Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy
blog.caranddriver.com
Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy
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Re: Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy
#2Its all about self-sufficiency.
Re: Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy
#3>Despite what you may have heard, the Amish aren’t against technology. Communities adopt new gadgets such as fax machines and business-use cellphones all the time—as long as the local church approves each one ahead of time, determining that it won’t drastically change their way of life.
This alone is the most interesting point of the article. People not belonging to the community, like myself, have a fixed preconceived notion of what it's like to be Amish. I still don't know much about Amish life and culture, but it's fascinating to see where my assumptions are wrong (and what else I may be wrong about!)
Re: Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy
#4>Despite what you may have heard, the Amish aren’t against technology. Communities adopt new gadgets such as fax machines and business-use cellphones all the time—as long as the local church approves each one ahead of time, determining that it won’t drastically change their way of life. This alone is the most interesting point of the article. People not belonging to the community, like myself, have a fixed preconceiv…
I find it's also easy to fall into the trap of attributing more cohesion than there is and simplifying all of the groups into some sort of average. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish#Use_of_technology_by_dif...
Re: Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy
#5Re: Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy
#6Its all about self-sufficiency.
I'm somewhat confused. As the article says, buggy components are often manufactured off-site (e.g. fiberclass body), how does this make them self-sufficient?
Re: Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy
#7Its all about self-sufficiency.
I'm somewhat confused. As the article says, buggy components are often manufactured off-site (e.g. fiberclass body), how does this make them self-sufficient?
Hm I guess if they can repair the body. Which is pretty easy.
The other half of their philosophy is avoiding pride. So cool, you're self-sufficient. But not perfectly so, or that would be prideful.
There's an old Amish joke - father is driving the family home from Meeting in the buggy. He turns to Momma and says "I guess we were the plainest ones there!"
Re: Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy
#8>There was actually an alternator system attempted in the last five years,” he says. “It worked about 60 percent, but it never took off.
Generator hubs for bicycles are mature technology at this point. Including capacitors in the taillights so they stay on when the bike is stopped. Buggies could easily adopt them, but I guess it's not worth the bother if batteries mostly work.
Re: Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy
#9>Despite what you may have heard, the Amish aren’t against technology. Communities adopt new gadgets such as fax machines and business-use cellphones all the time—as long as the local church approves each one ahead of time, determining that it won’t drastically change their way of life. This alone is the most interesting point of the article. People not belonging to the community, like myself, have a fixed preconceiv…
I find it's also easy to fall into the trap of attributing more cohesion than there is and simplifying all of the groups into some sort of average. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish#Use_of_technology_by_dif...
There's some really interesting inconsistencies in that table. E.g. some think tractors for fieldwork aren't OK but lawnmowers are, for others somehow chainsaws are bad but washing machines are fine etc.
Looking these over there doesn't seem to be any clear pattern to me. The grandparent mentioned them not wanting things that will "drastically change their way of life", surely having a washing machine is a bigger change to your life than having a chainsaw, even if you're a farmer.
Re: Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy
#10>Despite what you may have heard, the Amish aren’t against technology. Communities adopt new gadgets such as fax machines and business-use cellphones all the time—as long as the local church approves each one ahead of time, determining that it won’t drastically change their way of life. This alone is the most interesting point of the article. People not belonging to the community, like myself, have a fixed preconceiv…
You might enjoy the article "Amish Hackers" [1], which looks in more detail at the Amish approach to technology.
It has been discussed a few times here on HN [2].
[1] http://kk.org/thetechnium/amish-hackers-a/
[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Amish%20Hackers&sort=byDate&da...