[HN Gopher] The Amish have negotiated a pact with modernity (2018)
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The Amish have negotiated a pact with modernity (2018)
Author : hidden-spyder
Score : 74 points
Date : 2021-10-27 17:22 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (qz.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (qz.com)
| moedersmooiste wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Well, you seem to realize that "car dependent suburbias"
| exist, so I don't know what your question is.
|
| Zoom in on Houston or Dallas, Texas for cities heavily
| reliant on autos. Or just about any place not in a major
| coastal city in the United States.
| logosmonkey wrote:
| I think they were referring to places whereas owning a
| car is a burden and that the op didn't like. Not places
| where the need for a vehicle is paramount.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| Most major coastal cities also require cars.
|
| It's more accurate to say that these coastal cities have
| certain enclaves where you don't need to own your own car
| but can take public transportion/walk or get an Uber in a
| pinch. Uber makes a big difference in increasing the size
| of the enclave, but having other people drive you around
| isn't car independence.
| Diederich wrote:
| > 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.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Back of the envelope: 99% Of the US by land area; maybe
| 75% by population.
| xyzelement wrote:
| 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.
| iammisc wrote:
| > 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.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| The untethered soul, some might say.
| paul7986 wrote:
| 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.
| quaffapint wrote:
| They also make use of solar panels on their farms. They just
| don't use public power.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| So, unlike Tesla, the Amish have a working auto-drive system.
| IIAOPSW wrote:
| There's a technological trade off to consider. For example,
| the Tesla doesn't literally smell like shit.
| paul7986 wrote:
| I trust a horse driven vehicle over any modern day self
| driving car!!!
| reidjs wrote:
| "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 wrote:
| I feel like depends on whether or not they are using their
| iPhone while operating their horse and buggy.
| codingdave wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Can the horse and buggy automatically move out of the way
| if someone else is about to hit it?
| isk517 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Yes. It is a horse. Horses are completely capable of
| independent movement.
| klyrs wrote:
| Within the limitations of the horse's reaction time and
| maneuverability with an attached buggy, yes.
| filoeleven wrote:
| And those limitations are severe, given the speed limits
| of many rural roads. Even at 35 MPH, a car is 3x as fast
| as a horse and buggy.
| jayspell wrote:
| The other key is that each community decides for themselves
| what is permitted and not permitted. Some Amish are permitted
| to drive cars, but only if the car is black, but this is
| community specific. Source - my brother-in-laws family left
| the Amish when he was young, so he got to see both worlds.
| mikestew wrote:
| Back in the 80s, I always wondered if a "black cars only"
| community would find a Buick Grand National, with its
| turbo-charged V6, acceptable:
|
| https://wikicars.org/en/Buick_Grand_National
| rsj_hn wrote:
| Wow, that's a beautiful car.
| masterof0 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| zyang wrote:
| Sounds like they have better self driving tech.
| zepto wrote:
| Self-driving horse.
| woolion wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| guenthert wrote:
| 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?
| burnafter184 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Technopoly was published in 1992 but still holds up quite well.
| Postman was something of a prophet.
| dane-pgp wrote:
| I wish Lennart Poettering had read that.
| harryvederci wrote:
| 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?"
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.md/n8LuJ
|
| http://web.archive.org/web/20210814134926/https://qz.com/127...
| black_13 wrote:
| 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.
| jl6 wrote:
| > 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.
| khazhoux wrote:
| 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
|
| His journey into orthodox jewish neighborhood in NY is great too.
| sleepysysadmin wrote:
| 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.
| logosmonkey wrote:
| Many Buddhist monks own cell phones. Many even own laptops.
| Additionally let's not romanticize the Amish community. They
| have significant social issues just like any other society,
| their lack of modern technology doesn't make their society a
| utopia, it just makes it different. Maybe in some good ways,
| sure, but it doesn't solve for endemic rape, incest and abuse
| for instance.
| setpatchaddress wrote:
| https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/buddhist-monks-with-the...
|
| It's more complicated than that. Always.
|
| The monks I've known accept modern science, medicine, etc
| cheerfully. It's not really relevant to Buddhist spirituality
| any more than the advent of frozen fish sticks was.
|
| It's fine to LARP 1850 if that's your bag. But people who truly
| wish to live in the confines of that era will have children who
| die of cholera. We should all be grateful for the upsides of
| modern society.
| iammisc wrote:
| Modern medicine often got its start in 1800s monasteries.
| nirav72 wrote:
| Just a simple example is seeing Buddhist monks having a watch
| around their wrist. I actually saw one with an apple watch.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| A lot of the Tibetan monks I have seen in the US seem to be
| really excited about their cell phones and are on them all the
| time.
| throw6746 wrote:
| > When you eliminate the unnecessary from your life, you
| certainly live a happier life.
|
| Unnecessary for you maybe, it doesn't look very happy to me
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| I have a colleague who constantly talks about not having a cell
| phone and how freeing it is, but on the other hand, he's always
| asking someone to look something up, asks for someone to
| navigate him to where we're going for lunch, asks to borrow a
| phone to call his wife, etc. It really looks like this guy
| would be happier with a phone.
|
| Are phones unnecessary? Maybe, maybe not, but IMO, the way to a
| happier life isn't to ignore things, but to find a balance (or
| develop the self-discipline) to use something like a cell phone
| in a way where it can improve your life.
| klyrs wrote:
| I was a very late smartphone adopter. I had a map in the
| glovebox and would look at a maps website on a desktop/laptop
| before leaving for somewhere unfamiliar. Your colleague
| doesn't seem to have figured out the technology that
| smartphones have replaced.
| rthomas6 wrote:
| 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.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Perhaps they are comparatively less prepared for the
| technophilic world.
| focusgroup0 wrote:
| The Amish and remote indigenous tribes also had much lower rates
| of "the v1rus"
| fknorangesite wrote:
| What is the point you're trying to make here?
| iammisc wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Maybe a softball game!
| satellite2 wrote:
| 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.
| iammisc wrote:
| > Their stance regarding modern medicine, tolerating it when
| someone is truly ill, seems particularly hypocritical if not
| disingenuous.
|
| Can you explain? The amish are not against technology by any
| means. They just don't think you need to let it run you. I
| mean, as many said, the amish use telephones and even cars if
| necessary for business, or emergency. How is this any
| different?
| snarf21 wrote:
| I live in Lancaster and I think people project some of these
| things onto the Amish that aren't true. It isn't technology
| specifically that the Amish try to avoid, it is consumerism
| writ large. Now, they do make their own clothes from plain
| colored cloth and don't have car payments and mortgages but it
| is still something they struggle with as a group. I always
| think of their approach as trying to prioritize people over
| things.
|
| However, there are lots of Amish that have freezers hidden in
| the barn running off generators. If the clergy shows up, it is
| unplugged and everyone pretends it isn't there. Lots of the
| children have cell phones hidden in the corn fields that they
| sneak out and use (even outside of those that are on
| rumspringa). Given the lack of affordable farm land, _lots_ of
| the Amish now work in the trades. Someone picks them up in a
| F-350 crew-cab and takes them to work, but not before they stop
| at the Sheetz /WaWa to buy soda and candy and lunch just like
| all the other workers. Our Costco has tie-ups for the Amish and
| they come out with several carts loaded to the max. They
| continue to struggle with the modern world and it is getting
| harder each generation for them to remain insular.
| mikem170 wrote:
| > 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.
| satellite2 wrote:
| 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.
| bobthechef wrote:
| 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.
| zepto wrote:
| 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.
| terr-dav wrote:
| >The hard part is creating a viable alternative culture that
| can make collective choices about technology use.
|
| This alternative culture is impossible under capitalism, where
| the tendency is for any and every technology to be acquired and
| applied in the service of the already rich and powerful.
| zepto wrote:
| The tendency exists for sure, but there is nothing supporting
| the claim that it's _impossible_. The Amish themselves are an
| example. Also there are other eco villages and communities
| that have managed.
| bell-cot wrote:
| The Amish are ~0.1% of America's population.
|
| Is there any vaguely-homogenious 0.1% of America's population
| that could stand alone outside of American society, when you
| start requiring mega-scale social systems like a first-world
| legal system and military? I'm thinking "no".
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Depends on the threat model. Settlers of the 19th century had
| a legal system and were mostly able to defend their
| settlements, though not to take on, say, the Japanese empire.
|
| The Amish are probably able to put some kind of legal system
| together themselves, but their decided religious pacifism
| limits them to living under protection of others.
| [deleted]
| jerf wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Agreed, and the American one at least has this in mind,
| broken as it may be. Not so many others.
| ithkuil wrote:
| The legal system is equivalent to the military support when
| your talking about internal threats (rival groups with modern
| weapons or resources claiming their land for themselves)
| op00to wrote:
| Could they? If they were outside the legal system I would
| simply steal their land and build McMansions on it.
| ksdale wrote:
| Are laws the only thing preventing you from stealing?
| vkou wrote:
| They are the only thing preventing someone less
| scrupulous than me from stealing.
| dahfizz wrote:
| If they were outside the legal system, they could retaliate
| in any way they see fit. You would have to commit a trail-
| of-tears esque genocide to claim their land
| zepto wrote:
| Which is exactly what people did before legal systems
| were accepted.
| Bancakes wrote:
| We need Spartans _and_ Athenians.
| Aerroon wrote:
| But why do we need to make collective decisions about
| technology? Why can't I decide for myself based on what I see
| and think? Why is it better if somebody else decides for me?
|
| The beauty of a society that embraces individual choice is that
| the individual gets to choose. You _can_ let somebody else
| decide for you, but you can also go against them.
|
| The article loses me on this point as well. Any individual can
| look at the effects a technology has on those around them and
| decide not to participate. Does that mean you're left behind?
| Yeah, but the Amish face the same problem anyway.
|
| The one advantage the Amish have is that their 'eccentric'
| choices are seen as more valid and respected compared to an
| individual making those choices. But I think that's more of a
| failing of our modern culture not respecting individual rights
| as much.
| zepto wrote:
| > But why do we need to make collective decisions about
| technology? Why can't I decide for myself based on what I see
| and think? Why is it better if somebody else decides for me?
|
| You can decide for yourself, but most technology is social,
| and so it matters quite a bit whether other people make
| similar decisions to you.
| LunaSea wrote:
| Countries can't defend themselves and thus exist if they
| don't have a strong military force and a strong economy.
|
| Said strong economy being most of the time directly linked to
| the technology level of the country.
| Aerroon wrote:
| Sure, but I, as an individual, don't have to follow along.
| If I don't want a TV I don't have to get one. If I want a
| TV I should be able to get one. It shouldn't be my
| government or community saying that I have to get one or
| that I can't get one.
| h2odragon wrote:
| Committed pacifists may not feel as much need for the military.
| posbrol wrote:
| Well..depends on the threats to your safety...look at the
| Dalai Lama who is permenantly (due to a belief system)
| dependent on someone else to keep him and his ppl safe.
| post_break wrote:
| Amish are strapped. They have lots of guns. They also have a
| lot of abuse that they sweep under the rug.
| guenthert wrote:
| Citation needed. Pacifism is one of their basic tenets
| (actually rejection of violence is).
| zepto wrote:
| You may as well say that rejection of violence is a basic
| tenet of Americans too, given that violence is outlawed
| except in the case of self-defense.
| logosmonkey wrote:
| They still hunt. I know because I spoke with a young
| Amish man a couple of weeks ago about it. He was out bow
| hunting because muzzle loading season hadn't started yet.
| I don't know if they have more modern guns though, I
| didn't ask that far.
|
| Also see https://amishamerica.com/do-amish-use-guns/
| post_break wrote:
| The amish owned gun stores I've shopped in, the guns they
| use for hunting, the lawsuits against the NY SAFE act or
| trying to buy guns without a photo ID. Just because they
| practice pacifism does not mean they are against guns,
| owning them, using, etc. You can't think for a second if
| someone attacked them they wouldn't use them to defend
| themselves.
| klyrs wrote:
| On domestic abuse:
| https://www.npr.org/2020/01/19/797804404/investigation-
| into-...
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| >They also have a lot of abuse that they sweep under the
| rug.
|
| What group or idea doesn't? That's just human nature
| leephillips wrote:
| "[Pacifism] is only possible to people who have money and
| guns between themselves and reality." -- George Orwell
|
| In other words, you can be as "committed" to pacifism as you
| want, but your life and freedom, and your indulgence in your
| pacifist philosophy, is made possible by other people's
| commitment to the defense against violence with violence,
| and, often, to their sacrifice.
| guenthert wrote:
| That's a very pessimistic (and I'm afraid self-fulfilling)
| position. Costa Rica abolished their army in 1949 and
| hasn't been invaded since. Why shouldn't an Amish Nation
| fare as well?
| [deleted]
| leephillips wrote:
| Costa Rica is a wonderful place that has benefited from
| spending funds that used to go to maintaining the army on
| improving civil society. But this is not even close to a
| pacifist success story.
|
| The army was abolished by the man who became president
| _by winning a civil war_. Costa Rica maintains armed
| forces to patrol the border, combat drug trafficking, and
| maintain internal order, as well as an armed police
| force. But they don't call any of these things "armies".
|
| They have a defense alliance with the United States. If
| another country tries to invade them, the US will use
| violence to defend them. Is it pacifism to depend on
| someone else's willingness to sacrifice for you?
|
| Costa Rica only exists as a country because they
| successfully used violence to repel a private army raised
| by a US citizen who wanted to annex them to the US.
|
| Call me pessimistic if you want. I prefer to believe that
| I have a realistic view of the role of violence in the
| world.
| burnafter184 wrote:
| I'm no historian, so this is a very rough synthesis:
|
| In history there's a handful of cases where there have
| been what are viewed as _probably_ warless societies.
| Honestly I wouldn 't say they fared any worse than
| warring states. Indus Valley Civilization, Rapa Nui
| Civilization, Early Sumeria... I'm sure there's countless
| others in reality but those are what I recall off the top
| of my head.
|
| I find it difficult to actually piece together a
| narrative where war is actually a necessity. Empire
| itself, abstracted, is really just the displacement of
| toil which isn't a "necessary evil" by any means. And by
| far and large that is what virtually all war has been
| predicated on up to World War 2 which justified itself
| with teleological underpinnings like Marxism and Fascist
| ideologies; perhaps a few exceptions being outright
| hostilities triggered by emotional kings.
|
| Ultimately it's survivorship bias, but the surviving
| population is selecting for all the worst conceivable
| parameters, which in turn has perverted our whole
| understanding of civilization. It's made it seem as if
| war is necessary, that defense strategies and assets must
| be in place, etc... I don't think this is _really_ the
| case, but creating a policy system that is totally
| forbidding of the powers necessary to conjure the public
| force is a difficulty in and of itself.
|
| I do also suspect that people who do tow the line of
| government aren't self-contained individuals, they do
| themselves require laws, governance, and espouse things
| like inevitable war are exactly those predisposed to
| causing it, and they're projecting themselves.
| klipt wrote:
| Since this is Hacker News, I think a simple tech analogy
| is that you can do about as well without any national
| security as you can do without any cyber security.
|
| If you don't believe in threats, why use https?
| rsj_hn wrote:
| That is a beautiful quote by Orwell, who had a knack for
| getting at the essence of things.
|
| But I would disagree with the notion that one society
| should only adopt a belief if it generalizes to the entire
| planet. That's not really a useful yardstick to judge
| feasibility in a world that requires heterogeneity and in
| which different groups have different pressures.
| Universalism is a bigger lie than pacifism.
|
| So what role does pacifism play? Let's reinterpret the
| Orwell quote -- those who have money and guns can be
| Pacifists. I would say yes. If they were militarists, it
| would end badly as you would get powerful warmongering
| states. So a bias towards pacifism among those who strong
| and in no danger makes sense, just as a bias towards
| militarism among those who are weaker and in danger makes a
| lot of sense. Then we can look at the other aspect. If you
| are a radically different subgroup embedded in a larger
| population, you want to keep your head down. You don't want
| to be seen as a threat. So the Amish, famously apolitical
| and non-militaristic, are more tolerated by the rest of
| society.
| leephillips wrote:
| I'm pretty sure Orwell was talking about _other_ people's
| guns.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| Of course, other people's guns _serving to protect you_.
| So really your guns, from the point of view of the larger
| society as a single unit, but other people 's guns, from
| the point of view of an individual person in that
| society.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| I'm not a pacifist (combat veteran, actually) but I'll
| point out that you may be missing something on their side
| of the argument.
|
| There are some things worth dying for (for example, freedom
| as you point out). A pacifist has a similar mentality, but
| believes not taking a life is worth dying for.
|
| Both the pacifist and the non-pacifist want freedom, but
| the pacifist would rather surrender liberty than kill if
| that's what it comes to. By analogy, I want to keep my car,
| but I would not shoot anyone who tried to steal it even
| though it's legal where I live. I might hate what they're
| doing but I value their life more than my car.
| philwelch wrote:
| I think you're providing a charitable accounting of
| pacifists that might describe the best among them. Orwell
| (whom you are indirectly responding to) gives some
| acknowledgment to these types but is cynical towards
| others:
|
| > The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure
| religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to
| the taking of life and prefer not to follow their
| thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of
| intellectual pacifists whose real though unadmitted
| motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and
| admiration of totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda
| usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as
| the other, but if one looks closely at the writings of
| younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do
| not by any means express impartial disapproval but are
| directed almost entirely against Britain and the United
| States. Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence
| as such, but only violence used in defence of the western
| countries. The Russians, unlike the British, are not
| blamed for defending themselves by warlike means, and
| indeed all pacifist propaganda of this type avoids
| mention of Russia or China. It is not claimed, again,
| that the Indians should abjure violence in their struggle
| against the British. Pacifist literature abounds with
| equivocal remarks which, if they mean anything, appear to
| mean that statesmen of the type of Hitler are preferable
| to those of the type of Churchill, and that violence is
| perhaps excusable if it is violent enough. After the fall
| of France, the French pacifists, faced by a real choice
| which their English colleagues have not had to make,
| mostly went over to the Nazis, and in England there
| appears to have been some small overlap of membership
| between the Peace Pledge Union and the Blackshirts.
| Pacifist writers have written in praise of Carlyle, one
| of the intellectual fathers of Fascism. All in all it is
| difficult not to feel that pacifism, as it appears among
| a section of the intelligentsia, is secretly inspired by
| an admiration for power and successful cruelty. The
| mistake was made of pinning this emotion to Hitler, but
| it could easily be retransferred.
|
| "Notes on Nationalism", 1945
| (https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-
| foundation/orwel...)
| klipt wrote:
| The point is that if you transplanted Amish society out
| of the protective USA and into somewhere more violent
| like Central Africa, they'd probably all end up dead, or
| the survivors would be the ones that abandoned pacifism.
| leephillips wrote:
| Of course people with a variety of stances on the issue
| all call themselves "pacifists", just as there are
| "vegetarians" who eat fish. I respect the choices that
| you describe, because they're your choices, and don't
| endanger other people. The pacifists I consider morally
| obtuse are those who refuse to see that they enjoy their
| freedom under the umbrella of institutions that are
| decidedly not pacifist. It's a kind of philosophical
| parasitism. And the pacifists that I have real contempt
| for are those who would refuse to defend _other people_
| against violence.
|
| "I must study politics and war that my sons may have
| liberty to study mathematics and philosophy." -- John
| Adams
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| Ok, we've replaced the baity title with the opening sentence.
| Thanks!
| jfernandez wrote:
| > 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.
| tzs wrote:
| Also see this 2009 article, "Amish Hackers" [1].
|
| [1] https://kk.org/thetechnium/amish-hackers-a/
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