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Comment by code4tee | Hacker News Reader

Have visited Amish stores where they have pneumatic belts for the cash registers. The registers were about the only electric thing in sight and were powered by batteries and solar or generators. Lighting was all gas powered from propane tanks. They had some off the shelf lamps and things that had been re-rigged to run off LEDs and batteries (literally a car battery on the floor next to the lamp powering it). It was all very cool. Ceiling fans were also pneumatic. Building also had tons of skylights so during the day everything inside was lit with sunlight.

Some people think the Amish are against technology which isn’t really accurate. It’s more that they’re intent on being self-sufficient and against unnecessary uses of technology.

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Powering air kitchen appliances from a diesel compressor seems no more self-sufficient than using electricity. A paddock windmill driving the compressor on the other hand...

Still have a hard time separating it from electrical powered by a paddock windmill or rooftop solar panels.

It's often about the opposite of self-sufficiency - community mutualism, and community visibility.

This compares to having a phone in a publicly visible booth away from houses. It wouldn't be hard to run the phone cable right to the house, but then people would be tempted to make personal, idle use of it.

Not necessarily a negative considering the human need for community.

Hope is a propane tank self sufficient? Or LEDs?

All of this, except perhaps a lead acid battery, requires at least late 20th century technology, and a huge engineering effort to exist to get to the point of making it.

“Some people think the Amish are against technology which isn’t really accurate. It’s more that they’re intent on being self-sufficient and against unnecessary uses of technology.”

That’s not really accurate. They do have great respect for self sufficiency, but that’s not why they eschew technology.

They do it for religious reasons. They, much like the Jewish Hassids, have chosen a heyday from their past that they believe god wants them to adhere to the restrictions and customs of.

If they thought god was cool with iPhones, they’d get one tomorrow, self-sufficient or not.

As a Jew who goes to a Hassidic minyan, I can assure you that none of us are stuck in a "heyday from the past."

I've been shopping at B&H Photo for years. I recognize that not all Hasidim are Luddites... but many, many are. And the entire culture is most certainly derivative of 18th century Eastern Europe.

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