Comment by ChiMan
9 hours ago
The monks likely have the time to think about implementation, and feeling like they’re part of an institution that transcends them and that they value for its own sake, they likely have an incentive to invest effort into maintaining and improving it.
Both of these are unlike, say, corporate environments, where the core work uses up almost all available time and where most people are looking mostly to extract something from the organization.
> The monks likely have the time to think about implementation
The core activities is praying and working, ora et labora:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ora_et_labora
The praying is done at fixed times:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liturgy_of_the_Hours
With work and other activities (meals) planned around them. Nuns have a similar framework:
* https://www.franciscansisterstor.org/about/daily-schedule
I'm sure you could find "time to think" in there, but the schedule is pretty packed.
Your comment (and some others) have me imagining an alternate reality where the vatican runs the equivalent of github and all major FOSS infrastructure is maintained by religious orders. (There's probably a controversy where the catholic and islamic GPL equivalent licenses are incompatible for inane reasons.)
You joke, but, leaving religion out of it, it's plausible that if the want long lived infrastructure that's maintained with integrity, it may be that tithing of some description is part of the solution. Currently the closest we have is patron, but most of those are still part of hustle culture rather than the supporters feeling a long term obligation.
I know that there’s a pretty overwhelming antithesis about religion, hereabouts (there’s a lot of valid reasons, but, in my experience, it tends to originate from personal animus), but some things that you get from organized religion, are a sense of community, a very long view, and fairly strict rules about personal integrity and behavior.
There’s a lot less of the cutthroat competition, than you’ll see in industry and academia, and many folks plant trees that they will never use for shade.
Personally, I’m not religious, but have many close friends that are, and I see this mindset in action.
I also worked for an old-fashioned Japanese company, which had many of the same features.
Even though many people see these as conservative (or weak) traits, they actually work well, for development of new things.
Big things take time, and teams.
Time is supplied by people taking the long view, and making long-term plans, and teams benefit from people not stabbing each other in the back, sublimating personal goals, in favor of those of the collective, and trusting each other, and their management.
2 replies →
The long term obligation for them is created by the very thing you wanted to leave out.
That also sound a lot like the Amish. Take the time to think about implementation, advantages, disadvantages and the societal impact of a technology, before committing to it.
They have a reputation as medieval peasants, but they are not afraid of technology. They are just extremely picky. They build furniture in factories and sell them on a website. If you want durable, it is well worth the extra price.
https://www.amishfurniturefactory.com/
It's not everyone, but thoughtful managers do think beyond themselves.
They know they will outlast some of their reports, so they're incentivized to build memory and maintainability at the levels below them.
And good managers get promoted, i.e. leave the team but stay in the company, so there's a reputational incentive to leave things in a good place for whoever comes after you. (Though this is only true at good orgs -- at bad orgs, the next person will get fully blamed for a bad handoff).
The best leaders have values that transcend their bank account, and understand their legacy depends on being able to transition effectively.
Your career and relationships transcend any single gig, and there is a dignity that people recognize in departing well, and even in making the best of a bad job. Campground rule, leave things better than you found them.