Emile comments on Is Kiryas Joel an Unhappy Place? - Less Wrong

20 Post author: gwern 23 April 2011 12:08AM

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Comment author: Emile 09 May 2011 08:34:25PM 2 points [-]

The Amish rejection of modern technology meme appears to me to be: 1, morally significant - leads to badstuff, and 2, memetically strong, having won its founding battle with Post-Enlightenment memes and showing no signs of losing any others.

I do not understand why it is obvious to the apparent majority here that my views are unreasonable. I have not seen any strong arguments why the Amish meme does not lead to badstuff or why it is memetically weak.

I haven't studied the Amish in very much detail, but I mostly have a positive impression of them - the impression I get is not that they reject technology as much as they value community over technology, and will reject innovation that risks disrupting the community. What I read of their views some years ago seemed quite reasonable.

Modernity can be quite disruptive (look at Africa), and lot of people claim that some things are fundamentally wrong in modern American society (though they might disagree about what exactly, and arguably people have been saying similar things since the start of Civilization), so it makes sense to be cautious. I don't see that as leading to badstuff, especially if it stays a minority.

Comment author: Will_Sawin 12 May 2011 12:14:56AM 0 points [-]

Should we become Amish? If you were teleported into an Amish person's life, would you leave?

My visceral fear is created not by their existence, but by the potential that they will not remain a minority. Could you see badstuff resulting from them becoming a much larger percentage of the population?

Comment author: Swimmer963 12 May 2011 12:29:32AM 1 point [-]

Should we become Amish? Probably not. If I were teleported into an Amish person's life, would I leave? No, I think I would stay. In some ways I think it would suit my personality better than the life I currently live.