Alternate History more groups like the Amish

DocBen

Banned
The Amish are a group who live isolated from the society. They have preserved their traditional culture and way of life. They are self sufficient, and live according to the ways of their ancestors. A pocket of independent traditional society in the modern western society.

I want to have more groups like the Amish in my timeline. Basically these groups would be independent, live in rural areas, have their own isolated communities, make their living primarily by agriculture, hunting, fishing, gathering, and making handicrafts, and having a pre-industrial, traditional, patriarchal structure. In general they have a low dependence on modern technology.

I want to come up with more groups who live like the Amish. It would be especially interesting to come up with similar self reliant groups, which do not exist in this timeline, or they are not so self reliant in this timeline.

What other groups like the Amish can there be? My ideas:
  • American preppers
  • Native Americans
  • Mormons
  • Quakers
  • Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese peasants
  • Ainu
  • Tibetans
  • Eskimos
  • Russian Old Believers
  • Russian Pagans
  • Mongolians
  • Afghanistan/Pakistan tribes
 
Gabingston

Gabingston

Orthodox Jews, maybe? I could see Jews from rural parts of Eastern Europe creating their own farming settlements in the New World.
 

Canuck Wingnut

The various Anabaptist-derived religions that aren't Amish, such as the Mennonites, Hutterites and River Brethren, frequently also have some communities (certainly not all communities professing such faiths) which adopt restrictions on the use of technology.

I don't know if either of these are what you're looking for, but plenty of monasteries restrict their members use of technology, though they obviously don't create self-sustaining communities given their restrictions on sexual activity; and the hippies were very active in creating back-to-nature communes which OTL weren't particularly successful but might have created self-sustaining communities in a different TL.

In Male Rising, a TL on this site, Jonathan Edelstein created an interesting Islamic theology referred to as the Shelterers who reject modern technology- of course, that's a fictional example.
 

Canuck Wingnut

A random thought: what about sinister government-sponsored back-to-the-land movements? I've just been reading up on the Ohu, which in practice used very little modern technology and which were in theory an effort by the New Zealand government to help Maori get back to their traditional roots by living out their traditional culture- the fact that it conveniently moved those who agreed to go to cheap, out of the way land and the low-tech premise meant that it cost very little were never official benefits to the plan... Of course, whether they would have remained low tech once they had assembled enough resources to feasibly afford luxuries like phone lines isn't something we'll ever know, since very few of them survived the next change in government, much less to the next generation.
 

PecuTheGreat

Menonites and other weird protestants like African Orthodox, Quakers and Presbyterians have converts in Africa. Why not have it that with the boost in American evangelization in Africa, there also is a huge Menonite one.
 

Bureaucromancer

Canuck Wingnut said:
The various Anabaptist-derived religions that aren't Amish, such as the Mennonites, Hutterites and River Brethren, frequently also have some communities (certainly not all communities professing such faiths) which adopt restrictions on the use of technology.
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If you aren’t familiar with these groups I’d definitely encourage you to work on that for this line of thought. The Amish are a long way from the only one that’s significant.

The old order Mennonite’s really are very important around my part of Ontario, even if they don’t have the, shall we say, continent spanning cultural awareness of the Amish.
 
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Kellan Sullivan

Canuck Wingnut said:
A random thought: what about sinister government-sponsored back-to-the-land movements? I've just been reading up on the Ohu, which in practice used very little modern technology and which were in theory an effort by the New Zealand government to help Maori get back to their traditional roots by living out their traditional culture- the fact that it conveniently moved those who agreed to go to cheap, out of the way land and the low-tech premise meant that it cost very little were never official benefits to the plan... Of course, whether they would have remained low tech once they had assembled enough resources to feasibly afford luxuries like phone lines isn't something we'll ever know, since very few of them survived the next change in government, much less to the next generation.
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that sounds similar to the "homeland"/Bantustan idea in apartheid South Africa
 

GuildedAgeNostalgia

Have African American Christian leaders under a segregationist society give up on the idea of equality with whites and focus on furthering isolation/segregation as a form of protection and focusing on a strong community that works together to bring themselves out of poverty?
 

GTStinger

How about a Japanese movement that decides “Nothing newer that 1868” after that country ends its isolationist policy?
 

Byzantion

Maybe Roma/ Sinti groups with traditional and folk religious customs establish their own communities in US ?

Otherwise maybe have Yazidis flee the Ottoman Empire and immigrate in larger numbers to the US. Have Yazidis communities being established.
 
Gabingston

Gabingston

An Thuong said:
From personal experience, the Haredim hate comparison with the Amish.
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Well, the comparison seems pretty warranted to me. They're both hardcore religious sects that forego modern luxuries to live a traditional way of life, and honestly, I've got to respect that. If there was a nuclear war that killed all of us tech-dependent city folk, I'd expect the Amish and Haredim to pull through.
 

Walle Ras

An Thuong said:
From personal experience, the Haredim hate comparison with the Amish.
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Depends on the comparison. "Don't you guys ban technology like the amish." Annoyed
"You guys dress like the amish" No we don't annoyed
"You guys have beards like the amish" Yes, beards are the best.
 

pompejus

Walle Ras said:
Depends on the comparison. "Don't you guys ban technology like the amish." Annoyed
"You guys dress like the amish" No we don't annoyed
"You guys have beards like the amish" Yes, beards are the best.
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To be fair. People are generaly rather ignorant about the Amish too. I suspect that most knowledge about the Amish comes from the movie "witness" and is extrapolated from there into ridiculous extremes.
 
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Walle Ras

Gabingston said:
Well, the comparison seems pretty warranted to me. They're both hardcore religious sects that forego modern luxuries to live a traditional way of life, and honestly, I've got to respect that. If there was a nuclear war that killed all of us tech-dependent city folk, I'd expect the Amish and Haredim to pull through.
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If that was true I wouldn't be here typing this message to you.

Okay its partially true. But we don't forgo modern luxaries. We have cars, AC, etc. (Chossidish women including my wife don't drive but thats because of modesty. I don't understand it but its her desire to keep this stringency.) Some heredim are very tech dependent. It really depends. And then it depends on where they are. Lakewood vs Monsey. And if you get into some NYC Jewery... But you are partially right. I tend upwards in techness in that I own a TV period. Ad I have a strict filter on my PC, no browser on my smart phone, Satmar for example only uses flip phones, and will preach against social media and its dangers. (Seriously its a drug and wasting your time) We sadly don't have the old lifestyle except for a few of us. Like every people group it really varies among us.

And I'm taling about american heredim where I'm on the fringes of tech. In Israel having no internet in your house is common and phones are far more kosher.
 

Walle Ras

pompejus said:
To be fair. Peiople are generaly rather ignorant about the Amish too. I suspect that most knowledge about the Amish comes from the movie "witness" and is extrapolated from there into ridiculous extremes.
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My knowledge comes from the ones I buy vegetables from lol. Nice people. Their vegetables are sooo much better.

But I agree. And for us heredim its not helped by those anti semetic shows unorthodox, or my orthodox life. They are so full of lies its easier to just tell the truth. I ffeel bad for the heredi kid in my orthodox life. (I didn't watch but my wife did.) He doesn't wat a girlfriend at 13 ad his mom is all upset. Is that what the seculars are up to? When I was 13 I was worried about minecraft, school, and hanging out with freinds. (But then again I went to an all boys school) Theres a series about us on youtube that is far better. I forget the ame of it and youtube is blocked except on my TV so I can't look it up lol.
 

pompejus

Walle Ras said:
My knowledge comes from the ones I buy vegetables from lol. Nice people. Their vegetables are sooo much better.

But I agree. And for us heredim its not helped by those anti semetic shows unorthodox, or my orthodox life. They are so full of lies its easier to just tell the truth. I ffeel bad for the heredi kid in my orthodox life. (I didn't watch but my wife did.) He doesn't wat a girlfriend at 13 ad his mom is all upset. Is that what the seculars are up to? When I was 13 I was worried about minecraft, school, and hanging out with freinds. (But then again I went to an all boys school) Theres a series about us on youtube that is far better. I forget the ame of it and youtube is blocked except on my TV so I can't look it up lol.
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If you want to see a ridiculous show about the Amish, just watch Amish Mafia. And yes, it was as stupid as it sounds. It pretended to be a documentary/reality show about the Amish, but was so ridiculous it was completely unbelievable.
 
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