Techno-Amish community

How popular would a sort of techno-Amish community be? Not as extreme as the Amish, but basically sticking to tech made before 2010. That would avoid a lot of the bloat, surveillance, AI bullshit, etc. I'd imagine a lot of the digital detox and privacy crowd would be interested in the idea, so how come no one's doing it?

Lay out the groundwork for your idea more because I'm curious. How would people make money to survive? What are some potential places this community could be located? What are you doing in your own life to live this way? How would you bring in new members?

>>95547 >Lay out the groundwork for your idea more because I'm curious. Bear in mind, I'm just speaking hypothetically here. This is just an idea I had the other day that I've been mulling over. My idea is basically that the way big tech is starting to transform the way people think and act and such, people will eventually want to leave that completely. We're already seeing that manifest with people deciding to do things the old fashioned way on purpose but still living within the system, and with more people being interested in living in rural areas. If there was an intentional community that explicitly didn't allow a lot of the stuff that allows for that sort of stuff, it would basically be a refuge for people that get sick of things when they begin to get especially bad. The problem with off-grid communities is that they're a little too luddite for most people's tastes, so they wouldn't be a suitable refuge for a lot of people if things did get that bad. Rolling things back to the early 2010s or the late 2000s would be a perfectly reasonable compromise though unless your livelihood relies heavily on social media and such, but then you're helping legitimize a system that you don't like, so wouldn't it be smart to change your career a bit? >How would people make money to survive? Like people living in any other city would, trading goods and services with each other. >What are some potential places this community could be located? Generally anywhere in the US would be pretty good since America has laws that easily allow for the creation of intentional communities, but in the US specifically? Probably somewhere in New England since those states have the most open laws for that and they've been historically home to a lot of communities of that sort. >What are you doing in your own life to live this way? Generally, I don't try to, because I'm just thinking hypothetically here, but I do try to do things the old fashioned way where I can. I'm just asking why I've not seen anything like this being discussed anywhere, even in the more tech-skeptical places on the internet when there's clearly a desire (or at least could be a desire) for something like that. >How would you bring in new members? That I haven't thought about much, but I can think of two options off the top of my head: advertising, which is ironic, I know, but taking out ads in magazines, on TV, etc would definitely attract the right people I think. Even social media could be a good way to advertise initially since tech-skepticism has in part been made more popular by the algorithms that tech-skeptics hate. Once the community is established, detox tourism. People often rent out cabins in the woods and such to disconnect, but what if they could visit a proper town and enjoy it, but without being mentally bombarded 24/7 by companies and their BS?

>>95543 >basically sticking to tech made before 2010 I think that mindset is a bit too simplistic for a project like this. Amish don't just go "everything after 1800s is bloat" and cut the cord there either. It's more about being conscious about certain shared values and carefully selecting technology and practices in a way that reinforces them rather than compromise them. If you do want to try living what I'd consider Techno-Amish though, get satellite internet (or set limits that are similar) Once you're cut back to 50-75Gb a month at 20Mb/s, the rest just goes from there by necessity.

>>95543 >>95547 A village where... >>95581 ...where dumping "digital poop" is a sin, because it chips a pieces of one's soul / one's "phreno" (mind) at a time

The problem is that lots of the 2000s tech will simply not work anymore in todays environment. Old computers can't run modern browsers which are required to access most of the web. Old mobile phones rely on communication standards that are being phased out everywhere. Getting replacement parts for older tech is often hard if not impossible. That is why the Amish don't say they avoid tech developed after some specifc year, but instead they select technologies they can use without giving up their independence from the rest of society. This can only work if you don't want any modern semiconductor technology or modern pharmaceuricals or similar things that need a global industrial network to produce. What I am instead curious about is if there are groups like the Amish, but without the religion and language barrier that make it hard to enter for outsiders. Just a secular commune of modern day people living an old time, independent way of life.

>>95543 a better idea is to just avoid tech that has any sort of wireless/networking capabilities. Using windows 11 is fine, just never connect it to the internet, and ideally dont have any wifi/bluetooth card in your pc to begin with. Anything that requires an internet connection to function should always be avoided, media limited to cds/dvds/local files.

>>95612 You can transfer files to this PC using USB. To make sure that there is no virus that collects data and waits for USB to be inserted into PC with internet, make sure to use intermediate Live CD distro like Tails to format the USB reliably before inserting into wired PC.

I think it's a lovely idea. I dread using technology with each passing day and I wouldn't touch my phone at all if I didn't have to. If I could be a part of community that I didn't have to keep in contact in some way through my phone I would be gladly a part of it. Have you ever read the privacy policy they make you agree on your phone? A couple of months ago I got curious and decided to read it. They say that they will listen to your conversations, sell your data (crucially, they don't distinguish between completely offline data such as conversations that you have with other people in person, local data on your phone that you naturally expect to be local to your phone and not in cloud, and online data that you upload to web services) to data brokers, financial institutions, social media companies and government agencies, buy information about you from third parties, and that they merge all of this information into a singular profile on you. This is not a conspiracy. It's written in plain language in your phone's privacy policy. On the other hand, it's already possible to mostly skip over that nonsense. Using Linux on your computer and GrapheneOS on your phone stops OS level surveillance and creepy AI features. Forego social media too, and you are 90% there already. Ideally, you shouldn't need your phone at all but that's a tall order.

>>95626 >They say that they will listen to your conversations Which vendor is that? Never heard of that actually being in the privacy policy before. But I agree, using a stock OS on a smartphone is stupid and careless.

>>95543 What I'd like instead of limiting tech to pre 2010 is more of a focus on simple hackable tech. So visible wires around the village, tech that is simple enough for people to learn how it works. Tech that is built and maintained by the people in the village. Kids growing up there would be able to visually see how everything works and interconnects from source code, to hardware to the wires linking it all. Obviously you'd probably have to order the PCBs and chips from a fab but maybe oneday you wouldnt.

The whole point of the Amish folks is that working hard is considered Godly, and every sort of technological device, beit phones for contacting your neighbors with ease or vacuums for cleaning the house faster is a sin. They don't care about "AI bullshit", they probably don't even know what it means, nor bloat in the context that you're using it in. >That would avoid a lot of the bloat, surveillance, AI bullshit, etc You can do that with about any sane PC >I'd imagine a lot of the digital detox I've always found the digital detox folks pretty weird with finding all these niche and geeky ways to get rid of brainless consumerism while the only thing you need is willpower. Truth is that no matter how many "restrictions" you have in place you can always bypass them, that's where resilience comes in. >privacy crowd Privacy really isn't that hard to obtain as long as you RTFM and trade a bit of convenience, the people arguing over IME, thunderbolt, DMA and whatnot are just obsessive.

That would be more like Mennonites but even that is pretty off since your goal is completely different more focused on lifestylism and privacy concerns. Restricting to a specific time period is pretty arbitrary too since some modern tech can be as much privacy focused and some older tech can still have issues with tracking.

>>95543 I like the idea and would love to live in a rural area but I personally don't know how to organize people like that. I think its a lot easier to share info with people on the internet and then get them to transmit it to their family and friends, I mean its useful stuff. >https://www.opensourceecology.org/ But when it comes to the community I think managing to live off the land and exploit natural resources while not entering the system's economy would be very beneficial. Yknow, independent but not necessarily dogmatic apart from a philosophy of technology, a manifesto basically. If at the end of the day everyone is well fed then its a success.

>>95543 You have to remember that the Amish and the Menonites don’t reject technology for any reason, but because they have a theological reason for doing so. You need to have a better reason than “sticking to pre 2010 tech.” I could see something like, FOSS only or something but even that justification falls short.

>>96229 FOSS only also makes no sense, yes. Many older software and hardware even if it phones home it's home is gone or they cut it off from being listened in on due to being so old and depreciated they just don't think the telemetry is useful to them. FOSS also is a double edge where both good actors and bad actors can access the code so it is a constant race between them. Closed source you have this too but at least the race us slowed down and so long as it is security and privacy audited there isn't really a true issue except for people who want to pretend they looked at every line of code. There is just too much extremes out there and there is a lot of nuance when it comes to the topic of technology in terms of security, privacy and personal ethics.