Neo-Amish Drop Outs (2008) | Hacker News Reader

Neo-Amish Drop Outs (2008)

kk.org

30 pointsjohndcook27 comments

Having lived around the Amish, I've taken some inspiration from them in various aspects of life. I feel they have a lot to teach us in regards to living a content life. Being here now, I obviously don't subscribe to their philosophy wholesale, but I do sometimes ask myself what the Amish might do in certain situations.

Just one example: If I can accomplish a task with unpowered hand tools, I'll do so, even if it's less "efficient" than buying/renting an internal combustion engine or electric powered device that would do the same. I've built many things this way and have taken greater satisfaction from not just the end result, but the creation process. Other healthy side effects are increased independence from external industry, skills development, less cost to the environment, and sometimes free exercise.

Many powered devices are much more dangerous, especially for amateurs. It's hard to receive serious injury from hand saw. One slightly wrong move with circular saw and you're crippled. So it's definitely makes sense to spend more time with hand tools if that's not your profession and you can allow for some inefficiency.

I disagree. I lost vision to my eye due to chip flying when cutting wood with an axe (carelessly...)

If you are looking strictly at accidents in unit of time, than maybe powered tools are more dangerous.

But what you should do is look at accidents per amount of work done. Like how many accidents it took to process 1000 tonnes of wood. I am sure the statistics would be different then.

But I agree with "especially amateurs". Being amateurs around powered tools is like being amateurs around guns. Every person should be trained at least a little before being given access to powered tools.

Strongly agree. In fact, I suspect the accident rate, even unadjusted for work done, is higher with manual tools. All modern power tools have very well thought-out safety features included. This is particularly true for some of the more dangerous tools, such as chainsaws and table saws( see SawStop ).

To add to the anecdata: I've never hurt myself with a power tool. Meanwhile, I have a permanently damaged big toe from a sledgehammer and a huge scar in my calf from a pickaxe.

Indeed, we can learn a lot from the Amish. Efficiency isn't always the most important thing in life.

Efficiency isn’t, no, but time is, and efficiency usually lends itself to giving you more time. If the journey itself gives you fulfillment, then by all means, do it how you like. However, the Amish would choose to sacrifice efficiency even when it’s not about the enjoyment of the thing itself, but rather a base necessity, at the cost of their time, which is the most wasteful thing a human being can do with their life. So no, I disagree that there’s anything to learn from the Amish. It’s an absurd religious belief, even if you can “learn something” from it if you squint hard enough.

I think you misunderstand Amish philosophy. Contrary to popular belief, the Amish did not decide one day in the 18th century that technology had gone “far enough” and that they were going to freeze in time, their way of life at that moment, forever.

Instead, they saw the way changing technology began to accelerate the pace of life in society around them. In response, they adopted a philosophy to preserve what they believed were the most important things in life.

Accordingly, their philosophy is based on one simple rule: they will not adopt any technology they deem a threat to the time they spend with family and with God. Look at any “modern” family, with teenagers staring at their phones instead of talking to each other at the dinner table, and it’s easy to see that the Amish may be on to something. It’s not the phones that are the problem, really. In the past it was people looking at the newspaper or anything else like that. The two most important things in an Amish person’s life is their relationship with God and their relationship with family.

I live in an area (southern Ontario) with lots of old order Mennonites who are related to the Amish. They practice a very similar way of life. They do not shun technology arbitrarily. Almost every time I’ve been to the hospital, for example, I’ve seen them there getting care for a family member. They do not reject modern medicine because it does not conflict with their beliefs. They know that doctors can treat their family members and provide a better outcome than what they can provide at home, so they have no problem seeking out medical care.

They also have no problem using the Internet to advertise their businesses. Many of them produce traditional goods such as preserves, maple syrup, dairy products, sausages, blankets, hand made furniture, and even metalwork which is all very high quality and in demand among non-Mennonite people in the area. They are perfectly happy to build websites (or to contract that out) so that people can find their stuff and order it.

If you want to see how appealing the Amish lifestyle is, look no further than the popularity of Stardew Valley. That game perfectly captures the spirit of Amish philosophy: pervasive technology can leave us all slaves, chained to our desks. A simple, agrarian way of life, focused on relationships, is the key to setting us free.

This is a lovely explanation, thank you. I'm ignorant about the Amish save for what I've absorbed from the culture, but now I feel a little closer to understanding them. I wouldn't make the exact same decisions but the appeal is clear (and I admire the resolution).

Some other interesting things about the Amish:

Perhaps also contrary to popular belief is that the Amish drink alcohol and love to celebrate with their friends and family. They do not have any specific prohibition against getting drunk.

They also have one convenient technology the rest of us still dream of: self-driving “cars.” After a night of merriment they need to get home safely but that’s no problem at all because the horse knows the way home! They simply climb in their buggy and let the horse take them back, so they can tuck in bed and rest up for another day of work the next morning!

It's still illegal for them to drive their buggies while intoxicated. Same for bicycles, motorized wheelchairs, etc.

But you are right - it's still safer for them to get home with the horse knowing well enough to not run into the ditch.

Those laws vary by jurisdiction and the world is a big place.

Some states only prohibit intoxicated operation of motorized vehicles and it is perfectly legal to operate a bicycle or carriage while drunk.

It is only illegal if somebody makes it illegal: in a democracy the population themselves make the rules.

I used to live in Tillsonburg, so we were near-neighbours.

One thing also about the Amish is that they refuse to rely on things that can break down outside their control, and leave them helpless. The issue, for example, with gasoline is that if it runs out, you have a bunch of useless tools that only someone else (the gas people) can make work again.

In that sense, I haven't heard of Amish having issues with solar power (I could be wrong, though), so it just may soon be their time to shine.

I've recently heard, that while many Amish communities didn't adopt the telephone, they have adopted the mobile phone - "because it can be turned off."

That might be a generalization. Some Amish families also allow their teens to buy gasoline powered cars. I'm sure they come up with a handy excuse for it, but the real reason is it keeps the family together.

I like to consider things like that as the community mechanism for how new things/tech/tools are introduced to the community.

This is by design. When efficiency is pursued for greed, the gains typically only go into more greed and not into living a more relaxed life. Most modern economies still require 40 hours of work every week no matter how efficient production becomes, and this is par for the course for the past 300 years of industrialization. The Amish do use plenty of tools and the set is decided by each congregation. The core idea is to have enough but disincentivized people from the excess pursuit of material profit.

Yes. I frequently grab unpowered hand tools (mower, rake, snow shovel) by default as I can get the job mostly done and done far more quietly, in the time it takes to power-up the powered version.

Being offline is a luxury only rich people can afford.

I believe this should link to https://kk.org/thetechnium/neoamish-drop-o/

(2008)

Thanks! Fixed now.

Our software has been replacing submitted URLs with canonical URLs when it finds them; but this time the canonical URL was https://kk.org/.

Just as I'd emailed you :-)

Ah, thank you. I was wondering what vanishing Asian cultures had to do with the Amish.

And even that link doesn't give a lot of details. I was thinking it had something to do with young (Neo) Amish dropping out and getting into tech.

Hah. Same. Disappointed about the subject, and the use of "Amish" is misleading.

Email such corrections to hn@ycombinator.com.

(I've done so.)

The last paragraph sums it up real well:

I know about the traditional Amish; they don’t count because they have never been wired. I’m most interested in Neo-Amish drop outs. (There’s a Neo-Amish MeetUp group, which I think is self-disqualifying.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com