Amish and OSB

Surprised to see what looks very much like OSB lining the Amish house on the program on BBC2 right now.

Always get the impression that anything less than two centuries old (in technology terms) is too modern. But that is very likely based on much ignorance.

Reply to
polygonum
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Not to mention the Fridge, the 'phone (in an outhouse!) and the solar panels.

Reply to
Davey

I wasn't really watching - but I did later notice several things like that. I can't get my head round why walking to a phone makes it OK...

Reply to
polygonum

The Amish philosophy is not to adopt a technology just for the sake of adopting a technology. If it is a useful tool to accomplish the work they chose to do, and not a frivoulous toy, then they will use it.

A telephone is a useful emergency communication device, which is more-or-less exactly how my great-grandmother considered it.

JGH

Reply to
jgh

I didn't see the show - but I've had dinner in an Amish home. The fridge and the lights were gas-powered, rather than electric.

Reply to
S Viemeister

At least they don't need GPS - the horse always knows the way home.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

I miss my gas powered Kitchen fridge. Only expect such things in motorhomes nowadays.

Except maybe for this £1,437.60 thing...

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"Gr-Granville! F-fetch yer cloth!"

Reply to
Adrian C

The one I like is the eruv.

I once heard of an eruv where the wired off area was very small....but that was considered the 'outside'....

Reply to
Bob Eager

Not in mine. Gas fridges are a nightmare. The best fridges for mobile use are the 24V DC ones meant for yachts.

Bill

Reply to
Bill Wright

You just don't understand the finer points of religious reasoning. An eruv is a boundary wall taken to its most minimal extreme. You start off by asking what a wall is, and move on to asking whether it's still a wall if it's not in good condition. Everybody would agree it is. Then, what if it has holes in? Sure, that's okay. So, what if the holes are really big holes? That's okay, too. So, you end up with an eruv, which is a wall with a simply huge hole in it.

It's all perfectly logical, but if you think of it as a boundary marker you may be happier. It's no different, really, from the boundary line between neighbouring counties, but even that tenuous line acts as a barrier to policemen.

Reply to
GB

It sounds like one of those invisible dog fences.

Reply to
Davey

Yes, but the bit where a very small enclosed spec is taken to be the 'outside' and the rest of the world the 'inside' was what took the biscuit! A bit like the guy and his hut in HHGttG...

Reply to
Bob Eager

Can't be as crazy as the strain of Jewish religion that forbids ALL work on the sabbath.

I watched a programme many years ago about the extraordinary lengths some would go to comply with this. Even down to a special light switch which was designed to comply with this.Some wont even take the bones out of fish or filter water on the sabbath

Beats me

Reply to
fred

Actually, I don't think that could work as an eruv, so I am not sure where you got that from?

A bit like the guy and his hut in HHGttG...

Reply to
GB

and much closer to home - on the Island of Scalpay - there is a sign stating that the children's playground is closed on Sunday. Can't have anyone - even children - enjoying themselves on the Sabbath.

Reply to
charles

I've just had a flashback to trying to get a gas-powered fridge lit in a caravan. Kneeling on the floor with your head in the fridge while repeatedly pressing a piezo-electric button and trying to see a tiny blue flame through a little perspex window while muttering in basic Anglo-Saxon. Thank the lord for electrical hook-ups.

-- Halmyre

Reply to
Halmyre

I've stayed in a household like that over the sabbath. Once you get the hang of what's going on, it's actually very relaxing.

I suspect that it's less crazy than everyone else in the country rushing off to the shopping centre on Saturday to spend money they haven't got and can't afford on things they don't need. :-)

I kind of envied the Amish their certainty about things. No ontological problems for them!

Reply to
GB

There are a number of sub-sects of Amish. The ones you see on TV are always the more moderate ones, since the "hard line" Amish, who eschew most modern technology, will not allow themselves to be filmed. Indeed, some of the "Amish" I have seen on TV are not, strictly speaking, Amish at all, but families who have been "shunned" for using modern technology, but still keep elements of the Amish lifestyle.

(My parents live in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, aka "Amish Country", although the community in Ohio is larger.)

Reply to
Huge

It was tried in North London a while ago. I think it got slapped down..!

Reply to
Bob Eager

I vaguely remember them putting up an eruv surrounding Golders Green.

Ah, yes...

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there and still observed.

Reply to
John Williamson

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