Not Batteries, Not Monks Glossary
The middle path for AI sovereignty: do not become a harvested resource inside hyperscaler systems, but do not retreat into anti-technological purity either.
Not Batteries, Not Monks is the Dictionary’s middle path for AI sovereignty.
Nobody wants to become a battery: a resource harvested by a system whose purposes are not one’s own. But unplugging entirely is not the answer either. The goal is not to flee into a cave and congratulate oneself on purity while the world’s intelligence systems are built elsewhere.
The goal is disciplined participation: use powerful tools, build local capacity, keep memory and workflows as sovereign as possible, and refuse both passive dependence and performative abstention.
This is why the Buddha Stack is a stack rather than a monastery.