[dmwiens]

Its been said[1] that the Amish are one of the few societies that are actually masters of their technology, because they take a deliberate approach to evaluating whether a technology supports their deeper values. Most of humans don't/won't/can't make the same stand that the Amish take.

[1] https://calnewport.com/approach-technology-like-the-amish/

[mydogcanpurr]

The Amish exist because the government allows them to. If they didn't have a modern US military defending them, they could be easily conquered by almost any country.

The point I'm trying to make is that technology is a bit like prisoner's dilemma. If you don't advance, you will be destroyed by those who do even though we might all be better off with less tech. As an example of this, consider CRISPR babies.

[autoexec]

> If they didn't have a modern US military defending them, they could be easily conquered by almost any country.

It doesn't help that they're pacifists either

[inconceivable]

> If they didn't have a modern US military defending them, they could be easily conquered by almost any country.

i mean, isn't that true of everyone in the US who isn't armed to the teeth?

also, i wouldn't be so sure they don't have some kind of weapons and ammo stored away.

[mydogcanpurr]

Part of my point is that if we all lived like the Amish, we wouldn't have a modern military.

[082349872349872]

There were once non-pacifist Anabaptist sects as well as pacifist ones. The latter are still with us, but the former stopped existing centuries ago.

[JohnBooty]

That's really interesting to consider.

The Amish certainly set a bar that few besides Richard Stallman can match.

However, I do feel strongly that people I know are pretty deliberate about bringing each new piece of technology into their lives. This is true for folks in the industry, "tech enthusiasts" outside the industry, and relative luddites.

I think that after the tech explosion(s) of the 90s and 2000s folks are keenly aware that each new piece of tech represents a burden of some sort: recurring time and/or money costs.

This might not be the kind of deeply principled attitude displayed by the Amish (or RMS) but I do think people are pretty thoughtful and skeptical about new tech.

Ironically some of the exceptions I've seen are within the tech industry itself. Engineers who ought to know better are quick to embrace things that seem like obvious lock-in traps.

[pxc]

> Most of humans don't/won't/can't make the same stand that the Amish take.

And when they do, they are seen as zealots, or something somehow unattainable. See how many here talk about GNU, FSF, etc.