“The Electric Monk was a labor-saving device, like a dishwasher.”

Simplified Meaning:

Imagine a machine created to do a specific job so you don’t have to do it yourself. Just like how a dishwasher cleans your dirty dishes, there’s a fictional gadget called the Electric Monk that's designed to believe things for you. Think about how washing dishes can take up your time, but a dishwasher makes it easier by doing all the scrubbing. Similarly, believing in ideas or handling complex thoughts can sometimes be exhausting, so the Electric Monk takes that mental load off by believing whatever it’s told. For instance, if you're too busy or tired to think deeply about a complex topic like whether ghosts are real, you'd use the Electric Monk to believe in ghosts for you. This device saves you the trouble of wrestling with that belief yourself. In daily life, this could be like hiring an accountant to deal with complicated taxes. Just as that accountant simplifies your financial worries, the Electric Monk simplifies your mental burdens by 'believing' in things so you don't have to. It’s a humorous idea that highlights our desire to sometimes offload even our thinking tasks to make life easier.