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> offers online ordering on a modern, well-designed website.

Excuse my ignorance, but doesn't this violate the ban on modern technology?




No problem, this is a common misconception with the Amish. The Amish are not categorically anti-technology. They didn't randomly put a stake in the ground and say "no new tech after 1743!" or whatever.

Instead, they evaluate every single piece of technology before deciding to use it, to see if it will disrupt their culture and way of life. For instance, many Amish communities decided the utility of telephones was a good thing when they were first invented. Then they found that they encouraged gossip and other things they saw as culturally negative. So many Amish communities instituted a communal phone booth in the center of the village -- if you need the utility of a phone call, you have it, but without the personal temptation that comes with a personal phone.

Also there are many variants of the Amish, especially if you include the broader Anabaptist and Mennonite communities, each with their own rules.

For instance did you know some Amish communities allowed personal automobile ownership? They are not around any more because personal automobiles made it very easy for them to disburse and their communities died.

You could say that the Amish culture that survives to this day in a recognizably Amish form has been shaped by natural selection of a sort -- a test of whether the techs they choose perpetuate their community, or lead to assimilation.

(I don't have the specific citations for all this on me at the moment, but it's from what I've read in many articles and books about the Amish I've read over the years)


> disburse

disperse



...and there's my citations :) Thanks!


Possibly they subcontract it out to non Amish?




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