[Paracompact]

> [The Amish] carefully evaluate the potential impact of every new technology on the community. The decision is a purposeful one, governed by the criterion of the common good of the community.

Counterpoint: buttons. Without proclaiming expertise on the subject, I think this is an overly romantic view of the Amish, and most of their decisions (like any religious/religiously-adjacent demographic) are based on vibes and contemporary politics.

[hn_throwaway_99]

Could you explain by what you mean regarding "Counterpoint: buttons"? I wasn't previously aware of how buttons were viewed among the Amish, and all the results I found were varying degrees of "it's complicated", e.g.: https://www.amish365.com/buttons-amish/

And while I would agree that stating "The decision is a purposeful one, governed by the criterion of the common good of the community" may be over-romanticizing it, it does seem to me that the Amish are evaluating the use of buttons according to their core principles. I.e. the whole reason it's a bit complicated is that the Amish universally avoid flashy displays of vanity, and many uses of buttons, especially in the Victorian era, highlighted that, but that plain/simple/hidden buttons aren't that different from hook-and-eye fasteners, which are universally accepted.

[Paracompact]

I mentioned the semi-prohibition on buttons not because it's particularly important, but rather because I don't think there's any rational case to proscribe them specifically. (Any more important technology I could cite would have some greater defense as to why it's truly worthy of prohibition, simply by ignoring the positives.) As you point out, buttons are not inherently more flashy than fasteners, and indeed the actual reason they're proscribed is because of Victorian era politics.

Again I want to emphasize I'm no Amish expert or even anti-Amish. Merely that I have a lifelong suspicious outlook on religions and cultures that proscribe what they hate rather than celebrate what they love. Such has an inherently centralizing effect on power, driven by communal emotion and ancient edicts rather than diversity and individually auditable reason.

Yet the Amish have my singular respect for their rite of Rumspringa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumspringa) as there are not many Christian communities that see adherence to the faith as anything but mandatory, breaking away as anything but an existential threat. So I reserve my judgment about them since they defy easy categorization in my lived experience.

[jdelfuego]

Fair. Also far from an expert on the Amish. Your comment made me think in two things. One, as another [1] comment on this thread mentions, some technologies end up in some sort of 'background', used by everyone and not receiving any thought from anyone. Maybe that's some sort of practical proof of their "neutrality", in the sense of being something that satisfies a simple human need with demanding the sacrifice of part of our humanity? I don't know. The other: maybe their self-imposed isolation (physical, cultural, linguistic, etc ) affords them a greater independence with respect to contemporary politics and vibes?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48271324

[Paracompact]

> some technologies end up in some sort of 'background', used by everyone and not receiving any thought from anyone. Maybe that's some sort of practical proof of their "neutrality", in the sense of being something that satisfies a simple human need with demanding the sacrifice of part of our humanity?

Wouldn't be so sure. Electricity is abstractly omnipresent as a commodity and powers a lot of good things in the modern world, but if you have any reservations about the effects of the Information Age or the industry required to generate electricity, then electricity could be argued to be a sacrifice we simply don't realize we are making.

> maybe their self-imposed isolation (physical, cultural, linguistic, etc ) affords them a greater independence with respect to contemporary politics and vibes?

Maybe. As indicated my other comment, I can't judge their situation with any confidence. But it would be surprising to me if their isolation reduced rather than increased their proneness to echo chambers and dogmatism.