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Ask HN: What skills will be useful during an upcoming recession/depression?

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Re: Ask HN: What skills will be useful during an upcoming recession/depression?

#81

Post by rolph »

madhadron wrote: post #46

People are acting as though we're going back to a pre-industrial economy with this. It's not true. The power isn't going out. The water will continue to come out of the tap. So my suggestion short term is: learn to cook if you don't know how to. Not fancy, haute cuisine, but how to take whatever's in the pantry and make something tasty out of it. Learn how to grow some produce in small spaces, even if it's just herbs…

there is disproportionality in the works.

senior positions that require many years of experience for entrancy due to the nature of the job may suddenly go vacant with noone to fill them.

when older people, {people who understand how to retool and operate a VLSI plant for example, people who are ATCs or surgeons} die and there is only a pool of young inexperience to draw from we will have to make do without some of these things, change laws to allow reduced qualifications, and or accept things like nuclear accidents as a learning curve until we have experienced people ,[after the replacements make time in]

Re: Ask HN: What skills will be useful during an upcoming recession/depression?

#82

Post by tayo42 »

ericsoderstrom wrote: post #62

> the effects of the global domino triggered by conoravirus will echo for many years to come. Why? As far as I know there's no underlying systemic financial reason for a depression or recession. The virus sucks. Some companies will no doubt have a bad quarter or two. But viruses pass, and this one will too. > I'm afraid that in this new reality my software/management skills won't be of any use in 6 months. That seems…

I think 6 months of lock downs or stay at home would show a lot of companies are not prepared to not have income. Businesses going out of business aren't coming back, along with the jobs they provided.

Re: Ask HN: What skills will be useful during an upcoming recession/depression?

#83

Post by pen2l »

glouwbug wrote: post #68
pen2l wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of these things seem learnable with available resources except the art of conversation, something that I actually need a lot of work on. And recommendations on how I can improve on this?

More emotion, less logic. People like to feel good. They don't necessarily want to learn something new. Crack jokes, banter, wear a smile, but don't be a clown. Best way is to surround yourself by people who do the same. Do not feel discouraged when they "throw a knife" (take the piss) your way, as it's a test of your conversational and mental frame. Agree and amplify, and laughs will be had. Then again, don't surrou…

> Point is, have fun. Don't be a walking talking wikipedia page of logical facts.

This is sort of what I am. I think it started long ago maybe when I felt as if this is one way I can provide value: to give you facts.

I'm aware that this is a problem, in that by doing this I'm not really engaged in a back-and-forth conversation -- I've been aware of this for some time, it's just that it's hard to transition away from this. I don't know how to do this, because this is who I am now, and changing who I am, that’s a deep change to make, it is hard, and I don’t know how I can do this.

Re: Ask HN: What skills will be useful during an upcoming recession/depression?

#84

Post by toomuchtodo »

LoveMortuus wrote: post #74
criddell wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So step one is "found a bank"?

You know what would be interesting? A Y Combinator or Hacker News bank. That would be interesting, but in reality probably extremely hard to realise... Still a fun and interesting idea to occupy your mind in this times of solitude.

It is incredibly hard to get a banking license. Easier to buy an existing bank. Banking regulators are also biased as to the type of banks they want to support, making it difficult to stand up a narrow bank.

Consider finding opportunities to extract value from the existing banking system to achieve similar end goals. Maybe the Fed will lend to you if you can provide collateral they typically wouldn’t consider high enough quality? (Google “primary dealer lending facility”)

Re: Ask HN: What skills will be useful during an upcoming recession/depression?

#85

Post by pbourke »

LoveMortuus wrote: post #74
criddell wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So step one is "found a bank"?

You know what would be interesting? A Y Combinator or Hacker News bank. That would be interesting, but in reality probably extremely hard to realise... Still a fun and interesting idea to occupy your mind in this times of solitude.

> You know what would be interesting? A Y Combinator or Hacker News bank

DKSB - Dunning-Kruger State Bank

Re: Ask HN: What skills will be useful during an upcoming recession/depression?

#87

Post by bdcravens »

sideway wrote: post #73
dpflan wrote: post #44

> “...I'm afraid that in this new reality my software/management skills won't be of any use in 6 months.” I’m curious: What do you mean by this?

I've been following many threads on Reddit (and one on HN) about people getting fired already. As there is no indication this trend will be reversed any time soon, I get the feeling that a) lots of industries have already been hit hard and b) things may get progressively worse in the following months. It worries me that, as a huge percentage of the web runs on ads, if lots of industries get into trouble, the ad space…

There will be a lot of layoffs. The question is, what kind of jobs are they? Are these experienced developers with multiple languages and platforms under their belt, or one-trick ponies that came from a bootcamp?

You're right - ad-driven web properties won't do well. There is tons of code written every day that does actual revenue-generating work, however. It's not sexy work, it's not VC-funded work, and that's okay.

During the dot-com bust I had no problems with work. My longest contract was for a hospital, writing software to help nurses schedule and track patient visits. This was tangible work, with a tangible benefit. It wasn't a nebulous business model.

Re: Ask HN: What skills will be useful during an upcoming recession/depression?

#88

Post by rolph »

minhazm423 wrote: post #80
rolph wrote: post #3

develop a flare for barter and trade. learn how to provide the things people actually need. general construction trades and adhoc engineering. farming. hunting fishing. veternary skills surgical skills midwivery dentistry. localized /offgrid/on site power generation. production of fuel from raw materials.

Any good resources?

there are prepper sites, and if you look in the "shadows" you may find a lot of specialized literature that aught to be free for humanity.

the prepper culture is really something elso tho, there is a local group that is just about the one group that i want to have as far away from me as possible.

have a look around here for example that ought to be a good starting point:

https://www.reddit.com/r/prepping/

Re: Ask HN: What skills will be useful during an upcoming recession/depression?

#89

Post by djzidon »

gonational wrote: post #61
monkeynotes wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope this is sarcasm, I hope people aren't actually as cynical as this.

I hope you’re not as optimistic as that. GM lost the American taxpayers north of $10MMM. That was enough to purchase over 500,000 vehicles at the time. 500 fucking thousand vehicles. That’s just the amount of money that they lost us with their “good Bank bad Bank” style IP-related scam. Do you think this is not reason enough to be cynical during financial crises?

what is $10MMM? that doesn't exist

Re: Ask HN: What skills will be useful during an upcoming recession/depression?

#90

Post by gwbas1c »

> I'm afraid that in this new reality my software/management skills won't be of any use in 6 months.

First skill: Patience

Second skill: Adaptability

Third skill: Resilience. Software will always be needed. You just might need to work a "beer money" job for a little while.

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