Amish Hackers: How the Amish actually use and build their own tech

The boys and younger men would come into electronics and buy just about anything that took batteries: CD and cassette players, lots and lots of country music, Gameboys (the original black and white model), etc. Our bins of developed photos were full of packages labled "Schwartz" (in that are, the most common Amish last name) as Walmart electronics was the cheapest place to get film developed.

I had many friendly conversations with the older men, who loved to talk. The women never talked to outsiders at all, and always kept to themselves.

I once watched them build a car audio store with installation bay across the street from the college. It went up remarkably fast, and I've never seen anything built quite that way. I could not figure out what they were doing at first. They sunk all sorts of posts in concrete footings, before the slab was poured. The posts were all over the place, seemingly random, and all of them different lengths. When that was done, the cement crew came in and poured the slab (not an Amish crew, obviously). After it was set, the Amish were back with chain saws and hand saws. They cut off the posts at precisely measured lengths. Floor and ceiling joists quickly followed, and that sucker was done in short order. I don't know if this is how they build their own barns, but I'm guessing yes.

It turns out they're not really opposed to technology or innovation, but rather focus their energies and efforts on ever-more convenient human-powered machines, coupled with an aggressively minimalist approach to their 'needs'.

In one telling passage, the author is helping the men gather food to feed their horses over the winter, which turns out to be the primary use of the horses themselves (rather like needing to take a distant job so you can afford your car, which you need to get to your distant job).

When Brende points this out, one of the men laughs and decides on the spot to get rid of his horse. The Minimites are many things, but afraid of change is not one of them.

First, he says:

> ... Amish practices are ultimately driven by religious belief: the technological, environmental, social, and cultural consequences are secondary. They often don't have logical reasons for their policies.

Of course, there is no rule that says religion cannot be logical. Regardless, he says a little later:

> Behind all of these variations is the Amish motivation to strengthen their communities.

And then he spends several paragraphs giving a logical, well reasoned account of how various technologies (cars, electricity) were rejected because of their impact on the community.

Second, while carefully explaining one group, the old-order Amish, he very much mischaracterizes another: the Luddites. These were not people who simply rejected all new technology; they were protestors against the social changes produced by the industrial revolution. And their protests sometimes took the form of violent destruction of textile factories. It seems they didn't want to be mere cogs in some huge corporate machine, a sentiment I think most of us can empathize with (regardless of whether we approve of their methods).