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Posted on 11/26/2025 7:31:54 PM PST by SeekAndFind
As new technology, AI and the internet take over 21st-century life, I suggest looking to the Amish for guidance. Far from being the Luddites most folk assume, the Amish undertake a guided policy of technological discernment.
When a new practice or device emerges into the world, the elders often gather to test it out over a set period of time. The entire process rests upon this deceptively simple inquiry – “What is this tool for and what does it make us become?” All potential effects on family unity, social cohesion and self-reliance are soon revealed by this one question. Diesel and solar generators pass the test and are often adopted, while social media is largely shunned. Should we be courageous enough to make the same interrogation of social media, I suspect we would reach the same conclusion.
I have adopted the Amish approach to tech and it has been transformative. Alongside my family, I own and manage two restaurants in Kensington, London – La Palombe and Il Portico – both of which have wild game on the menu which I hunt for several mornings a week, often joined by my three children. Unlike the North American model of game conservation, we in the UK are allowed to “market hunt” for wild game, which was effectively outlawed in the US by Teddy Roosevelt and the Lacey Act of 1900 .
Come the school holidays, my kids get their own chance to trade new tech for old, swapping out their school iPad for an old single-shot rifle or fishing pole as we head to the forest and the sea. These are the tools which have been handed down to us for countless generations. Unlike modern tech, a well-made rifle or fishing rod will become a natural extension of one’s body. The sensation of poise and harmony you feel when using one is in perfect keeping with the surroundings of the woods or the river. A rare and perfect moment of balance.
Those who have been fortunate to have handled an old split-cane fly rod or pre-war Mannlicher rifle will undoubtedly understand. When was the last time you felt in balance holding a phone to your face?
My son has joined me deer hunting for the last two seasons and the effect that spending silent time in the woods has on a boy is remarkable. Since the day he came into this world, my boy has struggled to sleep. He finds it almost impossible to quieten his mind enough to rest.
His brain fizzes constantly with questions and prying thoughts. Like all good middle-class parents, my wife and I tried all the holistic practices advocated online. Until, that is, I started taking him hunting. A silent walk in the woods did what all the meditation apps in the world failed at. Turns out that nature has her own way of re-orienting your mind back towards your natural state of grace.
Stuck in a schooling system and world dominated by left-brain thinking, he is constantly taught to acquire information through measurement, deductions and algorithms – no time is spent developing the right hemisphere of his brain to help him find his place in the physical world; to love it and feel at home in it.
Hunting has given my son intuition and insight, and the confidence not to sink under the influence of the technology that makes so many of his peers so unhappy. There is no better way to improve emotional regulation, build resilience, and improve one’s patience than a couple of seasons sat in a high seat, rifle in hand and waiting for a deer to come by. It’s no easy task for an adult let alone a boy, but after a while the results will speak for themselves.
In Europe, the average prisoner spends more time outdoors than your average school-age child. In America, the difference is even more stark, with many reporting only around 30-60 minutes per day outdoors, including commuting time between buildings.
If we are serious about ending our children’s disordered attachments to new tech, then perhaps the answer lies in a little Amish discernment and in picking up again the old tools that served us so well for generations.
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Some good arguments. I have spent my entire career immersed in tech. The last few were dominated by AI and social media. While I believe there are many good benefits to them, the negative is far far worse. Mental illness, violence, narcissism, pornogrphic and gambling addiction massively exploding, and in the end the breakdown of social circles in favor of self isolation. And that is just social media. AI is an even greater threat. It mimics our thinking and knows what we want. It praises us and lies to us. Much like Satan it builds a world we secretly desire, an easy world with easy answers. But they’re all wrong. And will lead to the death of humanity.
I take it from the first two comments that the Amish really can’t teach us anything about tech. :)
Or maybe they can. (You slipped that in there before I could post my comment. haha)
“And will lead to the death of humanity”.
Hopefully it will be an easy death.
“The sensation of poise and harmony you feel when using one is in perfect keeping with the surroundings of the woods or the river. A rare and perfect moment of balance.”
I’ve been a hunter and fisherman since a boy. I noticed myself sitting in the woods and everything changing after a period of time. It was like nature had quietly accepted me. The birds would no longer flee as from a threat. It’s like they sensed the change in me. One of my most memorable moments was fishing and having a heron as my fishing buddy. He was a pretty big bird maybe 30 inches tall and just a few feet away at times. They normally don’t let anyone anywhere near them for 50 yards or so. He was catching fish too, lol.
They have a point.
The biggest disrupter of any culture and its values is technology! And it’s very difficult to predict what the final impact is going to be.
The author really likes himself.
I bet the Amish taught him that too. He word about himself like he’s an exquisite oil painting, asking dear reader “why are you not enchanted by the picture I have gifted you with, depicting my idyllic life?”
I grew up in an Amish town. Yes things may have changed over the past 30 years but somehow I doubt it.
None of this article is reality.
Technology is consistently overrated. It never meets expectations.
AI will not do what its proponents think it will do.
What they can teach us about tech is that we don’t need the vast majority of it to survive and live healthy, productive, fulfilling lives.
Stuck in a schooling system and world dominated by left-brain thinking, he is constantly taught to acquire information through measurement, deductions and algorithms – no time is spent developing the right hemisphere of his brain to help him find his place in the physical world; to love it and feel at home in it.
Seems like people are discovering more and more recently the benefits of getting away from screen time and simply being out in nature, as God created us to be.
I’m around Amish & Mennonite (horse & buggy folk) every day.
They are some of the most creative people I have encountered. Many of my power tools, including my compound miter saw, run on air rather than electricity. I’ve even seen pneumatic kitchen appliances like kitchen aid mixers.
They have an aversion to technology that takes away their independence. That goes beyond technology and includes their aversion to government handouts.
They feel that if they become dependent upon the government, the government will control them. They do not accept Social Security or even tax credits like EIC or Child Credits. They even refused the Covid-19 stimulus checks.
My small tax office sent several million dollars in tax refund checks back to the US Government as they would not accept them.
One of their favorite memes that I saw on the doors of several businesses showed two Amish men talking. The one asked the other if he got Covid-19. The other responds, “No, I don’t have a TV either.”
One of the primary differences between the Amish and English, (anyone not Amish they call English), they grow their own food. They eat far more healthy than most. They also work hard physically and thus get far more exercise.
I had to laugh one day when I saw a desk calculator on an Amish farmer’s desk. I followed the cord to find a car battery and transformer behind the desk.
At the end of their long lanes into their farms, near the highway, you will almost always see a small shed that looks like an outhouse. They are phone sheds. Often several families will go together and share one phone with an answering machine.
We really have problems with the increasing government requirements for electronic tax reporting and filing. I’ve had several tax audits where I set up a table in the barn to meet with agents who insisted on reviewing tax documents. These have resulted in many humorous events, as female agents don’t like using the outhouse.
Bottom line, I have high respect for horse & buggy folk. I may not always agree with them, but I understand why they hold to their customs. For the most part, they are really good folks.
If the SHTF, I have thousands of friends and a big community to be a part of that does not rely on tractors to farm, electricity to live, or electronic media to propagandize them.
I dropped off the turkey yesterday at my in lawa.
My mother in law was upset because her Ring doorbell cameras were not working properly with the wifi extenders.
I thought to myself, why do you have these things if they just upset you?
I think it is the expectations that are the problem.
The Amish are able to keep their lifestyle because the US Government provides the security against foreign enemies and to some extent, domestic threats.
The Amish often see this as God protecting them by providing the government protectors.
I like the Amish. I wonder if in the future there will be some society which insists on using separate electronic tech instead of implants...
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