- Epistemic humility Meta skills Essential for a life worth livingEssential for scientific literacyEssential for thinking clearly
Knowing the shape of what you do not know.
- Giving and receiving feedback Meta skills Essential for earning a livingEssential for a life worth living
Saying the useful thing, and hearing it.
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Making calibrated predictions and scoring them.
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Choosing what to aim at, and noticing when to stop.
- Habit formation Meta skills Essential for a life worth livingEssential for life as it is nowEssential for managing your own body
Changing what you do by default.
- Working across disciplines Meta skills Essential for earning a livingEssential for the century ahead
Talking to specialists outside your own field.
- Leadership Meta skills Essential in a crisisEssential for earning a livingEssential for rebuilding society
Taking responsibility for a group's direction.
- Learning how to learn Meta skills Essential for earning a livingFoundational for everything elseEssential for life as it is nowEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for thinking clearly
Spacing, retrieval, difficulty, and what does not work.
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Named ways arguments go wrong.
- Memory techniques Meta skills At risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for thinking clearly
Deliberate methods for retaining things.
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Developing someone over years.
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Capturing what you will need later.
- Problem solving Meta skills Essential for earning a livingEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for thinking clearly
Getting from stuck to unstuck methodically.
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Reading hard things without stalling.
- Research methods Meta skills Essential for not being exploitedEssential for scientific literacyEssential for thinking clearly
Finding out something nobody has told you.
- Statistical literacy Meta skills Essential for life as it is nowEssential for not being exploitedEssential for scientific literacyEssential for thinking clearly
Reading a number in the news without being fooled by it.
- Systems thinking Meta skills Essential for the century aheadEssential for thinking clearlyEssential for understanding society
Seeing feedback, delay, and unintended consequence.
- Teaching others Meta skills Essential for caring for othersEssential for earning a livingAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding society
Transmitting what you know without losing it in transit.
- Analytical chemistry Natural sciences Essential for maintaining what already existsEssential for staying alive
Determining what a sample actually contains.
- Astronomy Natural sciences Essential for cultural literacyEssential for thinking past a human lifetimeEssential for rebuilding society
Observing what is beyond the atmosphere.
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The physics of stars, galaxies, and what they are made of.
- Biochemistry Natural sciences Load-bearing for other subjects
The chemistry that living things run on.
- Classical mechanics Natural sciences Load-bearing for other subjectsEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for scientific literacy
Force, motion, and energy at everyday scales.
- Climatology Natural sciences Essential for thinking past a human lifetimeEssential for the century aheadEssential for understanding society
The atmosphere over decades and centuries.
- Condensed matter physics Natural sciences
Why solids and liquids have the properties they do.
- Cosmology Natural sciences Essential for thinking past a human lifetimeEssential for a life worth living
The origin, structure, and fate of the universe.
- Electromagnetism Natural sciences Essential for maintaining what already existsLoad-bearing for other subjectsEssential for rebuilding society
Charge, current, fields, and light.
- General chemistry Natural sciences Load-bearing for other subjectsEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for scientific literacyEssential for staying alive
Atoms, bonds, reactions, and stoichiometry.
- Geology Natural sciences Essential for thinking past a human lifetimeEssential for rebuilding society
Rock, structure, and the history written in them.
- Geomorphology Natural sciences Essential for thinking past a human lifetime
How landscapes are shaped and reshaped.
- Hydrology Natural sciences Essential in a crisisEssential for maintaining what already existsEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Where water goes, and how much of it there is.
- Inorganic chemistry Natural sciences
Everything carbon-based chemistry leaves out, including most industry.
- Materials science Natural sciences Essential for maintaining what already existsEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Why materials fail, and how to choose one that will not.
- Meteorology Natural sciences Essential in a crisisEssential for producing foodEssential for life as it is nowEssential for rebuilding society
Forecasting the atmosphere over days.
- Metrology and measurement Natural sciences Essential for maintaining what already existsAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for scientific literacy
Defining units and making measurements that agree.
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Identifying minerals and knowing what they are good for.
- Nuclear physics Natural sciences Essential for thinking past a human lifetimeEssential for maintaining what already existsEssential for the century ahead
Binding, fission, fusion, and radiation.
- Oceanography Natural sciences Essential for the century ahead
The physics, chemistry, and biology of the sea.
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How light behaves, and how to bend it deliberately.
- Organic chemistry Natural sciences
The chemistry of carbon, and therefore of life and materials.
- Paleontology Natural sciences Essential for cultural literacyEssential for thinking past a human lifetime
Life before records, read from what it left behind.
- Particle physics Natural sciences Essential for thinking past a human lifetime
The current inventory of fundamental constituents.
- Physical chemistry Natural sciences
Chemistry approached through thermodynamics and quantum mechanics.
- Physical geography Natural sciences Essential for rebuilding societyEssential for understanding society
The distribution of natural features and why it matters.
- Planetary science Natural sciences Essential for thinking past a human lifetimeEssential for the century ahead
Worlds as physical objects with histories.
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The physics of the very small, and the basis of modern electronics.
- Relativity Natural sciences Essential for thinking past a human lifetimeEssential for scientific literacy
Space and time as one thing, deformed by mass and motion.
- Seismology Natural sciences Essential in a crisis
Earthquakes, and reading the Earth's interior from waves.
- Soil science Natural sciences Essential for producing foodAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for the century aheadEssential for rebuilding society
What soil is, how it is built, and how it is destroyed.
- Thermodynamics Natural sciences Essential for maintaining what already existsEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for scientific literacy
Heat, work, entropy, and why engines cannot be perfect.
- Password and account security Practical life Essential for living onlineEssential for life as it is nowEssential for not being exploited
Not losing control of your digital identity.
- Addiction and substance awareness Practical life Essential for caring for othersEssential for managing your own body
Risk, dependence, and harm reduction.
- Using a bank account Practical life Essential for navigating institutionsEssential for life as it is nowEssential for not being exploited
Accounts, payments, fees, and disputing a transaction.
- Claiming benefits and welfare Practical life Essential in a crisisEssential for navigating institutionsEssential for life as it is nowEssential for not being exploited
Finding out what you are entitled to and obtaining it.
- Boundaries and consent Practical life Essential for a life worth livingEssential for life as it is nowEssential for managing your own body
Saying no, and hearing it.
- Budgeting Practical life Essential for earning a livingEssential for life as it is nowEssential for not being exploited
Knowing what comes in, what goes out, and what is left.
- Childcare Practical life Essential for caring for othersEssential for earning a livingEssential for raising a childEssential for rebuilding society
Looking after children safely, including other people's.
- Cleaning and household hygiene Practical life Essential for caring for othersEssential for life as it is nowEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Keeping a home from making you ill.
- Community organising Practical life Essential for civic participationEssential in a crisisEssential for rebuilding society
Getting a group of people to change something.
- Conflict resolution Practical life Essential for civic participationEssential for earning a livingEssential for a life worth livingEssential for rebuilding society
Getting past a disagreement without destroying the relationship.
- Consumer rights Practical life Essential for navigating institutionsEssential for life as it is nowEssential for not being exploited
Refunds, faulty goods, and complaining effectively.
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Understanding what you are agreeing to before you sign.
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Borrowing, interest, and what compounding does against you.
- CVs and applications Practical life Essential for earning a living
Presenting your work credibly on paper.
- The administration of death Practical life Essential for caring for othersEssential for navigating institutionsEssential for life as it is now
Registering, notifying, and closing a life's paperwork.
- Digital privacy Practical life Essential for living onlineEssential for life as it is nowEssential for not being exploited
What is collected about you and what you can do about it.
- Supporting disabled people Practical life Essential for caring for othersEssential for civic participation
Access, adjustment, and not speaking over someone.
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Operating a vehicle safely in traffic.
- Caring for older people Practical life Essential for caring for othersEssential for navigating institutionsEssential for the century aheadEssential for rebuilding society
Supporting someone whose independence is declining.
- Emergency preparedness Practical life Essential in a crisisEssential for life as it is nowEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Water, light, heat, medicine, and a plan.
- Manners and social convention Practical life Essential for cultural literacyEssential for a life worth living
The local rules nobody writes down.
- Exercise and fitness Practical life Essential for a life worth livingEssential for life as it is nowEssential for managing your own body
Keeping a body capable across a life.
- Fire safety Practical life Essential in a crisisEssential for life as it is nowEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Preventing fire, and what to do when there is one.
- Freelancing and self-employment Practical life Essential for earning a livingEssential for not being exploited
Pricing, invoicing, and chasing payment.
- Gardening Practical life Essential for a life worth livingEssential for producing foodEssential for life as it is nowEssential for rebuilding society
Growing things at domestic scale.
- Grief and bereavement Practical life Essential for caring for othersEssential for a life worth livingEssential for life as it is now
Surviving loss, and supporting someone who is in it.
- Navigating healthcare Practical life Essential for caring for othersEssential for navigating institutionsEssential for life as it is now
Getting seen, getting referred, and advocating for someone.
- Home maintenance Practical life Essential for maintaining what already existsEssential for life as it is nowEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Keeping a dwelling dry, warm, and safe.
- Immigration and residency processes Practical life Essential in a crisisEssential for navigating institutionsEssential for life as it is now
Visas, status, and the paperwork of belonging somewhere.
- Verifying information Practical life Essential in a crisisEssential for living onlineEssential for not being exploitedEssential for thinking clearly
Checking whether a claim, image, or source is what it says.
- Job interviews and applications Practical life Essential for earning a livingEssential for not being exploited
Getting hired.
- Jury service Practical life Essential for civic participation
What is asked of you, and why it matters.
- Clothing care and repair Practical life Essential for life as it is nowEssential for making physical thingsEssential for the century aheadEssential for rebuilding society
Making clothes last.
- Listening Practical life Essential for caring for othersEssential for earning a livingEssential for a life worth living
Understanding what someone actually means.
- Local government Practical life Essential for civic participationEssential for navigating institutions
The tier of the state that decides most of your surroundings.
- Meal planning and food budgeting Practical life Essential for life as it is nowEssential for managing your own bodyEssential for not being exploitedEssential for rebuilding society
Eating well on limited money and time.
- Media literacy Practical life Essential for civic participationEssential for living onlineEssential for not being exploitedEssential for thinking clearlyEssential for understanding society
Reading news as a produced artefact with interests behind it.
- Looking after your mental health Practical life Essential for a life worth livingEssential for life as it is nowEssential for managing your own body
Recognising decline, and knowing what helps.
- Mortgages and buying a home Practical life Essential for life as it is nowEssential for not being exploited
The largest contract most people ever sign.
- Navigation and map reading Practical life Essential in a crisisAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Knowing where you are without being told.
- Everyday nutrition Practical life Essential for life as it is nowEssential for managing your own bodyEssential for not being exploited
Eating in a way that does not quietly harm you.
- Online safety Practical life Essential for living onlineEssential for life as it is nowEssential for raising a child
Harassment, doxxing, and protecting others online.
- Parenting Practical life Essential for caring for othersEssential for a life worth livingEssential for raising a childEssential for rebuilding society
Raising a child day to day.
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Keeping a dependent animal well.
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Saying something to a room without falling apart.
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Building and maintaining close relationships deliberately.
- Remote and distributed work Practical life Essential for living onlineEssential for earning a living
Working well without a shared room.
- Renting a home Practical life Essential for navigating institutionsEssential for life as it is nowEssential for not being exploited
Deposits, repairs, notice, and eviction.
- Recognising scams and fraud Practical life Essential for living onlineEssential for life as it is nowEssential for not being exploited
How you are targeted, and what the tells are.
- Self-defence and personal safety Practical life Essential in a crisisEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Avoiding, de-escalating, and if necessary escaping violence.
- Sexual health and consent Practical life Essential for life as it is nowEssential for managing your own bodyEssential for raising a child
Contraception, infection, and negotiating consent.
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Getting enough, and what happens when you do not.
- Swimming Practical life Essential for life as it is nowEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Not drowning, and helping someone who is.
- Filing your taxes Practical life Essential for navigating institutionsEssential for life as it is nowEssential for not being exploited
Getting a return right and on time.
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Deciding what not to do.
- Using hand and power tools Practical life Essential for life as it is nowEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Working safely with the basic kit.
- Volunteering and mutual aid Practical life Essential for civic participationEssential in a crisisEssential for a life worth living
Contributing labour where money is not the mechanism.
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Registering, and knowing what you are actually choosing.
- Wills, probate, and inheritance Practical life Essential for caring for othersEssential for navigating institutionsEssential for life as it is now
Arranging what happens to what you leave.
- Workplace rights Practical life Essential for civic participationEssential for earning a livingEssential for not being exploited
What your employer may and may not do.
- Writing clearly Practical life Essential for civic participationEssential for earning a livingFoundational for everything elseEssential for thinking clearly
Being understood in writing the first time.
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Human ways of living, studied by immersion and comparison.
- Archaeology Social sciences Essential for cultural literacyEssential for thinking past a human lifetime
The human past reconstructed from material remains.
- Behavioural economics Social sciences Essential for life as it is nowEssential for not being exploitedEssential for thinking clearly
How real decisions depart from the rational model.
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Mind as an information-processing system.
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How messages are constructed and received.
- Computational social science Social sciences Essential for the century aheadEssential for understanding society
Studying societies through large-scale behavioural data.
- Criminology Social sciences Essential for understanding society
Crime, punishment, and what actually reduces harm.
- Demography Social sciences Essential for thinking past a human lifetimeEssential for the century aheadEssential for understanding society
Births, deaths, migration, and the shape of populations.
- Development economics Social sciences Essential for understanding society
Why some places are poor and what changes that.
- Developmental psychology Social sciences Essential for caring for othersEssential for raising a child
How minds change from infancy to old age.
- Economic history Social sciences Essential for thinking past a human lifetimeEssential for understanding society
How present arrangements came to be, empirically.
- Economics Social sciences Essential for civic participationEssential for not being exploitedEssential for understanding society
How societies allocate scarce things.
- Gender studies Social sciences Essential for understanding society
Gender as a social structure and an analytic lens.
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Power read through geography and resources.
- Human geography Social sciences Essential for understanding society
How people organise themselves across space.
- International relations Social sciences Essential for the century aheadEssential for understanding society
How states and other actors deal with each other.
- Linguistics Social sciences Essential for cultural literacy
The structure of language, described rather than prescribed.
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Inflation, unemployment, growth, and the levers over them.
- Media studies Social sciences Essential for living onlineEssential for not being exploitedEssential for understanding society
How media industries shape what gets said and seen.
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Choices of individuals and firms, and prices as their result.
- Peace and conflict studies Social sciences Essential in a crisisEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for understanding society
Why violence starts, and what ends it.
- Political science Social sciences Essential for civic participationEssential for understanding society
How power is acquired, held, and constrained.
- Psychology Social sciences Essential for managing your own bodyEssential for thinking clearlyEssential for understanding society
Mind and behaviour studied empirically.
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Designing and evaluating what governments do.
- Science and technology studies Social sciences Essential for the century aheadEssential for scientific literacyEssential for understanding society
Science as a human institution with interests and politics.
- Social psychology Social sciences Essential for not being exploitedEssential for thinking clearlyEssential for understanding society
How the presence of others changes behaviour.
- Social work Social sciences Essential for caring for othersEssential for navigating institutionsEssential for rebuilding society
Practical intervention in people's crises.
- Sociolinguistics Social sciences Essential for not being exploitedEssential for understanding society
How language marks class, region, and identity.
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How groups, institutions, and inequalities work.
- Urban planning Social sciences Essential for maintaining what already existsEssential for the century aheadEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for understanding society
Deciding how cities grow, and who benefits.
- Appliance repair Trades and crafts Essential for life as it is nowEssential for making physical thingsEssential for the century aheadEssential for rebuilding society
Fixing rather than replacing household machines.
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Weaving containers from what grows nearby.
- Bicycle repair Trades and crafts Essential for life as it is nowEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Maintaining the most efficient machine there is.
- Blacksmithing Trades and crafts At risk of being lost entirelyEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Shaping hot metal by hand.
- Boatbuilding Trades and crafts At risk of being lost entirelyEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Building craft that float and handle.
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Assembling pages into something that survives.
- Cabinetmaking Trades and crafts Essential for a life worth livingAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Furniture built to last generations.
- Carpentry Trades and crafts Essential for earning a livingEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Building structures and fittings from timber.
- Charcoal and fuel production Trades and crafts At risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding society
Making fuel that burns hot enough to work metal.
- Electrical installation Trades and crafts Essential for maintaining what already existsEssential for life as it is nowEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Wiring buildings safely.
- Electronics repair Trades and crafts At risk of being lost entirelyEssential for making physical thingsEssential for the century aheadEssential for rebuilding society
Diagnosing and fixing circuits and devices.
- Foundry and casting Trades and crafts At risk of being lost entirelyEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Melting metal and pouring it to shape.
- Glassblowing Trades and crafts At risk of being lost entirely
Forming glass while it is molten.
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Fitting glass, and making buildings warm.
- Joinery Trades and crafts At risk of being lost entirelyEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Fine timber work: doors, windows, stairs, furniture.
- Knitting Trades and crafts Essential for a life worth livingAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Making fabric from a single yarn.
- Leatherwork Trades and crafts At risk of being lost entirelyEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Making durable goods from hide.
- Locksmithing Trades and crafts Essential for rebuilding society
Locks, keys, and lawful entry.
- Machining Trades and crafts At risk of being lost entirelyEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Cutting metal to tolerance — the trade that makes other machines.
- Masonry and bricklaying Trades and crafts Essential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Building in brick, block, and mortar.
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Cutting, forming, and joining metal.
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Making a surface to write and print on.
- Plastering and rendering Trades and crafts At risk of being lost entirelyEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Finishing walls and protecting them.
- Plumbing Trades and crafts Essential for maintaining what already existsEssential for life as it is nowEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Water in, waste out, without leaks.
- Pottery Trades and crafts At risk of being lost entirelyEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Vessels from clay, thrown or built.
- Roofing Trades and crafts Essential for maintaining what already existsEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Keeping weather out of a building.
- Ropemaking and knots Trades and crafts Essential in a crisisAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Making cordage, and using it correctly.
- Sewing and mending Trades and crafts Essential for life as it is nowAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Making and repairing cloth goods.
- Shoemaking and repair Trades and crafts At risk of being lost entirelyEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Making and mending footwear.
- Small engine repair Trades and crafts Essential in a crisisEssential for maintaining what already existsEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Keeping pumps, generators, and saws running.
- Soap and candle making Trades and crafts At risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Basic chemistry for hygiene and light.
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Turning fibre into thread.
- Stonemasonry Trades and crafts At risk of being lost entirelyEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Cutting and setting stone.
- Tailoring Trades and crafts At risk of being lost entirelyEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Making clothes that fit a specific body.
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Turning skin into leather.
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Roofing with reed or straw.
- Toolmaking Trades and crafts At risk of being lost entirelyEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Making the tools other trades depend on.
- Vehicle maintenance Trades and crafts Essential for maintaining what already existsEssential for life as it is nowEssential for not being exploitedEssential for rebuilding society
Keeping a vehicle safe and running.
- Watchmaking Trades and crafts At risk of being lost entirely
Precision mechanism at small scale.
- Weaving Trades and crafts At risk of being lost entirelyEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Making cloth on a loom.
- Welding Trades and crafts Essential for maintaining what already existsEssential for making physical thingsEssential for rebuilding society
Joining metal permanently.
- Well digging and water sourcing Trades and crafts Essential in a crisisAt risk of being lost entirelyEssential for rebuilding societyEssential for staying alive
Finding and reaching groundwater.