After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on
mitchellrepublic.com
mitchellrepublic.com
I feel like HN has a healthy skepticism about IoT at least. We seem to generally agree that fewer devices should have internet access.
This happens automatically with age. The HN crowd is older now. Just look at the skepticism around AR and VR. The problem is there’s no actual exploration and experimentation paired with the skepticism.
Job of the old: remind the young that there's little new under the sun, and a cost to everything.
The end result is “get off my lawn” and “new things annoy me”
Here is an essay that essentially address this: http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html
Is easy to brag about how you don't need technology when somewhere a team of extremely sophisticated machines are deployed pointing towards the sky to save the day in case that you would be bombed. An entirely independent Amish nation would be probably eaten by their neighbors or by the market in months. More people died in the Ukranian war in a year than the whole remaining Amish population.
And their life style proven to be very fragile acting against things like Covid. They suffer also still from occasional outbreaks of Measles and Polio [1] that were eliminated in the rest of US by the use of vaccines. Living in a different century can seem idyllic, but it has a price.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-covid-amish-idUSL2...
Well I read Lucky Luke as a kid and guess who ended up saving the settlers every single time? The cavalry. Sent by the Feds in Washington.
There is indead still nothing, that beats flash in this regard.
And flash games were somewhat popular with users as well.
Most of them, yes. Because they were "programmed" by people not good in programming or UX design. But flash enabled even newbs to build awesome stuff - and it had powertools for the pros. The workflow I had back then, I never found again in any other tool. So it has nothing to do with not wanting to learn something new - there still isn't something alike. And that is quite sad, despite the flaws of the flash player and adobe.
(oh. and flash was for free for students and also easy to pirate)
I am fairly sure most of us can agree with: Not yet.
— Agent Smith, The Matrix, 1999
It depends on the definition of "better". The Amish idea of better is serving God, avoiding or repenting sin, and thus attaining salvation.
Most people's idea of good life is pretty different, given the basic axioms it's built upon.
This is why attempts to build a life by imitating various highly admirable spiritual movements mostly fail. To reap the benefits of the lofty ideas and commendable ways of life one needs to consciously* adopt most of the spiritual teachings which have lead to the development of these ideas and ways of life. You either convert to them, or admit that it's too hard to follow the way.
* Amish only accept adult, conscious baptism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil's_Playground_(2002_film)
And also, sadly, many Amish flee physical and sexual abuse: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Amish+abuse&ia=web
First, one can look to the mid-Atlantic Quakers, whose own book of daily guidance is titled "Faith & Practice", which stresses the distinction between how one might behave in the world and what one believes about spiritual and religious matters. For (that branch of the) Quakers, you can live a "good life" without necessarily subscribing to any of their spiritual/religious beliefs.
Secondly, most people's idea of their good life is woefully lacking in self-reflection and self-knowledge. What really makes people happy? Civilizations and cultures across time and space all stress that what really makes people happy rarely involves material well being (although obviously a certain level is required to avoid that being the dominant shaper of the experience of life). Yes, we can admit that various gadgets and access to services brings us some level of joy in life, but that doesn't really negate the fundamental truth that what makes us happy tends to be purpose, not products, tends to be who we have in life, not what we have.
Well, the texts that survive those cultures stress that. But historically reading and writing were highly controlled political activities. So you should probably consider the political motivation behind those texts. The good life for a peasant farmer in the dark ages would almost certainly involve the accumulation of modest surpluses to be traded for quality of life enhancing material goods. But you can bet your cart horse on the fact that the texts which were being produced by the state - and delivered to the farmer in mandatory weekly Mass - strongly encouraged the redirection of that surplus to the state in the form of tithe or similar in exchange for ‘spiritual access’.
It's easy to see that the interests of the state (which for Christendom was often coterminal and indistinguishable with the church) would want people to accept their lot, and be accepting of whatever inequities existed at that time and place. But I think you do human philosophy a disservice to suggest that people are incapable of thinking outside of that particular sort of box.
Even with Buddhism, the tradition most easily accused of encouraging people to just accept the way things are, it's actual practitioners and believers have fairly sophisticated explanations of why that's not actually their position at all.
What self actualisation can one get from that?
Quakers succeeded enough in certain ways that their values became mainstream, and they didn't differentiate enough from the surrounding culture to remain separate from it or powerful within it. Our liberal culture owes a lot to the quakers, I have incredible respect for their foundational beliefs, I used to be one, but they don't have much to offer us now.
Also, I'd slightly dispute the "indistinguishable from the evangelical mainstream of wherever they live". There are branches of the Quaker tree that are evangelical, but for the one found in (at least) the mid-Atlantic and Pacific NW, evangelical Christianity is about the last thing I'd compare them to. Protestant mainline, sure.
But anyway if you are going to do this, I don't think you should do it with religions that still do have living practitioners however few. If you value what the quakers are doing go be a quaker, see what the experience has to offer. Or at least wait until its carcass is cold before you harvest its carrion. Trying to extract value from a spiritual tradition you're not willing to live is ghoulish.
I don't understand this sentiment at all. Identifying positive aspects in existing religions is perfectly fine (I'd even argue there is some amount of virtue to it). How is it possibly ghoulish to see good in other cultures/religions and bring that into your practice? One example that comes to mind are religions where consumption of meat is eschewed. If you find that the rationale that Jainism provides for a vegan lifestyle resonates with you, why can't you incorporate that into your life for those reasons?
Again though, and I think this is enough information to understand my position, I simply reject the notion that you can build anything worthwhile by picking and choosing bits you like from the collection of religions spread before you.
They are traditions whose fullness is only experienced as part of a community of other practitioners. By trying to extract an appealing bit and apply it to your own life outside of that context and separated from that practice, you're doing an entirely different thing and imo not what you think you're doing. I simply don't think this practice is worthwhile, valuable, or worthy of respect.
If you don't want to eat meat then don't eat meat. If a jain convinces you not to then that's as good a way to find out as any other. Does that begin to convince you that we are all part of an eternal cycle made up of different substances? Maybe you should convert to jainism!
I don't want to assume anything about you and I'm not really. But I often see this amalgamated spirituality concept coming from non-religious people. The idea that you can take the parts you like from anywhere, leaving the parts you disagree with. I simply don't think you can come out of this with anything meaningful, and in fact I think it's a trap. You'll think you've found wisdom when all you're doing is laundering your beliefs & preferences through the hard-won ancient traditions of the world.
There is courage necessary to commit to a path without possibly being able to understand it or even begin to know where it will lead. When you build your own religion you trade that in for mistaken confidence, and the feeling that you know what all the parts do and why they're there. You're not supposed to know why they're there! You're supposed to just live it.
It is certainly true that feeding at the buffet of world religions isn't the same as being a committed member of a particular religious community. But that doesn't mean that you don't get some value from it, and potentially different value than that found by the more committed members.
I personally take great inspiration from Hesse's Siddhartha, the titular character of which explores a variety of spiritual and religious traditions, finds them all lacking and ends up being most inpired by a river ferry man. But that doesn't mean that the character gained nothing from his experiences with Buddhism, Jainism, ascetism and more.
It is not picking through or over the bones of Quakerism to grapple with and/or be inspired by this idea.
As for Stoicism, I am not sure that it is required to do anything other than, maybe, bring greater peace and understanding into the lives of those considering its values.
no no no no no. some progressive protestant faiths perhaps, but the central tenet of most Christian and most Protestants faiths is faith, salvation comes through accepting Jesus Christ as your savior and repenting sin, for which you will be forgiven. It is a topic of debate among theologians as to what that says about works/acts but they don't generally depart from the idea that starting now you get a clean a slate, or as clean as anyone can.
> Child Sexual Abuse in the Amish Community: A Hidden Epidemic
Turns out, a closed-off, hierarchical community isn't something to emulate.
Doesn't help that a lot of them only get an eighth grade education:
https://home.dartmouth.edu/news/2012/03/professor-william-fi...
> The Amish community’s adherence to a lifestyle more typical of the 19th century, which includes driving horse-drawn buggies and living in homes with no electricity, is driven by religious beliefs. But the Amish’s adherence to educating their children in one-room schoolhouses, and then only through the eighth grade, is largely the result of a 1972 Supreme Court decision, Yoder v. Wisconsin. This 40-year-old ruling has “frozen them in place” and threatens the younger generation’s ability to earn a living in an increasingly complex society, argues Professor of Economics William A. Fischel in a recent paper.
https://www.amishheritage.org/services/education/
> In 1972, the United States Supreme Court decided in Wisconsin v. Yoder that Amish children do not have the right to any future other than one inside the Amish Church.
https://lancasteronline.com/features/former-amish-want-to-ov...
So it seems their "thorough consideration of technology" is in the context of a culture that's not going to change because it would threaten the established hierarchy. That's the threat, here: Something like this might start out well-intentioned, but once the institution is in place, well, any excuse will serve a tyrant, eh? Any excuse will serve the organization.
Very true. There is a quote, often misattributed, about how power corrupts. To lazy to google it, sorry.
> Doesn't help that a lot of them only get an eighth grade education:
That is 5 years more than some ultraorthodox jews get, check out link [1] here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35336142
Proof that happy religious communities are all different, but ugly, controlling, abusive groups share many of the same characteristics.
The Church/elders always go for information control.
So I think it’s unfair to dismiss them because they have sexual abuse in their communities and have values other than education. They don’t want to change much but it’s not a conspiracy to maintain the hierarchy. It’s to maintain their way of life that they’ve found creates meaningful, stable, happy lives with authentic connections to each other. We lack this as a society so much that we have multi-billion dollar industries trying to bottle it up and sell it to our desperate people.
They don’t do everything right but they get a lot right.
It's fair to dismiss them because they have an institutional habit of covering it up.
> and have values other than education.
This is wrong. Not educating someone keeps them under your control. That's abusive.
Well, they take care of it themselves and don't get the legal system involved. They have their own ways of dealing with it. They don't support it and it's not like they're actively facilitating it. You may agree or disagree with this but there are many different communities in the USA that prefer to act this way.
> This is wrong. Not educating someone keeps them under your control. That's abusive.
They get enough education. I'd wager most of them are better educated than the majority of public school attendees, most which graduate with a < 8th grade level of reading and match ability. I think we should look at our own broken system more before criticizing them and holding them to a different standard.
They allow it to run rampant. That's explicitly called out in the article I linked to.
> They get enough education.
They don't. Again, that's explicitly called out in the articles I linked to.
At this point I can only conclude you're posting in bad faith.
What do you mean by "they?" Amish people in general? Or some specific people or group (that you have not identified)?
Consider how you'd feel about saying "they" to refer to some individual transgression by other groups.
> “Can an outsider join the Amish church/community?”
> “A local Amishman recently remarked, “You do not need to move here to adopt a lifestyle of simplicity and discipleship. You can begin wherever you are.” Yes, it is possible for outsiders, through conversion and convincement, to join the Amish community, but we must quickly add that it seldom happens. First, the Amish do not evangelize and seek to add outsiders to their church. Second, outsiders would need to live among the Amish and demonstrate a genuine conversion experience and faith that results in a changed lifestyle. Third, it is extremely difficult for anyone who has not been raised without electricity, automobiles, and other modern conveniences to adjust to the austere lifestyle of the Amish. And to truly be a part of the Amish community one would need to learn the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect.”I hope you're an adult male. They don't treat women and children well, and their justice system is designed to suppress crimes rather than prosecute them[1].
1. https://www.amishheritage.org/this-devastating-lawsuit-destr...
I think what you really want is to live off grid in a homestead. You don't need to be Amish for that.
What led you to believe this is the true desire of a total stranger on the internet?
Why do you assume the need to convert?
If you want to embrace their ideas of simplicity, you can do so without needing to join them. Plant a garden and grow some of your own food. Choose minimal spartan furnishing for your home. Sew your own clothes. Learn woodworking.
[1]: https://www.stoponlinepuppymills.org/amish-puppy-mills/ [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IUz0zCiVLI
What are you basing that claim on?
They don't show it happens more often compared to the rest of society. And with the exception of NPR (somewhat), I find your sources questionable.
I'm asking you to backup your claim and you interpret that as offense?
> young people in isolationist authoritarian communities are literally more trapped than victims in the greater society.
I'd say victims of sexual abuse find themselves trapped and isolated in general. As to whether Amish victims are more trapped than non-Amish victims, I haven't seen any evidence to point one way or the other, so I won't make a conclusion about that.
You are leveling non-trivial claims against some folks so you need to offer commensurate evidence to substantiate those claims.
The amish men actually do back breaking work, which instill a sense of sharing. They also organize in locked couples, smaller structures more efficient to avoid drama, and focus on reproduction: the hippies cant reproduce, they cant even focus on one child, let alone agree on who will have to be responsible for parenting.
The idea the hippies had was that all structure was stupid. The idea the Amish have is that there s only one old structure worth living by. Ofc the Amish will survive and the hippies dillute in chaos: the first preserve entropy to a minimum, the second pushes it to a maximum.
There's an even simpler way to describe it: the goal of the hippies didnt seem to be self preservation of their structure, while the Amish have an absurd obsession with it.
Only after it has worked for a few generations can you know one is sustainable.
People absolutely require a system of metaphysics. It is one of the most basic and natural needs of mankind; it is how all men come to account for the world and their existence in the world. People in general have little time for philosophy, so a folk metaphysics must be simple and easy to understand, and must be connected to a straightforward system of moral principles.
Communal hippie living is a lifestyle that one typically grows out of.
The Amish -- like the Hasidic Jews, and like various other religious movements -- are an essentially metaphysical community. The metaphysical principle comes first, and the rest follows. The way they live life is wholly on account of how they interpret their religion's moral principles and strictures.
It's easy to leave one lifestyle for another. Not so easy to leave a religion that you were raised in, and which you have built your entire world-view around. There's a certain IQ threshold for that, as it requires the de novo construction of a new metaphysics.
I am sure that a lot of atheists are flattered hearing this, but come on, they heard about it online, or even from the community's conniptions about outsiders. For that matter "what if what I see with my eyes is what is real" does not take a big I.Q. to think of.
The mathematical physicist Chetan Prakash proved a theorem that I devised that says: According to evolution by natural selection, an organism that sees reality as it is will never be more fit than an organism of equal complexity that sees none of reality but is just tuned to fitness.
I'd be surprised if our eyes give us a truthful perception of reality. They give us a functional understanding that allows us to thrive here but nothing more.
(And saying "IQ" when you meant "intelligence" is a sign of a midwit.)
Yes, I agree totally.
That IQ threshold isn’t very high as witnessed by the proliferation of supposedly novel midwit metaphysics propounded on the Internet.
“It’s all random and emergent man” isn’t any kind of impressive intellectual construct.
Um, you might want to check the average IQ for Ashkenazi Jews, Hassidic Jews are primarily Ashkenazi.
> People in general have little time for philosophy, so a folk metaphysics must be simple and easy to understand
Yah, it's quite clear you know basically nothing of Judaism if you think their metaphysics are "simple and easy to understand".
They manifest characteristics that enable stable communities. Sex within marriage, no divorce, marriage and sex for procreation, reliance on extended family and local community, no industrialization/urbanization, social isolation, religion as unifying principle. Hippy communities on the other hand tended to be built around sexual promiscuity or at least lack boundaries around sex and marriage, and subsequently suffer commensurate relationship/family breakdown. Not to mention that hippy communes are converts to agrarian life and when the going gets tough there’s no millennia of continuity to rely on but there is the memory of the city and the supermarket.
Do Amish women have the ability to attain financial independence? If not, I would add that to the list.
All evidence says no, they don't. Their financial situation is very tied to the entire community.
> Sex within marriage, no divorce, marriage and sex for procreation, reliance on extended family and local community, no industrialization/urbanization, social isolation, religion as unifying principle.
All of these things have been present in the most war-torn and unstable societies (ex: much of the Middle East, some of the areas around present-day China and Russia).
> Hippy communities on the other hand tended to be built around sexual promiscuity or at least lack boundaries around sex and marriage, and subsequently suffer commensurate relationship/family breakdown.
There are cultures that existed for hundreds of years without the concept of monogamous marriage. Monogamy doesn't guarantee familial stability, nor does promiscuity. Domestic partnership (what we would call marriage) was a familial and economic relationship, not always a guarantee of sexual exclusivity.
The second-largest empire in history, the Mongol Empire, had an enormous amount of polygamy and sexual promiscuity.
The Ottoman Empire, Ethiopian Empire, and many other large (and long-lasting) empires practiced polygamy.
Even ignoring all of that, in the US, most people cheat on their significant others[1]. There's no reason to think that's a modern phenomenon, either.
1. https://today.yougov.com/topics/society/articles-reports/202...
No, they have been condemned for females and tolerated for the more powerful.
Regardless of whether sex was monogamous in most ancient societies, it was nonetheless ceremonialized, (somewhat) feared and (to the extent possible) regulated. The rules changed, but the presence of rules was consistent. It's not easy to find a culture that took sex as lightly as ours. But it's also not easy to find a culture that believed the Earth orbits the Sun. Ancient cultures often believed in some form of vitalism and had spiritualistic beliefs about the consequences of sexual activity. Those practices are not so easily mimicked by converts raised in the atomic age.
From your article:
>88% of women and 73% of men say kissing another person while in a monogamous relationship is cheating
It doesn't follow that most people actually have sex outside their exclusive relationships.
I would agree that the post you replied to places an excessive emphasis on sex. Hippie communes that I've examined often failed to effectively manage expectations regarding the work required and the quality of life that could be achieved.
My ancestors are Mennonites. I visited them in Missouri when I was fifteen. There is something appealing about their lifestyle, but after experiencing it for a couple of weeks, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't choose it.
Classical Greece springs to mind. Possibly high Roman culture also.
Pax Mongolica was a thing.
OP was talking about stability, not oppression. The Amish are oppressive, though not seemingly in a brutal way. Many societies with similar values to the Amish were also extremely oppressive.
Regardless, I gave examples of incredibly brutal societies that valued monogamous marriage and sex for procreation. My whole point is that these variables have nothing to do with whether a society is stable, but it's also true that they have nothing to do with whether a society is nice to live in.
Yeah, and then they died out.
Did any survive?
I forget how many wives the Emir of Dubai has had-a few, simultaneously. From what some of his ex-wives have said, he’s an abusive husband, but Dubai sure survives. And while most marriages in Dubai are monogamous, I’m sure he’s not the only man in Dubai with multiple simultaneous legal wives.
I think the argument is that putting constraints on individual sexual freedom promotes social stability in the long-run; the existence of constraints is more important than their precise details.
Think about it. Technology has left these people a literal century-plus behind. The longer the Amish exist, the higher the rate of retention will be.
Furthermore, once you leave the Amish community, you are forever renounced by your family and friends. So you're left adrift without any support in a world that has left you behind.
This leads to the question you seem to have ignored. Is longevity itself a positive trait? If an abusive cult existed for hundreds of years, would you call it a success? Hacker News readers should place a higher value on innovation and less on blind faith in tradition, in my opinion.
https://abcnews.go.com/2020/amish-teens-tempted-drop/story?i...
Im not going to argue with you because its just going to be anecdotal, but I can tell you that the kids are not brainwashed if thats what you're referring to. The "shunning" is also exaggerated. It looks like you just watched "Amish mafia" on TV. Most stay Amish because it really isn't a bad system at all.
They use plenty of technology, its just approved by the community after careful consideration.
They have their problems but their focus on the family is vastly superior to most of the modern day degeneracy devoted to chasing whatever fleeting pleasure is popular at the moment. They will be around for a very very long time.
This is not true. Watch Devil's Playground for counter-examples.
Most/many of them were founded by 1 (sometimes 2) relatively wealthy individuals who had the means (often familial) to acquire land and do the initial capital purchases necessary to get things off the ground. When/if these individuals lose interest in the commune, let alone leave, the implicit agreement that bound the community together starts to fall apart.
The communities that have survived for decades after being founded in the 68-75 period almost uniformly do not have this property. Twin Oaks (VA) is perhaps the prime example.
You could cite The Farm (TN) as a counter-example, but that would mostly be a diversion - The Farm survived because its founder (Steven Gaskin) never lost interest in or left the commune.
Amish culture is not all that different than general American culture structurally. Communes are.
The Amish aren't getting a lot of recruits, so the folks that are there were born, raised, and indoctrinated, which also helps with sticking.
That’s not to say there isn’t value in a lifestyle like this. But it requires a lot of effort that many people either don’t want to or cannot put in.
Comparatively we can meet people who lived in failed hippy communes, but the successful ones aren't likely to interact with you.
Is a temporary commune even a failure? Is a long lived one necessarily a success?
Are there 50 year old hippie communes we haven't heard of?
Yes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Farm_(Tennessee)
There are probably others too.
And then of course, the kibbutzim in Israel, though almost all of them have radically transformed themselves since they were founded.
They didn't fall apart, exactly. They're still living as Amish and they're moving to be closer to their families:
> “We wanted there to be an Amish community here, but seems like everybody Amish is more from Ohio or Pennsylvania, where there are more trees,” Rudy Borntreger, the community’s bishop, or elder, explained. “I think it's so open, nobody wants to join us. Now more people decided to move back to Iowa and Minnesota, so kind of for unity's sake.”
[1] https://medium.com/the-collector/10-rules-you-had-no-clue-am...
Amish communities also aren't self sufficient though. They'll happily sell and buy goods with outsiders and even sell amish furniture via websites (not sure if they use an intermediate). A ton shop at the Costco near me.
There's also a century of history of large kibbutzim in Israel that are somewhat religious but fundamentally organized around agriculture or industry.
Israel has religious and secular kibbutzim as well.
Some hippy communes failed, or just decided to break up, but religious communes fail as well.
Last summer we were preparing to demolish a family property in a rural part of New York and invited some local Amish to take some furniture and other things we no longer needed.
Two of the middle sons (aged 18 and 19; they have 5 brothers and 7 sisters) came with a giant wagon pulled by huge dray horses ((https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh...)) and took it all away. They said the wagon is usually used for harvesting hay and corn, and sometimes for long distance moves of up to 40 miles. It's basically a hay wain used for other tasks as needed.
They took all of the old furniture including a sofa and a large table and box springs. They put the sofa on the front so they could sit on it on the way back to the farm, which they said is a bumpy ride because the wagon wheels are ringed with iron and most of the journey is on pavement. They also took the doors off the hinges which they said their father was going to use for a workshop as well as an old woodburning stove which must have weighed 200 pounds 90kg) and had a nonstandard exhaust. They managed to heft it out of the old cabin and onto the wagon, and said they would be able to do some metalwork to make the pipe fit in the workshop ceiling, as well as the doors which were narrower.
After the wagon was loaded they pulled out tobacco pipes and lit them and started smoking while we chatted. My dad said "I used to have a pipe like that" and the young one chuckled, and replied "Don't see English smoking pipes. Except some old fellows. Maybe like you." We all had a laugh.
The Amish moved to the area about 40 years ago. The winters up there are brutal and they live a tough life starting at a very young age, but this community has revitalized family farms and helped to stem the population decline in that part of New York.
Some church districts are okay with it though (both for smoking and/or agriculture), so it's possible they came from such a district too. Most in such districts smoke cigarettes.
So, it's not that the Amish smoke pipes just to be old-timey.
Or in todays language:
"You aren't free if you are bound by your desires".
This is a quote by Emmanuel Kant and I think it applies well to the Amish.
For that, knock yourself out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancel_culture
Those are some tough, resilient folks. They work with their hands through hard winters. They love their family. They don't have many material goods, but they have good hot meals with family and friends and they all go through life together.
It's not an easy way of life, and it's not a common way. But it's not a bad way.