
Ask HN: Are there any monastery-like environments for tech? - muzani
I&#x27;ve been looking at religious monastery design lately. They are designed to be completely free from distractions - no possessions, no members of the opposite sex, food and physical security taken care of. All you have to do is meditate and concentrate on religion and existence, without distraction.<p>It occurs to me that this total immersion is also perfect for training the mind in intellectual pursuits, whether it&#x27;s academia or engineering. It&#x27;s the kind of environment that Bill Gates started in. Something where you don&#x27;t have to worry about food, shelter, or promotions.<p>What would be the closest thing to a tech monastery in the real world?
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HarryHirsch
The Oberwolfach Lunatic Asylum fits the requirements:
[https://www.mfo.de/](https://www.mfo.de/)

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ateesdalejr
Well... That's very nice of you.

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chuck4932
This doesn't sound like a very good way to gain a deeper understand of
technology. I'm not sure if you can really compare religion and spirituality
with technology.

Most other developers and hackers I know, myself included, have some of their
best ideas and insights when they are NOT focusing on technology or the
problem at hand. Also, anecdotally, the majority of these people are not the
stereotypical hollywood portrayed geeks who care about nothing other than
hacking technology. They are usually well adjusted people with lives that go
far beyond their work because most successful developers understand that to be
good at your job also requires you to have a healthy and non-obsessive
relationship with your work.

So unless you have Aspergers or something like that then this is likely to be
a pretty unhealthy way to live your life. Humans require social interaction,
time to unwind, physical exercise etc.

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mbrock
A lot of monasteries have way more social interaction, unwinding time, and
exercise than most IT workplaces offer.

The month I spent in a temple was definitely like that!

I mean, where else do you have tea every evening together with dozens of
diverse people?

I went jogging every other days and did weight training and yoga the other
days. Every day involved hours of mostly light physical work (cooking,
cleaning, some crafts, sometimes construction, etc). And the relaxation I had
there was deep and rejuvenating.

The difference between monastic or temple architecture and routine, and that
of offices, is really interesting... If I ever create my own office, it will
be more like a temple!

(Without the religious hierarchies and faith affirmations, probably...)

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chuck4932
That sounds pretty awesome actually. Apart from the exercise/socialising what
was the main activity you did in the monastery? I'm assuming its something
religious/faith based?

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mbrock
Whether it's religious or faith based is a kind of tricky question because
it's a "Zen Buddhist" place (in rural Sweden, as it happens).

To make a long story short I'd say yeah, basically you spend the time eating,
working, praying, and sleeping, except that the "praying" doesn't have a
content except for something like "realizing that awareness is already
inherently clear and ready", or just abiding in awake alertness without
"complaining", or something like that.

There's also chanting which is more explicitly religious, but I interpret this
whole religious business as being basically just memetic strategies that use
this aesthetically coherent gestalt to reinforce some hard-to-describe point.

Image google for "zazen" and that's basically what's going on for hours every
day, during meditation retreats _many_ hours every day (with breaks every 30
minutes or so so your knees don't implode).

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ekr
You can build that environment for yourself. Buy a small cabin in the woods.
There are many who have done this. Check out Joey Hess' blog:
[http://joeyh.name/blog/](http://joeyh.name/blog/).

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meric
I don’t know, an Ivory Tower?

More seriously a lot of hackers choose to go to a country like Thailand where
it’s cheap to live and eat and do a stint of tech there.

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muzani
I live in Malaysia. A lot of these places have become co-working spaces -
loud, crowded, located right in the middle of a traffic jam area. Many are not
free from distraction either. A lot of people in these places are paying to
network, so you get accosted by networking types while running a train of
thought.

Something like a university library would probably be ideal. Environment is
just nice for focusing, no harrasment, good coffee, and walking/public
transportation access.

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brailsafe
Second this. I've been doing this for the last few months and it's a great
place to focus.

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itamarst
The whole point of technology is solving real-world problems. You can't
separate technology from the world.

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muzani
Something like Bell Labs did a lot of great work in the past while separated
from the world. A lot of research institutions do too.

