Re: [asa] A Sustainable Future and Exponential growth

Merv wrote:

> Even though I have provoked laughter with the comment, posterity
> may well (if it
> has the luxury of such reflection) look back and identify folks
> like the Amish
> the “True masters of technology”. Far from being anti-technology,
> they rather
> hold to the quaint notion that just because we can do it doesn’t
> mean we ought
> to. While the rest of us run ahead pell-mell muttering about
> inevitability as
> we go, they have the gall to ask “how would this affect our
> community and its
> future?” ---and the answer to that question determines whether they
> will embrace
> that technology in their community. Outsiders often confuse this
> with some
> sort of misguided religious commandment –e.g. Amish must think
> telephones are
> evil, therefore we can scoff at them as hypocrites since they will
> use the phone
> booth down the block or at work. And so we miss the much more
> important point
> of why the Amish think as they do in the first place. Most of us
> function as
> the slaves of technology rather than its master. And a cruel
> master it can turn
> out to be.
>

Thank you for your comments on the Amish. As someone who grew up in
the center of Amish culture in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, I
agree completely with your assessment above. The focus of their
choices with regard to technology are centered on the impact of any
particular technology on their community. In Amish culture, such
decisions are communal, not individual, ones because they have
implications for the viability of the larger community.

Keith

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Received on Mon May 19 16:24:14 2008