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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   2570 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 9, 2025

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Yeah - you obviously aren't going to maintain Western Civilisation with Old Order Amish. Whether or not you can maintain it with car-driving Mennonites is an open question, but the odds don't look good. David Friedmann's account of Amish "law" in Legal Systems Very Different from our Own was that Amish minimise trust-requiring interactions with other Amish under a different Ordnung, let alone the English. If the same is true of Mennonites more broadly, then they aren't going to be building a 5nm fab any time soon.

If the same is true of Mennonites more broadly

I don't think it is -- I've contracted with them before in ways that required mutual trust, and I'm pretty sure that the carpenter ones don't require cash up front before they build you a house or whatever.

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