I mean they’re definitely a cult who brainwash the shit out of women/children, so…I guess that’s cool?
They most definitely did not get it right.
Having said that, there is some value to being thoughtful about the adoption of new technology. Especially when it comes to kids, some parents are too quick to allow their kids to use smartphones, tablets, chatGPT, etc. without much supervision.
But, the prospect of having to forego virtually all modern technology or become exiled from the only family and community you’ve ever known is crazy. It’s really only cults that require that you shun people who have left the “faith”.
Also, the modern Amish are the effect of multiple decades worth of Group Polarization. People in the community will hold different views. If someone has a view that the rules are too strict and that the group should be more lenient, they may eventually give up and just join the modern world. On the other hand, if someone thinks the group isn’t extreme enough, there is no other even more extreme group for them to join. So, they’ll stay and fight for their view. Over time, that means that the less extreme people tend to drift away, and the more extreme ones stay, leading to the group becoming more extreme.
But, the prospect of having to forego virtually all modern technology or become exiled from the only family and community you’ve ever known is crazy.
Sounds like being forced to use meta products to keep in touch with family who don’t want to learn how to use anything else.
They don’t know how to use the phone? They don’t know how to use regular postal mail?
Group chats have obvious utility beyond those methods.
Can’t wait to post on the grid about it!
Depends on the community. Medicine and not dying from a cut and no religiouse fundamentalism is quite nice
The only exposure I have with how Amish work is from Newport’s Digital Mininalism book, and it sounded pretty reasonable. (Don’t know how correct it is, though)
The way he put it, they don’t outright ban and refuse all technology. Every time a new tech comes out, they have a few people give it a try and then decide as a community if/how to best use it without sacrificing their core values.
For example - a telephone? We don’t want that, because then it would break the sense of community if you could just call anyone, without having to call on them/meet then for dinner, etc. But, we’ll have one phone in a village in casr we need to call for outside help in an emergency.
Assuming that’s true, I would suspect that especially in regards to medicine, they would be pretty open. But yeah, I guess it absolutely depends on the community, and how cultish/reasonable are the people making these calls.
What they allow is entirely the whim of the local Bishop. Some are super conservative. Others not so. I’ve seen Amish people on e-bikes, while others don’t allow rubber tires on their buggies. Then whenever a new Bishop rotates in, a new toss-up in the rules. One common theme is that they hoard shit tons of money.
Yeah, I kind of assumed that would probably be the case, and while this kind of reasonable approach to technology, that was highlighted in the book, sounds pretty nice in theory, it does put a lot of power into few hands, which historically (and unfortunately) never works very well.
They aren’t open to medicine. Also most adult men have cell phones and hide them.
Every Individual in their community I’ve met has been super nice, but it’s still a cult and they still do fucked up shit.
EDIT: looked it up instead of going off my experience alone. They aren’t categorically anti-medicine as part of their beliefs, but generally don’t go to doctors unless it’s dire.
Some individuals being hypocrites doesn’t invalidate their way of life. I admittedly don’t know much about them but I remember watching a documentary where the teen members of the community explore the outside world.
One girl comments on the public school education system that the students were focused on passing exams and not on actually learning anything. Always stuck with me.
I would be hesitant to call them a cult, since there seems to be a diverse range of communities and practices. Maga is a cult.
I sold electrical equipment to some Amish once, which felt real weird.
In what way? I assume they must have been familiar with how it worked, or was it like performing a magic trick?
They had a handyman who drove them and helped them with some woodworking i think, if I recall they were setting something up in their lumber mill
They’ve got some more leeway than youd think
My brother in Jehovah they’re Amish, not an uncontacted tribe
Oh well never met one, and from the little I know they can vary somewhere between late middle ages pilgrims up to the run of the mill religious person with a weird hat.
Not middle ages, think more 1700s religious radicals
Fuck the Amish
That’s what Amish do…
This, in fact, is how new Amish are made.
I feel like people are unaware there are intentional communities doing the same but without the religious basis.
Yeah, there are communes you can join. Even in America
My silent generation grandma was like this she ran a farm with chickens, turkeys, cows, a giant vegetable garden, a couple fishing ponds and drilled into my head that self sufficiency was super important. My parents Suburban life contradicted that message of course. I think about that a lot now
Yeah? Go live authentically with them for a while and report back lol
…it was a joke bro 🫤
Joke sucked BRO
Ok
