When I worked for a Wal-Mart in Indiana in the 90s, the Amish would come into the electronics department and buy country music cassettes and battery-powered players. And also, I kid you not, Gameboys.
Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy
21–30 of 113 posts
Re: Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
It's self sufficiency after purchase not before. They don't mind buying things they can't make, as long as they can repair or do without them afterward. They won't buy things that need constant connection to the outside - like grid electricity. They will buy a generator as long as they can take it completely apart and put it back together. But if they can't do that they won't. LED's seem unexpected to me, but I suspe…
Is the vastly lower energy consumption of LEDs perhaps a virtue that makes them preferable to incandescents, even though they are far more complicated to manufacture?
Re: Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live in Lancaster PA and most Amish can't afford the farm land here anymore (its become housing and malls) and have moved west. Lots of Amish now work in the trades (construction/electrical/roofing/etc.) Someone picks them up and takes them to their job sites. Their general low standard of living (no car payments or electronics budgets) allow for that to be a very solid income for most.
Minor point, but you meant 'cost of living', I believe.
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Re: Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's self sufficiency after purchase not before. They don't mind buying things they can't make, as long as they can repair or do without them afterward. They won't buy things that need constant connection to the outside - like grid electricity. They will buy a generator as long as they can take it completely apart and put it back together. But if they can't do that they won't. LED's seem unexpected to me, but I suspe…
Is the vastly lower energy consumption of LEDs perhaps a virtue that makes them preferable to incandescents, even though they are far more complicated to manufacture?
They can't manufacture either of them, so complexity of manufacture doesn't enter into it.
So I assume they like LED's for the same reason you do, less battery.
If they did make incandescents (I suppose if they tried they could), then the comparison would be harder for them, and I would expect some communities to go one way, some the other.
Re: Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live in Lancaster PA and most Amish can't afford the farm land here anymore (its become housing and malls) and have moved west. Lots of Amish now work in the trades (construction/electrical/roofing/etc.) Someone picks them up and takes them to their job sites. Their general low standard of living (no car payments or electronics budgets) allow for that to be a very solid income for most.
Minor point, but you meant 'cost of living', I believe.
It's inter-related. If you don't have a lot of needs you don't have a lot of expenses.
If you're prepared to live in a cardboard box you can save a fortune on rent. It's also a deliberately low standard of living.
Re: Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy
#26>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…
Every community seems to be different. Different sets of rules.
In the town where I grew up there are Mennonites, and now more Amish people. Apparently - the reason they don't use electricity from the grid, is because it's possibly made on 'Sunday' - ergo - they can't use it.
They all have generators to make electricity for their barns, equipment etc..
No electricity to the houses though.
Re: Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy
#27The Amish attitude towards technology is a pretty good model of what an eventual Mars colony will need.
When (or if) people finally travel to Mars to stay, the biggest risk to the colony will be being dependent on imports from Earth. It will always be expensive to send ships from Earth to Mars, so it is folly to assume that resupply missions will continue indefinitely. So a colony which hopes to be viable must be vigilant not to be too dependent on outside goods.
This is the same as the Amish attitude. Every item from outside is regarded as suspicious; it MUST be rejected if it produces a dependency on the outside. Best if it can be made inside the community; perhaps acceptable if it can be repaired and used indefinitely even if it only comes from outside.
So a Mars colony will evaluate imports. Anything that can be made locally on Mars is best; things which can be repaired and reused indefinitely are okay; things which increase the dependency on the outside world will be shunned.
Re: Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy
#28A lot of people think the Amish are against technology. In fact, they carefully consider the technology's effect on themselves and their community. Will it really help, or is it just a new thing which will cause unintended consequences? For instance, some Amish groups accepted cars, and their community disappeared - when anyone can drive anywhere the community collapsed. Now there are no Amish who allow cars. The same thing would happen with the internet.
Tech people like ourselves automatically assume that technology is some advance, or improvement. Our peers tell us this, our incomes depend on us believing this.
In fact, technology does not improve the human condition in most cases. It erodes it. We would be better making careful decisions like the Amish, but our civilisation is locked onto this myth of 'progress'.
Technology should be for us, not the other way around. Unlike the Amish, we put the cart before the horse.
Re: Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy
#29>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.
I've got a dual dynamo/drum-brake hub, the Sturmey Archer X-FDD. It works quite well-- but only at normal biking speeds. Below 10mph it's flickery and annoying.
If a horse isn't in a hurry, it usually travels at a walk, which is something like 5mph. So bicycle dynamos won't work well for a buggy.
Re: Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy
#30How do Amish people generally make money? I know there are markets that sell Amish goods to non-Amish, but there must be more to their income than that.
I live in Lancaster PA and most Amish can't afford the farm land here anymore (its become housing and malls) and have moved west. Lots of Amish now work in the trades (construction/electrical/roofing/etc.) Someone picks them up and takes them to their job sites. Their general low standard of living (no car payments or electronics budgets) allow for that to be a very solid income for most.
By "moved west" I presume you just mean farther west into the state, rather than the west coast? I'm from near Mercer, PA and I haven't noticed any decline in the number of buggies on the roads near there.