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Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 14, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Consider: by raising your kids Amish you are vastly decreasing their risk of depression, suicide, drug use, and violence.

This is like the advice to not own guns because you'd be decreasing the odds of encountering gun violence. The effect of following such advice is vastly decreased if you're already the kind of person who would follow such advice.

Besides, I can also reduce all risks my children would face to 0 by not having them. This is an exaggeration, but in my (admittedly very distanced) view Amish exist more so than live. Even the context they're mostly discussed in betrays that - that their largest/only advantage is their demographics, not their lifestyle but its robustness. I'm reminded of the "roaches will survive a nuclear war" factoid - sure, but that doesn't endear me to be a roach. They may have their simple joys but they're way too simple for me.

If you mean, “the kind of person who follows advice regarding raising children well will already reduce all problems in their children such that their QoL indicators are as optimal as the most optimal community in America”, that is so unevidenced as to constitute magical thinking. It’s not as if children of the upper class stave off all depression, drug use, etc in their children. Or parents who read parenting guides. I know children of upper class who have had such problems. Jeeze, my (randomly assorted) first roommate in college was a literal heroin addict yet from a 0.01% income household. And if we are comparing top 5% normal households to top 50% Amish, that’s also a bit silly because even though there is less Amish stratification there is still going to be differences in QoL according to income.

Amish exist more than they live

If this were so we would we see more suicides, at the very least depression, and we would see a high amount of leavers during mandatory Rumspringa. They haven’t exactly built a Berlin Wall around Berlin, Ohio.

Amish exist more than they live

If this were so we would we see more suicides

Without commentary on the Amish specifically, this isn't true. Animals don't really kill themselves much. Lacking introspection is a good start for not killing yourself.

Certainly the quality of living well would protect against the desire to cease living. This is historically considered one of the benefits of introspective philosophy, and IIRC there’s even a study showing that reading philosophy leads to a happier old age. If your introspection leads to a desire to stop living, that means you are neither living well nor introspecting well.

As for whether the Amish lack introspection, I’m pretty sure they have a practice of introspecting their sins.