

Amish: The kindhearted people - bugsbunny4341
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/the-kindhearted-people/article4986069.ece

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baddox
David Friedman, a prominent libertarian/anarcho-capitalist theorist (and son
of economist Milton Friedman), has a similar but deeper article about the
Amish, wherein he interprets their legal system as essentially an anarchy
where laws, despite being extremely constraining, are produced and enforced
non-violently.

[http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2011/10/are-amish-
anarchi...](http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2011/10/are-amish-
anarchists.html)

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susi22
> _He was prepared to molest them but an alarm was raised and it upset him. He
> shot the girls spraying bullets that killed seven of them on the spot, while
> the eighth died in hospital._

That's not quite true. He killed 5 and injured another 5. The molesting part
is only speculation, though he did bring a tube of lube with him.

> _Noting that the village and the school where the killing took place had
> become a visitors’ attraction, the Amish elders had the building razed to
> ground overnight_

That's also not true. It was demolished 11 days later by diggers.

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darxius
Interesting story, but I don't see what it has to do with HN topics.

If the author's goal was to make a parallel between using less technology and
being mature and peaceful, I would have to disagree. The Amish are an
interesting people, but thinking that their way of living should be the norm
is a romantic response to how society uses technology in the wrong ways. I
firmly believe that we can only grow by increasing the technology we use
across all walks of life (education, resource management, communication,
labour, etc.)

~~~
tzs
The Amish do adopt technology--they are just careful about it. They want to
understand the social aspects first, so they can figure out how to adopt the
good aspects of new technology while avoiding the bad aspects.

See Kevin Kelly's article "Amish Hackers" [1] for an interesting look at the
Amish and their approach to technology.

[1]
[http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2009/02/amish_hackers...](http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2009/02/amish_hackers_a.php)

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gaadd33
> Crime is non-existent in these villages.

There's a pretty sizable number of Amish caught dealing drugs in Lancaster
County. Although I think that's either decreased in recent years or it isn't
the novelty that it was initially and there's no real media coverage of it
anymore.

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Lazare
Not sure what this has to do with HN. Also, it's probably worth noting the
other side of the communities obsessions with "forgiveness":
[http://legalaffairs.org/issues/January-
February-2005/feature...](http://legalaffairs.org/issues/January-
February-2005/feature_labi_janfeb05.msp)

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keithg
Except for Floyd Landis who was a cheater and liar. He followed that up by
being manipulative and engaging in blackmail. And finished by being vengeful,
greedy, and vindictive as he used all of those wonderful character traits to
become the catalyst who took down Lance Armstrong and all of the recent
generation of USA Cycling.

~~~
gaadd33
It's Landis' fault that Armstrong doped? Or its his fault that he got caught
and thereby exposed all the cheaters?

