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The Amish have negotiated a pact with modernity (2018)

89 points by hidden-spyder 5y ago

khazhoux 5y ago
Highly recommend this and other videos by Peter Santenello. He goes into Amish communities and just talks with people. Fascinating insight into the same topics of this article. https://youtu.be/EgY1SVXiBrU https://youtu.be/EgY1SVXiBrU His journey into orthodox jewish neighborhood in NY is great too.
focusgroup0 5y ago
The Amish and remote indigenous tribes also had much lower rates of "the v1rus"
- fknorangesite 5y ago
  What is the point you're trying to make here?
paul7986 5y ago
I live outside of Pennsylvania Dutch country and two weeks ago driving in that area I was shocked to see many horse and buggy drivers distracted by their iPhones.
- masterof0 5y ago
  Do they have turn signals in their buggy? or they just use their hands to signal? I would suppose the horse knows the road, is in "auto" mode. Obviously i have no experience with horses at all.
  - filoeleven 5y ago
    They have turn signals, along with flashing hazard lights. And they’re quite necessary, since they’re often traveling at less than a quarter of the speed of the traffic around them. Without a turn signal, car drivers would try to pass a buggy that has moved into the middle of the lane in order to make a left turn.
- reidjs 5y ago
  "The Amish don’t always reject a technology, but they have very specific rules about how it is to be used." Maybe they determined a way to use their iphones without them being harmful? I.e. using specific apps or only in certain circumstances.
  - isk517 5y ago
    I feel like depends on whether or not they are using their iPhone while operating their horse and buggy.
    - codingdave 5y ago
      To be fair, a horse and buggy is somewhat self-driving. The horse knows how to walk and stop and when to make a noise if something goes awry.
      - nirav72 5y ago
        Can the horse and buggy automatically move out of the way if someone else is about to hit it?
        isk517 5y ago
        Yes but you shouldn't rely on it and should always be paying attention. We're hoping that the next version of horse should be fully autonomous.
        codingdave 5y ago
        Yes. It is a horse. Horses are completely capable of independent movement.
        klyrs 5y ago
        Within the limitations of the horse's reaction time and maneuverability with an attached buggy, yes.
        5y ago
- zyang 5y ago
  Sounds like they have better self driving tech.
  - zepto 5y ago
    Self-driving horse.
- quaffapint 5y ago
  They also make use of solar panels on their farms. They just don't use public power.
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    I don't know a lot about the Amish, but my understanding is that it's less about the technology itself and more about its effects (as is the focus of this article) and also the dependencies it creates. The Amish are OK with using electricity as long as they can generate it themselves. They don't want to be dependent on a utility to provide it.
    - markkanof 5y ago
      Yes, it's common for Amish carpenters to use lot's of modern power tools in the course of their work, but will often remove the electric motor and replace it with a belt drive that is powered by a water wheel or similar.
- tofflos 5y ago
  In a don't-text-while-driving context it might be more suitable to compare buggy drivers to car passengers. Horses are alive and will try to avoid crashing violently.
  - leephillips 5y ago
    So, unlike Tesla, the Amish have a working auto-drive system.
    - IIAOPSW 5y ago
      There's a technological trade off to consider. For example, the Tesla doesn't literally smell like shit.
      - paul7986 5y ago
        I trust a horse driven vehicle over any modern day self driving car!!!
sleepysysadmin 5y ago
It's not just the Amish. Many communities have decided they wish to live at ~1850. It has always made me curious why, what do they know? If you look deeply in many religions they are the same. Buddhist monks aren't excluded from tech but they certainly dont own any themselves. Why? Because it's something to consider and create desires. Just as they shave their head not because of aesthetics but because now you never have to worry about your hair looking bad. When you eliminate the unnecessary from your life, you certainly live a happier life.
- MomoXenosaga 5y ago
  No it's that if they leave the Amish they lose their community. I realize it's cool to fetishize them but think of them like the Jehovah's witnesses.
  - rvbissell 5y ago
    Yes, the shunning is problematic. But there is one key difference between Jehovah's Witnesses and the Amish, in this respect: The Amish encourage their teenagers to go experience the modern world, before making that commitment. Among Jehovah's Witnesses, that kind of pre-commitment behavior would lead to (reversible) soft-shunning. I think the rational play for an Amish youth would be to not commit to the religion, but live the lifestyle. That's not really feasible for a young adult who was brought up as a JW child, after a certain age. They would be gradually excluded from their baptized cohorts, even if never shunned outright.
    - iammisc 5y ago
      How is shunning problematic. If they didn't shun, they would no longer be amish, or be able to preserve their culture. Perhaps we should appreciate the upside of asceticism.
      - rvbissell 5y ago
        Note that my comment was about comparisons between the Amish & JW flavors of shunning, rather than the Amish specifically. I believe my first paragraph was clear that I think the Amish model of shunning is the more reasonable of the two. Let's also notice that you chose to say 'preserve their culture', whereas in the comment you replied to I was speaking of religions (and also, albeit implicitly, cults.) I'll come back to your Culture point, but I have to answer your question in the context of what I meant, not what you meant. Religious shunning is problematic because it harms the individual. Again using Jehovah's Witnesses as an example: JW children are under intense peer pressure to make their commitment at an early age. They are strongly discouraged from building up a social network outside of the JW domain, or even to pursue higher education. So if a JW child gets baptized at 14, and then when 20+ realizes they are gay (or atheist, or buddhist), coming out as such after making that JW commitment causes them significant social, economic, & psychological harm. But does it protect the religion? Absolutely. That's the whole point, individual-be-damned (if you'll forgive the pun.) As to your point about Amish culture: religion & culture can be orthogonal to varying degrees. I suspect the Amish are one of the extreme examples, where religion & culture overlap inextricably. There are many aspects to their culture that are especially precious to them, and so it only makes sense that they wish to preserve it. But still, it would be willfully myopic to not concede that the shunning harms the individual. Atleast /rumspringa/ gives their youth the ability to make a more informed decision, and even a way to avoid complete ostracism even if they explicitly choose to live as though English, and never make the commitment to be Amish. I give them credit for that accommodation, relative to the shunning that other insular religious groups do.
zepto 5y ago
Good article in general, except for the title. I know many people and see many people online who understand these truths. The hard part is creating a viable alternative culture that can make collective choices about technology use. It’s also worth noting that the Amish rely on the ‘English’ I.e. American legal system and military for their defense. Their way of life doesn’t stand alone outside of American society.
- jerf 5y ago
  They could manage without our legal system, I'm sure, but I think there's some profundity in the military point. It does no good to create some sort of utopia if that utopia hasn't got an answer to smart bombs or paratroopers, etc. The fundamental game theory of the modern world's arms race has to be considered in any attempt to structure the perfect society.
  - zepto 5y ago
    Our legal system is what protects their land and property from just being taken by other Americans. It also allows them to maintain a lifestyle with minimal interaction with the state.
    - philwelch 5y ago
      One of the fundamental purposes of any legal system is to protect people's land and property from being taken by others. Furthermore, allowing people to maintain their lifestyle with minimal interaction with the state is probably the best possible use of the state in the first place.
      - zepto 5y ago
        Agreed, and the American one at least has this in mind, broken as it may be. Not so many others.
    - jerf 5y ago
      There are ways other than legal systems to prevent that. I'm sure they would have no problem deploying their own police forces and providing basic protections against anyone less than a military force who would try to just take their land. Military forces are a separate problem from legal problems. I think rather a lot of the people rushing to correct me are conflating the two in their heads. When you say "just being taken by other Americans", are you thinking of a rogue criminal or some sort of organized invasion? Personally, I suspect that even if you tried the sort of organized invasion that a civilian might try to put together that you'd still find yourself up against some stiff resistance. Criminals in general are less than excited about stealing from people when they can almost count on being shot at. They steal from people who won't shoot at them. The problem is when you get to military levels of invasion, at the level where you start putting together forces that count on being shot at and still overpowering you.
moedersmooiste 5y ago
I can relate. Even though I own a smart phone, I've turned off all notifications and sounds that can distract me except for incoming calls. Never used Facebook. Don't want a car.
- leephillips 5y ago
  This is me. Especially the car part. Owning a car is such a burden that I’m really enjoying being able to not have one. Of course, some people do need to own a vehicle, but if you can manage without it, I recommend it.
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    There are places where owning a car is a burden. I have lived in such a place and I didn't like it. There are pther places where owning a car is pretty much essential. I'd give up computers and the internet entirely before I gave up my car.
    - moedersmooiste 5y ago
      Really curious what those places are. Because for me it's the other way around. I live in a Dutch city where you can get around easily by walking, biking or public transport. And for those rare occasions I need a car, I use a car sharing service. Don't know if you live in car-dependent suburbia(most people do), but that doesn't sound appealing at all.
      - leephillips 5y ago
        There are probably farmers no too far outside your city that need trucks and other vehicles. I’m not a farmer, and much prefer a lifestyle like yours. But the people growing the food you eat have a different lifestyle.
      - Diederich 5y ago
        > Really curious what those places are. We live in a rural area about 10 minutes drive from Olympia, the capitol city of Washington state. There's a fair amount of public transit in and around Olympia, but none of it comes close to where we live. Uber doesn't serve this area, and taxis are rare and expensive. My wife and I work from home, and drive our largely hydro-powered Tesla in to town a few times a week.
burnafter184 5y ago
I feel like I have to drop "Technopoly" here, because that's promoting similar concepts. Postman calls out our bias towards adopting new technologies without any reluctance, and without consideration of the hazards of deploying it. He also espouses the view that once a technology is adopted it will self-proliferate up to the point where it becomes wholly outmoded, which at least as far as I can tell appears to be true. So there's this natural blindspot for technology where mankind seemingly sees only upsides, judges it fit for use. Eventually an overarching technic emerges where it's not mankind that is using the technology, but rather technology is using mankind. Like most of Postman, it's a very compelling criticism, and despite its age the points he made are remain salient.
- UncleOxidant 5y ago
  Technopoly was published in 1992 but still holds up quite well. Postman was something of a prophet.
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  I wish Lennart Poettering had read that.
harryvederci 5y ago
My thoughts at: - 30% through the article: "Ok, maybe I'm Amish." - 60% through the article: "Ok, I'm definitely Amish." - 100% through the article: "So what other media can I consume on the interwebz?"
satellite2 5y ago
I think this articles attributes intent and wisdom where it is not due and as such should be at best considered a romanticization of their culture. Even tough it seems they understand the choice they are making regarding some technology and even tough in many case with hindsight it appears that they made some judicious choices for their society wellbeing, I argue they do not have the tools to make those choices in an unbiased manner as those tought experiments are also technological byproducts. Their stance regarding modern medicine, tolerating it when someone is truly ill, seems particularly hypocritical if not disingenuous.
- mikem170 5y ago
  > I argue they do not have the tools to make those choices in an unbiased manner as those tought experiments are also technological byproducts. I wonder if the rest of us use technology in an unbiased experimental manner without regard to the consequences? As the decades go by we become increasingly stressed having to deal with commutes and corporations and bureaucracies and living in a world of phone zombies, mass media outrage, echo chambers, etc. All the While our world becomes more complex and less robust. Personally I think there's a huge lack of intent and wisdom on our part. As a group we're focused on novelty and profit instead of people, and don't seem to be so great at dealing with the resulting problems like pollution, inequality, depression, etc.
  - bobthechef 5y ago
    I am reminded of that probably fictional but nonetheless instructive anecdote involving Minsky and a young Sussman coding a neural network. Ignorance of the biases of your culture does not eliminate those biases, as it were. All technology is the product of people with beliefs about prevailing conditions and beliefs of what is valuable. As the articles says, technology is not some isolated, abstract thing. It is embedded in a much larger reality that is indeed value-laden, thus making technology itself value-laden.
  - satellite2 5y ago
    Only the future will tell if we manage to solve problems faster than we are creating new ones. But I'm pretty sure abdication means death at this point. We are not crocodiles that managed to find a timeless form and effortless survival behaviour. We are brand new, extremely weak but extremely smart, I think it's pretty revealing about our nature and survival options.
jfernandez 5y ago
> Any idea that technology is an unmitigated good begins to be questioned. I think that's where we as the more "common" society may have gone off course: no technology (chair, toothbrush, etc to be cheeky/comprehensive on my use of the word technology) lives in a world where it's an absolutely perfect good. Anything can be abused, and when we've though about adjusting or rethinking big internet-based technologies, including social media services, it seems we're not putting enough responsibility on the operators of these services. To me, that _doesn't_ mean we expect them to be perfect either with the ability to be responsible actors, but there needs to be some agreed upon standards that we can evaluate performance of their ability to act responsibly. It can just be left up to them, which is currently the state at a high-level.
woolion 5y ago
An interesting read about the subject is the small 'utopian' book Erewhon by Samuel Butler, published in 1872. It considers the implications of the industrial revolution on society, and thus how it shapes the industrial society and its future. The relationship with the religious power structure is quite enlightening.
jl6 5y ago
> But they carefully consider how each [technology] will change their culture before embracing it. And the best clue as to what will happen comes from watching their neighbors. This knowledge is not unknown in the English world. This is how most large, conservative financial organizations manage technology. They don’t dive into new technology without some very careful consideration.
tzs 5y ago
Also see this 2009 article, "Amish Hackers" [1]. [1] https://kk.org/thetechnium/amish-hackers-a/ https://kk.org/thetechnium/amish-hackers-a/
dang 5y ago
One small past thread: The Amish understand a life-changing truth about technology the rest of us don’t - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17106823 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17106823 - May 2018 (6 comments)
black_13 5y ago
Technology makes it impossible to start over to walk away from bad events, there is no “Gone To Texas” I can’t leave behind bad debts and truly start over. Everything is known about you.
neonate 5y ago
https://archive.md/n8LuJ https://archive.md/n8LuJ http://web.archive.org/web/20210814134926/https://qz.com/1275194/the-amish-understand-a-life-changing-truth-about-technology-the-rest-of-us-dont/ http://web.archive.org/web/20210814134926/https://qz.com/127...
spaetzleesser 5y ago
I am always a little conflicted about articles that portray the Amish as this wise group of people. I lived close to Amish country for a while and there were lots of stories about child and spousal abuse. They seem to live to some degree outside the regular legal system so you hear less but it seems to be a pretty oppressive group.
- fuckcensorship 5y ago
  From the article: > In the 1960s and 1970s, 75% of Amish children would decide to become Amish adults. The most recent statistics show that’s up to 95%. Why do you think this number continues to increase if your assumptions about the Amish are true?
  - bitcurious 5y ago
    Perhaps they are comparatively less prepared for the technophilic world.
  - Arbalest 5y ago
    Opportunities for young people have been getting worse perhaps?
- voisin 5y ago
  Worth reading up on Rumspringa [0] which is when Amish youth leave the community to experience modern life and make a decision on their own separate from the community if they wish to return or not. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumspringa https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumspringa
- poulsbohemian 5y ago
  This is a good observation, and it’s also important to realize that there’s no single “Amish” group - there are various groups of similar religious and cultural origin across a number of US states and Canadian Provinces, each of which has its own unique rules and practices.
guenthert 5y ago
Interesting article, but since the way of life of the Amish is so polarizing, I'm afraid this distracts from the question, whether society as a whole and its members ought to embrace all technology or whether it's sensible to evaluate and discuss its merits and perhaps regulate its use. This is of course done everywhere to some extent, but perhaps we ("the English") would be better of doing it more?
xyzelement 5y ago
I made the same observation about chasidic Jews. On first glance, their engagement with technology may seem backwards (eg, still on feature phones?) but as time goes on we're seeing those choices pan out right (eg - people who go on tech detoxes, etc - something you never need to do when you're chasidic or amish.) I would say the thing that's missing from "our" society is a compass. What is it that we want to be, what do we value the most, etc? You begin by knowing those answers, and then you can evaluate whether technology helps or hurts you. For example -- almost everyone says "we value family." But the chasidim and the amish express that by living close to their family, while "a typical American" moves far away from home and then has to rely on FaceTime and WhatsApp. The reason we have this problem is because we value something else above family (or community) -- that may be novelty, work opportunities, etc. But mainly, I think it's because we've become quite a bit untethered. Society has moved pretty far away from religious and traditional values in the past few decades, and hasn't replaced them with anything (certainly not anything better.) So while a chasid or amish person can look at TikToc and say "that's just going to take me away from my family/spiritual work and therefore I don't want that" - we in secular society are confused about our trade-offs.
- ilrwbwrkhv 5y ago
  The untethered soul, some might say.
- iammisc 5y ago
  > I would say the thing that's missing from "our" society is a compass. What is it that we want to be, what do we value the most, etc? You begin by knowing those answers, and then you can evaluate whether technology helps or hurts you. This is religion, as you point out. > But the chasidim and the amish express that by living close to their family, while "a typical American" moves far away from home and then has to rely on FaceTime and WhatsApp. It's not just this binary though. There are various levels of facetime and whatsapping as well. And actually, most americans live close to family. On HN we are a bubble.
iammisc 5y ago
This is happening in a lot more religions. Younger Catholics are becoming more traditional. We're even adopting our own garb. At my traditional parish, men come dressed in suits and many women veil (as is traditional when in church). Similar attitudes regarding television and video games. Many even hold to the old catholic beliefs on usury (not very popular amongst most other conservatives). It's a good reminder to be out of this world. Most social life is through the parish. It's pretty nice. Would love to meet the amish in the middle.
- jrootabega 5y ago
  Maybe a softball game!
rthomas6 5y ago
The problem is we've stopped asking ourselves what it is that we value. What are our goals? If it's maximum pleasure we could just create a VR world with heroin, a catheter, and a bedpan. Go on a soma holiday whenever we wanted. But we don't want maximum pleasure, only our hindbrain does, and we are letting ourselves be led around by it for the profit of others.

89 points by hidden-spyder 5y ago

Highly recommend this and other videos by Peter Santenello. He goes into Amish communities and just talks with people. Fascinating insight into the same topics of this article. https://youtu.be/EgY1SVXiBrU https://youtu.be/EgY1SVXiBrU His journey into orthodox jewish neighborhood in NY is great too.

focusgroup0 5y ago

The Amish and remote indigenous tribes also had much lower rates of "the v1rus"

fknorangesite 5y ago
What is the point you're trying to make here?

paul7986 5y ago

I live outside of Pennsylvania Dutch country and two weeks ago driving in that area I was shocked to see many horse and buggy drivers distracted by their iPhones.

masterof0 5y ago
Do they have turn signals in their buggy? or they just use their hands to signal? I would suppose the horse knows the road, is in "auto" mode. Obviously i have no experience with horses at all.
- filoeleven 5y ago
  They have turn signals, along with flashing hazard lights. And they’re quite necessary, since they’re often traveling at less than a quarter of the speed of the traffic around them. Without a turn signal, car drivers would try to pass a buggy that has moved into the middle of the lane in order to make a left turn.
reidjs 5y ago
"The Amish don’t always reject a technology, but they have very specific rules about how it is to be used." Maybe they determined a way to use their iphones without them being harmful? I.e. using specific apps or only in certain circumstances.
- isk517 5y ago
  I feel like depends on whether or not they are using their iPhone while operating their horse and buggy.
  - codingdave 5y ago
    To be fair, a horse and buggy is somewhat self-driving. The horse knows how to walk and stop and when to make a noise if something goes awry.
    - nirav72 5y ago
      Can the horse and buggy automatically move out of the way if someone else is about to hit it?
      - isk517 5y ago
        Yes but you shouldn't rely on it and should always be paying attention. We're hoping that the next version of horse should be fully autonomous.
      - codingdave 5y ago
        Yes. It is a horse. Horses are completely capable of independent movement.
      - klyrs 5y ago
        Within the limitations of the horse's reaction time and maneuverability with an attached buggy, yes.
        5y ago
zyang 5y ago
Sounds like they have better self driving tech.
- zepto 5y ago
  Self-driving horse.
quaffapint 5y ago
They also make use of solar panels on their farms. They just don't use public power.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  I don't know a lot about the Amish, but my understanding is that it's less about the technology itself and more about its effects (as is the focus of this article) and also the dependencies it creates. The Amish are OK with using electricity as long as they can generate it themselves. They don't want to be dependent on a utility to provide it.
  - markkanof 5y ago
    Yes, it's common for Amish carpenters to use lot's of modern power tools in the course of their work, but will often remove the electric motor and replace it with a belt drive that is powered by a water wheel or similar.
tofflos 5y ago
In a don't-text-while-driving context it might be more suitable to compare buggy drivers to car passengers. Horses are alive and will try to avoid crashing violently.
- leephillips 5y ago
  So, unlike Tesla, the Amish have a working auto-drive system.
  - IIAOPSW 5y ago
    There's a technological trade off to consider. For example, the Tesla doesn't literally smell like shit.
    - paul7986 5y ago
      I trust a horse driven vehicle over any modern day self driving car!!!

sleepysysadmin 5y ago

It's not just the Amish. Many communities have decided they wish to live at ~1850. It has always made me curious why, what do they know? If you look deeply in many religions they are the same. Buddhist monks aren't excluded from tech but they certainly dont own any themselves. Why? Because it's something to consider and create desires. Just as they shave their head not because of aesthetics but because now you never have to worry about your hair looking bad. When you eliminate the unnecessary from your life, you certainly live a happier life.

MomoXenosaga 5y ago
No it's that if they leave the Amish they lose their community. I realize it's cool to fetishize them but think of them like the Jehovah's witnesses.
- rvbissell 5y ago
  Yes, the shunning is problematic. But there is one key difference between Jehovah's Witnesses and the Amish, in this respect: The Amish encourage their teenagers to go experience the modern world, before making that commitment. Among Jehovah's Witnesses, that kind of pre-commitment behavior would lead to (reversible) soft-shunning. I think the rational play for an Amish youth would be to not commit to the religion, but live the lifestyle. That's not really feasible for a young adult who was brought up as a JW child, after a certain age. They would be gradually excluded from their baptized cohorts, even if never shunned outright.
  - iammisc 5y ago
    How is shunning problematic. If they didn't shun, they would no longer be amish, or be able to preserve their culture. Perhaps we should appreciate the upside of asceticism.
    - rvbissell 5y ago
      Note that my comment was about comparisons between the Amish & JW flavors of shunning, rather than the Amish specifically. I believe my first paragraph was clear that I think the Amish model of shunning is the more reasonable of the two. Let's also notice that you chose to say 'preserve their culture', whereas in the comment you replied to I was speaking of religions (and also, albeit implicitly, cults.) I'll come back to your Culture point, but I have to answer your question in the context of what I meant, not what you meant. Religious shunning is problematic because it harms the individual. Again using Jehovah's Witnesses as an example: JW children are under intense peer pressure to make their commitment at an early age. They are strongly discouraged from building up a social network outside of the JW domain, or even to pursue higher education. So if a JW child gets baptized at 14, and then when 20+ realizes they are gay (or atheist, or buddhist), coming out as such after making that JW commitment causes them significant social, economic, & psychological harm. But does it protect the religion? Absolutely. That's the whole point, individual-be-damned (if you'll forgive the pun.) As to your point about Amish culture: religion & culture can be orthogonal to varying degrees. I suspect the Amish are one of the extreme examples, where religion & culture overlap inextricably. There are many aspects to their culture that are especially precious to them, and so it only makes sense that they wish to preserve it. But still, it would be willfully myopic to not concede that the shunning harms the individual. Atleast /rumspringa/ gives their youth the ability to make a more informed decision, and even a way to avoid complete ostracism even if they explicitly choose to live as though English, and never make the commitment to be Amish. I give them credit for that accommodation, relative to the shunning that other insular religious groups do.

zepto 5y ago

Good article in general, except for the title. I know many people and see many people online who understand these truths. The hard part is creating a viable alternative culture that can make collective choices about technology use. It’s also worth noting that the Amish rely on the ‘English’ I.e. American legal system and military for their defense. Their way of life doesn’t stand alone outside of American society.

jerf 5y ago
They could manage without our legal system, I'm sure, but I think there's some profundity in the military point. It does no good to create some sort of utopia if that utopia hasn't got an answer to smart bombs or paratroopers, etc. The fundamental game theory of the modern world's arms race has to be considered in any attempt to structure the perfect society.
- zepto 5y ago
  Our legal system is what protects their land and property from just being taken by other Americans. It also allows them to maintain a lifestyle with minimal interaction with the state.
  - philwelch 5y ago
    One of the fundamental purposes of any legal system is to protect people's land and property from being taken by others. Furthermore, allowing people to maintain their lifestyle with minimal interaction with the state is probably the best possible use of the state in the first place.
    - zepto 5y ago
      Agreed, and the American one at least has this in mind, broken as it may be. Not so many others.
  - jerf 5y ago
    There are ways other than legal systems to prevent that. I'm sure they would have no problem deploying their own police forces and providing basic protections against anyone less than a military force who would try to just take their land. Military forces are a separate problem from legal problems. I think rather a lot of the people rushing to correct me are conflating the two in their heads. When you say "just being taken by other Americans", are you thinking of a rogue criminal or some sort of organized invasion? Personally, I suspect that even if you tried the sort of organized invasion that a civilian might try to put together that you'd still find yourself up against some stiff resistance. Criminals in general are less than excited about stealing from people when they can almost count on being shot at. They steal from people who won't shoot at them. The problem is when you get to military levels of invasion, at the level where you start putting together forces that count on being shot at and still overpowering you.

moedersmooiste 5y ago

I can relate. Even though I own a smart phone, I've turned off all notifications and sounds that can distract me except for incoming calls. Never used Facebook. Don't want a car.

leephillips 5y ago
This is me. Especially the car part. Owning a car is such a burden that I’m really enjoying being able to not have one. Of course, some people do need to own a vehicle, but if you can manage without it, I recommend it.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  There are places where owning a car is a burden. I have lived in such a place and I didn't like it. There are pther places where owning a car is pretty much essential. I'd give up computers and the internet entirely before I gave up my car.
  - moedersmooiste 5y ago
    Really curious what those places are. Because for me it's the other way around. I live in a Dutch city where you can get around easily by walking, biking or public transport. And for those rare occasions I need a car, I use a car sharing service. Don't know if you live in car-dependent suburbia(most people do), but that doesn't sound appealing at all.
    - leephillips 5y ago
      There are probably farmers no too far outside your city that need trucks and other vehicles. I’m not a farmer, and much prefer a lifestyle like yours. But the people growing the food you eat have a different lifestyle.
    - Diederich 5y ago
      > Really curious what those places are. We live in a rural area about 10 minutes drive from Olympia, the capitol city of Washington state. There's a fair amount of public transit in and around Olympia, but none of it comes close to where we live. Uber doesn't serve this area, and taxis are rare and expensive. My wife and I work from home, and drive our largely hydro-powered Tesla in to town a few times a week.

burnafter184 5y ago

I feel like I have to drop "Technopoly" here, because that's promoting similar concepts. Postman calls out our bias towards adopting new technologies without any reluctance, and without consideration of the hazards of deploying it. He also espouses the view that once a technology is adopted it will self-proliferate up to the point where it becomes wholly outmoded, which at least as far as I can tell appears to be true. So there's this natural blindspot for technology where mankind seemingly sees only upsides, judges it fit for use. Eventually an overarching technic emerges where it's not mankind that is using the technology, but rather technology is using mankind. Like most of Postman, it's a very compelling criticism, and despite its age the points he made are remain salient.

UncleOxidant 5y ago
Technopoly was published in 1992 but still holds up quite well. Postman was something of a prophet.
dane-pgp 5y ago
I wish Lennart Poettering had read that.

harryvederci 5y ago

My thoughts at: - 30% through the article: "Ok, maybe I'm Amish." - 60% through the article: "Ok, I'm definitely Amish." - 100% through the article: "So what other media can I consume on the interwebz?"

satellite2 5y ago

I think this articles attributes intent and wisdom where it is not due and as such should be at best considered a romanticization of their culture. Even tough it seems they understand the choice they are making regarding some technology and even tough in many case with hindsight it appears that they made some judicious choices for their society wellbeing, I argue they do not have the tools to make those choices in an unbiased manner as those tought experiments are also technological byproducts. Their stance regarding modern medicine, tolerating it when someone is truly ill, seems particularly hypocritical if not disingenuous.

mikem170 5y ago
> I argue they do not have the tools to make those choices in an unbiased manner as those tought experiments are also technological byproducts. I wonder if the rest of us use technology in an unbiased experimental manner without regard to the consequences? As the decades go by we become increasingly stressed having to deal with commutes and corporations and bureaucracies and living in a world of phone zombies, mass media outrage, echo chambers, etc. All the While our world becomes more complex and less robust. Personally I think there's a huge lack of intent and wisdom on our part. As a group we're focused on novelty and profit instead of people, and don't seem to be so great at dealing with the resulting problems like pollution, inequality, depression, etc.
- bobthechef 5y ago
  I am reminded of that probably fictional but nonetheless instructive anecdote involving Minsky and a young Sussman coding a neural network. Ignorance of the biases of your culture does not eliminate those biases, as it were. All technology is the product of people with beliefs about prevailing conditions and beliefs of what is valuable. As the articles says, technology is not some isolated, abstract thing. It is embedded in a much larger reality that is indeed value-laden, thus making technology itself value-laden.
- satellite2 5y ago
  Only the future will tell if we manage to solve problems faster than we are creating new ones. But I'm pretty sure abdication means death at this point. We are not crocodiles that managed to find a timeless form and effortless survival behaviour. We are brand new, extremely weak but extremely smart, I think it's pretty revealing about our nature and survival options.

jfernandez 5y ago

> Any idea that technology is an unmitigated good begins to be questioned. I think that's where we as the more "common" society may have gone off course: no technology (chair, toothbrush, etc to be cheeky/comprehensive on my use of the word technology) lives in a world where it's an absolutely perfect good. Anything can be abused, and when we've though about adjusting or rethinking big internet-based technologies, including social media services, it seems we're not putting enough responsibility on the operators of these services. To me, that _doesn't_ mean we expect them to be perfect either with the ability to be responsible actors, but there needs to be some agreed upon standards that we can evaluate performance of their ability to act responsibly. It can just be left up to them, which is currently the state at a high-level.

woolion 5y ago

An interesting read about the subject is the small 'utopian' book Erewhon by Samuel Butler, published in 1872. It considers the implications of the industrial revolution on society, and thus how it shapes the industrial society and its future. The relationship with the religious power structure is quite enlightening.

jl6 5y ago

> But they carefully consider how each [technology] will change their culture before embracing it. And the best clue as to what will happen comes from watching their neighbors. This knowledge is not unknown in the English world. This is how most large, conservative financial organizations manage technology. They don’t dive into new technology without some very careful consideration.

tzs 5y ago

Also see this 2009 article, "Amish Hackers" [1]. [1] https://kk.org/thetechnium/amish-hackers-a/ https://kk.org/thetechnium/amish-hackers-a/

dang 5y ago

One small past thread: The Amish understand a life-changing truth about technology the rest of us don’t - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17106823 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17106823 - May 2018 (6 comments)

black_13 5y ago

Technology makes it impossible to start over to walk away from bad events, there is no “Gone To Texas” I can’t leave behind bad debts and truly start over. Everything is known about you.

neonate 5y ago

https://archive.md/n8LuJ https://archive.md/n8LuJ http://web.archive.org/web/20210814134926/https://qz.com/1275194/the-amish-understand-a-life-changing-truth-about-technology-the-rest-of-us-dont/ http://web.archive.org/web/20210814134926/https://qz.com/127...

spaetzleesser 5y ago

I am always a little conflicted about articles that portray the Amish as this wise group of people. I lived close to Amish country for a while and there were lots of stories about child and spousal abuse. They seem to live to some degree outside the regular legal system so you hear less but it seems to be a pretty oppressive group.

fuckcensorship 5y ago
From the article: > In the 1960s and 1970s, 75% of Amish children would decide to become Amish adults. The most recent statistics show that’s up to 95%. Why do you think this number continues to increase if your assumptions about the Amish are true?
- bitcurious 5y ago
  Perhaps they are comparatively less prepared for the technophilic world.
- Arbalest 5y ago
  Opportunities for young people have been getting worse perhaps?
voisin 5y ago
Worth reading up on Rumspringa [0] which is when Amish youth leave the community to experience modern life and make a decision on their own separate from the community if they wish to return or not. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumspringa https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumspringa
poulsbohemian 5y ago
This is a good observation, and it’s also important to realize that there’s no single “Amish” group - there are various groups of similar religious and cultural origin across a number of US states and Canadian Provinces, each of which has its own unique rules and practices.

guenthert 5y ago

Interesting article, but since the way of life of the Amish is so polarizing, I'm afraid this distracts from the question, whether society as a whole and its members ought to embrace all technology or whether it's sensible to evaluate and discuss its merits and perhaps regulate its use. This is of course done everywhere to some extent, but perhaps we ("the English") would be better of doing it more?

xyzelement 5y ago

I made the same observation about chasidic Jews. On first glance, their engagement with technology may seem backwards (eg, still on feature phones?) but as time goes on we're seeing those choices pan out right (eg - people who go on tech detoxes, etc - something you never need to do when you're chasidic or amish.) I would say the thing that's missing from "our" society is a compass. What is it that we want to be, what do we value the most, etc? You begin by knowing those answers, and then you can evaluate whether technology helps or hurts you. For example -- almost everyone says "we value family." But the chasidim and the amish express that by living close to their family, while "a typical American" moves far away from home and then has to rely on FaceTime and WhatsApp. The reason we have this problem is because we value something else above family (or community) -- that may be novelty, work opportunities, etc. But mainly, I think it's because we've become quite a bit untethered. Society has moved pretty far away from religious and traditional values in the past few decades, and hasn't replaced them with anything (certainly not anything better.) So while a chasid or amish person can look at TikToc and say "that's just going to take me away from my family/spiritual work and therefore I don't want that" - we in secular society are confused about our trade-offs.

ilrwbwrkhv 5y ago
The untethered soul, some might say.
iammisc 5y ago
> I would say the thing that's missing from "our" society is a compass. What is it that we want to be, what do we value the most, etc? You begin by knowing those answers, and then you can evaluate whether technology helps or hurts you. This is religion, as you point out. > But the chasidim and the amish express that by living close to their family, while "a typical American" moves far away from home and then has to rely on FaceTime and WhatsApp. It's not just this binary though. There are various levels of facetime and whatsapping as well. And actually, most americans live close to family. On HN we are a bubble.

iammisc 5y ago

This is happening in a lot more religions. Younger Catholics are becoming more traditional. We're even adopting our own garb. At my traditional parish, men come dressed in suits and many women veil (as is traditional when in church). Similar attitudes regarding television and video games. Many even hold to the old catholic beliefs on usury (not very popular amongst most other conservatives). It's a good reminder to be out of this world. Most social life is through the parish. It's pretty nice. Would love to meet the amish in the middle.

jrootabega 5y ago
Maybe a softball game!

rthomas6 5y ago

The problem is we've stopped asking ourselves what it is that we value. What are our goals? If it's maximum pleasure we could just create a VR world with heroin, a catheter, and a bedpan. Go on a soma holiday whenever we wanted. But we don't want maximum pleasure, only our hindbrain does, and we are letting ourselves be led around by it for the profit of others.