Comment by RenRav
7 years ago
>only adopt a technology if they see that the benefit outweighs the cost
I remember reading this explanation a while ago and it seemed completely logical. I feel like I've been swept away with a lot of things without ever stopping to consider its necessity.
A big part of it is the cult of individualism. Do you really think that you, by willpower alone, are going to be able to resist all the temptations of multinational corporations who collectively spend billions researching how to manipulate your lizard brain?
The Amish do it through community, accountability, and literally physically separating themselves from the vast majority of this influence.
On the other hand, IIRC not many folks are willing to be come Amish when they had a "modern" upbringing.
And their children aren't choosing to stay with a modern bag of tools either: Their children stop being educated after around 8th grade. If I remember, this has something to do with pride. Someone that doesn't go along and stay Amish has a very real disadvantage to make it in the modern world.
They do things, in part, with pressuring a young and not fully educated person with no real experience of other things. Sure, once you are there you hav some community and stuff as long as you follow the ways.
You don't need to become Amish to learn from this approach though.
All you need to do to benefit from it without the downsides is to use the opportunity when you decide on a goal, whatever it is, to think through which things makes it hard to stick to, and find ways of creating barriers that makes it harder to deviate from your desired behavior than sticking to it.
E.g. there's the old trick to managing your credit card debts of freezing it in a block of ice in the freezer - lets you keep the card for emergencies, but forces you to wait and gives you plenty of opportunities to change your opinion before you actually use it.
Or smaller things, like being aware and picking routes of your commute that avoids temptations when you're on a diet.
Just acknowledging that relying on willpower alone is error prone, and plan accordingly, really.
as an individual i see no problem with resisting the manipulation of large corporations.
in fact, it's individualism that allows me to make that choice, because as an individual i have the freedom to make different choices than you.
it's peer pressure that i can't entirely escape. at least when it comes to tools that we need to choose to collaborate.
groups can be used to help resist temptations. but that means i am voluntarily using peer pressure to help me. which is fine, as long as it is done selectively. someone may join the AA to help them change their drinking habits.
but amish culture seems more of an all or nothing approach. there seems to be little freedom to adopt certain aspects of the culture, while rejecting others, unless you are an outsider.
Peer pressure is stronger, that’s why it’s important. Sure, it’s evolutionarily adapted to benefit the group, which may sometimes go against your individual interests. Overall, however, you just have to look at the results to see whether a deracinated society of people acting individually ends up better off than a community of people looking out for each other.
Look at my reply above. Maybe you are succeeding at resisting corporate and mass media programming, but the vast majority of people are failing miserably, and it’s lead to a society of people who are childless, more obese, more depressed, and have fewer friends they can confide in.
I’d personally sacrifice a bit of my individual autonomy to live in a more functional society.
2 replies →
I would recommend "Influence" by Robert Cialdini.
The idea any of us can resist - not even large corporations, but friends, neighbours, random people on the street - is just not supported by reality.
We're all incredibly prone to pretty basic psychological manipulation; and we're prone to it even when we're aware it's happening. Our society is built on the functioning of simple psychological manipulation to the point where it's often impossible to draw a line between what is manipulative vs. just following social norms.
Often you can see flat out people recognizing it - e.g. people not wanting to accept a gift, because they realize it will make them feel obligated to do something back for someone and find it easier to avoid the would-be gift-giver than to not let it influence them.
I agree with you the Amish response is over the top, though, and it's full of the same issues.
> as an individual i see no problem with resisting the manipulation of large corporations.
> it's peer pressure that i can't entirely escape
You are contradicting yourself.
Peer pressure and society are simply stronger.
> amish culture seems more of an all or nothing approach
Perhaps to them our unquestioning acceptance of corporate technology used to create addictive behaviors (games, smartphones and gadgets, web stuff...) is equally extreme.
E.g. You can't refuse to use [facebook | twitter | javascript | closed source software | smartphones] without people asking for justification on daily basis.
1 reply →
>> Do you really think that you, by willpower alone, are going to be able to resist all the temptations of multinational corporations who collectively spend billions researching how to manipulate your lizard brain?
Well, it is difficult, but not impossible to develop oneself to withstand this onslaught. They create these entrapments, mostly through the use of technology :).
However, you are right, that in itself may not be enough if you are still embedded in it. But wouldn't it be great, if we can figure out how to do that. Yes, it needs some resources, in terms of community, wealth . I feel this is the next chapter in our philosophical evolution - to create a philosophy which makes you anti fragile to these things. Those before us did not face this problem at this scale.
And The problem is, people mistake a way of life for life itself. And it becomes difficult for them to change that for a better life.
I am not talking about the Amish here, but the general populace so dependent on modern technology. A simple suggestion to get rid of their smartphones gives people anxiety attack and make them go all defensive.
I don't doubt that you can do it, personally, but you only have to look at American obesity rates to see that a lack of self-control is a system-level problem, not just an individual making a bad decision.
If we "figure out how to do it" on an individual level, there's no doubt that corporations will do whatever they can to subvert whatever it is that is causing you to indulge in less of their products.
The Amish have found one way to fix the problem on a system-wide level. It's not the only way, but I don't think we're going to find a way to do it without having a base in reality, family, community, purpose, and changing social norms.
1 reply →
Compressed air systems do have some additional safety problems that more "modern" technologies don't have.
On my thermodynamics course at college the instructor commented that If the lab block's main storage tank for compressed air let go it would flatten the entire building.
This was a full service building , one with air water and electricity plumbed in