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The Amish have negotiated a pact with modernity (2018)

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Re: The Amish have negotiated a pact with modernity (2018)

#121

Post by Aerroon »

LunaSea wrote: post #100
Aerroon wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why do we need to make collective decisions about technology? Why can't I decide for myself based on what I see and think? Why is it better if somebody else decides for me? The beauty of a society that embraces individual choice is that the individual gets to choose. You can let somebody else decide for you, but you can also go against them. The article loses me on this point as well. Any individual can look at t…

Countries can't defend themselves and thus exist if they don't have a strong military force and a strong economy. Said strong economy being most of the time directly linked to the technology level of the country.

Sure, but I, as an individual, don't have to follow along. If I don't want a TV I don't have to get one. If I want a TV I should be able to get one. It shouldn't be my government or community saying that I have to get one or that I can't get one.

Re: The Amish have negotiated a pact with modernity (2018)

#122

Post by rthomas6 »

The problem is we've stopped asking ourselves what it is that we value. What are our goals? If it's maximum pleasure we could just create a VR world with heroin, a catheter, and a bedpan. Go on a soma holiday whenever we wanted. But we don't want maximum pleasure, only our hindbrain does, and we are letting ourselves be led around by it for the profit of others.

Re: The Amish have negotiated a pact with modernity (2018)

#124

Post by voisin »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #63

I am always a little conflicted about articles that portray the Amish as this wise group of people. I lived close to Amish country for a while and there were lots of stories about child and spousal abuse. They seem to live to some degree outside the regular legal system so you hear less but it seems to be a pretty oppressive group.

Worth reading up on Rumspringa [0] which is when Amish youth leave the community to experience modern life and make a decision on their own separate from the community if they wish to return or not.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumspringa

Re: The Amish have negotiated a pact with modernity (2018)

#125

Post by Arbalest »

fuckcensorship wrote: post #116
spaetzleesser wrote: post #63

I am always a little conflicted about articles that portray the Amish as this wise group of people. I lived close to Amish country for a while and there were lots of stories about child and spousal abuse. They seem to live to some degree outside the regular legal system so you hear less but it seems to be a pretty oppressive group.

From the article: > In the 1960s and 1970s, 75% of Amish children would decide to become Amish adults. The most recent statistics show that’s up to 95%. Why do you think this number continues to increase if your assumptions about the Amish are true?

Opportunities for young people have been getting worse perhaps?

Re: The Amish have negotiated a pact with modernity (2018)

#126

Post by Factorium »

zepto wrote: post #6

Good article in general, except for the title. I know many people and see many people online who understand these truths. The hard part is creating a viable alternative culture that can make collective choices about technology use. It’s also worth noting that the Amish rely on the ‘English’ I.e. American legal system and military for their defense. Their way of life doesn’t stand alone outside of American society.

The Amish are typically eligible for a lot of welfare programs, due to their low income. However, they also reject Government support as part of their ethos.

Whilst the Amish are reliant on the rest of society's laws and defenses, there are other ethnocultural groups within the USA that are reliant on the rest of society for their housing and food supply. That's a lot further down the hierarchy of needs.

Re: The Amish have negotiated a pact with modernity (2018)

#127

Post by zepto »

Aerroon wrote: post #121
LunaSea wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Countries can't defend themselves and thus exist if they don't have a strong military force and a strong economy. Said strong economy being most of the time directly linked to the technology level of the country.

Sure, but I, as an individual, don't have to follow along. If I don't want a TV I don't have to get one. If I want a TV I should be able to get one. It shouldn't be my government or community saying that I have to get one or that I can't get one.

What if you want to transmit TV?

Re: The Amish have negotiated a pact with modernity (2018)

#128

Post by poulsbohemian »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #63

I am always a little conflicted about articles that portray the Amish as this wise group of people. I lived close to Amish country for a while and there were lots of stories about child and spousal abuse. They seem to live to some degree outside the regular legal system so you hear less but it seems to be a pretty oppressive group.

This is a good observation, and it’s also important to realize that there’s no single “Amish” group - there are various groups of similar religious and cultural origin across a number of US states and Canadian Provinces, each of which has its own unique rules and practices.

Re: The Amish have negotiated a pact with modernity (2018)

#129

Post by mikem170 »

satellite2 wrote: post #102
mikem170 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I argue they do not have the tools to make those choices in an unbiased manner as those tought experiments are also technological byproducts. I wonder if the rest of us use technology in an unbiased experimental manner without regard to the consequences? As the decades go by we become increasingly stressed having to deal with commutes and corporations and bureaucracies and living in a world of phone zombies, mass m…

Only the future will tell if we manage to solve problems faster than we are creating new ones. But I'm pretty sure abdication means death at this point. We are not crocodiles that managed to find a timeless form and effortless survival behaviour. We are brand new, extremely weak but extremely smart, I think it's pretty revealing about our nature and survival options.

> Only the future will tell if we manage to solve problems faster than we are creating new ones.

We've already accumulated a ton of technical debt, just like so much feature packed bowl of spaghetti software. Were cars worth it, the long commutes and destruction of neighborhoods versus the independence? People seem to miss the way things used to be. And the debt from the last 75 years of frantic building is still accumulating - crowded roads, car-only subdivisions full of low-income folks living five to a house because you can't get to work without a car, etc. A similar argument can be made about computers - the personal alienation and the impersonal bureaucracies versus the huge increase in available information, but with the possibility of a future nightmare of totalitarian surveillance and control.

I didn't mean to argue with anything you said. Perhaps I just see the situation as more acute. I like my tech debt analogy. Just like bad code it is not just about the current problems, but also the future problems we've already baked into the system.

Re: The Amish have negotiated a pact with modernity (2018)

#130

Post by vkou »

kymaz wrote: post #123
vkou wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are the only thing preventing someone less scrupulous than me from stealing.

That and getting shot.

If you're going to escalate in that direction, I'll point out that an organized group of criminals will happily escalate the issue to the point where 'Just use your guns for self-defense' is not going to end in your favor.

They'll only need to make an example out of a few people to make it clear that giving in to their demands is much cheaper than fighting them.

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