Neo-Amish Drop Outs (2008)

Having lived around the Amish, I've taken some inspiration from them in various aspects of life. I feel they have a lot to teach us in regards to living a content life. Being here now, I obviously don't subscribe to their philosophy wholesale, but I do sometimes ask myself what the Amish might do in certain situations.

Just one example: If I can accomplish a task with unpowered hand tools, I'll do so, even if it's less "efficient" than buying/renting an internal combustion engine or electric powered device that would do the same. I've built many things this way and have taken greater satisfaction from not just the end result, but the creation process. Other healthy side effects are increased independence from external industry, skills development, less cost to the environment, and sometimes free exercise.

UncleOxidant2• 5 years ago

Indeed, we can learn a lot from the Amish. Efficiency isn't always the most important thing in life.

LadyCailin• 5 years ago

Efficiency isn’t, no, but time is, and efficiency usually lends itself to giving you more time. If the journey itself gives you fulfillment, then by all means, do it how you like. However, the Amish would choose to sacrifice efficiency even when it’s not about the enjoyment of the thing itself, but rather a base necessity, at the cost of their time, which is the most wasteful thing a human being can do with their life. So no, I disagree that there’s anything to learn from the Amish. It’s an absurd religious belief, even if you can “learn something” from it if you squint hard enough.

vbezhenar• 5 years ago

Many powered devices are much more dangerous, especially for amateurs. It's hard to receive serious injury from hand saw. One slightly wrong move with circular saw and you're crippled. So it's definitely makes sense to spend more time with hand tools if that's not your profession and you can allow for some inefficiency.

lmilcin• 5 years ago

I disagree. I lost vision to my eye due to chip flying when cutting wood with an axe (carelessly...)

If you are looking strictly at accidents in unit of time, than maybe powered tools are more dangerous.

But what you should do is look at accidents per amount of work done. Like how many accidents it took to process 1000 tonnes of wood. I am sure the statistics would be different then.

But I agree with "especially amateurs". Being amateurs around powered tools is like being amateurs around guns. Every person should be trained at least a little before being given access to powered tools.

garrickvanburen3• 5 years ago

Yes. I frequently grab unpowered hand tools (mower, rake, snow shovel) by default as I can get the job mostly done and done far more quietly, in the time it takes to power-up the powered version.

1cvmask• 5 years ago

The last paragraph sums it up real well:

I know about the traditional Amish; they don’t count because they have never been wired. I’m most interested in Neo-Amish drop outs. (There’s a Neo-Amish MeetUp group, which I think is self-disqualifying.)

akacia• 5 years ago

Being offline is a luxury only rich people can afford.

Neo-Amish Drop Outs (2008)

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