14 ms·

The Amish as a source of tech-savvy guidance

165 points by choult 5y ago

blacktriangle 5y ago
I remember a few years back reading a National Geographic article about the Amish and their love of cellphones. The point was the Amish accepted cell phones where they had rejected landlines for the simple reason that with cellphones they could turn them off, with a landline your family time could be interrupted. The bigger picture was that the Amish view of technology was not to view 1857 or whenever as the year technology stopped, but their view was to evaluate technology in light of where it fit in their culture. Hard work is a virtue, so why do I want tools to make things easier. Raising barns together draws us together as a community, so what's the value in technology that lets fewer people build a building. And so forth and so on. On the surface the idea of evaluation technology based on impact seems great, but the thing is the Amish never invent anything. The rest of culture invents without thinking about the consequences and deals with the consequent. The Amish have the luxury of sitting back and evaluating after the fact. In fairness, I don't think the Amish really care if anything new does get invented, but they have effectively externalized the downsides of technology onto the rest of us while reaping the occasional upside.
- reasonabl_human 5y ago
  This is a beautiful point of view…. Now I’d like to meet some Amish people.
  - dbcurtis 5y ago
    Yes, well, when you live with them as next door neighbors you find that they have as many angels and scoundrels, as many wise and as many fools as any other group. The practicalities of their life are different, but they are people like you and me — different priorities.
  - thatguy0900 5y ago
    Come to Ohio campgrounds in the summer weekends, always have a Amish family selling baked goods, they're usually pretty friendly and open to talking. And their baking tastes amazing.
    - cheese_van 5y ago
      Their baking does taste amazing. But Amish women are often employed at local farmers markets to add local color and entice tourists into buying non-Amish bakery goods. That the Amish, a fairly closed culture, are objects of tourism, has always struck me as pretty damn weird. While it may reflect a nostalgia or longing for a simpler life, I know I wouldn't last long keeping a working farm alive. Plain lives are hard work.
      - thatguy0900 5y ago
        I wouldnt call the Amish objects of tourism, they set up shop where people already are. And it's not them, just their cooking. I don't think anyone thinks about them at all, frankly, outside of that. I remember a while ago there was a fad for prominently Amish branded/built electric heaters, and I thought that was very strange.
- ape4 5y ago
  Its not so hard to "turn off" a landline. Turn down the ringer. If you have a cordless phone - unplug the base.
  - Robotbeat 5y ago
    Wasn’t so easy in the past. They were often hardwired. This is one of the things Amish people were against: bringing electricity into the home. Battery powered devices were okay.
    - alisonkisk 5y ago
      Where do batteries get their power?
      - deleted 5y ago
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      - Robotbeat 5y ago
        Usually a generator outside that you have to walk to.
      - deleted 5y ago
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      - deleted 5y ago
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    - thebean11 5y ago
      The phone itself was hardwired into the wall? TIL
      - dsr_ 5y ago
        Before 1973, the phone company owned the wires right up to the phone on the wall, and often owned the phone as well. Then the FCC mandated that customer-provided equipment be supported, assuming it met standards. The RJ11 jack (and siblings, right up to the RJ45 for ethernet) came into widespread use after that.
- deleted 5y ago
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- nonameiguess 5y ago
  Where? My ex-girlfriend from 12 years ago came from Amish country and I got to meet some when we visited her family. Not a single house even had electricity. They wouldn't have been able to charge a mobile phone even if they had them. I remember mentioning some Italian food I liked for some reason or other while having dinner with them and none of them even knew what I was talking about. They knew about the existence of Italy, but none of the cuisine, not even basic names of dishes. They didn't exactly come across as people with exposure to the broader world afforded by remote communications technology. I'm sure every community is different, though, as you would expect in the absence of widespread remote communications.
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    So, nobody in this family when they had rumspringa went out and ate pizza?
    - willcipriano 5y ago
      My reading of this really depends on the food involved. If it's something like bagna càuda the OP is being a little pretentious, if it's spaghetti I'm shocked.
      - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
        yeah, hence my pizza quip.
      - nonameiguess 5y ago
        The specific item I remember quite well because of the hubbub it caused (apparently, my astonishment was was considered insulting) was tiramisu. I don't think that is pretentious. It's available from common supermarkets, but this was a few miles outside of Gap, Pennsylvania. I don't know the area well, but Gap is only a town of a thousand people that likely doesn't have restaurants. Lancaster would have, given it has a college. It's not like I got a detailed life history from these people, but if you ever get the chance, the level of culture shock can be striking. The biggest event of my time there was the neighbor's horse that was used to drive the plows sustaining an enormous gash on its front right leg. That effectively stopped work as people rushed to try and stitch it up. With no machinery, they're entirely reliant on horses to accomplish any meaningful field work, so a serious injury to one can severely impact yield. They are prepared for that, though. Thanks to not making much in the way of purchases of virtually anything from the outside world, resources only flow in so they have a surplus of everything they need to last years if they need to hunker down. Any form of community wealth is entirely kept in the community, so there were apparently some fairly vast intergenerational savings built up. So I don't know if the concern was really that being down a plow was going to have any material impact on anyone's ability to eat, but it was dramatic nonetheless. I didn't ask, but I got the impression the guy driving the plow was as distraught as he was because he considered the horse a friend. He seemed distressed by the amount of pain it was in.
- cat199 5y ago
  According (loosely) to the CMM approach, Amish could be thought of as more technologically 'mature', since they have clear policies around evaluating technology according to clear requirements which have been optimized over time, rather than simply chasing trends https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_Maturity_Model#Levels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_Maturity_Model#Leve...
- minikites 5y ago
  >The Amish have the luxury of sitting back and evaluating after the fact. In fairness, I don't think the Amish really care if anything new does get invented, but they have effectively externalized the downsides of technology onto the rest of us while reaping the occasional upside. This reminded me of an Atlantic article making a similar point: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/07/camp-grounded-digital-detox-and-the-age-of-techno-anxiety/277600/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/07/camp-... >But Baldwin asks, "Where did you get your axe? And the slide camera and the stove, the flour, the nails, the books, the garden seeds, and the window glass?" While it seemed that they'd gotten farther away from a technological life, "they'd merely lengthened the umbilical cord." And here's the key part of the criticism: "By moving to the bucolic boondocks, that happy family dodged the undesirable effects of the technology that was supporting them even as they sneered," he concludes. I think we all need to be more engaged and thoughtful about our choices, how they affect our lives, and how they affect the lives of those around us, but we need to be alert for situations where we just push problems elsewhere instead of addressing them.
  - at_a_remove 5y ago
    I am not sure the Amish have pushed problems away or externalized them. These problems would continue to exist without the Amish or any other tech-hesitant group. I view them as a variety of groups who have made some reasoned compromises as to how much they will allow their adoption of technology to change their way of life. They do not seem like the type who think they can do it all on their own and understood that they live inside of another country, etc. Technology shapes us even as we shape it. They are at least attempting to put in some care as to what shaping they allow.
  - bluGill 5y ago
    For the most part everyone is like that. I have no clue how to make chips with a 3nm (um?) process. I saw a headline about IBM making progress on it a few weeks ago (or was it 2nm?) However I can sit back and enjoy the progress. In the mean time those people at IBM have no clue how to do the job I'm doing but they can enjoy it working. The people at IBM are smart, and I like to think I am: we could switch places and after a dozen years of training would be just as good - but at the expense of being behind in our current job.
- chucksta 5y ago
  Are you sure that article wasn't about Jewish people? I've heard that about them, and turning them off makes it easy to follow the sabbath, never the Amish. Most of them in lancaster county do not have cell phones, but have phone booths in a remote corner of their farm so it's not convenient.
- yabones 5y ago
  The Amish/Mennonites have an interesting take... Some of them are 'allowed' to drive cars, as long as they're black base models and are "modest" and largely utilitarian. There are also rules about which types of equipment they can have, so no tractors but they can have skid steer loaders for "construction" which they hitch regular farm implements to. No electricity allowed in the house, but no real restrictions about power in the "shop" or battery powered devices. It's a strange combination between modesty and strategically bending rules. I kind of adore that.
  - derg 5y ago
    > It's a strange combination between modesty and strategically bending rules. I kind of adore that. It's very earnestly human. Being rigid is fine and all but it also kind of sucks a hell of a lot. So it turns into a "how can I make this suck a little less without breaking what I believe in too much?" which is something I think we all struggle with but it's really laid bare here with the contrast between their lifestyle and ours.
  - ska 5y ago
    > The Amish/Mennonites have an interesting take... Anabaptist communities vary far more than you suggest. It's a bit like Judaism that way; sure some are identifiable by particular dress etc. but there others you wouldn't notice at all in the SUV beside you on the highway.
  - jandrese 5y ago
    The politics involved in the community are fascinating. They have local committees that decide the rules for a community, anywhere from a neighborhood to a small town. But those local committees also coordinate at a higher regional level to set overall policy, and the various regions also coordinate at the top level. This means a decision made at the top level, like "no electricity in the home" gets filtered down through the communities with different interpretations of the rules. A particularly strict community might ban all automation in the home, while another will ban power lines but allow battery operated tools, while another will ban all electricity but allow air tools causing people to develop air powered hand mixers and refrigerators. You see a lot of clever workarounds for arbitrary rules in the Amish community. It is very common to see rules bent or broken when necessary for a job, like a farmer being allowed to burn gasoline/diesel to run farm equipment even when his local community bans using it for anything else. Some of the furniture makers have rather sophisticated workshops (although nothing CNC) which allow them to make the furniture efficiently enough to sell it for a very low price.
- alisonkisk 5y ago
  Pretty rude to blame them for "externalizing" something not caused by the them. By the same token, they are externalizing the upside of early adoption while suffering the loss of benefits, while providing us a living illustration of the alternative to our own choices.
- routerl 5y ago
  Neal Stephenson coined the idea of "amistics": the evaluation of technologies not for efficiency, but from an existing value system. Named after the Amish. I've been living like this for a while, without having a name for it, but at a pretty fine-grained level, for instance by staying off (most) social media. We all make these decisions. E.g. people's valuing privacy precludes their owning an Amazon Ring.
- dheera 5y ago
  > with cellphones they could turn them off, with a landline your family time could be interrupted Interestingly, I often miss landline times, because with landlines it was a fair excuse to say you were out and weren't reachable, whereas in the cell phone era people tend to expect you to be always reachable, and I'm in vehement disagreement with that kind of expectation from anyone other than an SO or close family member.
  - newsbinator 5y ago
    "Sorry, my phone was on do not disturb"
    - dheera 5y ago
      And then your coworkers try to convince you to not use that. "So how can I reach you then [at all times]?" They simply cannot comprehend a world in which people are (gasp) not reachable at all times and plan around such an assumption.
- jquery 5y ago
  ”Amish women are not taught anything about sex, according to Garrett, which makes it even harder for a girl who's being abused to describe what's happening to her. Mary said she didn't know how to describe what was happening. "I thought they were being bad to me. That was the only word I had to express it," she said. In an Amish culture unaccustomed to women speaking up, Mary felt she got more scolding than sympathy when she told her mother what was going on. She said her mother told her, "You don't fight hard enough and you don't pray hard enough." Mary said her mother made her feel as if the assaults were her fault. "Every time I would talk about this she would say that they have already confessed in church and you're just being unforgiving," she said. … "The funny thing is that they view drinking alcohol until you puke as bad a sin as raping somebody. They get the same punishment for either one," Mary said. But Amish-style punishment was not going to bring Mary the justice she wanted. And for her, the final straw came when she suspected a younger brother, David, was molesting their 4-year-old sister.”[1] —————- MCCLURE: The majority of my sources never made a police report. They never had a court case. Whenever I spoke with these women, they had dozens of other victims that they told me about, dozens of other cousins and friends and family members that - they told me that this had happened to them, too. And, obviously, I can't put a number out there that's unverified or not supported or corroborated by a court case or a police report. It's very difficult to do a story like this where the evidence is limited. And so just anecdotally, just based on my conversations with these women and men, there are a lot more victims out there in Amish country that we may never know of simply because there is no paper trail.[2] —————- [1]https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=316371&page=1 https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=316371&page=1 [2]https://www.npr.org/2020/01/19/797804404/investigation-into-child-sex-abuse-in-amish-communities https://www.npr.org/2020/01/19/797804404/investigation-into-...
  - dash2 5y ago
    I think it's good not to idealize any community, but this comment needs a little more context if it's meant to convey more than just "Amish bad!!!"
    - jquery 5y ago
      I’m suggesting that maybe we shouldn’t be getting our life pro-tips from a rape cult. The Amish Keep to Themselves. And They’re Hiding a Horrifying Secret. A year of reporting reveals a culture of incest, rape, and abuse. - January 14, 2020 by Sarah McClure https://www.typeinvestigations.org/investigation/2020/01/14/amish-sexual-abuse-assault/ https://www.typeinvestigations.org/investigation/2020/01/14/... EDIT: I shouldn’t be surprised that pointing out Amish sexual assault makes HN spitting mad. Few things make HN angrier than implying rape is a problem worth caring about.
- httpz 5y ago
  Amish have that luxury because they're in their safe bubble in rural America. Any other communities that tried to live that lifestyle probably got wiped out by their neighbors through out the history.
  - bluGill 5y ago
    They have also cultivated a reputation and so they get leeway to do things that the average person wouldn't be allowed to do. Most of us wouldn't want live in a house not connected to the power grid, so the fact that in some places it is illegal unless you are Amish doesn't bother us.
- deleted 5y ago
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- snarf21 5y ago
  I live in Lancaster and have been around Mennonites my whole life. I don't disagree with some of your points but I think there is more nuance to it. My understanding is that it isn't about delaying judgment on new technology, it is about chasing "wants" or "keeping up with the Joneses". This is what their culture is designed to protect against. They know that cars are more efficient than a horse but if one person gets a car, another person will be tempted to a nicer one, and the next one even nicer. So to prevent the chase, they say they aren't allowed. The same with clothes or appliances or technology. This is how they can still do okay with farming because they don't have any million dollar tractors. Their costs are super low and they have large families to do the labor so they don't need to hire workers. Lots of Amish have cell phones but it is mostly the younger ones and they hide them in the corn fields. They sneak out at night or use them when they work off the farm. It might be surprising to some that the Amish have moved into the trades with a force. Most of them can't farm anymore because there isn't any farmland for sale in Lancaster anymore, and lots have pushed west to Ohio or Indiana or Iowa. The ones that work in the trades, get picked up every day and ride in someone else's $80K crew cab truck, they go into the convenience store and buy breakfast and lunch just the same as everyone else. They have learned that there is more money out in the "English" world than in farming. It will be interesting to see what happens across time as they get used to "keeping up".
- michaelmrose 5y ago
  It's more than that. Their very existence is predicated on subsidence within a larger society that repudiates their values. A society that actually lives their values would be both out competed and quite possibly have lost their territory to those willing to move forward. Their attitude towards technology is as lacking in virtue as absolute pacifism. Pacifism that can only exist through others violence isn't a rejection of violence it is merely abdicating responsibility for deciding when to use that violence to others. In a way its more odious than violence.
  - newt_slowly 5y ago
    You are basically acknowledging that technological development is a force that happens outside of our control, and that we are forced to keep up lest we be conquered by our neighbors. This is true, and it's what I believe also, but I don't see how you come to the conclusion that there is anything desirable or moral about this state of affairs. Without us keeping the Amish way of life "subsidized", perhaps they would indeed have perished. And they would have gone willing, due to their belief system. It's remarkable that you can try to spin not being willing to participate in the technological-industrial system as "more odious than violence".
    - michaelmrose 5y ago
      Absolute pacifism is more odious than violence because violence in the course of human history has been from the perspective of an individual player been inevitable and necessary to prevent subjugation and murder. It is the statement that I know violence may be needed in some occasions but in order that I may imagine my own hands clean I am going to abstain from making the choice forcing someone else to. It neither stops your fellows from becoming nazis and hurting others nor being marched to concentration camps. The simplest moral test one can apply is what would happen if everyone applied the same thought rules for behavior. It would be great right. More realistically what would happen if most people did? If they weren't willing to apply at least minimal defensive violence then a minority of defectors enslaves everyone else.
  - lurquer 5y ago
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skadamat 5y ago
Love it, reminds me a lot of Cal Newport's ideas: https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2017/09/18/approach-technology-like-the-amish/ https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2017/09/18/approach-technolo... The focus should be on minimalism. Start by understanding your priorities, goals, and the mental ecosystem you want to inhabit. Then evaluate each tool for its effectiveness in the above pre-stated constraints. Every technology should have a clear purpose & place in your life, or it risks becoming into a form of media you lose control over.
teddyh 5y ago
Anyone here who has had doubts about installing a “Home Assistant” in their home, or procuring a modern “Smart” TV, or anyone who recognizes themselves in this meme: (https://imgur.com/6wbgy2L https://imgur.com/6wbgy2L) are essentially having the same kinds of thoughts as the Amish have about technology: Who is this technology serving? Is it really to the ultimate benefit of me, or my society?
- apples_oranges 5y ago
  Regarding that picture: I wonder if a locksmith has a "no mechanical locks" policy. Otherwise it sounds like a case of "don't get high on your own supply".
  - ancarda 5y ago
    What do you mean? I tried looking up what a mechanical lock is, it's not clear to me. Would it be bad for a locksmith to sell one to you?
    - hannasanarion 5y ago
      In this context "mechanical" means "non-electronic". Mechanical locks are desirable because they have no unknown exploits, are not reliant on third party services, don't need batteries, and cannot be attacked remotely or en-masse.
      - vkou 5y ago
        Attacking a lock remotely still requires physical access to the property in order to reap the benefits of that attack. Given that most mechanical locks can be trivially picked, I fail to see the disadvantages of electronic locks. Yes, the failure modes of mechanical locks are better understood - they are understood to be incredibly serious, and easy to exploit. An $80 snap gun will open most locks, and requires zero skill or training to use. Saying that you prefer a mechanical lock to an electric one because its failure modes are well-understood is like saying that you prefer ROT13 encryption to <My homebrew encryption>. Are homebrew systems stupid? Yes. Is it likely that my homebrew system has problems? Yes. Are those problems well understood? No. Is it probably better than ROT13..? Yes, because ROT13 can be broken by a child.
tzs 5y ago
This 2009 article "Amish Hackers" [1] will probably be of interest to many here. It covers in detail the Amish approach to technology. [1] https://kk.org/thetechnium/amish-hackers-a/ https://kk.org/thetechnium/amish-hackers-a/
rednerrus 5y ago
This book helped change the way I think about technology: https://www.amazon.com/Better-Off-Flipping-Switch-Technology/dp/0060570059/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2A892SF8Q4QVU&dchild=1&keywords=better+off+flipping+the+switch+on+technology&qid=1621442185&sprefix=better+off+flipping+the+%2Caps%2C210&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Better-Off-Flipping-Switch-Technology... It's about the Amish.
- jquery 5y ago
  This helped change the way I think about the Amish: https://www.npr.org/2020/01/19/797804404/investigation-into-child-sex-abuse-in-amish-communities https://www.npr.org/2020/01/19/797804404/investigation-into-... https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=316371&page=1 https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=316371&page=1 Johnny Byler's sentencing brought out the largest crowd -- and the most tears -- not in support of Mary, but in support of the confessed rapist.
gwbas1c 5y ago
I wonder if I'm weird because I don't want a smart speaker in my house? Then again, I still find voice recognition so sketchy that I just don't want to deal with it. On the other hand, the real reason why I put smart switches in my home was practical. I hate that 3-way switches have no fixed "on" or "off" motion, so I started with smart switches to replace my 3-ways. Then I realized that the timers on smart switches are easier to program and adapt to Daylight Savings Time, so I put more in. I'm an early adopter and I also approach new technology very conservatively. I can totally understand why the Amish don't rush out and adopt everything.
- mxuribe 5y ago
  I'm with you; you're not weird! (Or, maybe we're both weird!) I don't want a smart speaker because i can't see any worthwhile value that i get from it. I especially like your example of the 3-way switch...that seems a conscious decision that clearly added value for you without just trying new tech for new tech's sake, etc.
  - closetohome 5y ago
    Adding voice control to lights is surprisingly handy.
    - mxuribe 5y ago
      This reminds me of I.O.L. Now *that* is a feature that everyone should have in every room of their home: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHoXX4QtY3s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHoXX4QtY3s (Sorry, could not resist ;-)
- hannasanarion 5y ago
  I have never understood the appeal of smart speakers. A smart speaker can't do anything that a smartphone can't already do, and I have that on my person at all times. Spotify sent me a google home for free, and in a year I have only intentionally used it once or twice, and I think on one of those occasions my phone answered the wakeword first, so what even is the point? 99% of the times it waked were responding to me telling someone "okay cool", or my cat stepping on it. A few months ago it went in the old dead electronics pile, and a few weeks ago that pile went to a recycler, hopefully the metals in it can be turned into something actually useful.
thedanbob 5y ago
I don’t think I really admitted to myself how addictive my smartphone is until I uninstalled most of my apps and locked it down with a simple management profile (no web browser, no app store). I’ve had it this way for months and it’s so much more pleasant now, yet I still have the same habit as mentioned in the article: I pull it out whenever I’m in the bathroom. Now that there’s not much to do on it, I’m very well versed on the current weather conditions.
Animats 5y ago
"Tang’s target customers were desk workers who downloaded meditation apps and people who paid for digital-detox camps." They're selling virtue signalling. If that's what you want, get a new unlocked Android phone, and power it up without a SIM card. When it wants you to sign up for Google, click "later". Then remove the Google startup app to avoid further nagging. Then connect to WiFi or use a USB cable, download F-Droid, and load what you need from there. Remove most of the Google crapware, plus any other junk that came with the phone. Then add a SIM card. I have a ruggedized phone from Caterpillar Tractor set up that way. (Haven't installed a replacement for Google Play Services yet, though. I should.)
SLWW 5y ago
I love the idea of technology as a tool; and the idea that "success" as viewed by how long someone uses that tool to be perverse in nature. Something to keep in mind while building the "tooling" of tomorrow.
tboyd47 5y ago
It seems they recognize that the community level functions of tech are more salient than the individual level functions. In our society we tend to take the opposite approach. We evaluate technology only based on how it benefits an individual, while overlooking its effect on communities. A desktop computer at work or in the living room somehow doesn't have the addictive qualities of a smartphone. Perhaps it's because all technology does is amplify networks, and the networks created by isolated people with devices are different from the bonds of family, work, proximity, etc.
tyjaksn 5y ago
> Most Silicon Valley CEOs severely restrict their own children’s access to phones and screens. Is anybody aware of the source of this quote? I hear it quite often but have never seen the evidence to support it. I am starting to think that it might just be convenient to throw into an argument about technology.
- suyula 5y ago
  This is where I first saw the idea: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/silicon-valley-parents-raising-their-kids-tech-free-red-flag-2018-2 https://www.businessinsider.com.au/silicon-valley-parents-ra...

165 points by choult 5y ago

I remember a few years back reading a National Geographic article about the Amish and their love of cellphones. The point was the Amish accepted cell phones where they had rejected landlines for the simple reason that with cellphones they could turn them off, with a landline your family time could be interrupted. The bigger picture was that the Amish view of technology was not to view 1857 or whenever as the year technology stopped, but their view was to evaluate technology in light of where it fit in their culture. Hard work is a virtue, so why do I want tools to make things easier. Raising barns together draws us together as a community, so what's the value in technology that lets fewer people build a building. And so forth and so on. On the surface the idea of evaluation technology based on impact seems great, but the thing is the Amish never invent anything. The rest of culture invents without thinking about the consequences and deals with the consequent. The Amish have the luxury of sitting back and evaluating after the fact. In fairness, I don't think the Amish really care if anything new does get invented, but they have effectively externalized the downsides of technology onto the rest of us while reaping the occasional upside.

reasonabl_human 5y ago
This is a beautiful point of view…. Now I’d like to meet some Amish people.
- dbcurtis 5y ago
  Yes, well, when you live with them as next door neighbors you find that they have as many angels and scoundrels, as many wise and as many fools as any other group. The practicalities of their life are different, but they are people like you and me — different priorities.
- thatguy0900 5y ago
  Come to Ohio campgrounds in the summer weekends, always have a Amish family selling baked goods, they're usually pretty friendly and open to talking. And their baking tastes amazing.
  - cheese_van 5y ago
    Their baking does taste amazing. But Amish women are often employed at local farmers markets to add local color and entice tourists into buying non-Amish bakery goods. That the Amish, a fairly closed culture, are objects of tourism, has always struck me as pretty damn weird. While it may reflect a nostalgia or longing for a simpler life, I know I wouldn't last long keeping a working farm alive. Plain lives are hard work.
    - thatguy0900 5y ago
      I wouldnt call the Amish objects of tourism, they set up shop where people already are. And it's not them, just their cooking. I don't think anyone thinks about them at all, frankly, outside of that. I remember a while ago there was a fad for prominently Amish branded/built electric heaters, and I thought that was very strange.
ape4 5y ago
Its not so hard to "turn off" a landline. Turn down the ringer. If you have a cordless phone - unplug the base.
- Robotbeat 5y ago
  Wasn’t so easy in the past. They were often hardwired. This is one of the things Amish people were against: bringing electricity into the home. Battery powered devices were okay.
  - alisonkisk 5y ago
    Where do batteries get their power?
    - deleted 5y ago
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    - Robotbeat 5y ago
      Usually a generator outside that you have to walk to.
    - deleted 5y ago
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  - thebean11 5y ago
    The phone itself was hardwired into the wall? TIL
    - dsr_ 5y ago
      Before 1973, the phone company owned the wires right up to the phone on the wall, and often owned the phone as well. Then the FCC mandated that customer-provided equipment be supported, assuming it met standards. The RJ11 jack (and siblings, right up to the RJ45 for ethernet) came into widespread use after that.
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nonameiguess 5y ago
Where? My ex-girlfriend from 12 years ago came from Amish country and I got to meet some when we visited her family. Not a single house even had electricity. They wouldn't have been able to charge a mobile phone even if they had them. I remember mentioning some Italian food I liked for some reason or other while having dinner with them and none of them even knew what I was talking about. They knew about the existence of Italy, but none of the cuisine, not even basic names of dishes. They didn't exactly come across as people with exposure to the broader world afforded by remote communications technology. I'm sure every community is different, though, as you would expect in the absence of widespread remote communications.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  So, nobody in this family when they had rumspringa went out and ate pizza?
  - willcipriano 5y ago
    My reading of this really depends on the food involved. If it's something like bagna càuda the OP is being a little pretentious, if it's spaghetti I'm shocked.
    - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
      yeah, hence my pizza quip.
    - nonameiguess 5y ago
      The specific item I remember quite well because of the hubbub it caused (apparently, my astonishment was was considered insulting) was tiramisu. I don't think that is pretentious. It's available from common supermarkets, but this was a few miles outside of Gap, Pennsylvania. I don't know the area well, but Gap is only a town of a thousand people that likely doesn't have restaurants. Lancaster would have, given it has a college. It's not like I got a detailed life history from these people, but if you ever get the chance, the level of culture shock can be striking. The biggest event of my time there was the neighbor's horse that was used to drive the plows sustaining an enormous gash on its front right leg. That effectively stopped work as people rushed to try and stitch it up. With no machinery, they're entirely reliant on horses to accomplish any meaningful field work, so a serious injury to one can severely impact yield. They are prepared for that, though. Thanks to not making much in the way of purchases of virtually anything from the outside world, resources only flow in so they have a surplus of everything they need to last years if they need to hunker down. Any form of community wealth is entirely kept in the community, so there were apparently some fairly vast intergenerational savings built up. So I don't know if the concern was really that being down a plow was going to have any material impact on anyone's ability to eat, but it was dramatic nonetheless. I didn't ask, but I got the impression the guy driving the plow was as distraught as he was because he considered the horse a friend. He seemed distressed by the amount of pain it was in.
cat199 5y ago
According (loosely) to the CMM approach, Amish could be thought of as more technologically 'mature', since they have clear policies around evaluating technology according to clear requirements which have been optimized over time, rather than simply chasing trends https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_Maturity_Model#Levels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_Maturity_Model#Leve...
minikites 5y ago
>The Amish have the luxury of sitting back and evaluating after the fact. In fairness, I don't think the Amish really care if anything new does get invented, but they have effectively externalized the downsides of technology onto the rest of us while reaping the occasional upside. This reminded me of an Atlantic article making a similar point: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/07/camp-grounded-digital-detox-and-the-age-of-techno-anxiety/277600/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/07/camp-... >But Baldwin asks, "Where did you get your axe? And the slide camera and the stove, the flour, the nails, the books, the garden seeds, and the window glass?" While it seemed that they'd gotten farther away from a technological life, "they'd merely lengthened the umbilical cord." And here's the key part of the criticism: "By moving to the bucolic boondocks, that happy family dodged the undesirable effects of the technology that was supporting them even as they sneered," he concludes. I think we all need to be more engaged and thoughtful about our choices, how they affect our lives, and how they affect the lives of those around us, but we need to be alert for situations where we just push problems elsewhere instead of addressing them.
- at_a_remove 5y ago
  I am not sure the Amish have pushed problems away or externalized them. These problems would continue to exist without the Amish or any other tech-hesitant group. I view them as a variety of groups who have made some reasoned compromises as to how much they will allow their adoption of technology to change their way of life. They do not seem like the type who think they can do it all on their own and understood that they live inside of another country, etc. Technology shapes us even as we shape it. They are at least attempting to put in some care as to what shaping they allow.
- bluGill 5y ago
  For the most part everyone is like that. I have no clue how to make chips with a 3nm (um?) process. I saw a headline about IBM making progress on it a few weeks ago (or was it 2nm?) However I can sit back and enjoy the progress. In the mean time those people at IBM have no clue how to do the job I'm doing but they can enjoy it working. The people at IBM are smart, and I like to think I am: we could switch places and after a dozen years of training would be just as good - but at the expense of being behind in our current job.
chucksta 5y ago
Are you sure that article wasn't about Jewish people? I've heard that about them, and turning them off makes it easy to follow the sabbath, never the Amish. Most of them in lancaster county do not have cell phones, but have phone booths in a remote corner of their farm so it's not convenient.
yabones 5y ago
The Amish/Mennonites have an interesting take... Some of them are 'allowed' to drive cars, as long as they're black base models and are "modest" and largely utilitarian. There are also rules about which types of equipment they can have, so no tractors but they can have skid steer loaders for "construction" which they hitch regular farm implements to. No electricity allowed in the house, but no real restrictions about power in the "shop" or battery powered devices. It's a strange combination between modesty and strategically bending rules. I kind of adore that.
- derg 5y ago
  > It's a strange combination between modesty and strategically bending rules. I kind of adore that. It's very earnestly human. Being rigid is fine and all but it also kind of sucks a hell of a lot. So it turns into a "how can I make this suck a little less without breaking what I believe in too much?" which is something I think we all struggle with but it's really laid bare here with the contrast between their lifestyle and ours.
- ska 5y ago
  > The Amish/Mennonites have an interesting take... Anabaptist communities vary far more than you suggest. It's a bit like Judaism that way; sure some are identifiable by particular dress etc. but there others you wouldn't notice at all in the SUV beside you on the highway.
- jandrese 5y ago
  The politics involved in the community are fascinating. They have local committees that decide the rules for a community, anywhere from a neighborhood to a small town. But those local committees also coordinate at a higher regional level to set overall policy, and the various regions also coordinate at the top level. This means a decision made at the top level, like "no electricity in the home" gets filtered down through the communities with different interpretations of the rules. A particularly strict community might ban all automation in the home, while another will ban power lines but allow battery operated tools, while another will ban all electricity but allow air tools causing people to develop air powered hand mixers and refrigerators. You see a lot of clever workarounds for arbitrary rules in the Amish community. It is very common to see rules bent or broken when necessary for a job, like a farmer being allowed to burn gasoline/diesel to run farm equipment even when his local community bans using it for anything else. Some of the furniture makers have rather sophisticated workshops (although nothing CNC) which allow them to make the furniture efficiently enough to sell it for a very low price.
alisonkisk 5y ago
Pretty rude to blame them for "externalizing" something not caused by the them. By the same token, they are externalizing the upside of early adoption while suffering the loss of benefits, while providing us a living illustration of the alternative to our own choices.
routerl 5y ago
Neal Stephenson coined the idea of "amistics": the evaluation of technologies not for efficiency, but from an existing value system. Named after the Amish. I've been living like this for a while, without having a name for it, but at a pretty fine-grained level, for instance by staying off (most) social media. We all make these decisions. E.g. people's valuing privacy precludes their owning an Amazon Ring.
dheera 5y ago
> with cellphones they could turn them off, with a landline your family time could be interrupted Interestingly, I often miss landline times, because with landlines it was a fair excuse to say you were out and weren't reachable, whereas in the cell phone era people tend to expect you to be always reachable, and I'm in vehement disagreement with that kind of expectation from anyone other than an SO or close family member.
- newsbinator 5y ago
  "Sorry, my phone was on do not disturb"
  - dheera 5y ago
    And then your coworkers try to convince you to not use that. "So how can I reach you then [at all times]?" They simply cannot comprehend a world in which people are (gasp) not reachable at all times and plan around such an assumption.
jquery 5y ago
”Amish women are not taught anything about sex, according to Garrett, which makes it even harder for a girl who's being abused to describe what's happening to her. Mary said she didn't know how to describe what was happening. "I thought they were being bad to me. That was the only word I had to express it," she said. In an Amish culture unaccustomed to women speaking up, Mary felt she got more scolding than sympathy when she told her mother what was going on. She said her mother told her, "You don't fight hard enough and you don't pray hard enough." Mary said her mother made her feel as if the assaults were her fault. "Every time I would talk about this she would say that they have already confessed in church and you're just being unforgiving," she said. … "The funny thing is that they view drinking alcohol until you puke as bad a sin as raping somebody. They get the same punishment for either one," Mary said. But Amish-style punishment was not going to bring Mary the justice she wanted. And for her, the final straw came when she suspected a younger brother, David, was molesting their 4-year-old sister.”[1] —————- MCCLURE: The majority of my sources never made a police report. They never had a court case. Whenever I spoke with these women, they had dozens of other victims that they told me about, dozens of other cousins and friends and family members that - they told me that this had happened to them, too. And, obviously, I can't put a number out there that's unverified or not supported or corroborated by a court case or a police report. It's very difficult to do a story like this where the evidence is limited. And so just anecdotally, just based on my conversations with these women and men, there are a lot more victims out there in Amish country that we may never know of simply because there is no paper trail.[2] —————- [1]https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=316371&page=1 https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=316371&page=1 [2]https://www.npr.org/2020/01/19/797804404/investigation-into-child-sex-abuse-in-amish-communities https://www.npr.org/2020/01/19/797804404/investigation-into-...
- dash2 5y ago
  I think it's good not to idealize any community, but this comment needs a little more context if it's meant to convey more than just "Amish bad!!!"
  - jquery 5y ago
    I’m suggesting that maybe we shouldn’t be getting our life pro-tips from a rape cult. The Amish Keep to Themselves. And They’re Hiding a Horrifying Secret. A year of reporting reveals a culture of incest, rape, and abuse. - January 14, 2020 by Sarah McClure https://www.typeinvestigations.org/investigation/2020/01/14/amish-sexual-abuse-assault/ https://www.typeinvestigations.org/investigation/2020/01/14/... EDIT: I shouldn’t be surprised that pointing out Amish sexual assault makes HN spitting mad. Few things make HN angrier than implying rape is a problem worth caring about.
httpz 5y ago
Amish have that luxury because they're in their safe bubble in rural America. Any other communities that tried to live that lifestyle probably got wiped out by their neighbors through out the history.
- bluGill 5y ago
  They have also cultivated a reputation and so they get leeway to do things that the average person wouldn't be allowed to do. Most of us wouldn't want live in a house not connected to the power grid, so the fact that in some places it is illegal unless you are Amish doesn't bother us.
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snarf21 5y ago
I live in Lancaster and have been around Mennonites my whole life. I don't disagree with some of your points but I think there is more nuance to it. My understanding is that it isn't about delaying judgment on new technology, it is about chasing "wants" or "keeping up with the Joneses". This is what their culture is designed to protect against. They know that cars are more efficient than a horse but if one person gets a car, another person will be tempted to a nicer one, and the next one even nicer. So to prevent the chase, they say they aren't allowed. The same with clothes or appliances or technology. This is how they can still do okay with farming because they don't have any million dollar tractors. Their costs are super low and they have large families to do the labor so they don't need to hire workers. Lots of Amish have cell phones but it is mostly the younger ones and they hide them in the corn fields. They sneak out at night or use them when they work off the farm. It might be surprising to some that the Amish have moved into the trades with a force. Most of them can't farm anymore because there isn't any farmland for sale in Lancaster anymore, and lots have pushed west to Ohio or Indiana or Iowa. The ones that work in the trades, get picked up every day and ride in someone else's $80K crew cab truck, they go into the convenience store and buy breakfast and lunch just the same as everyone else. They have learned that there is more money out in the "English" world than in farming. It will be interesting to see what happens across time as they get used to "keeping up".
michaelmrose 5y ago
It's more than that. Their very existence is predicated on subsidence within a larger society that repudiates their values. A society that actually lives their values would be both out competed and quite possibly have lost their territory to those willing to move forward. Their attitude towards technology is as lacking in virtue as absolute pacifism. Pacifism that can only exist through others violence isn't a rejection of violence it is merely abdicating responsibility for deciding when to use that violence to others. In a way its more odious than violence.
- newt_slowly 5y ago
  You are basically acknowledging that technological development is a force that happens outside of our control, and that we are forced to keep up lest we be conquered by our neighbors. This is true, and it's what I believe also, but I don't see how you come to the conclusion that there is anything desirable or moral about this state of affairs. Without us keeping the Amish way of life "subsidized", perhaps they would indeed have perished. And they would have gone willing, due to their belief system. It's remarkable that you can try to spin not being willing to participate in the technological-industrial system as "more odious than violence".
  - michaelmrose 5y ago
    Absolute pacifism is more odious than violence because violence in the course of human history has been from the perspective of an individual player been inevitable and necessary to prevent subjugation and murder. It is the statement that I know violence may be needed in some occasions but in order that I may imagine my own hands clean I am going to abstain from making the choice forcing someone else to. It neither stops your fellows from becoming nazis and hurting others nor being marched to concentration camps. The simplest moral test one can apply is what would happen if everyone applied the same thought rules for behavior. It would be great right. More realistically what would happen if most people did? If they weren't willing to apply at least minimal defensive violence then a minority of defectors enslaves everyone else.
- lurquer 5y ago

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skadamat 5y ago

Love it, reminds me a lot of Cal Newport's ideas: https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2017/09/18/approach-technology-like-the-amish/ https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2017/09/18/approach-technolo... The focus should be on minimalism. Start by understanding your priorities, goals, and the mental ecosystem you want to inhabit. Then evaluate each tool for its effectiveness in the above pre-stated constraints. Every technology should have a clear purpose & place in your life, or it risks becoming into a form of media you lose control over.

teddyh 5y ago

Anyone here who has had doubts about installing a “Home Assistant” in their home, or procuring a modern “Smart” TV, or anyone who recognizes themselves in this meme: (https://imgur.com/6wbgy2L https://imgur.com/6wbgy2L) are essentially having the same kinds of thoughts as the Amish have about technology: Who is this technology serving? Is it really to the ultimate benefit of me, or my society?

apples_oranges 5y ago
Regarding that picture: I wonder if a locksmith has a "no mechanical locks" policy. Otherwise it sounds like a case of "don't get high on your own supply".
- ancarda 5y ago
  What do you mean? I tried looking up what a mechanical lock is, it's not clear to me. Would it be bad for a locksmith to sell one to you?
  - hannasanarion 5y ago
    In this context "mechanical" means "non-electronic". Mechanical locks are desirable because they have no unknown exploits, are not reliant on third party services, don't need batteries, and cannot be attacked remotely or en-masse.
    - vkou 5y ago
      Attacking a lock remotely still requires physical access to the property in order to reap the benefits of that attack. Given that most mechanical locks can be trivially picked, I fail to see the disadvantages of electronic locks. Yes, the failure modes of mechanical locks are better understood - they are understood to be incredibly serious, and easy to exploit. An $80 snap gun will open most locks, and requires zero skill or training to use. Saying that you prefer a mechanical lock to an electric one because its failure modes are well-understood is like saying that you prefer ROT13 encryption to <My homebrew encryption>. Are homebrew systems stupid? Yes. Is it likely that my homebrew system has problems? Yes. Are those problems well understood? No. Is it probably better than ROT13..? Yes, because ROT13 can be broken by a child.

tzs 5y ago

This 2009 article "Amish Hackers" [1] will probably be of interest to many here. It covers in detail the Amish approach to technology. [1] https://kk.org/thetechnium/amish-hackers-a/ https://kk.org/thetechnium/amish-hackers-a/

rednerrus 5y ago

This book helped change the way I think about technology: https://www.amazon.com/Better-Off-Flipping-Switch-Technology/dp/0060570059/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2A892SF8Q4QVU&dchild=1&keywords=better+off+flipping+the+switch+on+technology&qid=1621442185&sprefix=better+off+flipping+the+%2Caps%2C210&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Better-Off-Flipping-Switch-Technology... It's about the Amish.

jquery 5y ago
This helped change the way I think about the Amish: https://www.npr.org/2020/01/19/797804404/investigation-into-child-sex-abuse-in-amish-communities https://www.npr.org/2020/01/19/797804404/investigation-into-... https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=316371&page=1 https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=316371&page=1 Johnny Byler's sentencing brought out the largest crowd -- and the most tears -- not in support of Mary, but in support of the confessed rapist.

gwbas1c 5y ago

I wonder if I'm weird because I don't want a smart speaker in my house? Then again, I still find voice recognition so sketchy that I just don't want to deal with it. On the other hand, the real reason why I put smart switches in my home was practical. I hate that 3-way switches have no fixed "on" or "off" motion, so I started with smart switches to replace my 3-ways. Then I realized that the timers on smart switches are easier to program and adapt to Daylight Savings Time, so I put more in. I'm an early adopter and I also approach new technology very conservatively. I can totally understand why the Amish don't rush out and adopt everything.

mxuribe 5y ago
I'm with you; you're not weird! (Or, maybe we're both weird!) I don't want a smart speaker because i can't see any worthwhile value that i get from it. I especially like your example of the 3-way switch...that seems a conscious decision that clearly added value for you without just trying new tech for new tech's sake, etc.
- closetohome 5y ago
  Adding voice control to lights is surprisingly handy.
  - mxuribe 5y ago
    This reminds me of I.O.L. Now *that* is a feature that everyone should have in every room of their home: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHoXX4QtY3s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHoXX4QtY3s (Sorry, could not resist ;-)
hannasanarion 5y ago
I have never understood the appeal of smart speakers. A smart speaker can't do anything that a smartphone can't already do, and I have that on my person at all times. Spotify sent me a google home for free, and in a year I have only intentionally used it once or twice, and I think on one of those occasions my phone answered the wakeword first, so what even is the point? 99% of the times it waked were responding to me telling someone "okay cool", or my cat stepping on it. A few months ago it went in the old dead electronics pile, and a few weeks ago that pile went to a recycler, hopefully the metals in it can be turned into something actually useful.

thedanbob 5y ago

I don’t think I really admitted to myself how addictive my smartphone is until I uninstalled most of my apps and locked it down with a simple management profile (no web browser, no app store). I’ve had it this way for months and it’s so much more pleasant now, yet I still have the same habit as mentioned in the article: I pull it out whenever I’m in the bathroom. Now that there’s not much to do on it, I’m very well versed on the current weather conditions.

Animats 5y ago

"Tang’s target customers were desk workers who downloaded meditation apps and people who paid for digital-detox camps." They're selling virtue signalling. If that's what you want, get a new unlocked Android phone, and power it up without a SIM card. When it wants you to sign up for Google, click "later". Then remove the Google startup app to avoid further nagging. Then connect to WiFi or use a USB cable, download F-Droid, and load what you need from there. Remove most of the Google crapware, plus any other junk that came with the phone. Then add a SIM card. I have a ruggedized phone from Caterpillar Tractor set up that way. (Haven't installed a replacement for Google Play Services yet, though. I should.)

SLWW 5y ago

I love the idea of technology as a tool; and the idea that "success" as viewed by how long someone uses that tool to be perverse in nature. Something to keep in mind while building the "tooling" of tomorrow.

tboyd47 5y ago

It seems they recognize that the community level functions of tech are more salient than the individual level functions. In our society we tend to take the opposite approach. We evaluate technology only based on how it benefits an individual, while overlooking its effect on communities. A desktop computer at work or in the living room somehow doesn't have the addictive qualities of a smartphone. Perhaps it's because all technology does is amplify networks, and the networks created by isolated people with devices are different from the bonds of family, work, proximity, etc.

tyjaksn 5y ago

> Most Silicon Valley CEOs severely restrict their own children’s access to phones and screens. Is anybody aware of the source of this quote? I hear it quite often but have never seen the evidence to support it. I am starting to think that it might just be convenient to throw into an argument about technology.

suyula 5y ago
This is where I first saw the idea: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/silicon-valley-parents-raising-their-kids-tech-free-red-flag-2018-2 https://www.businessinsider.com.au/silicon-valley-parents-ra...