From: Eirikur Hallgrimsson (eh@mad.scientist.com)
Date: Sat Jun 17 2000 - 22:57:17 MDT
The Amish have been a theme running through a bunch of recent
messages. I'm moved to mention a few of the visions that thinking
about the future of the Amish gives me.
1) The Amish slowy evaporate ala the Shakers because they lose
critical mass. Doesn't seem to be happening at the moment, which is
pretty cool. I know the Shakers (no sex) are a bad example on the
continuity side.
2) The Amish disappear because their way of life becomes economically
unsustainable. Any number of reasons present themselves, such as:
o No market for their products
o No remaining sources for the tech that they need
o Can't expand to support population growth because the rest of the
galaxy has been converted to computronium.....
3) The Amish are uploaded into an emulated farming environment, maybe
their own planet. I think that this would be against their
teachings and the uploaded Amish might suffer the critical mass
problem because the meme system had been broken. Still, it's a great
idea for something like one of John Varley's disneylands in a domed
lunar crater. Heck, that would be real farming, maybe some young
Amish would go for it!
4) The Amish are uploaded without their knowledge.
If I ever write a post-singularity novel, my evil bad-guy is going
to have an emulated planet of kidnap-uploaded Amish, the way that
Blofeld had his cats or someone else might keep a fishtank in the
waiting room. One of my rare evil notions.
Eirikur
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