Technological Prudence: What the Amish Can Teach Us (2011) [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

Technological Prudence: What the Amish Can Teach Us (2011) [pdf]

baylor.edu

45 pointsjohntfella11 comments

This resonates with the thread a few days ago about smartphone use and security. The different viewpoints of the Amish give us much to consider as we go forward with ever increasing connectivity and pressure to be always available. Let's hope we each choose our own course wisely.

After more than one visit to eastern Ohio Amish country I can tell you the one thing those folks have taught me is that when you don’t pay for cable, internet, mobile, electricity, gas, car insurance, etc… and you manufacture products that people want…you can accumulate a ton of money.

I saw a documentary about them employing pneumatics for everyday devices and they were really inventive in this department. They probably also don't use a compressor, so you have to work the air pump to use the mixer.

That sounds a lot more backwards than it is, pneumatic tools are still in widespread use. Wikipedia lists 32 manufacturers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumatic_tool

Dentist drills for example are frequently pneumatic due to higher maximum RPM’s.

Indeed, and it's worth remembering that compressed air - much like gears and belts, or water and other hydraulic fluids - is a perfectly good way of moving power across distances. Electricity has a lot of nice properties, but it's not perfect for every application.

Beyond hand tools, I think plenty of industrial manufacturing machines, including CNC machines, use compressed air as the source of primary "work" power.

Lowtech magazine has a nice article about this: https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2013/01/mechanical-transmi...

Oh, I didn't meant it that way. Here it is a replacement for electricity and their ingenuity is quite intricate. On the contrary, they put up quite a bar that has to be matched by those calling them backwards.

Aside from that pressured air has quite a lot of applications. Some high tech robots use pneumatics instead of hydraulics or gas for certain applications. It is not at all a deprecated technology, the principle is more or less the same.

It is also 100% more ecological if you use the air pump to power your devices.

I've heard this referred to as "Amish electricity"

My favorite Amish meme:

Modern person asking an Amish guy why they haven't gotten COVID, and the Amish guy replying that its because they don't have Television.

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