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Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by burlesona on Monday March 27, 2023 @08:39PM (#35334224)
While I don’t think the rest of society needs to go to the degree the Amish have, I think there’s a lot we can learn from their thoughtful consideration of technology and whether it makes their life better. Among the HN crowd, I feel we get excited about tech for the sake of tech, but finding an appropriate and healthy skepticism about the effects of our inventions is probably the next level of maturity we need to develop.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by Swizec on Monday March 27, 2023 @08:42PM (#35334246)
> Among the HN crowd, I feel we get excited about tech for the sake of tech

I feel like HN has a healthy skepticism about IoT at least. We seem to generally agree that fewer devices should have internet access.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by xwolfi on Monday March 27, 2023 @08:59PM (#35334390)
And crypto thank God...
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by alwayslikethis on Monday March 27, 2023 @11:35PM (#35335566)
* * *
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by jabl on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @12:50AM (#35336065)
I've always thought that much of the skepticism is due to working in the industry, so HN'ers know how the sausage is made.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by goto11 on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @02:27AM (#35336713)
Honestly there is also a lot of hipster contrarianism in it. Like the comment saying the web was better when everything was served from cgi-bin.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by chaostheory on Monday March 27, 2023 @08:51PM (#35334320)
> finding an appropriate and healthy skepticism about the effects of our inventions is probably the next level of maturity we need to develop

This happens automatically with age. The HN crowd is older now. Just look at the skepticism around AR and VR. The problem is there’s no actual exploration and experimentation paired with the skepticism.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by PaulDavisThe1st on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @01:50AM (#35336455)
Job of the young: discover and be blinded by the new

Job of the old: remind the young that there's little new under the sun, and a cost to everything.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by chaostheory on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @11:06AM (#35342269)
Speaking as an older person observing peers, the problem with older people in this case is that lazy stereotypes and terrible assumptions replace discovery and actual verification.

The end result is “get off my lawn” and “new things annoy me”

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by lockhouse on Monday March 27, 2023 @09:15PM (#35334532)
I'd be ok with an "Amish" inspired web development movement. Traditional HTML backed by CGI-BIN served by Apache on a Linux or BSD server would be great.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by whatshisface on Monday March 27, 2023 @09:27PM (#35334626)
You will never get two people to agree on when web technological progress should have been frozen.

Here is an essay that essentially address this: http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by lockhouse on Monday March 27, 2023 @09:32PM (#35334670)
I think the <blink> element is where we we should freeze it!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blink_element

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by whatshisface on Monday March 27, 2023 @09:48PM (#35334799)
Then you will be happy to learn that modern browser vendors all decided to freeze the blink element. :-)
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by SketchySeaBeast on Monday March 27, 2023 @10:56PM (#35335308)
<marquee>
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by ARandomerDude on Monday March 27, 2023 @10:25PM (#35335055)
And yet the Amish have figured out how to make it work.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by skinnyarms on Monday March 27, 2023 @11:47PM (#35335651)
Is it working? Give "Amish abuse" a search in google, limiting people's access to communication can also make it hard for them to get help or to realize that they have access to other options a few miles up the road.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by emodendroket on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @12:14AM (#35335842)
Oh yeah? What Web sites are they hosting?
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by pvaldes on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @04:20AM (#35337402)
It works because they just outsorced things like defense or healthcare.

Is easy to brag about how you don't need technology when somewhere a team of extremely sophisticated machines are deployed pointing towards the sky to save the day in case that you would be bombed. An entirely independent Amish nation would be probably eaten by their neighbors or by the market in months.

And their life style proven to be very fragile acting against things like Covid. They suffer also still from occasional outbreaks of Measles and Polio that were eliminated in the rest of US by the use of vaccines. Living in a different century can seem idyllic, but has the price of dying younger.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by WeylandYutani on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @06:10AM (#35338287)
Yeah I see a lot of people on the right whine about "home steaders".

Well I read Lucky Luke as a kid and guess who ended up saving the settlers every single time? The cavalry. Sent by the Feds in Washington.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by lordfrito on Monday March 27, 2023 @10:38PM (#35335158)
I think we can all agree that the web never got better than this. [1] It's been downhill ever since.

[1] https://archive.is/C3VTT

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by SketchySeaBeast on Monday March 27, 2023 @10:55PM (#35335297)
I thought it was going to be something fun like Hamster Dance. This is... Dark.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by lockhouse on Monday March 27, 2023 @10:55PM (#35335304)
Needs a "This site best viewed in Netscape Navigator 3" banner and a visitors counter to be peak Internet for me.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by emodendroket on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @12:13AM (#35335838)
Plus people have rose-tinted goggles. I see people saying now they're sad Flash Web sites are dead. What? Everyone hated Flash Web sites. That is like saying you miss squeegee men in New York. You might not like the means taken to get rid of them or what New York has become but nobody actually liked that experience.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by Moru on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @01:21AM (#35336254)
The ones that miss Flash websites are the ones that learned to use flash and nothing else. That was their art tool that they could use and now they have nothing. I have a friend that still complains about it.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by hutzlibu on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @06:39AM (#35338543)
Did you ever created a simple arcade game?

There is indead still nothing, that beats flash in this regard.

And flash games were somewhat popular with users as well.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by Moru on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @10:43AM (#35341935)
I didn't do anything in flash since it cost money and I had none at the time. I was making games with other tools and programming languages. Played a lot of flash games too. The homepages made purely in flash was realy annoying though.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by hutzlibu on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @10:48AM (#35342012)
"The homepages made purely in flash was realy annoying though."

Most of them, yes. Because they were "programmed" by people not good in programming or UX design. But flash enabled even newbs to build awesome stuff - and it had powertools for the pros. The workflow I had back then, I never found again in any other tool. So it has nothing to do with not wanting to learn something new - there still isn't something alike. And that is quite sad, despite the flaws of the flash player and adobe.

(oh. and flash was for free for students and also easy to pirate)

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by Moru on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @11:49AM (#35343002)
I'm more of a programmer type, had already worked with assembler on Atari and was used to that way of working.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by Dalewyn on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @02:07AM (#35336576)
Flash sites were at least usable and otherwise easily disabled, unlike the JavaShit hellscape we find ourselves in today.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by emodendroket on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @02:55PM (#35346059)
No they weren’t. They were much worse, weren’t accessible, and often blared music and sound effects to boot.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by AnIdiotOnTheNet on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @07:42AM (#35339131)
Miss flash websites? I don't really see that opinion very often. Missing flash on the other hand it fairly common because it was a tool that lowered barriers to entry for animation and game development that doesn't seem to have a good replacement in the current web.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by emodendroket on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @02:55PM (#35346069)
Hey, right here some people are saying they’re good. You just had to wait a bit
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by snvzz on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @01:23AM (#35336262)
>You will never get two people to agree on when web technological progress should have been frozen.

I am fairly sure most of us can agree with: Not yet.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by teddyh on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @04:20AM (#35337400)
“The peak of your civilization. I say ‘your civilization’ because as soon as we started thinking for you, it became our civilization, which is, of course, what this is all about.”

— Agent Smith, The Matrix, 1999

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by badpun on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @07:59AM (#35339352)
What is this web technology progress you refer to?
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by begriffs on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @12:05AM (#35335790)
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by balthigor on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @01:13AM (#35336197)
Those were the days. Slackware in a box of floppy disks. Now where the heck is 6 of 14?
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by Moru on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @01:25AM (#35336273)
It doesn't really matter where #6 is, #4 and #8-9 are corrupt anyway.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by tcmart14 on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @06:41PM (#35349069)
I don't know why, but I could see this as a youtube comedy sketch.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by nine_k on Monday March 27, 2023 @10:57PM (#35335314)
> whether it makes their life better

It depends on the definition of "better". The Amish idea of better is serving God, avoiding or repenting sin, and thus attaining salvation.

Most people's idea of good life is pretty different, given the basic axioms it's built upon.

This is why attempts to build a life by imitating various highly admirable spiritual movements mostly fail. To reap the benefits of the lofty ideas and commendable ways of life one needs to consciously* adopt most of the spiritual teachings which have lead to the development of these ideas and ways of life. You either convert to them, or admit that it's too hard to follow the way.

* Amish only accept adult, conscious baptism.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by emodendroket on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @12:12AM (#35335832)
In practice I am not sure it is so easy to say "no thanks" to your adult baptism and abandon everyone and everything you've known up to that point.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by rendall on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @02:09AM (#35336593)
It is difficult, but not unknown. The documentary Devil's Playground features several Amish who permanently left the church.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil's_Playground_(2002_film)

And also, sadly, many Amish flee physical and sexual abuse: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Amish+abuse&ia=web

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by emodendroket on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @03:18AM (#35337021)
Of course it happens, but I would guess many stay with misgivings.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by kiicia on Tuesday April 04, 2023 @01:06PM (#35442759)
Point is it’s virtually impossible without turning your life around and start from nothing in different place
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by sacnoradhq on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @12:19AM (#35335860)
Utopias don't and can't exist.

Trying to shun technology is the ultimate form of becoming a purist hipster.

Add magical thinking, now it's merely unreasonableness grounded in superstition.

Also:

- Believe they're better than others and everyone else is "bad" for not believing as they do

- Endorse the abdication of personal responsibility

- Reject science

- Justify any cruelty, suffering, or subjugation on the basis of a manufactured mythology, including forcing a raped child to give birth rather than have an abortion "because grey bearded dude in the sky and a magical book say so"

- Coerce people to surrender their autonomy and control them

- Various forms of what is essentially human trafficking

Let me recount:

- Al-Qaeda

- ISIS

- Branch Davidians

- Moonies

- Scientology

- Heaven's Gate

- NXIVM

- The Peoples Temple Agricultural Project (Jonestown)

- Rajneeshpuram

- Seventh-day Adventists (most people have no idea how brutal they were)

- Catholicism for thousands of years, how many 100's of millions were slaughtered in the Old World and the New. (Albigensian Crusade anyone?)

- Islam and Catholicism are close in terms of attributable deaths (piles of heads after raiding sultan armies, Armenian Genocide)

- LDS

- FLDS

The exceptional few least likely to murder, rape, or exploit anyone:

- Sikh

- Jainism

- Episcopal

^- Benign as they may seem, it's still a weakness by surrendering critical thinking over to fantasy.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by llanowarelves on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @01:02AM (#35336142)
Your list of the extreme/woo edges is pretty well-rounded but it's Eurocentric and missing a few famous ones like Aum Shinrikyo, Sabbateans/Frankists, cargo cults, voodoo, etc.

Also putting Islam, Catholicism, and LDS in the same list as the others would be like me putting similarly more mainstream Orthodox Jews in that list, just because of some cases of organ trafficking[0] or a "child rape assembly line"[1] in a few churches, or circumcision (which is viewed as genital mutilation in most of the world). And the careful adoption of technology (which I admire for the same reason as Amish). So not really appropriate to cluster more mainstream with the marginal cults side-by-side like that because it's disproportionate.

According to Charol Shakeshaft, the researcher behind the 2004 US Department of Education study[2] (if you can find a newer one, I'd like to see it), educators likely do 10-100x the abuse as priests. She's appeared on Oprah and NPR.

[0][https://www.smh.com.au/world/organ-trafficking-rabbis-arrest...

[1]https://www.vice.com/en/article/qbe8bp/the-child-rape-assemb...

[2]https://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/research/pubs/misconductreview/...

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by AlecSchueler on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @07:37AM (#35339062)
Is it really far out to put catholicism in there? More than 5% of catholic priests in the US between 1950 and 2002 were involved in sexual abuse cases. We know that sexual abuse numbers are vastly underreported and we can imagine that the religious/community aspects make it even more difficult.

In Ireland the church even operated mass graves for the children they neglected.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_sexual_abuse_c...

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by PaulDavisThe1st on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @01:44AM (#35336414)
I strongly disagree with this assessment.

First, one can look to the mid-Atlantic Quakers, whose own book of daily guidance is titled "Faith & Practice", which stresses the distinction between how one might behave in the world and what one believes about spiritual and religious matters. For (that branch of the) Quakers, you can live a "good life" without necessarily subscribing to any of their spiritual/religious beliefs.

Secondly, most people's idea of their good life is woefully lacking in self-reflection and self-knowledge. What really makes people happy? Civilizations and cultures across time and space all stress that what really makes people happy rarely involves material well being (although obviously a certain level is required to avoid that being the dominant shaper of the experience of life). Yes, we can admit that various gadgets and access to services brings us some level of joy in life, but that doesn't really negate the fundamental truth that what makes us happy tends to be purpose, not products, tends to be who we have in life, not what we have.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by scrappyjoe on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @04:05AM (#35337308)
> Civilizations and cultures across time and space all stress that what really makes people happy rarely involves material well being

Well, the texts that survive those cultures stress that. But historically reading and writing were highly controlled political activities. So you should probably consider the political motivation behind those texts. The good life for a peasant farmer in the dark ages would almost certainly involve the accumulation of modest surpluses to be traded for quality of life enhancing material goods. But you can bet your cart horse on the fact that the texts which were being produced by the state - and delivered to the farmer in mandatory weekly Mass - strongly encouraged the redirection of that surplus to the state in the form of tithe or similar in exchange for ‘spiritual access’.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by gitfan86 on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @06:51AM (#35338650)
Yes. It is like the a corporation puts out it's mission statement. That goal of the document is not to be accurate but to further the interests of the company
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by PaulDavisThe1st on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @09:26AM (#35340694)
Given that the core religious and philosophical teachings of most of the "great works" over the last 5k years still stand in marked opposition to the interests of the state, and of power and wealth, I'd have to seriously doubt your explanation here.

It's easy to see that the interests of the state (which for Christendom was often coterminal and indistinguishable with the church) would want people to accept their lot, and be accepting of whatever inequities existed at that time and place. But I think you do human philosophy a disservice to suggest that people are incapable of thinking outside of that particular sort of box.

Even with Buddhism, the tradition most easily accused of encouraging people to just accept the way things are, it's actual practitioners and believers have fairly sophisticated explanations of why that's not actually their position at all.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by kiicia on Tuesday April 04, 2023 @12:52PM (#35442563)
Written statement and actual non-public statement are very different for all those religions you mention. If religion is opposing politics it’s only because it wants to be political power on their own…
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by WeylandYutani on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @06:01AM (#35338226)
Amish people slavishly follow a fucking book written 500 years ago in a language they don't even speak.

What self actualisation can one get from that?

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by CatWChainsaw on Friday March 31, 2023 @09:37PM (#35396146)
I don't know, can artists get actualization from art when they're reduced to "prompt engineers"?
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by giraffe_lady on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @08:15AM (#35339580)
And the idealized quakers you're pointing to are essentially a dead religion. There are like 300k quakers globally and 80% of those practice a christianity indistinguishable from the evangelical mainstream of wherever they live (half are in africa). I would be surprised if silent meetings survive another generation, there are already very very few of them.

Quakers succeeded enough in certain ways that their values became mainstream, and they didn't differentiate enough from the surrounding culture to remain separate from it or powerful within it. Our liberal culture owes a lot to the quakers, I have incredible respect for their foundational beliefs, I used to be one, but they don't have much to offer us now.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by PaulDavisThe1st on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @09:21AM (#35340612)
They could be certifiably extinct, and they would still be an example we could learn from. The Stoics haven't really been much of a thing for a few thousand years, and over the last decade or so a new group of people have been enjoying that philosophy. The notion that faith != practice is a small but valuable contribution that at least branch of the Quakers have left in the world, and whether they continue to exist as a group, that's a valuable thing for all of us.

Also, I'd slightly dispute the "indistinguishable from the evangelical mainstream of wherever they live". There are branches of the Quaker tree that are evangelical, but for the one found in (at least) the mid-Atlantic and Pacific NW, evangelical Christianity is about the last thing I'd compare them to. Protestant mainline, sure.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by giraffe_lady on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @09:44AM (#35340953)
Personally I don't really relate to the idea that you can pick through the bones of religions to make your own amalgamation. In the case of stoicism sure they're enjoying it but is it doing anything? Are they experiencing life in ways different from and better than they would without it? Is it improving the world according to their own values? For that matter, would it even be recognizable to the classical stoics? It wasn't taught by a living practitioner integrated into that life, how sure are we that it translated.

But anyway if you are going to do this, I don't think you should do it with religions that still do have living practitioners however few. If you value what the quakers are doing go be a quaker, see what the experience has to offer. Or at least wait until its carcass is cold before you harvest its carrion. Trying to extract value from a spiritual tradition you're not willing to live is ghoulish.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by dshoemaker on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @10:15AM (#35341458)
> Trying to extract value from a spiritual tradition you're not willing to live is ghoulish.

I don't understand this sentiment at all. Identifying positive aspects in existing religions is perfectly fine (I'd even argue there is some amount of virtue to it). How is it possibly ghoulish to see good in other cultures/religions and bring that into your practice? One example that comes to mind are religions where consumption of meat is eschewed. If you find that the rationale that Jainism provides for a vegan lifestyle resonates with you, why can't you incorporate that into your life for those reasons?

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by giraffe_lady on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @10:57AM (#35342135)
Identifying, sure, why not, it's good to expose yourself to ideas.

Again though, and I think this is enough information to understand my position, I simply reject the notion that you can build anything worthwhile by picking and choosing bits you like from the collection of religions spread before you.

They are traditions whose fullness is only experienced as part of a community of other practitioners. By trying to extract an appealing bit and apply it to your own life outside of that context and separated from that practice, you're doing an entirely different thing and imo not what you think you're doing. I simply don't think this practice is worthwhile, valuable, or worthy of respect.

If you don't want to eat meat then don't eat meat. If a jain convinces you not to then that's as good a way to find out as any other. Does that begin to convince you that we are all part of an eternal cycle made up of different substances? Maybe you should convert to jainism!

I don't want to assume anything about you and I'm not really. But I often see this amalgamated spirituality concept coming from non-religious people. The idea that you can take the parts you like from anywhere, leaving the parts you disagree with. I simply don't think you can come out of this with anything meaningful, and in fact I think it's a trap. You'll think you've found wisdom when all you're doing is laundering your beliefs & preferences through the hard-won ancient traditions of the world.

There is courage necessary to commit to a path without possibly being able to understand it or even begin to know where it will lead. When you build your own religion you trade that in for mistaken confidence, and the feeling that you know what all the parts do and why they're there. You're not supposed to know why they're there! You're supposed to just live it.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by PaulDavisThe1st on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @01:17PM (#35344507)
All religions consist of a blend of faith & practice (there's that Quaker title again). In some, faith is ascendant over practice, and in others practice is considered more important than faith. If you lean toward the practice side of things, then presumably picking practices from different traditions would be less of an issue, so I would tend to conclude that for you, faith is the primary component of religious affiliation.

It is certainly true that feeding at the buffet of world religions isn't the same as being a committed member of a particular religious community. But that doesn't mean that you don't get some value from it, and potentially different value than that found by the more committed members.

I personally take great inspiration from Hesse's Siddhartha, the titular character of which explores a variety of spiritual and religious traditions, finds them all lacking and ends up being most inpired by a river ferry man. But that doesn't mean that the character gained nothing from his experiences with Buddhism, Jainism, ascetism and more.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by kiicia on Tuesday April 04, 2023 @01:01PM (#35442686)
Choosing and picking parts that you like and building chimera out of it is literally ghoulish. You don’t evolve something this way, you are willy-nilly feeding on something.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by PaulDavisThe1st on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @01:11PM (#35344411)
Protestantism in general has focused for centuries on what a person does during their life rather than what they believe (in contrast to Catholicism, which tends to focus more on the latter). The Quakers merely took that one step further (they are, after all, a branch of the Protestant subtree of Christianity) by acknowledging that a person could be good without believing (all or even any of) the things that Quakers believe.

It is not picking through or over the bones of Quakerism to grapple with and/or be inspired by this idea.

As for Stoicism, I am not sure that it is required to do anything other than, maybe, bring greater peace and understanding into the lives of those considering its values.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by fsckboy on Friday March 31, 2023 @09:25PM (#35396052)
> Protestantism in general has focused for centuries on what a person does during their life rather than what they believe (in contrast to Catholicism, which tends to focus more on the latter)

no no no no no. some progressive protestant faiths perhaps, but the central tenet of most Christian and most Protestants faiths is faith, salvation comes through accepting Jesus Christ as your savior and repenting sin, for which you will be forgiven. It is a topic of debate among theologians as to what that says about works/acts but they don't generally depart from the idea that starting now you get a clean a slate, or as clean as anyone can.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by kiicia on Tuesday April 04, 2023 @12:58PM (#35442653)
It’s a bit more nuanced, watch this video in spare time https://youtu.be/tzLS4O7YaUg
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by froh on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @11:48AM (#35342989)
amish != quaker, right? so I don't disagree with your comment about Quakers but I don't get what it has to do with the Amish?
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by red-iron-pine on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @12:43PM (#35343923)
Yeah outside of the fact there is a bunch of both of em in Pennsylvania, they have fairly different approaches to doctrine.

To the outsider, though, they both come off as quirky, religious, and inordinately devout.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by PaulDavisThe1st on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @01:00PM (#35344232)
See the last paragraph of the parent of my comment. It wasn't about the Amish in particular, but "spiritual ideals" in general.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by kiicia on Tuesday April 04, 2023 @01:04PM (#35442732)
You missed whole point that not all people are spiritual or are atheists
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by msla on Monday March 27, 2023 @11:35PM (#35335567)
https://www.aetv.com/real-crime/child-sexual-abuse-amish

> Child Sexual Abuse in the Amish Community: A Hidden Epidemic

Turns out, a closed-off, hierarchical community isn't something to emulate.

Doesn't help that a lot of them only get an eighth grade education:

https://home.dartmouth.edu/news/2012/03/professor-william-fi...

> The Amish community’s adherence to a lifestyle more typical of the 19th century, which includes driving horse-drawn buggies and living in homes with no electricity, is driven by religious beliefs. But the Amish’s adherence to educating their children in one-room schoolhouses, and then only through the eighth grade, is largely the result of a 1972 Supreme Court decision, Yoder v. Wisconsin. This 40-year-old ruling has “frozen them in place” and threatens the younger generation’s ability to earn a living in an increasingly complex society, argues Professor of Economics William A. Fischel in a recent paper.

https://www.amishheritage.org/services/education/

> In 1972, the United States Supreme Court decided in Wisconsin v. Yoder that Amish children do not have the right to any future other than one inside the Amish Church.

https://lancasteronline.com/features/former-amish-want-to-ov...

So it seems their "thorough consideration of technology" is in the context of a culture that's not going to change because it would threaten the established hierarchy. That's the threat, here: Something like this might start out well-intentioned, but once the institution is in place, well, any excuse will serve a tyrant, eh? Any excuse will serve the organization.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by scns on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @03:13AM (#35336994)
> Turns out, a closed-off, hierarchical community isn't something to emulate.

Very true. There is a quote, often misattributed, about how power corrupts. To lazy to google it, sorry.

> Doesn't help that a lot of them only get an eighth grade education:

That is 5 years more than some ultraorthodox jews get, check out link [1] here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35336142

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by msla on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @03:21AM (#35337046)
> That is 5 years more than some ultraorthodox jews get, check out link [1] here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35336142

Proof that happy religious communities are all different, but ugly, controlling, abusive groups share many of the same characteristics.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by WeylandYutani on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @06:18AM (#35338365)
I recently learned that the Bible wasn't translated into Russian until the 19th century.

The Church/elders always go for information control.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by watwut on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @09:36AM (#35340824)
Russians peasants could not read and write at that time. Educated minority could read and write ... and those actually learned foreign languages too. Even by the start of WWI, the illiteracy in Russia was super high.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by 4dayworkweek4u on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @04:28AM (#35354216)
You have to be open too all -- like a public toilet.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by nemo44x on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @06:40AM (#35338550)
All that says is there’s no such thing as utopia. They have problems like anyone else. Our society is full of sexual abuse, violence in the home, murder, suicide, drug addicts in the streets, valueless people, money obsession, loneliness, ignorance and stupidity, etc. Our institutions are corrupt in many ways, wealth is power, and we are just as hierarchal as any other organization because it’s unavoidable.

So I think it’s unfair to dismiss them because they have sexual abuse in their communities and have values other than education. They don’t want to change much but it’s not a conspiracy to maintain the hierarchy. It’s to maintain their way of life that they’ve found creates meaningful, stable, happy lives with authentic connections to each other. We lack this as a society so much that we have multi-billion dollar industries trying to bottle it up and sell it to our desperate people.

They don’t do everything right but they get a lot right.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by msla on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @11:26AM (#35342607)
> So I think it’s unfair to dismiss them because they have sexual abuse in their communities

It's fair to dismiss them because they have an institutional habit of covering it up.

> and have values other than education.

This is wrong. Not educating someone keeps them under your control. That's abusive.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by nemo44x on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @11:58AM (#35343148)
> It's fair to dismiss them because they have an institutional habit of covering it up.

Well, they take care of it themselves and don't get the legal system involved. They have their own ways of dealing with it. They don't support it and it's not like they're actively facilitating it. You may agree or disagree with this but there are many different communities in the USA that prefer to act this way.

> This is wrong. Not educating someone keeps them under your control. That's abusive.

They get enough education. I'd wager most of them are better educated than the majority of public school attendees, most which graduate with a < 8th grade level of reading and match ability. I think we should look at our own broken system more before criticizing them and holding them to a different standard.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by msla on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @12:04PM (#35343244)
> Well, they take care of it themselves and don't get the legal system involved. They have their own ways of dealing with it.

They allow it to run rampant. That's explicitly called out in the article I linked to.

> They get enough education.

They don't. Again, that's explicitly called out in the articles I linked to.

At this point I can only conclude you're posting in bad faith.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by nemo44x on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @04:30PM (#35347377)
That's a single article with an agenda.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by carabiner on Monday March 27, 2023 @11:49PM (#35335664)
This ex-Amish TikToker is incredible: https://www.tiktok.com/@yodertoter40?_t=8abRVLmk1ra&_r=1 Some of his content is benign, but he also discusses the epidemic of child abuse (including sexual), rampant sexism, and the general cruelty of Amish culture. They have been regularly desecrating his father's grave, who commit suicide due to Amish abuse.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by monero-xmr on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @12:42AM (#35336005)
There is a large and vocal community of “detransitioners”, or people who transitioned their gender and then decided to switch back. They often describe what they experienced as abuse - given drugs that permanently altered their voice, made them incapable of performing sexually and / or experiencing orgasm, being rushed along through a process that was life-changing but without proper guidance. I would classify this as child abuse and sexual assault, given these children were minors and had their sexual lives damaged or totally ruined.

But with educated elites, denigrating religious communities because of some bad apples is OK, but pointing to a travesty perpetrated by a political in-group is not-OK.

I think the Amish are fine people, as are Orthodox Jews and traditional Catholics. I don’t think you can paint all of them poorly because of a few bad experiences. Otherwise we should likely see all gender “therapists” as dangerous as well.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by balthigor on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @01:07AM (#35336171)
No there is not. This is drivel. Laughable nonsense.

You're worked up about the current manufactured bogeyman of the present. This too shall pass.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by monero-xmr on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @01:16AM (#35336224)
There are a lot of heart breaking stories in the detrans subreddit, let alone the media.

https://www.reddit.com/r/detrans/comments/122svtv/i_so_over_...

https://www.reddit.com/r/detrans/comments/11ldt9r/i_was_tran...

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by PaulDavisThe1st on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @01:45AM (#35336419)
Please define what you mean by "large" in this context.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by monero-xmr on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @09:19AM (#35340570)
Tens of thousands of people organizing to discuss the life-destroying issue seems pretty large. Considering ranitidine (Zantac) was recalled for a small potential of causing cancer, it's odd that such documented negative experiences has not resulted in a banning of procedures (at least for children) until far more research is conducted. But hey, that's what happens when politics overtakes science.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by Timon3 on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @06:26AM (#35338427)
Such stories exist for literally all medical interventions. Do you know how many elderly people deeply regret elective surgeries like hip or knee replacements? How many have tragic stories and want to make sure others don't fall into the same trap?

The major difference between these cases is that the regret rate for transitioning is way, way lower than almost all other medical interventions. This is because we have a long process before anything permanent is done. If you wish to pay so much attention to de-transitioners, will you also look at the data and pay attention to the many, many more people who regret other medical interventions?

Should we ban knee and hip replacements?

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by badpun on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @07:57AM (#35339318)
For reference, can you give rough percentages of regret after a sex change vs an average medical intervention?
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by Timon3 on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @01:29PM (#35344725)
The NIH has done a meta-analysis of studies and came up with a regret rate of around 1% with a 95% confidence interval:

> The pooled prevalence of regret among the TGNB population after GAS was 1% (95% Confidence interval [CI] <1%–2%; I2 = 75.1%) (Fig. (Fig.2).2). The prevalence for transmasculine surgeries was <1% (CI <1%–<1%, I2 = 28.8%), and for transfemenine surgeries, it was 1% (CI <1%–2%, I2 = 75.5%) (Fig. (Fig.3).3). The prevalence of regret after vaginoplasty was of 2% (CI <1%–4%, I2 = 41.5%) and that after mastectomy was <1% (CI <1–<1%, I2 = 21.8%) (Fig. (Fig.44).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8099405/

As a comparison, this study (which is not a meta-analysis, I couldn't quickly find one of those) for knee replacement surgery regret after one year had around 18%:

> Total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is a common and effective procedure that is expected to be performed in increasing numbers in the future [1, 2]. Previous studies have shown 6–30% of patients are dissatisfied after the surgery, both in the presence and in the absence of postoperative complications [3–12]. In Sweden, about 8% of patients without documented complications are non-satisfied [13–15].

> Of the 348 patients who responded to a letter asking if they were satisfied or dissatisfied with their surgery, 61 (18%) reported discontent.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6961288/

The latter number is of course a lot less reliable, but you'll find something similar - definitely above 1% - for most interventions.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by froh on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @03:19PM (#35346397)
yes! and of that 1% more than 90% report that the unhappiness is driven by societal factors: rejection and oppression by their families or their faith communities or both, or at the workplace.

no. the "DeTrAnSiTiNinG" narrative is a bogeyman narrative to narrowly get above the 50% needed in first past the post votes, with fake "concern" about "parental rights" which are purportedly "taken from concerned Christian parents". That subreddit is an artificial cesspool to feed that narrative in a context which is much less restrictive in its policies than HN. the trans communities in the US are in panicking paralysis for becoming the scapegoat.

the reality is that treatment of gender dysphoria according to current standards of care is nothing less than a blessing for those few adolescents who happen to fall into that narrow diagnostic corridor. And they get _no_ surgeries if treated in a responsible setting. they get puberty blockers. the adolescent is reviewed and accompanied in the whole family situation to assess for potential psychopathologies (emotional abuse, munchausen by proxy, in simple terms: is this real or are the parents nuts) and _only then_ and after a long period of confidence building the adolescent grows into making permanent decisions about their life, as a then young adult.

https://www.wpath.org/soc8

those adolescents who are lucky enough to receive such treatment at an early age have the chance to transition into a new life in their identified-with gender as completely inconspicuous well integrated happy adults.

for gender dysphoric youths it's the best thing since sliced bread.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by asherah on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @12:58AM (#35336114)
transition is something for which you are presented the full pros and cons, and given the freedom to choose whether or not you want the effects of it; being born into an amish family is something you have no freedom to choose, and given the things the comment you're replying to is describing as occurring, i think it makes perfect sense to say that the latter is more ethically questionable
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by snvzz on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @01:18AM (#35336231)
>transition is something for which you are presented the full pros and cons

What you describe is how it should be. Unfortunately, that's not how it is[0].

But this is very uncomfortable[1], so we look the other way.

0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O3MzPeomqs

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCH-bUFR3WM

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by asherah on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @02:26AM (#35336704)
respectfully, i have no intentions of listening to jordan b peterson, in the same way i have no intentions of reading a stormfront article. skimming the transcript, it looks like this person was presented with the full list of effects - is this not what i described? the ground reality is that if you go to your local planned parenthood or family doctor they will tell you all of the side effects you will experience on hrt; i have 3 different packets of information from doing this, all of which stress the ways in which my body will change on hrt i have no anecdotal proof yet for surgery but i can only assume you get told about possible complications that are reasonably expected
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by snvzz on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @02:37AM (#35336770)
>i have no intentions of listening to jordan b peterson

You have chosen to look the other way. Please refrain from commenting on something you've only skimmed.

You'll prevent this situation, where you state something is presented and yet the opposite is.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by skrebbel on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @03:20AM (#35337034)
I think your comment would've been stronger without the Stormfront reference. I agree that Peterson is a tiresome character but he's not a Nazi. Putting him in the same box as Stormfront is like putting Bernie in the same box as Stalin.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by Kbelicius on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @06:53AM (#35338660)
GP did not put Peterson in a box labeled "Nazis". He put him in a box labeled "people whose opinion I do not care to hear" and stormfront happens to be there too. For all we know Bernie and Stalin could be in that box too.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by Chris2048 on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @04:45PM (#35347568)
But conveniently, the example chosen just happens to be one of few well known Nazi/WS publications?

It just happened to be Stormfront, but could just have well been Daily mail, or El Reg?

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by Quarrelsome on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @06:37AM (#35338516)
Bear in mind that the amount of people that are trans are hella tiny and the amount of people that are trans and de-transition are hella tiny of hella tiny. That Jorden Peterson decides to dedicate two entire videos to the subject implies a bit of a bias.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by snvzz on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @08:17AM (#35339603)
What's interesting is not that there's few de-transitioners.

Rather, what they claim they personally got told before transitioning (very little), what their families were told (unsubstantiated lies about suicide as the alternative to transitioning), as well as how easy and frictionless the formalities of the process were.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by Quarrelsome on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @09:16AM (#35340535)
> What's interesting is not that there's few de-transitioners.

it is interesting in terms of the amount of press they receive in conservative news feeds.

> Rather, what they claim they personally got told before transitioning (very little), what their families were told (unsubstantiated lies about suicide as the alternative to transitioning), as well as how easy and frictionless the formalities of the process were.

While these examples pose interesting and relevant questions about the seriousness of transitioning I feel like they're often used as a wedge to justify animosity toward the very few, through the bad examples of the very, very few.

When provided without the context of the numbers or any sort of balanced approach it becomes yet another set of misleading angles which have troubling parallels to social outcasts of the past.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by Chris2048 on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @04:43PM (#35347546)
> the context of the numbers or any sort of balanced approach

Why is the number of de-transitioners relevant?

If they're too much of a minority to care about, then why is the same not true of the trans community? If, justifiably, you should still care about minorities, then you should care about minorities of minorities too.

de-transitioners aren't the counterpoint to transitioning; they are the counterpoint to dogmatic promotion of transitioning over any caution (or treating any caution as a anti-trans dog-whistle/derailment etc).

The reason this gets a lot of conservative press is that trans is the new weaponized community, so conservatives get accused of transphobia a lot - defensively pointing out hypocrisy in this behavior is all part of the game, but both sides are playing it.

> I feel like they're often used as a wedge to justify animosity toward the very few, through the bad examples of the very, very few

But the "wedge" has its basis in the modus of "the very few", or at least its dogmatic members/allies, otherwise the animosity couldn't take hold. You'll have to explain to me what makes a given de-tranition a "bad examples" versus an inconvenient truth.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by Quarrelsome on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @07:11PM (#35349402)
> Why is the number of de-transitioners relevant?

Because its often used as a wedge to pour doubt over the process of transitioning entirely which for many transitioners is an effective process.

> then you should care about minorities of minorities too.

Right. We care about people, we care about all of them, so why is it that conservative media over-represents de-transitioners and under-represents people satisfied with their transition? One fits a narrative, the other doesn't, go figure.

> The reason this gets a lot of conservative press is that trans is the new weaponized community, so conservatives get accused of transphobia a lot

conservatives by the very definition of their traditional views of society are often rather transphobic though. I appreciate that its an even harder pill to swallow than homosexuality for traditionalists but you can't pretend that there isn't significant resistance. I appreciate that some trans activists can be rather aggressive online (although that can be said about a lot of twitter regardless), but the suffragette movement also teaches us that simply asking the patriarchy nicely to accept change doesn't necessarily yield results.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by Chris2048 on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @11:17PM (#35351878)
> I appreciate that some trans activists can be rather aggressive online

This is the crux of the argument, and why there needs to be some "doubt" in the process. The problem isn't that there are a few aggressive activists, but that aggressive activists are leading the movement, setting the agenda.

The notion of the suffragettes not "simply asking the .. nicely to accept change" can equally said of any terrorist group willing to commit to violence etc to "yield results". I can't see how that relates to suppression of de-transition stories.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by Quarrelsome on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @09:04AM (#35356642)
> but that aggressive activists are leading the movement, setting the agenda.

I think that's much harder to prove. Also its not like these aggressive activists are in a vacuum. The anti-trans lobby (which is conservative in nature) are AS if not more aggressive, especially given their interests in scaling back trans-rights. In many cases they are seeking to remove the equality and liberty of the trans community where in previous decades they've been entirely ignorant of it. The result is an increasing popularity in bigoted trans tropes where MTFs get accused of being perverts and FTMs are patronised and treated like lost lambs.

> I can't see how that relates to suppression of de-transition stories.

I never said we should suppress de-transition stories but rather present them in the context of the numbers. Conservative news feeds tends to present them in isolation without the context of success stories (which are much greater in number) because they feed into the anti-trans narrative and demonstrate the axe of patriarchy that conservative news feeds have a vested interest in grinding.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by Chris2048 on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @09:10PM (#35366360)
> In many cases they are seeking to remove the equality and liberty of the trans community

Can you describe what these are? stuff that flew under the radar before aren't defacto rights.

> present them in isolation without the context of success stories

the question is was the also lack of caution in the case of success, it just happened to turn out when. The criticism here is rolling the dice in the first place, not the probability of success.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by Quarrelsome on Thursday March 30, 2023 @06:34AM (#35370596)
> The criticism here is rolling the dice in the first place, not the probability of success

Sure, but a principal component of my complaint is that they're being dishonest about the odds by focusing on the 1 in 1000/10000/100000 case and giving limited airtime to the 999/9999/999999.

I agree that both stories need exposure but lets remind ourselves of who the target audience often is. A child wishing to transition and a parent seeking to reject it. Right now I would argue that conservative sources have a strong parental bias in this generational battle. However I share concerns that people might move through it too quickly, this is why ethical transitions tend to have a relatively high bar (e.g. live as your gender for at least a year prior to any transition). This is why a hot topic right now is access to puberty blockers which is a compromise solution to allow adolescents to postpone puberty (but not transition) until they have a clearer understanding of who they are.

> Can you describe what these are? stuff that flew under the radar before aren't defacto rights.

I feel like we only have to look at somewhere like Florida to see the start of discrimination with issues such as access to healthcare (e.g. Medicaid) for transitioning or freedom of expression, in the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act [1] (colloquially known as the "don't say gay" bill). Note how it means that children who have gay or trans parents will be prevented from being able to talk about their home lives and thus; express themselves.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Parental_Rights_in_Edu...

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by Chris2048 on Sunday April 02, 2023 @01:16PM (#35412787)
> they're being dishonest about the odds

Can you demonstrate this is the case - does showcasing a minority case imply that case is common?

> A child wishing to transition and a parent seeking to reject

It doesn't matter what either parent or child thinks. In other context we are quite happy to say a child cannot consent to important things, even with parental consent. This is entirely about the medical gatekeepers.

> hot topic right now is access to puberty blockers

.. and the new thing is to suggest that there is zero risk with chemically postponing puberty - which mirrors the notion that there is zero risk of regret with transitioning, i.e. total suppression of caution/dissent.

It's all misinformation using some boogeyman as justification: "don't worry about X - that's just a lie spread by transphobes/conservatives/republicans etc". But there can be truth in the panic.

>> Can you describe what these are?

> access to healthcare (e.g. Medicaid) for transitioning

I'm not sure there was a standing precedent for this - there are other forms of healthcare also excluded/discriminated against.

> freedom of expression, in the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act

I don't think that is a FoE issue; there is no such right for anyone to interject into general education, plus there are plenty of topics excluded from education. gay/trans parents can talk to their own children as much as they want - what you are suggesting is they should have free and clear access to other peoples children without any oversight from their parents? Does that mean anti-trans/gay parents get to air their own views in from of their children too?

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by monero-xmr on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @01:04AM (#35336153)
The point of my comment was to make HN commenters question their thinking a bit. I think the decrease in religion and lack of faith in God is a major reason for the pain in modern Western society. Yet we are all shrugging our shoulders and sighing about why there are so many unhappy and suffering people in society.

I pointed a finger at another group I believe is doing great harm. I’d prefer we leave the Amish alone considering for most on HN the Amish may as well be aliens. There are other groups with serious problems closer to home.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by nonethewiser on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @01:33AM (#35336328)
What lack of religion? It's just a different god.

Take the DEI deans' refusal to participate in the debate on DEI at MIT.

> There is a sense that this is an issue that is kind of above being debated

That is basically the definition of 'sacred.'

https://www.thecollegefix.com/a-debate-on-dei-will-be-held-a...

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by PaulDavisThe1st on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @01:48AM (#35336433)
> I think the decrease in religion and lack of faith in God is a major reason for the pain in modern Western society

I'm never going to agree with you about that. But had you phrased it is "a decline in obvious purpose and a loss of a sense of community (which may once have had religion at its center)", we could maybe find some common ground.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by RangerScience on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @05:08AM (#35337767)
Well, you know, there's a reason opiates are used as a pain killer, but that doesn't mean it's their lack that's causing the pain.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by t344344 on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @02:36AM (#35336764)
Exactly! Therapist would never push something like that onto mentally ill person with schizophrenia or autism! And child can give fully informed consent, just like with circumcision!
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by dinkly on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @11:51AM (#35343048)
Girls as young as 12 years old are having their breasts chopped off because they say they want to be boys. Do you think a child of that age can meaningfully consent?
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by froh on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @11:57AM (#35343126)
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by dinkly on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @06:18PM (#35348789)
Sadly, this is not false.

Here's a paper on "gender-affirming" mastectomies from researchers in the US. The cohort studied includes girls as young as 12 years old at the time of surgery: https://journals.lww.com/annalsplasticsurgery/Abstract/2022/...

Also here's a piece from Reuters about rates of "gender-affirming treatment" in children, taken from health insurance data - the section for "top surgery" includes girls as young as 13: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-tran...

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by froh on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @07:34PM (#35349650)
outliers.

that's not the recommended treatment.

hormone blockers are.

the right wing debate is however to criminalize the recommended treatment.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by dinkly on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @09:16AM (#35356795)
Now that I have provided evidence, do you concede that you were incorrect, and that it is a true statement of fact that girls as young as 12 years old are having their breasts sliced off because they say they want to be boys?
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by froh on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @09:28AM (#35356997)
again: this is not the norm and not recommended practice. so you are reiterating the exceptional, pathological outlier corner case of medical malpractice.

and you do that in a context which uses this strawman to "justify" hindering and prohibiting well established treatment for severe and medically diagnosed adolescent gender dysphoria, specifically puberty blockers and after a sufficient period of time also cross gender hormones.

and adolescents can consent to that, yes.

why do you argue against this medical best practice like you do?

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by dinkly on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @11:12AM (#35358430)
Are you aware that shortly after the initial publication of SOC8, WPATH issued a set of changes which removed all lower age limits that were previously recommended, including for irreversible surgeries?

See https://web.archive.org/web/20220919141138/https://www.tandf... for the detail of their correction notice.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by froh on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @07:08PM (#35365201)
glad you're bringing this up

the wpath soc is a very accessible document with a very nuanced and careful approach to treatment of adolescents and children, it explicitly deals with the potential fragility of such decisions - and the cases which are very stable early on and benefit from early access, and how to discern them.

they didn't take out the brains or caution. they just took out the inflexible and useless rigid age barriers.

its really worth a read, chapter 6 is the one relevant here

https://www.wpath.org/publications/soc

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by dinkly on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @09:19PM (#35366454)
They took out the age limits because they wanted to reduce the risk of those who follow their guidelines being taken to court for malpractice. This is about protecting their own practitioners, not about providing the best care to patients.

See this video of the conference where this was revealed: https://twitter.com/SwipeWright/status/1571999221401948161

These people are harming young children who can't meaningfully consent to such irreversible treatments. And then hiding behind these guidelines so they don't get sued. It's sickening.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by froh on Thursday March 30, 2023 @01:11AM (#35368319)
they need to protect themselves from the sickening legislation which is threatening medical practitioners with litigation.

religious worldviews drive a legislation to "eradicate transgenders".

the wpath requests a multimodal treatment team to support medical interventions with lasting effects, and the consent of caretakers / parents (unless it's harmful to the dependent adolescent) and age appropriate consent and no measures they are unfit to consent to.

all protection that's needed is in place.

what your attitude is doing is it's forcing gender dysphoric youths to go through the irreversible body changes induced by their puberty.

why? how does getting a beritone voice and a quarterback frame help a trans girl?

how do breasts and a small feminine silhouette help a trans man?

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by dinkly on Thursday March 30, 2023 @03:56AM (#35369472)
No, they're protecting their members from being sued, as that video revealed.

The "trans child" is a medically and politically constructed entity, that has arisen from the rhetoric of activists. Children cannot meaningfully consent to these "gender affirming" medical interventions that will scar them for life, make them infertile and lose sexual function, and have an impact far beyond anything they can comprehend.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by froh on Thursday March 30, 2023 @05:55AM (#35370277)
I think you've made your point clear and I think you are not open to have your view changed.

I personally know trans people, living happy lives 20+ years into their transition, and all of them knew early on, and all of them had benefitted from and wished for much earlier access to gender affirming healthcare and back in the days early access simply did not exist, because of the FUD and pseudo protective position you propagate.

my thoughts and prayers go out to you.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by LBJsPNS on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @11:16PM (#35351866)
Bullshit.

I'm sorry if this violates HN protocols. But this is an outright lie and needs to be treated as one.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by dinkly on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @09:17AM (#35356817)
It is not a lie, this is not bullshit.

Please see my other comment with links to evidence of this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35348789

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by dang on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @03:47PM (#35362352)
"Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity."

https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by pharmakom on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @02:49AM (#35336848)
> with educated elites

Which educated elites? Was there a survey? Did you talk to some? What did they say when pushed on this?

I am concerned that you have formed a view of a fictional person that is an amalgam of newspaper headlines and think pieces that were designed for clicks.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by panick21_ on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @06:03AM (#35338243)
> traditional Catholics

Yeah the people who help enable the largest child abuse ring in history are not 'fine' people. They literally support an organization that IS PROVEN to SYSTEMATICALLY protect sexual predictors and have done so for 100s of years.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by bacchusracine on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @08:52AM (#35340124)
>Yeah the people who help enable the largest child abuse ring in history are not 'fine' people.

You're right. It's horrible what public school teachers are allowed to get away with...wait, that's not who you were talking about? Better check your numbers again.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by watwut on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @09:34AM (#35340798)
Unlike catholic churches, school system had mandatory reporting of sexual abuse for years. And if a teacher was accused of sexual abuse, it was not an actual norm to move him to another position with access to children.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by bacchusracine on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @12:28PM (#35343667)
>if a teacher was accused of sexual abuse, it was not an actual norm to move him to another position with access to children.

You don't say...

https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/crime_courts/2017/03/22...

https://www.sfreporter.com/news/coverstories/2018/01/03/pass...

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-10-19-me-6252-s...

See there's a certain group that just loves to harp on about the catholics (and yes they certainly should be ashamed and given every legal penalty for what they did) but want to give other groups a pass. They like to pretend that this sort of coverup isn't a systematic issue whenever you get a large group. And they like to ignore all the cases where female teachers have "relationships" with their students....

https://www.foxnews.com/us/florida-teacher-accused-sexual-re...

https://nypost.com/2023/03/25/nyc-teacher-accused-of-sex-wit...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10984483/Female-tea...

Shall I go on? There are easily hundreds of unique cases that I could link. Somehow though I suspect that you will fall into the usual pattern of dismising these all as being from "bad" sources or say that it's just not the same...somehow.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by watwut on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @12:44PM (#35343941)
Catholics actual policy was to move sexual abusers to different parishes and not tell anyone. That is the actual norm. And that was not just a new thing. Catholics as organizations run pretty atrocious institutions (orphanages, schools) where kids were routinely abused.

Yes, catholic church is waaay worst then school system in this regard. And largely for systematic reasons - the expectation of obeisance and expectation that one should protect the institution make them more suspectible to abuse.

The catholic cover ups were not just outliers. They were result of lack of transparency and of impossibility to challenge superiors.

Moreover mandatory reporting within school syatem is an actual law. This alone makes the two system different.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by bacchusracine on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @02:42PM (#35345871)
>Yes, catholic church is waaay worst then school system in this regard. And largely for systematic reasons - the expectation of obeisance and expectation that one should protect the institution make them more suspectible to abuse.

Hmm...

https://mercatornet.com/a-horrifying-report-on-sexual-abuse-...

https://www.wect.com/2020/08/10/part-one-cover-up-culture-we...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/has-media-ignored-sex-abuse-in-...

https://letsspeakup.com/cover-up-practices-of-school-officia...

https://www.mvskokemedia.com/the-cover-ups-continue-at-morri...

https://www.city-journal.org/abuse-in-schools-no-conspiracy-...

Not systematic? Not the norm?

I'm just punching words into google and pulling up results. I could go on and on with this. Funny how you want to just brush this off.

https://www.news9.com/story/6119d3000078b30be8872b0d/-12-gir...

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-01-05/lausd-an...

https://www.ocpathink.org/post/child-abuse-cover-up-alleged-...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/08/nyregion/babylon-high-sch...

I wonder why there is so much vehemence about one and not the other? I'll say it softly. Could it be because one is religious and the other is secular? I wonder why the public schools get a pass when they've been doing the exact same things?

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by Quarrelsome on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @06:40AM (#35338554)
> There is a large and vocal community of “detransitioners”

The "large" part is arguably the attention given to them by conservative news organisations who are dying to put them on air, as their existence justifies their existing views without every having to pay attention to the numbers.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by somedude895 on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @10:25AM (#35341631)
> The "large" part is arguably the attention given to them by conservative news organisations who are dying to put them on air

Probably just as much as the unjustifiably large attention given to trans topics by leftist news.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by Quarrelsome on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @11:26AM (#35342609)
sure, the subject does get a disproportionate amount of coverage (you could argue it is the zeitgeist of the times though). But my point is that you can't battle that by taking an even smaller minority from the already small minority and try to use that to invalidate the claims of the small (greater relative to the smaller of small) minority. This is a tactic that has long been used in media to justify discrimination going back decades so why are we still falling for it?
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by pjc50 on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @06:58AM (#35338701)
https://gomag.com/article/leaked-emails-from-the-group-that-...

The debate is being deliberately poisoned by promoting a few detransitioners to use against people who are actually happy having transitioned.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by watwut on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @09:32AM (#35340777)
There is large and vocal conservative community trying to create hysteria over trans people and their transition.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by dinkly on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @11:50AM (#35343027)
The mistakes the trans activists made were going after the kids, and demanding access to each and every female-only space for males. If they'd done neither of those things, the conservatives would have nothing to say at all.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by watwut on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @12:14PM (#35343413)
Frankly, this is a lie. The only ones going for kids were anti trans activists - because attacking trans kids is easier.

This has nothing to do what trans activists done or not done. This was about conservatives needing an ennemy and feeling disgust over trans people existing.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by dinkly on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @09:22AM (#35356909)
It is not a lie. It is an observation of the specific topics being criticized by conservatives, and also by radical feminists.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by froh on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @11:56AM (#35343112)
this is a counterfactual misrepresentation of gender dysphoria and the medical community recommendation for it's treatment in adolescents beyond tanner stage 2.

the misrepresentation is part of Mr. Trump's talking point to "eradicate transgenderism" and it's dividing families from gender dysphoric family members and driving individuals into suicide.

stop spreading it. https://www.wpath.org/soc8

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by dang on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @03:54PM (#35362468)
Please don't take HN threads on generic flamewar tangents, and especially not sensational ideological generic flamewar tangents. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by nonethewiser on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @01:28AM (#35336300)
> They have been regularly desecrating his father's grave, who committed suicide due to Amish abuse.

What do you mean by "they?" Amish people in general? Or some specific people or group (that you have not identified)?

Consider how you'd feel about saying "they" to refer to some individual transgression by other groups.

Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by softsound on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @01:33AM (#35336329)
I think any extremist and isolating culture will bring with it extremist behavior and thinking. People want to believe they have the right answer. Often this leads them to becoming very self-righteous and prideful and also very shame focused. I don't think this is something one would just limit to just this culture or belief system. And as that guy states, that is this just his own personal experience. I too dealt with someone ruining my father's funeral and would probably their grave if he had one and let me tell you, they weren't amish but they were self righteous and crazy. That said, I think the Amish can have quality work, are useful in preserving history but I personally would not want that life. I remember reading Running Out of Time as a child and always somehow associated it with life like the Amish. I know things are different of course but that's what I think of first. A bad association.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by chr1 on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @03:20AM (#35337042)
It is good that different groups in society behave differently. People not using technology like hunter-gatherers and Amish provide safety net, and people jumping to everything new are the explorers. Both extremes are needed, and HN crowd becoming skeptical of technology, or Amish using new rechnology would make them the same as average, and be less useful for the society.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by AdamN on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @04:59AM (#35337706)
They're not necessarily against tech - but all the tech they have must be self-maintainable without outside engagement. So you could imagine a contemporary Amish-like culture around right-to-repair but it would still be very low-tech.
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by ChatGTP on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @07:55AM (#35339302)
I completely agree. I don't really understand the hurry?
Re:After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on by 4dayworkweek4u on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @04:19AM (#35354148)
The Amish are also very wise to separate peacefully/voluntarily from others based on values... decreasing conflict/trouble/tensions.