A thoughtful response, and I think you are right in that not every Amish sub-community would be assimilated. This is already happening; there was a chapter in K

A thoughtful response, and I think you are right in that not every Amish sub-community would be assimilated. This is already happening; there was a chapter in Kevin Kelly's "What Technology Wants" that describes the differing perspectives within the different Amish communities on things such as technology. There are some Amish communities that resist almost all modern tech; these communities are probably more likely to stay small over time (hard to attract and keep members), but I imagine they are also less likely to be absorbed into modern society than the rest of the Amish population. To me, it appears that some sub-subcultures manage to maintain their identities by putting up huge barriers to entry; the more costly they are (in terms of personal sacrifice), the more likely that the culture will maintain its identity, up to a certain point. Robin Hanson has described this a fair amount as well. Some cultures have a "price of admission" that can't be easily faked (I forget his term for this) in order to protect their group resources against disloyal outsiders who may take advantage of the group. This explains a lot of the bizarre, contradictory, and otherwise illogical practices that you see in these insular cultures.