site banner
PaperclipPerfector  19d ago (text post)   2264 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 14, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

How does a social progressive respond to the Amish Question, namely that the Amish have a better quality of life according to nearly all objective indicators? (Including but not limited to: lower suicide risk, greater longevity, lower female depression risk, greater sense of purpose, greater community, lower cancer and diabetes risk, negligible drug and alcohol use, lower carbon footprint, and lower income inequality)

While I am not a progressive, I kind of suppose that they'd start with the same answer I would - neither of us wants to be Amish, so it doesn't really matter if some Amish outcomes are quite good. At most, one could learn a couple lessons, but if you're not actually willing to replicate the lifestyle those are going to be limited.

My other answer is going to hinge on this:

Start with lifestyle. Amish communities are agrarian, with no modern farm equipment, meaning all the work has to be done by hand. In 2004, the American College of Sports Medicine fitted Amish volunteers with pedometers to determine how much physical activity they performed. The results were dramatic. Amish men took 18,425 steps a day and women 14,196 steps, compared with non-Amish people who are encouraged by doctors to shoot for at least 10,000 steps–and typically fail. Including other forms of manual labor–lifting, chopping, sowing, planting–the Amish are six times as active as a random sample of people from 12 countries.

I would recommend that everyone do the same. When it comes to health outcomes, I would want to start with just moving around more before I gave much consideration to wearing old-timey clothes, growing a beard, and scrapping electric. I would expect marriage and community to be incredibly helpful as well, but from an individual perspective, my suggestion would be to just go ahead and start moving around more and see where you wind up. If you pick a decent movement-based hobby, you're apt to discover some community and improve your marriageability along the way anyhow.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats