Posted on 11/28/2015 7:08:09 PM PST by daniel1212
The Amish are online, onscreen, and multiplying fast. In their battle with modernity, it’s tough to say who’s winning
I’ve probably visited more Amish settlements than anyone. Who would venture out to the most remote corners of Montana, Maine and South Texas if they didn’t happen to be a student of Amish culture? Perhaps a peddler of pots and pans; many Amish cooks, I have noticed, gradually gave up their cast iron for stainless steel in the past 50 years...
In my 25 years exploring Amish communities, I’ve witnessed changes that would be unnoticeable to the average outsider...
To the average person, the Amish are flash-frozen daguerreotypes, little changed from their 17th-century roots. Indeed, this image is an enormous tourist attraction: the desire to hear a clip-clopping buggy, to see horse-drawn plows working the fields and bursts of colourful laundry flapping in a summer wind pumps $1.9 billion annually into the economy of Lancaster County in Pennsylvania alone,..
n reality, the Amish cherrypick the progress that best serves their interests. For instance, despite their reputation, they aren’t really against electricity. Yes, the vast majority don’t use it (a handful of Amish settlements do permit electric). But the issue isn’t the juice, it’s some of the items the juice can feed...
The weekly Amish newspaper The Budget is full of advertisements for products you won’t find anywhere else, products that craft a compromise: cell phones without wireless access, computers without internet access, and Kindle-type reading devices that don’t require a connection to load the texts. There are Amish voicemail services, Mennonite phone‑dating services. Anything to make life easier that doesn’t involve the internet. But that task is becoming more difficult with each passing day...
The Amish population is growing. By some estimates there are 300,000 in the United States, and the birthrate is very high: the population doubles roughly every generation. One county in Ohio is poised to become the first majority Amish county in the US by 2020. An Indiana county is close on its heels...
I’m all too aware. I got the virus years ago:
Thou hast just received the Amish Virus.
As we haveth no technology nor programming experience, this virus worketh on the honour system. Please delete all the files from thy hard drive and manually forward this virus to all on thy mailing list.
We thank thee for thy cooperation.
— The Amish Computer Engineering Dept.
I’m not Amish — and prefer cooking with cast iron skillets.
Being Amish means never having to Survival Prep.
Old Believers are an odd bunch. They’re a Russian orthodox sect that was mostly in Alaska but are now popping up in other places.
They stick to themselves like the Amish but drive, drink, party etc.
Interesting, never heard of them before.
Me also! And like glass pots.
I think the Amish or someone should invent an exercise machine that produces electricity to charge batteries hooked up to a DC to AC inverter. Do something with all those workouts (or make the kids do it!)
Are we talking about Feral Amish or Amish Amish?
We get to interact with many of them at our local Dutch Country Market.
They come down on buses. One of the waitresses told us they’re allowed to ride in cars but not drive them. Another one told us when she got married last year that she and her husband spent their honeymoon in a nice Hampton Inn in the Poconos.
They use electricity at the market in all sorts of ways and the market has a website. I don’t know who maintains it.
Then there is Kate Stoltzfus.
I must say, some of their women are quite pretty.
Never heard of this guy before. I’m kind of leery of him. He posits himself as an expert of sorts, while primarily regurgitating information that is readily available on the internet. I guess I have seen too many of these self styled experts on the Amish. There’s also an entire subculture of Amish “posers” out there. They even change their online names to Amish names. It’s not just a game to them, they are dead serious about it. I have a fake facebook account that is devoted to keep an eye these people after one of them tried to scam some of my friends.
Some are. Plenty are “hat gookich”. (”hard looking, meaning, hard to look at)
Can I steal this and post it on Facebook
Thou hast just received the Amish Virus.
As we haveth no technology nor programming experience, this virus worketh on the honour system. Please delete all the files from thy hard drive and manually forward this virus to all on thy mailing list.
We thank thee for thy cooperation.
 The Amish Computer Engineering Dept.
Hey, I stole it from the interwebs. :-)
A Facebook group with real Amish, ex-Amish, those curious about Amish, and Amish groupies: https://www.facebook.com/groups/130816517082333/
I’ve never seen that one. It’s hilarious!
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