Modern Tech inside an Amish Horse-Drawn Buggy

Post by tenminuteslater » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 3:26 AM UTC

drakenot wrote: post #20

altendo wrote: post #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 preconceiv…

You should see some videos of Amish woodworking shops. They have every tool that a modern woodworking shop would have: table saw, bandsaw, drill press, rotary sanders, etc. Except they are all air powered. They have all been rigged to run off pressurized air lines. The air is produced by a gas generator.

Post by taneq » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 3:44 AM UTC

beambot wrote: post #46

ChuckMcM wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This suggests that if you want to create a company that is acquired by Elon Musk you probably want to design/patent systems and methodologies for building things on Mars :-)

You're making the assumption that IP (designs & patents) will be enforceable on Mars. That sounds risky. You can't even get those guarantees on earth among nation states.

Post by seanmcdirmid » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 3:45 AM UTC

forkandwait wrote: post #52

Whenever a discussion of Amish comes up, I have to link to my favorite hard core Anabaptist sect, the Hutterites. Unlike th Amish, the Hutterites love technology. They choose what technology to use as part of a very strict church system, like the Amish, but are very much into diesel engines and the internet and the like (note the link below). See [1] and [2] below. They also live communally in farming colonies of abo…

Post by CydeWeys » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 3:58 AM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #39

dzdt wrote: post #27

The 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 vig…

This suggests that if you want to create a company that is acquired by Elon Musk you probably want to design/patent systems and methodologies for building things on Mars :-)

Post by ticviking » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 4:21 AM UTC

teilo wrote: post #21

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.