Aureateflux comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 26, chapter 97 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: palladias 15 August 2013 02:18AM

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Comment author: bramflakes 17 August 2013 12:12:22PM 3 points [-]

On the other hand trade is generally seen as good and there are huge and obvious benefits to trade between Muggles and wizards.

The mutual benefits of trade are non-obvious to humans, and many cultures have seen merchants as low-status because of a naive notion that they don't contribute anything.

Comment author: Aureateflux 17 August 2013 01:30:18PM 0 points [-]

I think even simpler than this is the fact that the wizards don't have anything of worth to trade to the Muggles, since non-magical people have a hard time even seeing magical artifacts, much less using them.

Muggles have plenty of things that would be useful to Wizards, but the reverse isn't true.

Comment author: DanArmak 17 August 2013 02:08:14PM 12 points [-]

Wizards have plenty to trade to Muggles - by providing services, not products.

  • Magical cures to deadly diseases and accidents. A replicable cure can't be traded, but wizards can individually cure powerful and wealthy people. (Harry speculates that wizards would probably cure cancer in members of the Muggle government.)
  • Military and covert operations, assassinations, coups, revolutions, etc. Apparate in, kill the enemy government and generals, win the war. Toppling any regime in the world that hasn't purchased magical protection of its own would give you a lot of money. In fact, every wizarding community should be able to demand arbitrary amounts of protection money from its local Muggles.
  • Theft and spying (industrial and government).
  • Subversion and interrogation of enemy leaders (by Legilimency, Veritaserum, Imperius.)
  • Creation of single-action devices via Transmutation (like some of the things Harry tried in his experiments). Muggles can then study, analyze, experiment on, or copy the Transmuted devices while they last.
  • Transportation. Launch satellites by Apparating into orbit! Rescue trapped people!
  • A wizard could easily play a Muggle Superman - flying, being invincible, combatting crime...
Comment author: MugaSofer 21 August 2013 05:11:54PM -1 points [-]

Great list. Upvoted.

Creation of single-action devices via Transmutation (like some of the things Harry tried in his experiments). Muggles can then study, analyze, experiment on, or copy the Transmuted devices while they last.

I think that actually failed ...

Comment author: DanArmak 21 August 2013 09:01:19PM 2 points [-]

Well, it's not clear why it failed exactly. It might have been because it never existed before, but it seems more likely to me that it was because Harry didn't know what it was exactly. He didn't try to transmute "this molecular structure I have in my mind", he tried to transmute "a substance I know nothing about except that it cures Alzheimer's". That was probably not specific enough for the spell. (Otherwise, why not transmute a black-box device with a big red "kill Voldemort where-ever he is" button, or a mysterious "bring a dead body back to life" device?)

In any case there are things who physical properties we know, and which exist or have existed, but would be very valuable to create in laboratories. Like creating a string of DNA to order, which can then replicate itself into ordinary non-transmuted matter - very valuable in 1993!

Comment author: Aureateflux 21 August 2013 05:30:51PM *  1 point [-]

Yeah, Harry discovered that you can't transmute something that hasn't already been created through more conventional means.

Comment author: gwern 17 August 2013 02:56:31PM 8 points [-]

Nothing of worth? The canon explanation for the Wizarding world's masquerade, from just a few chapters into the series, is that wizards would be in such demand by muggles that it would be too irritating and waste too much time.

Comment author: bramflakes 17 August 2013 01:59:08PM *  3 points [-]

Magical goods maybe, magical services certainly not. There are many things that magic could do to add value to non-magical objects, which then do not require any further magic to sustain (see Harry and Hermione's discussion about helping to manufacture nanotechnology and/or Alzheimer's cures).

Comment author: Aureateflux 17 August 2013 11:53:11PM 3 points [-]

That's true. Everyone's talking so much about stealing gold and magical artifacts that I didn't think of magical services.

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