[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.