I downvoted you because you're putting Monads on a pedestal and misrepresenting their purpose. When you mean IO (or perhaps ST and State) please don't say "Mona

I downvoted you because you're putting Monads on a pedestal and misrepresenting their purpose. When you mean IO (or perhaps ST and State) please don't say "Monads". Remember that [] is an instance of Monad too, and it has nothing at all to do with dealing with the messy world. A monad is just a typeclass with two operators that behave according to certain identity and associativity laws, and a _lot_ of types fulfil them.