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This is less like being vegan and exactly like being Amish. The Amish, unlike what is usually believed, don't reject technology. They are very careful in adop

This is less like being vegan and exactly like being Amish. The Amish, unlike what is usually believed, don't reject technology. They are very careful in adopting technology and seek to be deliberate about what technology to allow in their day to day life. I think this deliberateness unavoidably leads to being a Luddite. The dominant force in human history is the continual development of new technology and it's integration into day to day human life, and human adaptation to that technology. We adapt to technology both quickly, via culture and training of children, and less quickly via genetic evolution. Walking away from a technology that the vast majority of humanity embraces might be adaptive, both in terms of the individual and in terms of survival of the fittest, if that technology leads to the users becoming dramatically less fit. Rejecting the use of lead utensils is a great example of an adaptive rejection of a new technology. Fine, you might rightly argue, this isn't about survival or evolution, it's about the quality of your life. It's hard to argue against that, and reasonable limits on the use of technology for children that can't regulate behavior to optimize their own health is certainly necessary. However, beyond that, abandoning technology in a more holistic way is no different than being Amish-lite. You are being deliberate about what technologies you accept into your day to day life, and this is admirable. However, it is also Amish-lite in that it is very likely to also be a form of freeloading. The Amish are very much freeloading on their host society. They do not contribute to defense, nor do they utilize resources they control efficiently. Without the efficient utilization of resources of their host society, which allows for such things as large standing armies and fighter jets, they would have long ago been killed or displaced and their land taken. Rejection of Tik-Tok seems very unlikely to lead to any significant freeloading, but rejection of something like 'owning a cell phone' certainly does. As the rest of the world adapts it's culture and day to day life to what having a small pocket computer networked to every other computer unlocks, dramatic new ways of doing things will be unlocked, and new efficiencies will be found which will enrich everyone, including to some extent the Luddites, who are not participating in it. If there are enough of them, old ways of doing things will be maintained to profit from them, whereas if they participated the old ways of doing things (for example calling a phone number to order a pizza, and many more things, and things we haven't anticipated yet) could fall by the wayside. Certainly you have a right to be a digital Luddite, but I don't believe there is any reason to think that this will give you a better outcome, by any measure, than just participating in the societal evolution would, and if done in a large scale way it is just being Amish with a different default threshold date for acceptable technologies.

em-bee 5y ago
what kind of freeloading does rejecting a mobile phone lead to? sure it restricts me from doing certain things at certain times, but it does not increase my dependence on others compared to having a mobile phone. please elaborate.
- ltbarcly3 5y ago
  It is freeloading on any general improvements in wealth that society gains due to anything the almost ubiquitous usage of cell phones makes more efficient. Lets make a specific example: lets say in 2028, 98% of pizzas are ordered via clicking on a phone app. Over at the pizza place, nobody is on the phone full time, just to punch phone orders into the computer system. As a result, pizza places run with 1 less full time person every shift. Pizzas are cheaper to make, competition leads to pizzas being slightly cheaper than they otherwise would have been. Even though you still phone in to the pizza place to make your order, you get the lower price. This is freeloading, since you didn't participate in any of activities that led to the lower price. (yes I realize you could have used a computer but this is just meant to show an example of how widespread phone use can lead to benefits for everyone, even non phone users) Lets say that everyone is .1% more efficient at picking up their kids from places kids need to be picked up at because they can just navigate to their GPS coordinates every time. Less idling and less driving around looking for them means less energy consumption, and less wear and tear on vehicles. This reduces demand for energy in several ways, which means lower energy costs for you, even though you continue to drive around parking lots trying to figure out where your kids are and why they aren't where you agreed ahead of time, or idling for AC and waiting for them to walk to where you agreed from the far side of the mall. There are a lot of ways that having a communication/data link to the world allows for new more efficient ways of doing things, and probably these will continue to compound, and taking the benefits (various efficiency improvements) without the costs (suffering downsides of having a smartphone) is the definition of freeloading.
  - em-bee 5y ago
    thank you, those examples are very helpful to show what you mean. now my argument is that i don't see this as a bad thing. yes, maybe some people get an advantage here without contributing themselves, but the alternative is that we stop improving our lives for fear that someone might get a better life without contributing themselves. that kind of thinking seems to be very common in the US and it prevents a lot of potentially good development. some people would prefer to suffer rather than allowing others to get an advantage. we really need to get away from that. as long as we ourselves get an advantage from some development we need to stop worrying if others get an advantage without contributing. the reality is that my life can't get better if i don't work to make life better for everyone around me, regardless if they like it or not. but there is another issue that i have with complaints about freeloaders. we don't know if they are freeloaders. we don't know if that person that refuses to buy a smartphone isn't putting that money towards some other good cause. we don't know if that person avoids that pizza app because they happen to know that it contains spyware. or if that parent searching their kids went to the extra effort of getting a very energy efficient car, and the solar panels on their roof that frequently send electricity into the grid and that make up for the wasted energy of searching their kids once in a while many times over. we don't know if someone is really a freeloader or a contributor. and it's impossible to come up with an equation that could tell us.

em-bee 5y ago

what kind of freeloading does rejecting a mobile phone lead to? sure it restricts me from doing certain things at certain times, but it does not increase my dependence on others compared to having a mobile phone. please elaborate.

ltbarcly3 5y ago
It is freeloading on any general improvements in wealth that society gains due to anything the almost ubiquitous usage of cell phones makes more efficient. Lets make a specific example: lets say in 2028, 98% of pizzas are ordered via clicking on a phone app. Over at the pizza place, nobody is on the phone full time, just to punch phone orders into the computer system. As a result, pizza places run with 1 less full time person every shift. Pizzas are cheaper to make, competition leads to pizzas being slightly cheaper than they otherwise would have been. Even though you still phone in to the pizza place to make your order, you get the lower price. This is freeloading, since you didn't participate in any of activities that led to the lower price. (yes I realize you could have used a computer but this is just meant to show an example of how widespread phone use can lead to benefits for everyone, even non phone users) Lets say that everyone is .1% more efficient at picking up their kids from places kids need to be picked up at because they can just navigate to their GPS coordinates every time. Less idling and less driving around looking for them means less energy consumption, and less wear and tear on vehicles. This reduces demand for energy in several ways, which means lower energy costs for you, even though you continue to drive around parking lots trying to figure out where your kids are and why they aren't where you agreed ahead of time, or idling for AC and waiting for them to walk to where you agreed from the far side of the mall. There are a lot of ways that having a communication/data link to the world allows for new more efficient ways of doing things, and probably these will continue to compound, and taking the benefits (various efficiency improvements) without the costs (suffering downsides of having a smartphone) is the definition of freeloading.
- em-bee 5y ago
  thank you, those examples are very helpful to show what you mean. now my argument is that i don't see this as a bad thing. yes, maybe some people get an advantage here without contributing themselves, but the alternative is that we stop improving our lives for fear that someone might get a better life without contributing themselves. that kind of thinking seems to be very common in the US and it prevents a lot of potentially good development. some people would prefer to suffer rather than allowing others to get an advantage. we really need to get away from that. as long as we ourselves get an advantage from some development we need to stop worrying if others get an advantage without contributing. the reality is that my life can't get better if i don't work to make life better for everyone around me, regardless if they like it or not. but there is another issue that i have with complaints about freeloaders. we don't know if they are freeloaders. we don't know if that person that refuses to buy a smartphone isn't putting that money towards some other good cause. we don't know if that person avoids that pizza app because they happen to know that it contains spyware. or if that parent searching their kids went to the extra effort of getting a very energy efficient car, and the solar panels on their roof that frequently send electricity into the grid and that make up for the wasted energy of searching their kids once in a while many times over. we don't know if someone is really a freeloader or a contributor. and it's impossible to come up with an equation that could tell us.