The Amish Are Actually Living in the Future
We're Just 10-20 Years Behind Them...
The Amish are actually living in the future.
Oh what? You mean that simple civilization that has refused to use electricity, the internet, focuses on family and community, builds houses, and makes babies all day? Those people?
…yes… those people.
The Proof Is in the Numbers
Before I explain why, let me show you what 300 years of “rejecting modernity” actually looks like.
Superior Health
The Amish have certain health advantages that make the rest of us look pathetic. Studies have found lower rates of cardiovascular disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes compared to the general American population.
A notable study of the Old Order Amish in Lancaster County found obesity rates around 4% compared to roughly 35% nationally.
Their lifestyle involves substantial daily physical activity—farming, manual labor, walking instead of driving—which translates to far more movement than the average sedentary office worker or city dweller.
One study using pedometers found Amish men averaging 18,000+ steps daily and women around 14,000, compared to the often-cited 5,000-step American average.
Superior Bonds
Amish divorce is essentially nonexistent—rates are estimated at less than 1%, with many communities reporting zero divorces across generations.
How are we fairing? The most recent numbers are around 40-43% (down from the often-cited 50%), but that’s due to what?
No one in this day and age is even wanting to get married anymore. That’s how bad it’s gotten.
Our numbers on paper are “recovering,” but the reality is marriage rates have fallen drastically because of how fucked up our current dating and sexual marketplace is. Our western civilization is fading away in real time...
“But… but… but… MISOGYNY?”
Sure, low divorce rates don’t necessarily equal happy marriages. Some Amish marriages undoubtedly involve people staying in unhappy or even abusive situations because leaving isn’t a realistic option. The metric captures stability, not satisfaction.
But how are we any more satisfied with our current marriages in modern society?
I’m sure that outdated 50% number is just the ones that pulled the trigger and decided enough was enough—it was not worth it anymore dealing with the nagging or the infidelity. Even the “Cheaper to Keep Her” adage for many men is often not enough to keep the marriage going.
How many of the current 50% of successful marriages are actually satisfied?
Why This Matters Now
Now, here’s where I’m going to indulge in some mental gymnastics with you.
If we follow the natural progression of where we are going with all of this AI doom porn flooding our algorithms these days, as well as the declining birth rate in our western societies, the doomers are predicting AI will be the end of the world.
We will own nothing, be given our UBI (Universal Basic Income), be forced to eat ze’ bugs, and we will be happy… assuming we don’t repeat the same horrific societal collapse of the “Rodent Garden of Eden“ experiment done by John B. Calhoun back in the late 60’s.
The Universe 25 Experiment: In 1968, researcher John B. Calhoun created a mouse utopia at the National Institute of Mental Health—unlimited food, water, and space. No predators. No disease. Paradise. The population peaked at 2,200 mice, then collapsed into violence, withdrawal, and eventually extinction. Calhoun called it a “behavioral sink”—when purpose disappears, so does the will to survive.
The only natural path to escaping this mediocrity? Basically living off the land, hiding and running away from our own timeline’s version of the TESLA SKYNET BOTS… looking to hunt us down and put us back in our rodent cages.
A Mental Exercise
Now, that is an extreme scenario. But I’m playfully choosing to indulge in this idea as a simple mental exercise to see what the worst-case scenario would be, how it would affect me, and how I would adapt my life to this highly unlikely, yet totally possible outcome.
The reality is, it may never actually get to this point.
The most probable version of reality is that we just have a smaller population size that uses AI as a tool to further our advancement in science, art, culture, and civilization.
But even if the doom scenario never happens—what are you doing with your life now?
Is there any real meaning to any of it?
Are you working a safe salary job, barely scraping by in hopes of one day being able to have enough money to buy a house before inflation completely prices you out of your local market? But for argument’s sake, let’s say you manage to do it and hopefully use that “investment” as your safety net and retirement plan.
You are spending 8-10 hours a day (plus commute) working at a job that you don’t entirely hate but you know deep down is a complete waste of time. But… it pays the bills just enough to not completely hate yourself, so you tolerate it…
How is that any better or any worse than a more simple life?
Spending more time outdoors. Working with your hands. Being surrounded by family. Building a REAL community, not some SKOOL online community bullshit. Getting to enjoy the fruits of your labor with your loved ones…
I don’t know…you tell me? is that so bad?
Why the Amish Rejected Modernity
The Amish way of life stems from deeply held theological convictions and a rejection of modernity for their own survival.
They knew if they allowed modernity to enter their tribe, they would lose their community faster than the church could hunt them down and kill them all.
The Amish understood that they needed to prioritize:
Keeping families together
Working side by side
Maintaining bonds that urban industrial life tends to fragment
This is clearly obvious in our current urban, technologically advanced state that pushes isolation, nihilism, and tribalism.
The Amish have been steady at it since the 16th century. So technically, we are just taking a little while to catch up to them… but we eventually will.
The Worst-Case Scenario? Still Not That Bad.
So let’s say the doom scenario happens. What then?
Instead of us fearing persecution from the church for not wanting to baptize our babies, we are instead going to be running from Terminator Tesla Robots infused with ChatGPT Mark 33, hunting us down for disobeying our tyrannical overlords—for not wanting to put hormone blockers into our children and refusing to have them eat the Bill Gates lab-grown meat, bugs, and gruel that the WEF wants us to eat.
The Amish are already there. They’ve been preparing for this shit storm for over 300 years.
And honestly? I don’t think that version of reality is so bad.
Why?
Well let’s see… Chopping wood. Making babies. Reading old books. Eating REAL FOOD. Living surrounded with more animals than humans. Getting to be in nature all day.
Honestly sounds like a beautiful life to me…
“But What If They Find Us and Take Away Our Land?”
Oh… well… I guess I should do a better job next time hiding more effectively.
We’ll just move somewhere else and start building from scratch again. Good thing I have 15 children and a community of like-minded individuals around me to help out with the workload.
I have PURPOSE and a will to be FREE instead of waiting for the government to give me my rations of bug slob and my weekly allowanced CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies) to pay for my subscriptions to watch mindless entertainment all day since there is nothing better to do with my life.
Where the Amish Got It Wrong
Now, I’m not saying the Amish have everything figured out.
300 years of marrying within the same gene pool has created some real health problems—genetic disorders that wouldn’t exist if they’d been more open to outsiders. Ellis-van Creveld syndrome, maple syrup urine disease, various metabolic disorders. Their entire population descends from a small group of 18th-century immigrants, and they’ve been marrying within that same pool ever since.
But here’s the tension: the same insularity that causes their genetic issues is also what preserved their way of life. Open the gates too wide, and you risk losing everything that made the community work in the first place.
It’s a trade-off they’ve chosen to accept.
How We Fix This in Our Hypothetical New Tribe
We can solve this limited gene pool problem in our hypothetical new community by allowing outsiders in who simply share and adopt our beliefs for wanting to live a better, more free & meaningful life outside of the rodent cages.
The Amish required shared faith through bloodline.
We require shared faith through principles.
Shared beliefs and principles will keep our community together. Any outsider who begins to infiltrate with their modernity woke-think that caused the collapse of the previous civilization? Excommunicated. Pushed out of our new garden of Eden.
I’m well aware that this can only go on for so long before mob-rule throws out our strong leader who was able to create this fragile and short lived utopia in the first place…
And so… as Polybius would say… “the cycle of civilization repeats itself again.”
“Monarchy first changes into its vicious allied form, tyranny; and next, the abolishment of both gives birth to aristocracy. Aristocracy by its very nature degenerates into oligarchy; and when the commons inflamed by anger take vengeance on this government for its unjust rule, democracy comes into being; and in due course the licence and lawlessness of this form of government produces mob-rule to complete the cycle.” — Polybius, The Histories, Book VI
The Bottom Line
There will never be a true lasting utopia anyway.
It’s in our human nature to be discontent and find some way to gloriously fuck shit up for everyone else…
So why worry?
The only thing we should focus on is figuring out where we are on the timeline and finding a way to capitalize on that—making the best move on the chessboard that the current situation presents us.
Either way, I think there is no need to be a DOOMER and stress over something that hasn’t happened yet and may never will.
If you preserve your agency and look for opportunities in every scenario, you can still live a decent life… and maybe even a far more fulfilling one that isn’t living in the rat race, living to work and pay rent.
Or what it seems like where we are headed—all of us living in this perfect “utopia” of never having to work again, where everything will be given to us.
Well… I think we know where that road leads.
The Amish figured out how to opt out 300 years ago.
Maybe it’s time we caught up.
brb…looking for wilderness and survivalist courses ASAP.
References
Amish Health & Physical Activity:
Bassett, D.R. et al. (2004). “Physical activity in an Old Order Amish community.” Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. PubMed
Klemm, A. (2018). “Why Amish People Stay So Healthy As They Get Older.” TIME Magazine. Article
U.S. Marriage & Divorce Statistics:
U.S. Census Bureau (2024). “U.S. Divorce Rates Down, Marriage Rates Stagnant From 2012-2022.” Census.gov
Modern Family Law (2025). “Top 10 Divorce Statistics You Need to Know.” Article
Universe 25 / Behavioral Sink Experiment:
Calhoun, J.B. (1973). “Death Squared: The Explosive Growth and Demise of a Mouse Population.” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine.
Wikipedia. “Behavioral sink.” Article
The Scientist (2024). “Universe 25 Experiment.” Article
Atlas Obscura. “The Doomed Mouse Utopia That Inspired the ‘Rats of NIMH’.” Article
Polybius & Anacyclosis: