Would a world that relies heavily on magic have become stagnant to a degree?

[Judderman]

Although they still had Q who was effectively an extremely powerful magician.

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

Some of the tech on Star Trek is almost like a level of magic. Why use your energy on magic when you can go and grab whatever you want, or teleport.

Or the other way around, if you could conjure the food you needed and teleport magically why develop a replicator and flying brooms and a train to hogwarts?

 

[paranoid marvin]

It's a bit like asking why paint a picture when you can take a photograph. Why write a story when you can get an AI to do it for you. Sometimes it's about the doing and not the getting.

 

[Swank]

It's a bit like asking why paint a picture when you can take a photograph. Why write a story when you can get an AI to do it for you. Sometimes it's about the doing and not the getting.

I don't think that concept applies to drudgery.

 

[paranoid marvin]

I don't think that concept applies to drudgery.

That's what I meant. We live in a world where ee can 'magic' a microwave meal into dinner, 'magic' a picture of something by clicking a button, 'magic' a story by inputting some variables into an AI programme rather than putting the effott in to create it ourselves.

We live in a world where most things can be done easily. I can take a train to the top of Snowdon for example rather than hiking. But just because the option is there, it doesn't mean we always take it.

So I suggest that in a world where 'real' magic could make evrrything easy and dull, it wouldn't. Just as the invention of the printing press allowed anyone to write and publish books, the invention of the computer allowed anyone to create inventive games and the invention of the internet empowered some people to take it in altogether unexpected directions, magic would allow for people to be inventive snd creative in its application

 

[Swank]

That's what I meant. We live in a world where ee can 'magic' a microwave meal into dinner, 'magic' a picture of something by clicking a button, 'magic' a story by inputting some variables into an AI programme rather than putting the effott in to create it ourselves.

We live in a world where most things can be done easily. I can take a train to the top of Snowdon for example rather than hiking. But just because the option is there, it doesn't mean we always take it.

So I suggest that in a world where 'real' magic could make evrrything easy and dull, it wouldn't. Just as the invention of the printing press allowed anyone to write and publish books, the invention of the computer allowed anyone to create inventive games and the invention of the internet empowered some people to take it in altogether unexpected directions, magic would allow for people to be inventive snd creative in its application

Most historians seem to credit survival and market pressures as the mother of invention, rather than simply having spare time. But the reality is likely somewhere inbetween.

 

[Judderman]

Getting in to the weeds a bit but it would also depend on if magic, and the source, is a renewable energy. Or if a lot of use of it would lead to it become rarer or more dangerous. I think some stories do refer to something like a magic age.