[HN Gopher] The Amish as a source of tech-savvy guidance ___________________________________________________________________ The Amish as a source of tech-savvy guidance Author : choult Score : 132 points Date : 2021-05-19 11:17 UTC (11 hours ago) (HTM) web link (psyche.co) (TXT) w3m dump (psyche.co) | gwbas1c wrote: | I wonder if I'm weird because I don't want a smart speaker in my | house? Then again, I still find voice recognition so sketchy that | I just don't want to deal with it. | | On the other hand, the real reason why I put smart switches in my | home was practical. I hate that 3-way switches have no fixed "on" | or "off" motion, so I started with smart switches to replace my | 3-ways. Then I realized that the timers on smart switches are | easier to program and adapt to Daylight Savings Time, so I put | more in. | | I'm an early adopter and I also approach new technology very | conservatively. I can totally understand why the Amish don't rush | out and adopt everything. | mxuribe wrote: | I'm with you; you're not weird! (Or, maybe we're both weird!) I | don't want a smart speaker because i can't see any worthwhile | value that i get from it. I especially like your example of the | 3-way switch...that seems a conscious decision that clearly | added value for you without just trying new tech for new tech's | sake, etc. | closetohome wrote: | Adding voice control to lights is surprisingly handy. | mxuribe wrote: | This reminds me of I.O.L. Now *that* is a feature that | everyone should have in every room of their home: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHoXX4QtY3s | | (Sorry, could not resist ;-) | hannasanarion wrote: | I have never understood the appeal of smart speakers. A smart | speaker can't do anything that a smartphone can't already do, | and I have that on my person at all times. | | Spotify sent me a google home for free, and in a year I have | only intentionally used it once or twice, and I think on one of | those occasions my phone answered the wakeword first, so what | even is the point? 99% of the times it waked were responding to | me telling someone "okay cool", or my cat stepping on it. A few | months ago it went in the old dead electronics pile, and a few | weeks ago that pile went to a recycler, hopefully the metals in | it can be turned into something actually useful. | c22 wrote: | I know several older people who refuse to reckon with modern | phones (or, in one case, a cellular phone at all) but who | have accepted "smart" speakers into their homes. I am not a | fan of _things that are always listening_ but I do appreciate | the effort to bring "smartphone utility" to other | objects/interfaces. | blacktriangle wrote: | I remember a few years back reading a National Geographic article | about the Amish and their love of cellphones. The point was the | Amish accepted cell phones where they had rejected landlines for | the simple reason that with cellphones they could turn them off, | with a landline your family time could be interrupted. | | The bigger picture was that the Amish view of technology was not | to view 1857 or whenever as the year technology stopped, but | their view was to evaluate technology in light of where it fit in | their culture. Hard work is a virtue, so why do I want tools to | make things easier. Raising barns together draws us together as a | community, so what's the value in technology that lets fewer | people build a building. And so forth and so on. | | On the surface the idea of evaluation technology based on impact | seems great, but the thing is the Amish never invent anything. | The rest of culture invents without thinking about the | consequences and deals with the consequent. The Amish have the | luxury of sitting back and evaluating after the fact. In | fairness, I don't think the Amish really care if anything new | does get invented, but they have effectively externalized the | downsides of technology onto the rest of us while reaping the | occasional upside. | jquery wrote: | _"Amish women are not taught anything about sex, according to | Garrett, which makes it even harder for a girl who 's being | abused to describe what's happening to her. | | Mary said she didn't know how to describe what was happening. | "I thought they were being bad to me. That was the only word I | had to express it," she said. | | In an Amish culture unaccustomed to women speaking up, Mary | felt she got more scolding than sympathy when she told her | mother what was going on. | | She said her mother told her, "You don't fight hard enough and | you don't pray hard enough." Mary said her mother made her feel | as if the assaults were her fault. "Every time I would talk | about this she would say that they have already confessed in | church and you're just being unforgiving," she said. | | ... | | "The funny thing is that they view drinking alcohol until you | puke as bad a sin as raping somebody. They get the same | punishment for either one," Mary said. | | But Amish-style punishment was not going to bring Mary the | justice she wanted. And for her, the final straw came when she | suspected a younger brother, David, was molesting their 4-year- | old sister._"[1] | | ----------- | | _MCCLURE: The majority of my sources never made a police | report. They never had a court case. Whenever I spoke with | these women, they had dozens of other victims that they told me | about, dozens of other cousins and friends and family members | that - they told me that this had happened to them, too. And, | obviously, I can 't put a number out there that's unverified or | not supported or corroborated by a court case or a police | report. It's very difficult to do a story like this where the | evidence is limited. And so just anecdotally, just based on my | conversations with these women and men, there are a lot more | victims out there in Amish country that we may never know of | simply because there is no paper trail._[2] | | ----------- | | [1]https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=316371&page=1 | [2]https://www.npr.org/2020/01/19/797804404/investigation- | into-... | dash2 wrote: | I think it's good not to idealize any community, but this | comment needs a little more context if it's meant to convey | more than just "Amish bad!!!" | jquery wrote: | I'm suggesting that maybe we shouldn't be getting our life | pro-tips from a rape cult. | | _The Amish Keep to Themselves. And They're Hiding a | Horrifying Secret. A year of reporting reveals a culture of | incest, rape, and abuse._ - January 14, 2020 by Sarah | McClure | | https://www.typeinvestigations.org/investigation/2020/01/14 | /... | | EDIT: I shouldn't be surprised that pointing out Amish | sexual assault makes HN spitting mad. Few things make HN | angrier than implying rape is a problem worth caring about. | chucksta wrote: | Calling them a rape cult is a little extreme. Although I | do agree they are far to evangelized on the internet. For | the most part they are just people with an 8th grade | education, trying to get by with religion and | community/family coming first | sparselogic wrote: | If your statements are coming from experiences you've had | in this culture, I'm very sorry. Their authority-centered | and closed culture has sheltered many abusers. This is a | serious ongoing problem, and I'm aware of many people who | have suffered. | | But to be clear: none of the religious practices of the | Amish involve rape. The same weaknesses are present in | many other similarly organized groups (see the ongoing | scandals in the Catholic Church, less reported but | similar patterns in southern Baptists, and even the | military's serious issues with sexual abuse). | | Singling out the Amish and claiming that something | they're deeply ashamed of is the focal point of their | religion is textbook hasty generalization and hyperbole. | ska wrote: | > Their authority-centered and closed culture has | sheltered many abusers. | | This is a much broader phenomena I think; isolated | communities with fairly centralized authority lend | themselves to sheltering abusers. | [deleted] | [deleted] | dheera wrote: | > with cellphones they could turn them off, with a landline | your family time could be interrupted | | Interestingly, I often miss landline times, because with | landlines it was a fair excuse to say you were out and weren't | reachable, whereas in the cell phone era people tend to expect | you to be always reachable, and I'm in vehement disagreement | with that kind of expectation from anyone other than an SO or | close family member. | newsbinator wrote: | "Sorry, my phone was on do not disturb" | dheera wrote: | And then your coworkers try to convince you to not use | that. | | "So how can I reach you then [at all times]?" | | They simply cannot comprehend a world in which people are | (gasp) not reachable at all times and plan around such an | assumption. | snarf21 wrote: | I live in Lancaster and have been around Mennonites my whole | life. I don't disagree with some of your points but I think | there is more nuance to it. My understanding is that it isn't | about delaying judgment on new technology, it is about chasing | "wants" or "keeping up with the Joneses". This is what their | culture is designed to protect against. They know that cars are | more efficient than a horse but if one person gets a car, | another person will be tempted to a nicer one, and the next one | even nicer. So to prevent the chase, they say they aren't | allowed. The same with clothes or appliances or technology. | This is how they can still do okay with farming because they | don't have any million dollar tractors. Their costs are super | low and they have large families to do the labor so they don't | need to hire workers. | | Lots of Amish have cell phones but it is mostly the younger | ones and they hide them in the corn fields. They sneak out at | night or use them when they work off the farm. It might be | surprising to some that the Amish have moved into the trades | with a force. Most of them can't farm anymore because there | isn't any farmland for sale in Lancaster anymore, and lots have | pushed west to Ohio or Indiana or Iowa. The ones that work in | the trades, get picked up every day and ride in someone else's | $80K crew cab truck, they go into the convenience store and buy | breakfast and lunch just the same as everyone else. They have | learned that there is more money out in the "English" world | than in farming. It will be interesting to see what happens | across time as they get used to "keeping up". | yabones wrote: | The Amish/Mennonites have an interesting take... Some of them | are 'allowed' to drive cars, as long as they're black base | models and are "modest" and largely utilitarian. There are also | rules about which types of equipment they can have, so no | tractors but they can have skid steer loaders for | "construction" which they hitch regular farm implements to. No | electricity allowed in the house, but no real restrictions | about power in the "shop" or battery powered devices. | | It's a strange combination between modesty and strategically | bending rules. I kind of adore that. | derg wrote: | > It's a strange combination between modesty and | strategically bending rules. I kind of adore that. | | It's very earnestly human. Being rigid is fine and all but it | also kind of sucks a hell of a lot. So it turns into a "how | can I make this suck a little less without breaking what I | believe in _too_ much? " which is something I think we all | struggle with but it's really laid bare here with the | contrast between their lifestyle and ours. | ska wrote: | > The Amish/Mennonites have an interesting take... | | Anabaptist communities vary far more than you suggest. It's a | bit like Judaism that way; sure some are identifiable by | particular dress etc. but there others you wouldn't notice at | all in the SUV beside you on the highway. | jandrese wrote: | The politics involved in the community are fascinating. They | have local committees that decide the rules for a community, | anywhere from a neighborhood to a small town. But those local | committees also coordinate at a higher regional level to set | overall policy, and the various regions also coordinate at | the top level. This means a decision made at the top level, | like "no electricity in the home" gets filtered down through | the communities with different interpretations of the rules. | A particularly strict community might ban all automation in | the home, while another will ban power lines but allow | battery operated tools, while another will ban all | electricity but allow air tools causing people to develop air | powered hand mixers and refrigerators. You see a lot of | clever workarounds for arbitrary rules in the Amish | community. It is very common to see rules bent or broken when | necessary for a job, like a farmer being allowed to burn | gasoline/diesel to run farm equipment even when his local | community bans using it for anything else. Some of the | furniture makers have rather sophisticated workshops | (although nothing CNC) which allow them to make the furniture | efficiently enough to sell it for a very low price. | nonameiguess wrote: | Where? My ex-girlfriend from 12 years ago came from Amish | country and I got to meet some when we visited her family. Not | a single house even had electricity. They wouldn't have been | able to charge a mobile phone even if they had them. I remember | mentioning some Italian food I liked for some reason or other | while having dinner with them and none of them even knew what I | was talking about. They knew about the existence of Italy, but | none of the cuisine, not even basic names of dishes. They | didn't exactly come across as people with exposure to the | broader world afforded by remote communications technology. | | I'm sure every community is different, though, as you would | expect in the absence of widespread remote communications. | bryanrasmussen wrote: | So, nobody in this family when they had rumspringa went out | and ate pizza? | willcipriano wrote: | My reading of this really depends on the food involved. If | it's something like bagna cauda the OP is being a little | pretentious, if it's spaghetti I'm shocked. | meristohm wrote: | There's no reply option for the answer to your question, | so I'll add mine here: I've heard of tiramisu but can't | picture it, can't remember tasting it, and my memories of | food still feel robust. I've done more than my fair share | of world travel, including all over Italy, and I'm | generally adventurous with food. | Stratoscope wrote: | > _There's no reply option for the answer to your | question_ | | HN tip: The reply link on new comments in a thread may | not appear immediately. I think this is a measure to | discourage heated back-and-forth replies. | | But you can always click the "n minutes ago" link to open | the individual comment and reply there. | ggambetta wrote: | As someone who signed up to participate in the Tiramisu | World Cup in Treviso (near Venice) [but ended up not | going], I can only offer my condolences :_( | bryanrasmussen wrote: | yeah, hence my pizza quip. | nonameiguess wrote: | The specific item I remember quite well because of the | hubbub it caused (apparently, my astonishment was was | considered insulting) was tiramisu. I don't think that is | pretentious. It's available from common supermarkets, but | this was a few miles outside of Gap, Pennsylvania. I | don't know the area well, but Gap is only a town of a | thousand people that likely doesn't have restaurants. | Lancaster would have, given it has a college. | | It's not like I got a detailed life history from these | people, but if you ever get the chance, the level of | culture shock can be striking. The biggest event of my | time there was the neighbor's horse that was used to | drive the plows sustaining an enormous gash on its front | right leg. That effectively stopped work as people rushed | to try and stitch it up. With no machinery, they're | entirely reliant on horses to accomplish any meaningful | field work, so a serious injury to one can severely | impact yield. | | They are prepared for that, though. Thanks to not making | much in the way of purchases of virtually anything from | the outside world, resources only flow in so they have a | surplus of everything they need to last years if they | need to hunker down. Any form of community wealth is | entirely kept in the community, so there were apparently | some fairly vast intergenerational savings built up. | | So I don't know if the concern was really that being down | a plow was going to have any material impact on anyone's | ability to eat, but it was dramatic nonetheless. I didn't | ask, but I got the impression the guy driving the plow | was as distraught as he was because he considered the | horse a friend. He seemed distressed by the amount of | pain it was in. | Stratoscope wrote: | > _apparently, my astonishment was considered insulting_ | | If you feel astonished that someone is unfamiliar with | something, that is an emotion best kept to yourself. I | have learned this the hard way when people reacted poorly | to my own expressions of astonishment. | | Consider how someone might feel after hearing you say | something like this: | | "What??? You've never heard of _tiramisu???_ " | | (I'm not saying that's how you put it, just giving an | example of an astonished reaction.) | | Instead, meet them where they are and explain without | judgment the unfamiliar term: | | "Oh, tiramisu is a delicious Italian dessert. It's made | with ladyfinger cookies, mascarpone, and coffee. | Mascarpone is a soft creamy Italian cheese, often used in | desserts, sometimes in savory dishes too. Would you like | me to send you a tiramisu recipe? You will be in for a | real treat!" | munificent wrote: | Related: https://xkcd.com/1053/ | scubbo wrote: | +1 to the sibling suggestion of xkcd's "Lucky Ten | Thousand", but also https://jvns.ca/blog/2017/04/27/no- | feigning-surprise/ | | EDIT: Which, I see now, also quotes the xkcd strip. | Stratoscope wrote: | That is a great little article. I like the way it | addresses how someone may feel that "I'm not _feigning_ | surprise, I _really am_ surprised! " | | As the article says, regardless of how you feel | internally, choose the external action that is likely to | give a happy interaction rather than an unhappy one. | Natsu wrote: | I wouldn't say that tiramisu is that common. I myself | probably only learned of it 10 years ago or so. I can | only think of one place that serves it, and I live in a | very large city. | | As for the animals, yes, it's pretty normal to bond with | them and care about them, especially something like a | horse. | | It's definitely a completely different culture, though, | no doubts about that. | names_are_hard wrote: | Wait, is tiramisu really that common that everyone knows | what it is? | | I think you're expecting too much from others. I didn't | grow up Amish, and although I did grow up in a non- | assimilated insular religious community I've been living | in Western secular society for about 10 years now. | | The only Italian foods I can think of are pasta (I can | name spaghetti and macaroni and lasagna and that's it) | and pizza, which I knew of since childhood. Lately I've | seen the word tiramisu around but I have no idea what it | is. I think I saw it on a cake in a bakery and I assumed | it was pretentious for chocolate but actually I don't | know. I certainly didn't know it was Italian. | jsolson wrote: | Going a bit off-topic here, but as a tiramisu lover I | feel compelled to say that if you like desserts and | coffee, generally, you might consider trying some if the | opportunity presents itself. | | A bit more on topic, I'd generally agree that it's not so | common as to be universal. I don't think I'd heard the | word in any way that registered as significant before my | mid-20s, and I'm certain I never tried it until my late | 20s or early 30s. I grew up in the suburbs around | Pittsburgh, PA with plenty of passable Italian | restaurants -- but tiramisu simply wasn't a dessert | people in my family ordered. | leviathant wrote: | Central Pennsylvania has a pretty substantial population | of people of Italian heritage, and at least throughout | the 90s and early 2000s, a great many of the restaurants | in the area served Italian food. I used to eat Italian | all the time, and I don't have a drop of Mediterranean | blood in me. So, arguably, not knowing about Italian food | in Lancaster county would be kind of a shocker. | reaperducer wrote: | _Where? My ex-girlfriend from 12 years ago came from Amish | country and I got to meet some when we visited her family. | Not a single house even had electricity._ | | Lots of places. | | The term "the Amish" is so broad that it is largely | meaningless, unless everything you know is based on | stereotypes. | | See also: "The Americans," and "The Christians." | | You and I are both "HN Users," but I suspect very different. | I wouldn't want to be judged based on your lifestyle just | because we both belong to this group. | stonemetal12 wrote: | The Amish near me have a little hut (kind a looks like a | guard shack) at the end of their driveway. That is where they | keep their cell phone. | dbcurtis wrote: | Every community IS different. Amish hold Sunday meeting in | their homes, rotating who hosts. Therefore, everyone in the | community must live within a practical buggy ride of each | other. The community elects a bishop. The bishop has final | say for that community. So.... lots of variation in the | nuances of rules between communities. | | "Live in the world without being of the world." There are | many interpretations of that. | jghn wrote: | Yep. I went to a Mennonite wedding a few years back and the | thing that struck me was just how much perceived variation | there was within the larger Anabaptist community vs how | much _real_ variation there was. | | There were noticeable differences community to community, | often less than a mile away. Things like their stance on | modern technology, plain dress, etc. | | At the same time it was considered a huge deal that the | bride & groom came from different communities as they had | conflicting theological views. I forget the key difference | but it was something smaller than I experienced as a child | whenever we'd change Roman Catholic Churches. | kazen44 wrote: | > we'd change Roman Catholic Churches | | just curious what do you mean by changing Roman Catholic | churches? As far as i know there is only one roman | catholic church, but with different dogma's depending on | region. | User23 wrote: | There are many churches in full communion with Rome that | are not Roman[1]. | | [1] https://canonlawmadeeasy.com/2007/09/20/are-they- | really-cath... | prewett wrote: | "Church" often means "congregation", so he probably meant | changing parishes, emphasizing that although the broader | denomination remained the same, individual | parishes/congregations/churches were often substantially | different. | jghn wrote: | As prewett said, I was referring to individual parishes. | I didn't mean to capitalize the `C` in `Churches` which | perhaps added to the confusion. Whenever we'd shift | parishes due to moving or whatever there was always very | slight & subtle differences. | | For instance, this was all post Vatican II but close | enough that some were very much still old timey in feel | and others felt more contemporary. Another example stems | from the homilies the priests would give, each individual | would have their own spin on things and that can have a | huge impact on atmosphere. | | Specifically what I meant by my comment: my recollection | was that some of the key differences in those anabaptist | congregations I mentioned tied to physical layout during | service. Who sat where, who stood where, etc. Those were | the sorts of things that was _always_ a bit different | parish to parish in my experience attending mass at a | number of RC parishes. | [deleted] | chucksta wrote: | Are you sure that article wasn't about Jewish people? I've | heard that about them, and turning them off makes it easy to | follow the sabbath, never the Amish. | | Most of them in lancaster county do not have cell phones, but | have phone booths in a remote corner of their farm so it's not | convenient. | cat199 wrote: | According (loosely) to the CMM approach, Amish could be thought | of as more technologically 'mature', since they have clear | policies around evaluating technology according to clear | requirements which have been optimized over time, rather than | simply chasing trends | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_Maturity_Model#Leve... | routerl wrote: | Neal Stephenson coined the idea of "amistics": the evaluation | of technologies not for efficiency, but from an existing value | system. Named after the Amish. | | I've been living like this for a while, without having a name | for it, but at a pretty fine-grained level, for instance by | staying off (most) social media. | | We all make these decisions. E.g. people's valuing privacy | precludes their owning an Amazon Ring. | httpz wrote: | Amish have that luxury because they're in their safe bubble in | rural America. Any other communities that tried to live that | lifestyle probably got wiped out by their neighbors through out | the history. | bluGill wrote: | They have also cultivated a reputation and so they get leeway | to do things that the average person wouldn't be allowed to | do. Most of us wouldn't want live in a house not connected to | the power grid, so the fact that in some places it is illegal | unless you are Amish doesn't bother us. | alisonkisk wrote: | Pretty rude to blame them for "externalizing" something not | caused by the them. | | By the same token, they are externalizing the upside of early | adoption while suffering the loss of benefits, while providing | us a living illustration of the alternative to our own choices. | minikites wrote: | >The Amish have the luxury of sitting back and evaluating after | the fact. In fairness, I don't think the Amish really care if | anything new does get invented, but they have effectively | externalized the downsides of technology onto the rest of us | while reaping the occasional upside. | | This reminded me of an Atlantic article making a similar point: | https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/07/camp-... | | >But Baldwin asks, "Where did you get your axe? And the slide | camera and the stove, the flour, the nails, the books, the | garden seeds, and the window glass?" While it seemed that | they'd gotten farther away from a technological life, "they'd | merely lengthened the umbilical cord." And here's the key part | of the criticism: "By moving to the bucolic boondocks, that | happy family dodged the undesirable effects of the technology | that was supporting them even as they sneered," he concludes. | | I think we all need to be more engaged and thoughtful about our | choices, how they affect our lives, and how they affect the | lives of those around us, but we need to be alert for | situations where we just push problems elsewhere instead of | addressing them. | 908B64B197 wrote: | I've always had the impression that this type of retreats | were more a trend or status signaling than anything else. | selfhoster11 wrote: | One thing that most of these items have in common is that you | could reasonably recreate them from scratch if the modern | manufacturing base disappeared: | | - Axe: The pole is made out of wood, and the blade out of | metal that can be smelted from ore or scrap with some effort. | | - The stove: Same, or build one out of stone. | | - The camera: that one's more difficult, but optics or | chemistry aren't that new. You may need specialised equipment | to manufacture this, but it's still possible. | | - Nails: Smelt from ore or scrap into a mold. | | - Books: Wood pulp and printing presses, both of which are | several centuries old. | | - Garden seeds: Literally will self-reproduce, bar any | messing about with making them sterile via cross- | contamination with commercial varieties. | | - Window glass: Melted sand, likely doable with a well- | stocked workshop. | | It's more akin to a graceful degradation than lengthening the | umbilical cord. | kazen44 wrote: | - The camera: that one's more difficult, but optics or | chemistry aren't that new. You may need specialised | equipment to manufacture this, but it's still possible. | | creating a functioning camera requires quite advanced | machining to create parts with tolerances required. | | The same goes for most other items on the list, except for | seeds and books. Creating an axe by hand is obviously | possible, but getting the high-quality steel we use in the | modern day is very hard without industrialization. | | Without a lathe and a way to power it, getting a camera is | nearly impossible. Creating flat glass is also quite a | difficult proces which requires melted lead or tin. | at_a_remove wrote: | I am not sure the Amish have pushed problems away or | externalized them. These problems would continue to exist | without the Amish or any other tech-hesitant group. | | I view them as a variety of groups who have made some | reasoned compromises as to how much they will allow their | adoption of technology to change their way of life. They do | not seem like the type who think they can do it all on their | own and understood that they live inside of another country, | etc. | | Technology shapes us even as we shape it. They are at least | attempting to put in some care as to what shaping they allow. | bluGill wrote: | For the most part everyone is like that. I have no clue how | to make chips with a 3nm (um?) process. I saw a headline | about IBM making progress on it a few weeks ago (or was it | 2nm?) However I can sit back and enjoy the progress. In the | mean time those people at IBM have no clue how to do the job | I'm doing but they can enjoy it working. The people at IBM | are smart, and I like to think I am: we could switch places | and after a dozen years of training would be just as good - | but at the expense of being behind in our current job. | zdragnar wrote: | That is an absurdly facile take. All of those things predate | modern technology, and they could happily buy them had they | been made without. The argument misses the entire point of | what it means to be Amish. | | Even the wording (in particular, the choice of "sneered") | makes me think the whole thing was written in bad faith. | [deleted] | reasonabl_human wrote: | This is a beautiful point of view.... Now I'd like to meet some | Amish people. | dbcurtis wrote: | Yes, well, when you live with them as next door neighbors you | find that they have as many angels and scoundrels, as many | wise and as many fools as any other group. The practicalities | of their life are different, but they are people like you and | me -- different priorities. | thatguy0900 wrote: | Come to Ohio campgrounds in the summer weekends, always have | a Amish family selling baked goods, they're usually pretty | friendly and open to talking. And their baking tastes | amazing. | cheese_van wrote: | Their baking does taste amazing. | | But Amish women are often employed at local farmers markets | to add local color and entice tourists into buying non- | Amish bakery goods. | | That the Amish, a fairly closed culture, are objects of | tourism, has always struck me as pretty damn weird. | | While it may reflect a nostalgia or longing for a simpler | life, I know I wouldn't last long keeping a working farm | alive. Plain lives are hard work. | thatguy0900 wrote: | I wouldnt call the Amish objects of tourism, they set up | shop where people already are. And it's not them, just | their cooking. I don't think anyone thinks about them at | all, frankly, outside of that. I remember a while ago | there was a fad for prominently Amish branded/built | electric heaters, and I thought that was very strange. | ape4 wrote: | Its not so hard to "turn off" a landline. Turn down the ringer. | If you have a cordless phone - unplug the base. | Robotbeat wrote: | Wasn't so easy in the past. They were often hardwired. This | is one of the things Amish people were against: bringing | electricity into the home. Battery powered devices were okay. | alisonkisk wrote: | Where do batteries get their power? | [deleted] | [deleted] | [deleted] | Robotbeat wrote: | Usually a generator outside that you have to walk to. | thebean11 wrote: | The phone itself was hardwired into the wall? TIL | jandrese wrote: | Ma Bell kept and iron grip on the entire system until the | Carterphone decision created a crack in their | stranglehold. This is why when you see modems in old | movies they have this crazy setup where you put the | handset into a pair of rubber cones (acoustic couplers) | because you weren't allowed to plug anything directly | into the phone lines. You didn't even own the phone, you | leased it from the phone company. | abawany wrote: | Old habits die hard: getting internet from AT&T ime still | requires leasing their 'modem' for a monthly cost while | cable providers let you bring your own device to avoid | the monthly fee. | jandrese wrote: | Oh yeah, those hardware leasing fees are a goldmine for | companies. Every so often you see a story about some old | timer that is still paying for the hardware lease on | their landline phone and someone does the math to | discover that they've paid tens of thousands of dollars | over the years to lease hardware that costs $25 new. | bluGill wrote: | The hardware they are leasing costs more than $25 new, | more like $100. Sure you can buy a phone for $10 at the | store, but the phones people leased where a lot higher | quality (drop one off the desk and your floor is harmed | not the phone) with a resulting higher price. | dsr_ wrote: | Before 1973, the phone company owned the wires right up | to the phone on the wall, and often owned the phone as | well. | | Then the FCC mandated that customer-provided equipment be | supported, assuming it met standards. | | The RJ11 jack (and siblings, right up to the RJ45 for | ethernet) came into widespread use after that. | [deleted] | dredmorbius wrote: | You couldn't sell a cover intended for phone books, a | shoulder-rest intended for AT&T (well, Bell Electric / | Western Bell) handsets, or an answering machine that | would be connected to phone-system wiring. | | It was a pretty brutal monopoly. | slacktide wrote: | When I was a kid, some of our phones were hard wired, | some used a giant 4-pin modular plug. RJ11 wasn't | invented yet. Pepperidge Farm remembers... http://www.cla | ssicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=336... | tzs wrote: | This 2009 article "Amish Hackers" [1] will probably be of | interest to many here. It covers in detail the Amish approach to | technology. | | [1] https://kk.org/thetechnium/amish-hackers-a/ | [deleted] | skadamat wrote: | Love it, reminds me a lot of Cal Newport's ideas: | | https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2017/09/18/approach-technolo... | | The focus should be on minimalism. Start by understanding your | priorities, goals, and the mental ecosystem you want to inhabit. | Then evaluate each tool for its effectiveness in the above pre- | stated constraints. | | Every technology should have a clear purpose & place in your | life, or it risks becoming into a form of media you lose control | over. | tboyd47 wrote: | It seems they recognize that the community level functions of | tech are more salient than the individual level functions. In our | society we tend to take the opposite approach. We evaluate | technology only based on how it benefits an individual, while | overlooking its effect on communities. | | A desktop computer at work or in the living room somehow doesn't | have the addictive qualities of a smartphone. Perhaps it's | because all technology does is amplify networks, and the networks | created by isolated people with devices are different from the | bonds of family, work, proximity, etc. | teddyh wrote: | Anyone here who has had doubts about installing a "Home | Assistant" in their home, or procuring a modern "Smart" TV, or | anyone who recognizes themselves in this meme: | (https://imgur.com/6wbgy2L) are essentially having the same kinds | of thoughts as the Amish have about technology: Who is this | technology serving? Is it really to the ultimate benefit of me, | or my society? | unobtaniumstool wrote: | > https://imgur.com/6wbgy2L | | I can't tell if this is more quintessentially boomer humor, or | IT worker humor. | rhinoceraptor wrote: | If you want IOT things that are fully under your control, it's | definitely possible. Home Assistant with Tasmota/Zwave/Zigbee | devices is very powerful, all without requiring any cloud | connection. | | I have so many minor automations that add up over time. When I | get home, my Z-Wave lock on the front door automatically | unlocks. If I open the garage, the LED shop lights turn on and | the door in from the garage unlocks. | AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: | I'm curious what you do with the several seconds per day | those automations save you. I imagine at least some of that | time is spent troubleshooting and reconfiguring it. | escalt wrote: | To me, (home) automation is not (only) about saving a total | amount of time. It's about saving time at the right moment. | When I have lots of free time, I will happily spend it | refining my home automations. It's a fun hobby and simple | programming with things that you can actually see and | touch. But when I just got home from a stressful day at | work and have to hurry to some other appointment, saving a | few seconds here and there can actually be very valuable. | As long as all your "smart" stuff can't access the internet | it's great. | apples_oranges wrote: | Regarding that picture: I wonder if a locksmith has a "no | mechanical locks" policy. | | Otherwise it sounds like a case of "don't get high on your own | supply". | ancarda wrote: | What do you mean? I tried looking up what a mechanical lock | is, it's not clear to me. Would it be bad for a locksmith to | sell one to you? | hannasanarion wrote: | In this context "mechanical" means "non-electronic". | Mechanical locks are desirable because they have no unknown | exploits, are not reliant on third party services, don't | need batteries, and cannot be attacked remotely or en- | masse. | vkou wrote: | Attacking a lock remotely still requires physical access | to the property in order to reap the benefits of that | attack. | | Given that most mechanical locks can be trivially picked, | I fail to see the disadvantages of electronic locks. Yes, | the failure modes of mechanical locks are better | understood - they are understood to be incredibly | serious, and easy to exploit. An $80 snap gun will open | most locks, and requires zero skill or training to use. | | Saying that you prefer a mechanical lock to an electric | one because its failure modes are well-understood is like | saying that you prefer ROT13 encryption to <My homebrew | encryption>. | | Are homebrew systems stupid? Yes. Is it likely that my | homebrew system has problems? Yes. Are those problems | well understood? No. Is it probably better than ROT13..? | Yes, because ROT13 can be broken by a child. | hannasanarion wrote: | Security isn't the only thing that locks provide, they | also provide access, which electronic locks will always | be worse at. | | I say this as a person who used to own a smart lock and | went back to a regular one because I was tired of getting | locked out by dead batteries and malfunctioning | bluetooth. | | Also on one occasion someone who was not authorized | (fortunately a guest), unlocked my door and entered my | house with the electronic lock because I happened to be | sitting near the door on the inside. | | More electronics does not mean more better. | vkou wrote: | I'll agree with you on these points. The failure modes | for an authorized user of an electronic lock are worse | than for a mechanical lock. | selfhoster11 wrote: | Having watched the Lockpicking Lawyer's channel, I'd guess | that a locksmith would prefer a well-designed mechanical lock | to anything electronic. | thedanbob wrote: | I don't think I really admitted to myself how addictive my | smartphone is until I uninstalled most of my apps and locked it | down with a simple management profile (no web browser, no app | store). I've had it this way for months and it's so much more | pleasant now, yet I still have the same habit as mentioned in the | article: I pull it out whenever I'm in the bathroom. Now that | there's not much to do on it, I'm very well versed on the current | weather conditions. | Animats wrote: | _" Tang's target customers were desk workers who downloaded | meditation apps and people who paid for digital-detox camps."_ | They're selling virtue signalling. | | If that's what you want, get a new unlocked Android phone, and | power it up without a SIM card. When it wants you to sign up for | Google, click "later". Then remove the Google startup app to | avoid further nagging. Then connect to WiFi or use a USB cable, | download F-Droid, and load what you need from there. Remove most | of the Google crapware, plus any other junk that came with the | phone. Then add a SIM card. I have a ruggedized phone from | Caterpillar Tractor set up that way. | | (Haven't installed a replacement for Google Play Services yet, | though. I should.) | SLWW wrote: | I love the idea of technology as a tool; and the idea that | "success" as viewed by how long someone uses that tool to be | perverse in nature. | | Something to keep in mind while building the "tooling" of | tomorrow. | rednerrus wrote: | This book helped change the way I think about technology: | https://www.amazon.com/Better-Off-Flipping-Switch-Technology... | It's about the Amish. | jquery wrote: | This helped change the way I think about the Amish: | https://www.npr.org/2020/01/19/797804404/investigation-into-... | https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=316371&page=1 | | _Johnny Byler 's sentencing brought out the largest crowd -- | and the most tears -- not in support of Mary, but in support of | the confessed rapist._ ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-05-19 23:01 UTC)