yeah Amish Technology. It's the future of our economically paralyzed society.

The Amish actually have a fairly complex stance on technology - most Amish, except the really really conservative groups, use things like solar power and gasoline engines. There are families who have refrigerators that run on kerosene and things like that. The prohibition on technology is less about making life more complicated as it is about keeping the corrupting influence of the outside world at bay - a refrigerator or a weed-eater isn't a problem like a telephone or a radio or a car is, because those things bring the outside world to your home or they make it easier for you to leave home and go to the outside world.

Yeah I was wondering about that. This is like kosher smoked ham or something.

I thought the prohibition had to do with covetousness and status symbols, but I guess the "outside influences" makes sense too.

Yeah, it's a bit of all of the above, really. People's religious beliefs are amazingly complex things. Who knew?!

Swing and a miss. Many ads put in local newspapers by the Amish say to let the phone ring a long time, as the phones aren't right on the property.

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Um, no, because you CAN call them?

They were on Rumspringa. They're allowed to do that until they decide to settle down and join the community or join the outside world.