Aka the Amish, or even Mennonites. I spend a good deal of time in close proximity to these communities and they seem to mix old world / close-to-earth living (horse and buggy etc.) with new world-tech (solar/wind electricity generation). Each community has their own "rules" but it seems to be close to what you're describing (maybe minus all the religious stuff) I do see them at Wal-Mart ... so there's that.
This is a common misconception about the Amish and other plain people, eg stricter Mennonites. They don’t have a universally agreed about set of rules. Each community sets its rules differently. Most Amish don’t reject technology wholesale they slowly evaluate individual technologies for what effects they would have on the tight knittedness of their community and closeness to god. For example most Amish places of business have electricity, battery powered lights are common as well as gas powered fridges. They generally don’t reject modern medicine. However, they generally don’t have electricity at home because they don’t want to be reliant on the grid at large. If and how much solar and wind power are adopted in Amish communities will be an interesting thing to observe over the next decade or two.
Now there are some communities who reject all power that doesn’t come from “gods creatures” and will reject e bikes and stick to push scooters and buggies. But e bikes totally fit in a lot of Amish and plain communities.
Yeah, that's what I meant by their theology/philosophy. As I understand it, they evaluate technologies on a case-by-case basis, the key judgement being whether the technology makes members less dependent on the community, without regard to "how modern" the technology is. And the decision is on a per-community basis, and their communities are quite small (although they do generally fall into larger regional groups that share many decisions). The Amish near where I grew up have what appears to me to be a fairly modern lumber mill that must be powered either by grid electricity or (more likely) internal combustion generators.
Every community seems to be different. Different sets of rules.
In the town where I grew up there are Mennonites, and now more Amish people. Apparently - the reason they don't use electricity from the grid, is because it's possibly made on 'Sunday' - ergo - they can't use it.
They all have generators to make electricity for their barns, equipment etc..
Mennonites, Amish etc. are 'intentional' and have in reality fairly 'anti capitalist' ideals (though not framed in those terms).
I know it's not the authors intent - but they are similar and should be a basis of comparison to grasping why some work and some don't.
These traditional communities are highly authoritarian (as some hippie communities often are), but they're maybe 'culturally authoritative' instead of individualistically. By that I mean - social or religious orthodoxy 'sets the rules' as opposed to 'some guys word' or a 'loosely agreed upon set of rules with little foundation'. At least in the former, there's a degree of objectivity, however good or bad you may judge those rules to be. In short - very strongly traditional/culturally conservative mindset helps to define a set of behaviours and attitudes that people stick with, and as long as they do, it keeps going.
We have many near my hometown, very pleasant people. I'm sometimes jealous and wish I could chill with them for a few months.
I grew up in an area with quite a few Amish, and it is interesting how tech from the past 10 years has affected that community.
Like the article says, not all Amish follow the same rules, nor do they abstain entirely from electricity (only some do). For example, it’s very popular for some Amish to have phones and do business with locals via FaceBook.
Would be wild to see one of my old neighbors now, cruising down a dirt road on an electric bike, holding onto his straw hat.
I had a nice chat with a friend who provides services for the Amish community in northern Indiana. I didn't know much about the Amish community outside of "they're the ones who don't drive cars" and the Amish turkeys my mom purchased for Thanksgiving (US).
I learned a few things that surprised me enough that I ended up Googling for proof:
- Some Amish communities allow electricity (limited, off-grid)[1]. What is allowed and isn't allowed can vary quite a bit, but only the teenagers can own cars[2].
- Amish throw the craziest parties; drugs, booze, you-name-it[2]. See "Devil's Playground (2002)", much of it shot in the community that my friend served.
- If your view of "eating healthy" rejects conventional pesticides, Amish != Organic. My friend, who previous ran an organic farm, said that the community she worked with was obsessed with yields and used an appalling amount of chemical pesticides and fertilizers[3]. In that community, there were no organic farms (though they exist). Every conventional practice that didn't break community rules was used, including with meat products, resulting in the worst of centuries old farming practices mixed with modern chemistry. GMOs are also allowed if that's something that concerns you.[4]
- Amish share some practices with Christianity, such as sex before marriage being forbidden, but some Amish communities encourage "Bed Courtship" (Bed Date or "Bundling"), where as part of courtship, two people share a bed ("Bundling" because they're bundled separately so they can become closer by ... talking). If my conservative parents had caught me sharing a bed with someone I was dating ... I don't even know what they would have done.[5]
My favorite part was the description of Amish kitchen cupboards: Filled to the teeth with Velveeta and gelatin[6] and they use it everywhere.
[2] And many own really nice ones ... during Rumspringa. My friend's children were not allowed to hang out with Amish teenagers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumspringa
This is very much the case to a large extent, I think certain communities such as the Amish are able to maintain their farming practices because they share resources and build up labor sharing through mutual aid. They also tend to be somewhat culturally insulated and also hesitant to become dependent upon outside technology which helps them maintain the incentives to work together. But they also adopt cerain technologies on a community by community basis for instance cell phones (for business use) and small solar panel setups are common. Farming isn't really an option for a lot of rural people outside of a network like this because they don't own much land and so they just have to travel farther if they want to get a pay check.
There are tons of successful long term non religious cooperative living arrangements of various sorts but yeah most not fully isolated substance farming because that is hard.
Amish communities also aren't self sufficient though. They'll happily sell and buy goods with outsiders and even sell amish furniture via websites (not sure if they use an intermediate). A ton shop at the Costco near me.
something like the amish, relying on 100 year old technology developed by humans instead of those newfangled tools that aliens brought that no human can understand.
This really isn’t that surprising, each Amish community has its own rules and almost all adopt/reject rules based on how it impacts their church and relationship with god. For instance many Amish drive around trucks for work. But they’ll have rules limiting it to picking up supplies, many even have cell phones.
That said, other communities reject all forms of modern “comforts”. Medicine, cars, electricity, manufactured foods, etc.
The Amish community is pretty large, hundreds of thousands.
It’s not surprising some would adopt e-scooters.
My favorite amish interaction was asking why one had a wagon full of maybe 20 containers cheese balls. Apparently, it was allowed and their entire community loved them, but it was a 20 mile ride to town so they buy in bulk (this community usually rejected almost everything, so kind of surprising)
Arguably the "new kind of Amish" are... just the Amish; they've continued to adopt new technologies when they comport with their particular values. Other intensional communities may have different values.
I don't think many people with direct dealings with Amish or similar communities would consider them 'more pure'. Heck, I have had a few and the best I can say is that it is very complicated.
There is a lot to admire about Amish communities. They aren't really anti-technology, they're just into a different kind of technology. That has given them strong competitive advantages in areas, for example, they still export farm equipment to third world countries where animals still do a majority of farm labour. Some of their wagons are technological works of art...they just use different technology. The Amish/similar approach to family and group is quite interesting.
I remember going on a tour of a similar group's community. Afterwards, we had some refreshments in their community dining room and we got to mingle and talk to some people. I ended up in a conversation with these two gentlemen about farm implements. Within about thirty seconds, I realized that I was among fellow nerds. They reminded me more of startup founders than I ever would have expected. They were very innovative and obviously very smart. I am not convinced they even think their views on technology make sense, but at this point, I wager it's more about holding onto a way of life than genuine belief.
I might be wrong and hope that wasn't offensive, but that's just a nerdy outsider's point of view on their technology.
There are also downsides. Personally, I find some of their views patriarchal and oppressive, but I was not raised Amish, have never practiced any of those religious and so that's a very uninformed opinion.
I live in Lancaster and I think people project some of these things onto the Amish that aren't true. It isn't technology specifically that the Amish try to avoid, it is consumerism writ large. Now, they do make their own clothes from plain colored cloth and don't have car payments and mortgages but it is still something they struggle with as a group. I always think of their approach as trying to prioritize people over things.
However, there are lots of Amish that have freezers hidden in the barn running off generators. If the clergy shows up, it is unplugged and everyone pretends it isn't there. Lots of the children have cell phones hidden in the corn fields that they sneak out and use (even outside of those that are on rumspringa). Given the lack of affordable farm land, lots of the Amish now work in the trades. Someone picks them up in a F-350 crew-cab and takes them to work, but not before they stop at the Sheetz/WaWa to buy soda and candy and lunch just like all the other workers. Our Costco has tie-ups for the Amish and they come out with several carts loaded to the max. They continue to struggle with the modern world and it is getting harder each generation for them to remain insular.
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.
Would the Amish be considered an intentional community? They've somehow managed to keep their community together and functional across the generations, and in the face of enormous technological and cultural upheaval.
There was a very interesting panel on that subject at the last WorldCon. Disclaimer: I have done no serious study of the actual Amish people and everything I think I know beyond what's current in popular culture comes from one visit to an Amish community 9 years ago and the contents of that one WorldCon panel. But according to that background, they don't enforce a single unchanging limit on their technical level. Rather, they exercise extreme caution in adopting new technologies- new technologies can be adopted, but only after consideration of all of the possible social side-effects of doing so and general consensus that it results in a net positive. Thus, different communities have different technological restrictions (or perhaps it would be better framed as "different technological allowances"). Other communities operating under the same kind of social system could have wildly different distributions of technology depending on the details of the founding culture.
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