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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
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)
I think I am a social progressive by virtue of being a libertarian? In that I know X,Y,Z is good for the individual and society and yada yada, but the state shouldn't stop you from doing !X,!Y,!Z either. Or do I actually have to believe X,Y,Z is bad and actively oppose them?
Anyways, because I am not average. Whats good for the 100 IQ bugman isn't good for me. I can handle more freedoms. You can make cheating on your partner the most socially acceptable thing in the world, and I still wouldn't do it. You can hand out heroin like candy at the grocery store, I won' t take it.
I greatly enjoy large cities with cuisines from all over the world, with things to do, and places to be. I enjoy my career in Machine Learning and not buggy making or quilting or marmalade making. You get the point.
Why do you expect people to hold policy positions they themselves as individuals don't want?
I know this doesn't answer your question, but there is no "minimize all types of errors and maximize all the metrics" ideology out there. You actually have to pick and choose your metrics, and choose the distributions. Its all aesthetics anyways.
I wonder what % happiness increase is due to eating ethnic food. I can’t imagine it ever being a prescription for depression (“patient is to the one plate of Chinese, two plates Indian, and one Cambodian weekly”). If ethnic food and the big city were instrumental to happiness we should see young urban white collar people in cities happier. My intuition is they are not, at least not in such a way that is expected given their social status. There’s probably a study on that but I’m too lazy to look right now.
Does the patient want to swallow the bitter medicine because he enjoys the taste or because he knows the results are superior? So it would be for the Amish. Consider: by raising your kids Amish you are vastly decreasing their risk of depression, suicide, drug use, and violence.
No, I'm not. My life expectancy, suicide likelihood, and propensity for violence are all far, far below both the general population and the Amish. I'm also much richer and simply prefer my lifestyle to either the general population or the Amish. Shifting from being an addled junkie or criminal lowlife to being Amish would be an improvement on these metrics, moving from my own life to Amish would not be.
This is the same kind of silly stuff that makes people say that owning a firearm makes you more likely to commit suicide. No, I actually know myself, and I simply won't kill myself. I understand the objections to this and they are simply wrong in my individual case.
More options
Context Copy link
No I am not! That's my whole point. What works on aggregate populations doesn't necessarily mean it works for the non average.
My kids are not going to be average. They will most likely inherit my +2sd IQ and >90th percentile trait openness and <20th percentile trait neuroticism. Subjecting them to the Amish life would be abuse.
I can also vastly decrease all the problems you discuss by not giving them a smartphone till they are pre-teens, making them play sports and feeding them good food, etc, etc.
If you don't understand the notion that you can't craft individual prescriptions from group aggregates, I don't really know what to tell you. You are also maximizing the likelihood without the conditional priors.
Also if those things are the only things you want to optimize for, then sure go Amish and argue for it. But I think having Internet, supply chains, cars, airplanes, and technology is also something to optimize for.
I will go as far as to say, optimizing for all things considered, cities are probably the best place to live. Especially if you are high performing and highly agentic. You can have all the things the Amish have and a thousand more things. The high performance and highly agentic part is load bearing though. Not all people fit into that category, but I am not them, and don't care for them.
I’m not sure if you can craft any advice for outlier cases, but as someone so preternaturally predestined for success as yourself, you would have to compare to the most successful Amish lifestyle. This would include:
Overseeing a huge tourism industry, one of rhe largest Amish businesses, or even directing the Amish to a new industry
Acting as an elder to your clan, advising their political and social concerns with loving patriarchal tenderness
The formation of a dynasty, which you oversee like a medieval King, sending your Sons to various parts of America to operate and enhance your family name
It is not without its own glories and rewards.
I don't think I am that successful yet but I do think I can't thrive to the extent I can in a city in an Amish community. Do note that doing many of the things you suggested, they wouldn't remain Amish for long.
The Amish can greatly increase their yields using modern farming equipment...
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
This is like the advice to not own guns because you'd be decreasing the odds of encountering gun violence. The effect of following such advice is vastly decreased if you're already the kind of person who would follow such advice.
Besides, I can also reduce all risks my children would face to 0 by not having them. This is an exaggeration, but in my (admittedly very distanced) view Amish exist more so than live. Even the context they're mostly discussed in betrays that - that their largest/only advantage is their demographics, not their lifestyle but its robustness. I'm reminded of the "roaches will survive a nuclear war" factoid - sure, but that doesn't endear me to be a roach. They may have their simple joys but they're way too simple for me.
If you mean, “the kind of person who follows advice regarding raising children well will already reduce all problems in their children such that their QoL indicators are as optimal as the most optimal community in America”, that is so unevidenced as to constitute magical thinking. It’s not as if children of the upper class stave off all depression, drug use, etc in their children. Or parents who read parenting guides. I know children of upper class who have had such problems. Jeeze, my (randomly assorted) first roommate in college was a literal heroin addict yet from a 0.01% income household. And if we are comparing top 5% normal households to top 50% Amish, that’s also a bit silly because even though there is less Amish stratification there is still going to be differences in QoL according to income.
If this were so we would we see more suicides, at the very least depression, and we would see a high amount of leavers during mandatory Rumspringa. They haven’t exactly built a Berlin Wall around Berlin, Ohio.
Without commentary on the Amish specifically, this isn't true. Animals don't really kill themselves much. Lacking introspection is a good start for not killing yourself.
Certainly the quality of living well would protect against the desire to cease living. This is historically considered one of the benefits of introspective philosophy, and IIRC there’s even a study showing that reading philosophy leads to a happier old age. If your introspection leads to a desire to stop living, that means you are neither living well nor introspecting well.
As for whether the Amish lack introspection, I’m pretty sure they have a practice of introspecting their sins.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link