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Three claims, let's evaluate:

"inbred" seems to have a factual basis, that's fair.

"luddite" in this context is an unnecessarily loaded term that suggests an ignorance of history. (I.E., the luddites [1] were not simplistically anti-technology, they were anti-"the crown suddenly taking away the common land and giving it to rich capitalists to enrich themselves with industry while displacing us as laborers, and then blaming us for being against progress", ie, "Enclosure.') [2]

"abuse their children" requires proof. Is there evidence the amish abuse their children at a rate higher than the rest of society, and/or other cultural enclaves such as tight-nit immigrant groups?

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Rebels-Against-The-Future-Industrial/d... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure

I knew briefly a woman who had ran away from everything she knew at 17, to avoid a marriage. The stories of what counted as "normal" was horrific, especially with regards to daughters. Between the corporal punishment, starvation and strict-to-consequence-of-abandonment gender roles, it mapped closely to the popular conception of young women in radical islam.

"Luddite" is one of those words like "gay": it has a very different primary meaning today than it used to. I'm aware of both meanings and I used "luddite" in the common, modern sense of being anti-technology.

> Is there evidence the amish abuse their children at a rate higher than the rest of society…

Where to start? The Amish stance on corporal punishment of children is well-known. "Spare the rod, spoil the child" (as Proverbs 13:24 is commonly misquoted) applies. Hitting children is common in Amish households and schools. Sources on this range from atheist neighbors[1], to friends of the Amish[2], to books that praise the Amish[3]. And speaking of Amish schools: They end at the 8th grade. People like to think that Amish teenagers have a choice about leaving the community, but what choice do they have when their prospects in modern life are so limited by their lack of education?

To frame it more concretely: If you had a neighbor who denied their children cold drinks or air conditioning on hot days, who hit them for questioning religion, and who took them out of high school so they could do work, is there any doubt that you would call child protective services? It flabbergasts me that the Amish get a pass here.

> …and/or other cultural enclaves such as tight-nit immigrant groups?

This is moving the goalposts. It doesn't matter whether other groups also abuse their children. "But FLDS groups abuse their kids too!" is not an excuse that our society tolerates. In fact, with the FLDS, we sent in SWAT teams and arrested the church leaders. Sadly, the Amish seem to be grandfathered in.

The child abuse is the issue that gets the biggest rise out of me, but it's just the tip of the iceberg. There are many other ways in which the Amish needlessly inflict suffering on each other. Due to their piety, Amish positions on topics such as birth control, homosexuality, and the rights of women shouldn't surprise you.

1. http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/09/wha...

2. http://amishamerica.com/how-do-amish-discipline-children/

3. Amish Roots: A Treasury of History, Wisdom, and Lore p. 111, section titled "Disobedient Children"

"The Amish stance on corporal punishment of children is well-known"

I live in the Amish community referenced in this article and I have never seen nor heard of any corporal punishment nor child abuse. Indeed, I have never heard any Amish person even yell, scold or argue with anyone. Because of that, I am pretty sure such issues are rare in this area.

"People like to think that Amish teenagers have a choice about leaving the community, but what choice do they have when their prospects in modern life are so limited by their lack of education?"

Most Americans, Amish or not, do not become software developers, bankers, accountants, etc. Lots of Amish leave. For example, two doors down from my house there is an elderly Amish couple. All of their children are non-Amish but still support, visit, help, interact with their parents. Not surprisingly, most ex-Amish do not pursue fields requiring advanced education but tend to do very well in more blue core businesses where their work ethic, integrity and significant youth experience working at home can be turned into a solid career.

I live in the Amish community referenced in this article and I have never seen nor heard of any corporal punishment nor child abuse. Indeed, I have never heard any Amish person even yell, scold or argue with anyone. Because of that, I am pretty sure such issues are rare in this area.

Are you part of the community, or just live in the area? Because if the latter, it's hardly surprising; socially conservative people rarely handle their family matters in public.

Our neighbors are Amish and Mennonite. We know and interact with many of them including people who left being Amish. And even the ones who left and have issues with the Amish, I have never heard or seen any incidents of child abuse.

Do you have some evidence of systematic Amish child abuse beyond your stereotype of "socially conservative people rarely handle their family matters in public"?

Child abuse exists in the world, among tech founders, politicians, Amish, atheists, etc. I am simply saying, based on direct interaction and knowledge that it is most certainly uncommon in Lancaster Amish.

The person you originally replied to did cite some evidence of Amish child abuse beyond the stereotype.

The evidence provided was

- an anecdote from a "very rural part of Ohio" where the Amish "lived in grinding poverty". I have no experience with Ohio Amish so I cannot comment but what they describe is nothing like Lancaster Amish (the article referenced here and my comments on). - an entry from Amish America talks about spankings, which is a practice statistics show most American parents do https://www.google.com/search?q=percentage+americans+spank+c... From what I have seen of the Amish, I think it is significantly less than the average American.

If you think it is child abuse to not let your children go to high school or to deprive them of the 'real' world, that is a different story.

I'm curious what you mean by land?

My impression was that the luddites were a movement against machines which let the factory workers replace high paying skilled jobs with low paying unskilled jobs.

Please read the citations :)

EDIT: Ah, I see your comment below now, that's fair, I guess I should have used better citations.

In short -- in the period before enclosure, many of the people who became the luddites were allowed to work common land for their own benefit despite not owning it themselves. This was a major source of sustenance for them.

After enclosure, they were deprived of this. The factory owners exploited enclosure to get land to build their factories on. So it wasn't just automation replacing workers, it was also depriving them of a resource (common land) they previous depended on via privatization.

I can't read the whole book but I couldn't find anything in the Amazon article about land or enclosure.

The enclosure wiki article doesn't mention Luddites. The only thing I could guess at is that this process seems to have driven peasants into the cities to become workers in factories. But i thought the luddites were skilled if not educated upper middle class workers(like UAW autoworkers used to be) not peneniless peasants. Although I suppose some of them might have been employed as apprentices and developed the needed skills.

> I'm surprised by this. I associate "Amish" with inbred luddites who abuse their children. I'm not saying "inbred" as a cheap insult. From the Wikipedia article on the Amish

We need to be careful with this. A lot of problems happen when strong conclusions like this are drawn about a people group without actually interacting with actual people. Wikipedia facts are likely correct to some degree (like a stereotype?), but to make sweeping generalizations about all individuals involved is usually not helpful.

The Amish are hardly the only endogamous group in the US. Many small immigrant communities engage in similar behavior, because due to cultural reasons, they tend to marry into the same group, it's only as they integrate into the greater society they become more exogamous. Now, the difference here, is that they remain voluntarily isolated after so many generations and they don't tend to "import" mates from over seas as some smaller immigrant communities might do.

The main difference (to me) is that other groups use genetic testing to prevent diseases in their children. For example, Ashkenazi Jews use genetic testing to avoid having children with Tay-Sachs.[1] But the Amish's luddism causes them to reject these tests, ensuring that some of their children will needlessly suffer and die.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay%E2%80%93Sachs_disease

Plenty non-luddite children suffer and die from car accidents and drowning in swimming pools without us much registering a blink. I think it's short sighted of these people not to do the genetic tests as you say, but I get the sense that your desire to judge them for being a weird outgroup is preventing an objective accounting here.

I grant that genetic testing among some of these groups help avoid some of the negative consequences of a small gene pool, but let's not forget that some people in perfectly modern societies make odd choices about preventing disease such as the anti-vaccine movement who are generally well educated and who aren't typically characterized as luddites.

One mistake that many people make is attempting to understand the Amish as a religious sect. Really, they're more tribal; in fact, many Amish are essentially Biblically illiterate, as their "official" Bible is a translation in Hochdeutsch, which few understand. (Mennonites and New Order Amish tend to be more avowedly religious, however.)

As to their way of life ... well, they're people, not a theme park exhibit of bucolic pacifism, and people are inherently messy and complex. None of the Amish sects support personal fulfillment and self-actualization, certainly, and the social penalties for transgression are steep. Even worse, the insular and passive nature of the communities end up giving support to those who physically and emotionally abuse their families, even if they're a very small number within the larger Amish society.

"I had no idea Amish businesses had such huge tax breaks."

That is countered by them not taking / getting Social Security payments, government insurance, benefits, public schooling, etc.

If I had the option to not pay SS taxes and not receive SS benefits, I'd take that deal in a hot second.

All things that don't have very good paybacks since they have to cover all kinds of other governmental bloat.

I am assuming you are using "luddite" in the way it is typically used nowadays to mean opposed to technology, rather than using it to try to compare them to those who protested being replaced by machines in the early 19th century.

If so, you are quite wrong. This article on Amish hackers is enlightening: http://kk.org/thetechnium/amish-hackers-a/

Your interpretation of my usage of luddite is correct. I was talking about what first comes to mind when I hear "Amish". That's a little different from what I actually think their beliefs are. That said, while I know the Amish have a more nuanced view than simple luddism, I don't think it's an unreasonable one-word summary. If there's one thing the Amish are known for, it's their lack of much of modern technology. Heck, most Amish spurn refrigeration. If that can't be called luddism, then I don't know what can.

I've seen the Amish hackers post before, and I always thought it perfectly demonstrated the Amish's schizophrenic relationship with technology. They won't use the electrical grid because they don't want to be tied to the rest of the world. OK, so where do they get the diesel to run their generators? They certainly don't extract and refine their own petroleum products. Many use compressed air to avoid electricity, but who provides them with pressure vessels and braided metal lines for these devices? Who makes their CNC mills and software to operate them? Etcetera.

They need the outside world to maintain their standard of living. They just have an extra step or two of indirection compared to most of us.

Where did you get the idea that most Amish spurn refrigeration? Many don't have refrigerators, but that doesn't mean they don't have refrigeration. Those without refrigerators usually use ice boxes.

I don't think most Amish view the issue of being tied to the outside world or not as a binary thing. It's a matter of how tied they wish to be. Using diesel and using electricity from the grid both tie one to the outside world, but not to the same degree.

With diesel you have many possible suppliers so if you have a problem with one you can switch to another. You can stockpile it so you can go for a long time without outside contact if you need to.

With electricity from the grid you generally only have one supplier. When the grid goes down you are down. You have to physically connect to the grid, and have equipment owned by the power company on or near your property, such to visits from the power company.

All in all, going on the grid entwines you much more with the outside world than does using diesel.

Based on what I've read it seems they're most concerned with the impact of consuming technology on their immediate community. My guess is they aren't as concerned about the production of what they consume.

The reason they were allowed to be exempt was that they were a small community who promised and demonstrated that they would take care of each other in old age.