Why don't more people learn the "figure shit out" skill? It works on everything. It is the most useful skill there is. They teach it at school, over and over and over, yet few people retain it. All you have to do is generalize the lessons. Enable your beginner's mind and apply stimulus until you have a working model of the new domain. The process is intuitive and every single time you do it can yield a lifetime of benefits.
In other words: Allocate all your skill points to the metalearning skill tree, then spam the heck out of it. You will become unstoppable.
@leaf In the USA the education system does everything it can to avoid accidentally teaching this skill except teach it on purpose.
@jackemled It is a skill that we are all BORN WITH. It's the natural thing children do to acquire their very first skills. Apply stimulus, observe response, analyze results, update your model; it's that simple. Sadly most of us learned to turn it off, to everyone's detriment.
And I agree with you - the American school system can reward turning off our natural thinking and learning capacity in favor of swallowing a canned curriculum. But you can also choose to learn the material on your own terms if you're precocious enough.