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.
They want to avoid critical outside dependencies. For example relying on the electrical grid is avoided because that would be overly dependent on a single outside supplier.
But using electrical devices powered by batteries or generators or solar panels is fine in many of those communities because there are multiple suppliers of all of those (and in the case of generators for the fuel to power them).
From what I (think I) learned writing https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39373558 they seek to minimise transactions with the rest of the world, so buying durable manufactured goods is acceptable (and higher-tech goods are even preferred as long as they have longer lifetimes) but subscribing to services is avoided.
So basically the higher number of transactions required for the manufacturing of higher-tech goods is ignored as long as it's not a transaction they are directly involved in?
That's my understanding, yes. For instance, for fabric, they avoid retail, going to manufacturers (or at least wholesalers) and buying a community-year's worth in a single transaction.
I guess it's channeling https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+17%3A15-16... ; transactions between english and amish are necessary (from being in the world) but to be minimised (not being of the world), whereas transactions between english or between amish don't count for flow across that boundary.
As opposed to mainstream christians, who are often revealed to be woman abusing*, child molesting hypocrites even without having a stance on technology?
* those who are worst on this account are far worse than the amish, for the latter deliberately let people leave their community, while the former seek to bind even non co-religionists to their beliefs.
Oh, I won't be disagreeing with you on that at all. I just especially detest the way in which the Amish are presented as some quaint, simple group of morally adherent individuals, when they are just another religious cult with the same old religious cult problems.
They're not just a tight knit community - they are a purposely exclusionary, isolating religious group. They demand submission to elder men, and do everything they can to keep the literal status quo, including sketchy cover ups of inappropriate behavior.
I've never understood why they get a pass on this. Is it the beards and bowl cuts maybe?
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.