[HN Gopher] Neo-Amish Drop Outs (2008)
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Neo-Amish Drop Outs (2008)
Author : johndcook
Score : 25 points
Date : 2021-10-25 16:02 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (kk.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (kk.org)
| bm3719 wrote:
| Having lived around the Amish, I've taken some inspiration from
| them in various aspects of life. I feel they have a lot to teach
| us in regards to living a content life. Being here now, I
| obviously don't subscribe to their philosophy wholesale, but I do
| sometimes ask myself what the Amish might do in certain
| situations.
|
| Just one example: If I can accomplish a task with unpowered hand
| tools, I'll do so, even if it's less "efficient" than
| buying/renting an internal combustion engine or electric powered
| device that would do the same. I've built many things this way
| and have taken greater satisfaction from not just the end result,
| but the creation process. Other healthy side effects are
| increased independence from external industry, skills
| development, less cost to the environment, and sometimes free
| exercise.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Many powered devices are much more dangerous, especially for
| amateurs. It's hard to receive serious injury from hand saw.
| One slightly wrong move with circular saw and you're crippled.
| So it's definitely makes sense to spend more time with hand
| tools if that's not your profession and you can allow for some
| inefficiency.
| lmilcin wrote:
| I disagree. I lost vision to my eye due to chip flying when
| cutting wood with an axe (carelessly...)
|
| If you are looking strictly at accidents in unit of time,
| than maybe powered tools are more dangerous.
|
| But what you should do is look at accidents per amount of
| work done. Like how many accidents it took to process 1000
| tonnes of wood. I am sure the statistics would be different
| then.
|
| But I agree with "especially amateurs". Being amateurs around
| powered tools is like being amateurs around guns. Every
| person should be trained at least a little before being given
| access to powered tools.
| garrickvanburen wrote:
| Yes. I frequently grab unpowered hand tools (mower, rake, snow
| shovel) by default as I can get the job mostly done and done
| far more quietly, in the time it takes to power-up the powered
| version.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Indeed, we can learn a lot from the Amish. Efficiency isn't
| always the most important thing in life.
| LadyCailin wrote:
| Efficiency isn't, no, but time is, and efficiency usually
| lends itself to giving you more time. If the journey itself
| gives you fulfillment, then by all means, do it how you like.
| However, the Amish would choose to sacrifice efficiency even
| when it's not about the enjoyment of the thing itself, but
| rather a base necessity, at the cost of their time, which is
| the most wasteful thing a human being can do with their life.
| So no, I disagree that there's anything to learn from the
| Amish. It's an absurd religious belief, even if you can
| "learn something" from it if you squint hard enough.
| blululu wrote:
| This is by design. When efficiency is pursued for greed,
| the gains typically only go into more greed and not into
| living a more relaxed life. Most modern economies still
| require 40 hours of work every week no matter how efficient
| production becomes, and this is par for the course for the
| past 300 years of industrialization. The Amish do use
| plenty of tools and the set is decided by each
| congregation. The core idea is to have enough but
| disincentivized people from the excess pursuit of material
| profit.
| chongli wrote:
| I think you misunderstand Amish philosophy. Contrary to
| popular belief, the Amish did not decide one day in the
| 18th century that technology had gone "far enough" and that
| they were going to freeze in time, their way of life at
| that moment, forever.
|
| Instead, they saw the way changing technology began to
| accelerate the pace of life in society around them. In
| response, they adopted a philosophy to preserve what they
| believed were the most important things in life.
|
| Accordingly, their philosophy is based on one simple rule:
| they will not adopt any technology they deem a threat to
| the time they spend with family and with God. Look at any
| "modern" family, with teenagers staring at their phones
| instead of talking to each other at the dinner table, and
| it's easy to see that the Amish may be on to something.
| It's not the phones that are the problem, really. In the
| past it was people looking at the newspaper or anything
| else like that. The two most important things in an Amish
| person's life is their relationship with God and their
| relationship with family.
|
| I live in an area (southern Ontario) with lots of old order
| Mennonites who are related to the Amish. They practice a
| very similar way of life. They do not shun technology
| arbitrarily. Almost every time I've been to the hospital,
| for example, I've seen them there getting care for a family
| member. They do not reject modern medicine because it does
| not conflict with their beliefs. They know that doctors can
| treat their family members and provide a better outcome
| than what they can provide at home, so they have no problem
| seeking out medical care.
|
| They also have no problem using the Internet to advertise
| their businesses. Many of them produce traditional goods
| such as preserves, maple syrup, dairy products, sausages,
| blankets, hand made furniture, and even metalwork which is
| all very high quality and in demand among non-Mennonite
| people in the area. They are perfectly happy to build
| websites (or to contract that out) so that people can find
| their stuff and order it.
|
| If you want to see how appealing the Amish lifestyle is,
| look no further than the popularity of Stardew Valley. That
| game perfectly captures the spirit of Amish philosophy:
| pervasive technology can leave us all slaves, chained to
| our desks. A simple, agrarian way of life, focused on
| relationships, is the key to setting us free.
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| This is a lovely explanation, thank you. I'm ignorant
| about the Amish save for what I've absorbed from the
| culture, but now I feel a little closer to understanding
| them. I wouldn't make the exact same decisions but the
| appeal is clear (and I admire the resolution).
| chongli wrote:
| Some other interesting things about the Amish:
|
| Perhaps also contrary to popular belief is that the Amish
| drink alcohol and love to celebrate with their friends
| and family. They do not have any specific prohibition
| against getting drunk.
|
| They also have one convenient technology the rest of us
| still dream of: self-driving "cars." After a night of
| merriment they need to get home safely but that's no
| problem at all because the horse knows the way home! They
| simply climb in their buggy and let the horse take them
| back, so they can tuck in bed and rest up for another day
| of work the next morning!
| garrickvanburen wrote:
| I've recently heard, that while many Amish communities
| didn't adopt the telephone, they have adopted the mobile
| phone - "because it can be turned off."
| 1cvmask wrote:
| The last paragraph sums it up real well:
|
| I know about the traditional Amish; they don't count because they
| have never been wired. I'm most interested in Neo-Amish drop
| outs. (There's a Neo-Amish MeetUp group, which I think is self-
| disqualifying.)
| magneticnorth wrote:
| I believe this should link to
| https://kk.org/thetechnium/neoamish-drop-o/
|
| (2008)
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! Fixed now.
|
| Our software has been replacing submitted URLs with canonical
| URLs when it finds them; but this time the canonical URL was
| https://kk.org/.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Just as I'd emailed you :-)
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Email such corrections to hn@ycombinator.com.
|
| (I've done so.)
| snapetom wrote:
| Ah, thank you. I was wondering what vanishing Asian cultures
| had to do with the Amish.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| And even that link doesn't give a lot of details. I was
| thinking it had something to do with young (Neo) Amish
| dropping out and getting into tech.
| snapetom wrote:
| Hah. Same. Disappointed about the subject, and the use of
| "Amish" is misleading.
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