The things you don't learn in school.
But the earlier you learn them the better.
Money
Fiat money (government currency) is an experience started in 1971 after USA went bankrupt from the Vietnam war. USA defaulted on all international debts and stopped using gold as money for payment. In this way, US kept all their gold, and printed paper money for future debts. This is a new system, and a departure from thousands of years. From 3000 BC to 1971 AD, metal weights were used as units of value.
Lessons:
Government money is just paper that loses value every day
Use fiat money day to day, keep some on hand, but ensure you always have the majority of your wealth in non-depreciating assets like property, shares, or crypto.
Capital Gains Trick
Taxation may make even these assets lose value, so learn tax rules.
A 'capital gains' tax on appreciation of assets is the opposite. Assets like gold go up in value due to depreciation of the fiat value, no the appreciation of the asset. Note that capital gains taxes are NOT inflation adjusted.
A lump of gold sitting under your bed does not get better over time, or more valuable, it is the exact same lump of gold no matter how long it sits there. The value goes up since value of money is going down (there is more fiat money going around).
A capital gains tax means if you bought an onze of gold in 1971 for $260, and sold it in 2021 for $1770, with a capital gains tax of 20%, you pay the government 0.2*(1770-260) = $302. Now you have $1770-$302 = $1468 left. This can now buy you 1468/1770 = 0.83 onces of gold.
Tax has taken 17% of your wealth and you are 17% poorer after doing this...you are not ahead like you think.
Lessons:
Ensure you don't get caught in non inflation adjusted capitals gains tax
Politics
Government has no interest in serving the people, and works against them. This is counter-intuitive, and hard to reconcile since we are told the opposite from birth.
Governments are mostly corrupt, not somewhat corrupt. Government graft is the norm, and contracts allways have kickbacks.
Politians are funded and paid by corporations. Corporations write the laws they pay politicians to pass.
Lessens:
Assume that any money not publicly traceable is being siphoned off
Assume politicians are there to make money for themselves (as in general, all humans in all jobs)
Seek out places with good governance
Leaders
We are told from birth that adults and people in power and authority are to be trusted. This is the opposite of the truth. The higher you go up, the more corruption, and the more dereailed the people are. Generally adults get more and more cynical and jaded as they go through life, as the realize more and more that at the top is just corruption, money, and evil. The worst leaders can be the most popular, hence democracy can easily produce Hitler and the holocaust, brutal colonialism of US/UK, etc.
Lessons:
Trust facts and data, not what people say, even idolized leaders
Typically media and politicians present the direct opposite of facts and truth (hence do not provide evidence, facts, or justifications)
Propaganda
The media are looking for profits. The media is paid to run stories. Companies prefer paid stories over getting slow and smaller returns from advertising on jouralist writings. Most media is paid stories pretending to be news.
This is especially the case for business news, and increasingly mainstream and political news. Reddit found that 80% of voting for stories came from the pentagon.
Media will never admit, and cannot admit by law, of being paid by the pentagon or other ways. The US secret FISA courts require media companies to run stories, and if they mention it was from national security letters from FISA, the executives will go to jail.
Journalists typically just sit in government political and military briefing rooms and report on what they are told! This is not media or jouralism.
Lessons:
Simply ignore any article that does not have independent and verifiable data backing up the story. This will eliminate propaganda, and almost all media!
Use logic reasoning, and independent data, to come to conclusions
Read both sides of a story, for example media for each continent and if possible each country, to get all points of view.
People are the same
All humans over the earth are generally they same. They all want simple things, like food, water, shelter, and fair and honest society.
People in power or seek power are the minority that seek money, power and hence war.
Hatred, Dishonesty, is taught via schools and propaganda.
Lessons:
Work towards a world where there are no borders, and one world working together for progress.
Do unto others as you would like done to yourself
Cryptocurrency
Cryptocurrency is a major human acheivement and advancement equivalent to the internet that has transformed billions of lives. It will disrupt the world for the good as the internet has done.
The concepts address many of the above problems. It can move the world to a more fair, honest and inclusive world society. It can provide fair financial services and money access to everyone, it can allow any two people to transact on the planet with no middlepersons.
Lessons:
Use cryptocurrency for everything possible. When paying, always ask if cryptocurrency is accepted first. Drive adoption by proposing the business or sale only if the vendor accepts crpytocurrency.
Send $10 to all your friends by showing them how to download a wallet and receive funds. If they have $10, they are now part of the system and have incentive to learn to use it.
Don't keep cash, keep savings in cryptocurrency, then convert to cash when needed. This will protect your savings, and prevent constant fees from banks and money changers.
Don't look at price volatility, ignore price. The people who made the most have just ignored price over time. Just focus on using cryptocurrency as money.
It is true that not all knowledge can be learned from school but in experiences.