I for one, can't really make anything out of this article. Is it a joke or just a poor attempt at comparing monasticism with corporate life? Or is it both?
It's both! This is the style of all the pieces in Economist's year-end 1843 magazine: thought-provoking, but entertaining and not meant to taken terribly seriously.
It's not poor. It seems a lot of people on HN are dismissing the advice in the story because they have mistaken ideas about what monastic life is like and, for some reason God only knows, conclude that the author doesn't know what she's talking about.
As someone who actually lived as a monastic for a time, I can tell you that a. monastic life is not like what HN wags think it is and b. the article is insightful
