My dad spends his summers near an Amish settlement. By settlement, I mean vast tracts of land with several farms. He buys most of his eggs, fruits, vegetables, etc. from them. They sell goods at a local farmers market, and when "organic" and "free range" became a fad, these guys put a giant photo in front of their stall of their chickens frolicking in huge paddocks with the words "FREE RANGE" below it - doesn't get more authentic than that.
He's gotten pretty friendly with them over the years. When we bring friends along to their farms to pick up goods, they're always shocked how contemporary these guys are.
One of them has a pretty sophisticated machine shop, with tools like drill presses, saws, sanding belts, etc. all driven by a series of axles forming a mechanical drivetrain that snakes throughout the barn (eventually to a very old diesel motor).
A couple of the young men came out to frame a house he's building. Once on a day off, they arrived by carriage and brought a pair of young Amish ladies with them to hang out at the beach. The next day, my dad found one of the girl's leggings left behind. He was discreet enough to return it to the girl's younger brother, instead of her dad.
All the kids know how to use iPhones - they sometimes ask to borrow his so they can make a call.
One of the more technically inclined gentleman even showed up one day with a cutting-edge drone, and had a blast flying it around with my dad. He made it very clear his wife isn't allowed to know he owns it! Last I heard that same guy is helping plan a solar array my dad wants to install to go off-grid.
I am reminded of how much more difficult it would be to drive a car, if you had no Reverse gear. Our society, generally, has only every once in a great while successfully reversed on a technology. This means that we have to either ban it proactively, which requires us to be able to predict its consequences, or else adopt it and hope for the best.
The Amish subculture seems to have a functional reverse gear, allowing them to try out a technology and then decide not to allow it after all. It would be a good feature to have, for our society more generally.
If you look around there are hacks and DIY solutions to problems everywhere!
No matter the hobby or location you can be sure that space had hackers and tinkers. Some really cool hacks come out of restrictions and lack of money for what we would consider 'proper' solutions, and each technology however analogue will be a space with its own hackers.
I really enjoy writeups like this of ingenious solutions to problems I will never face. Growing up having friends living on old farms far away from villages or towns I got to see some crazy contraptions, my favorites of which were probably various uses of streams (of water) for mechanical work.
I traveled to Cuba in 2012 as part of a research trip and seeing all the ways people have managed to hack together fixes for everything was perhaps the most incredible part of the experience. The embargo makes it difficult for Cubans to get a lot of things we take for granted but the Cuban people are perhaps the most inventive I've ever met. Living under the sanctions for decades has made creative problem solving a part of their culture.
Amish are certainly an interesting group and I have a lot of respect for their work ethic! I recently had an Amish crew reside my house and they showed up every day with their driver at 6am! I am not sure how long the commute was but we live about an hour from Amish country.
They also had a young boy, maybe 12-14 years old, apprenticing with them. I believe Amish only need to do K-8 school and then they start their careers.
The Amish are extremely honest people in my experience. The ones I have met selling homemade goods and foods are fastidious about not charging for old food (e.g. 2 day old bread is free) regardless of whether it is still good and could be sold. I think the work ethic ties in with this, they see hard work as the only honest path in some way I think. In either case, it makes them some of the best handymen and construction workers:)
"They often don’t have logical reasons for their policies"
...goes on to explain the logical reasons for why certain Amish communities refuse to use automobiles, closed carriages, etc.
I have read that the Amish make explicit decisions about whether to accept a certain technology into their communities.
A specific example was about technology that saved many hours of simple/light mechanical work for women: as a result, it eliminated the communal practice for women to be together in a large room talking while doing it. The technology was tried but then removed, as the result was less communal engagement.
To oversimplify: we default to using whatever comes up (Facebook, etc), whereas their approach is to evaluate the new thing as a community and decide.
Amish communities vary wildly on what is acceptable from community to community which can include trivial things like colors and cuts of garments, phone usage/location, type of carriage/buggy features, and what level of mechanization is tolerated. It rarely has a logical reason beyond "this is the way" and is generally dictated by the elders of that specific community. The differences also extend to things like the conditions they'll let a member formerly in good standing return and courtship customs.
If you read Ira Wagler's book Growing Up Amish, he covers some of this as his family (and him alone) moved around various Amish communities in North America.
It's unfortunate that somehow, I just read an awesome article on (amish) hackers and technology, but leave the page only remembering the spambot comments at the bottom. Kevin (and other bloggers who have the same problem), if you read this, please disable comments in your posts. They provide hardly any value and just ruin the experience.
You should have kept reading. Right after the initial spambot comments, there were some really deep and useful comments from members/neighbors of Amish and Mennonite communities.
Personally I don't think so. I like to read some feedback too, like in this thread. Haven't read them all, but didn't really noticed spam. There is an option to just ignore them.
To the article:
> This method works for the Amish, but can it work for the rest of us?
I don't think that it would. Neither is there a community to enforce the rules, nor would it be able to scale. I think the author agrees between the lines or at least has serious doubt.
I think it's more like they're willing to outsource / be late adopters, so that when they're seriously thinking about a technology it's already on Stage 4 or 5
To some extent, I have a similar attitude about technology, though I draw the lines far differently than the Amish. I was a latecomer to smartphones, and even though I use one for a variety of purposes, I don't spend all day with my face buried in it - and I'm very picky about what apps I'll install. Facebook? Instagram? Hell no.
Back in my twenties, I started noticing that there really wasn't much on TV that I wanted to watch, and so never got around to subscribing to cable. To me, in the intervening years, TV has only become worse. My TV set spends most of its time as a large monitor.
> Back in my twenties, I started noticing that there really wasn't much on TV that I wanted to watch, and so never got around to subscribing to cable. To me, in the intervening years, TV has only become worse. My TV set spends most of its time as a large monitor.
Same here. I grew up with television, but once I got my first own apartment I never bothered to get a cable subscription. I have a TV in my living room, but I consider it as a monitor for my game console and chromecast.
The first thing people ask me when they hear I don't have a cable subscription is usually: how do you watch the news then? The answer is simple: Except for stuff that interests me (tech mostly) I do not read, watch or listen the generic news. Most news is depressing anyways, and you really don't miss out on anything imo.
> My impression is that the Amish are living about 50 years behind us. They don’t adopt everything new but what new technology they do embrace, they take up about half a century after everyone else does. By that time, the benefits and costs are clear, the technology stable, and it is cheap.
Yeah, this is definitely a sensible approach to doing things. They get most of the benefits of modernity, but few of the downsides. I wish our regulators would do the same.
The comment section of the article is filled with funny bot spam, worth a glance for a chuckle. Guys advertising "whatsapp hacking" services with a "customer" replying to the ad vouching for them.
those people are abusing disqus across practically every site that uses it which ive visited in recent memory. wish they could get a handle on it, its a pretty useful plugin except for the apparent shitpot security. maybe its up to site moderators and they don't do the work, maybe the disqus audience is particularly vulnerable to soc.eng .. w/e, bummer.
You kept bringing up this comment... Let me remind you that "the Amish" is actually a very broad umbrella term. There are Amish who drive vehicles, Amish who only drive tractors, and Amish that only use horse and buggy, in one small area in Kansas (which is far from an Amish hotspot). There's at least that much variety other places as well.
[+] [-] rkagerer|6 years ago|reply
He's gotten pretty friendly with them over the years. When we bring friends along to their farms to pick up goods, they're always shocked how contemporary these guys are.
One of them has a pretty sophisticated machine shop, with tools like drill presses, saws, sanding belts, etc. all driven by a series of axles forming a mechanical drivetrain that snakes throughout the barn (eventually to a very old diesel motor).
A couple of the young men came out to frame a house he's building. Once on a day off, they arrived by carriage and brought a pair of young Amish ladies with them to hang out at the beach. The next day, my dad found one of the girl's leggings left behind. He was discreet enough to return it to the girl's younger brother, instead of her dad.
All the kids know how to use iPhones - they sometimes ask to borrow his so they can make a call.
One of the more technically inclined gentleman even showed up one day with a cutting-edge drone, and had a blast flying it around with my dad. He made it very clear his wife isn't allowed to know he owns it! Last I heard that same guy is helping plan a solar array my dad wants to install to go off-grid.
[+] [-] flycaliguy|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rossdavidh|6 years ago|reply
The Amish subculture seems to have a functional reverse gear, allowing them to try out a technology and then decide not to allow it after all. It would be a good feature to have, for our society more generally.
[+] [-] tapland|6 years ago|reply
No matter the hobby or location you can be sure that space had hackers and tinkers. Some really cool hacks come out of restrictions and lack of money for what we would consider 'proper' solutions, and each technology however analogue will be a space with its own hackers.
I really enjoy writeups like this of ingenious solutions to problems I will never face. Growing up having friends living on old farms far away from villages or towns I got to see some crazy contraptions, my favorites of which were probably various uses of streams (of water) for mechanical work.
[+] [-] elliekelly|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] roland35|6 years ago|reply
They also had a young boy, maybe 12-14 years old, apprenticing with them. I believe Amish only need to do K-8 school and then they start their careers.
[+] [-] not_buying_it|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tewarbit|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yboris|6 years ago|reply
A specific example was about technology that saved many hours of simple/light mechanical work for women: as a result, it eliminated the communal practice for women to be together in a large room talking while doing it. The technology was tried but then removed, as the result was less communal engagement.
To oversimplify: we default to using whatever comes up (Facebook, etc), whereas their approach is to evaluate the new thing as a community and decide.
[+] [-] flyinghamster|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryanmercer|6 years ago|reply
If you read Ira Wagler's book Growing Up Amish, he covers some of this as his family (and him alone) moved around various Amish communities in North America.
[+] [-] dmtroyer|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krm01|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PaulDavisThe1st|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raxxorrax|6 years ago|reply
To the article:
> This method works for the Amish, but can it work for the rest of us?
I don't think that it would. Neither is there a community to enforce the rules, nor would it be able to scale. I think the author agrees between the lines or at least has serious doubt.
[+] [-] laszlokorte|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cat199|6 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_Maturity_Model#Leve...
1) Initial (chaotic, ad hoc, individual heroics) - the starting point for use of a new or undocumented repeat process.
2) Repeatable - the process is at least documented sufficiently such that repeating the same steps may be attempted.
3) Defined - the process is defined/confirmed as a standard business process
4) Capable - the process is quantitatively managed in accordance with agreed-upon metrics.
5) Efficient - process management includes deliberate process optimization/improvement.
Amish tech processes seem to me higher up the chain than most people, so from this point of view, they are actually more advanced..
[+] [-] blaser-waffle|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flyinghamster|6 years ago|reply
Back in my twenties, I started noticing that there really wasn't much on TV that I wanted to watch, and so never got around to subscribing to cable. To me, in the intervening years, TV has only become worse. My TV set spends most of its time as a large monitor.
[+] [-] LeonM|6 years ago|reply
Same here. I grew up with television, but once I got my first own apartment I never bothered to get a cable subscription. I have a TV in my living room, but I consider it as a monitor for my game console and chromecast.
The first thing people ask me when they hear I don't have a cable subscription is usually: how do you watch the news then? The answer is simple: Except for stuff that interests me (tech mostly) I do not read, watch or listen the generic news. Most news is depressing anyways, and you really don't miss out on anything imo.
[+] [-] dang|6 years ago|reply
2010: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1046378
Discussed (barely) at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=476454
[+] [-] heartbeats|6 years ago|reply
Yeah, this is definitely a sensible approach to doing things. They get most of the benefits of modernity, but few of the downsides. I wish our regulators would do the same.
quasi-relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/606/
[+] [-] zwieback|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hackbinary|6 years ago|reply
;)
[+] [-] durpleDrank|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rhoyerboat|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PaulDavisThe1st|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dang|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] The_mboga_real|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] starpilot|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] A4ET8a8uTh0|6 years ago|reply
Why can't we just discuss 'cutesy' aspects?
[+] [-] BenjiWiebe|6 years ago|reply