Jed_Harris comments on If You Demand Magic, Magic Won't Help - Less Wrong

59 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 22 March 2008 06:10PM

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Comment author: Jed_Harris 22 March 2008 08:32:50PM 13 points [-]

There are a number of fantasy stories where the protagonist is very good at something, largely because they work hard at it, and then they enter a magical world and discover that their skills and work have a lot more impact. Often they have to work hard after they get there to apply their skills. Often the protagonist is a computer hacker and their skills, which in our world only work inside of computers, in a magical context can alter physical / consensual reality. (Examples: Broken Crescent, Web Mage. There are many others. Arguably this pattern goes back at least to The Incomplete Enchanter though success came way too easily for Harold Shea.)

So I think the appeal of this type of fantasy is partly that big effects in our world usually require big causes -- capital investment, megatons of steel, etc. -- even after you know the right "magic spell". In these fantasy worlds -- and in some cases in computer networks -- big, widely distributed effects can be produced just by uttering the magic spell in the right place, or by building a local, inexpensive magical workshop using the right blueprint -- e.g. YouTube.

Comment author: aperrien 05 February 2013 11:38:59PM 1 point [-]

I think 3d printing and Kickstarter are beginning to make this concept match more to our reality.

Comment author: ikrase 20 March 2013 03:55:58PM 4 points [-]

That's probably accurate. See also Girl Genius, where people cursed with the gift of mad science are able to build entirely technological stuff really, really quickly w/ minimum tools. Our heroine does things like design and build an intelligent self-replicating robot over a period of a few days and builds several incredibly powerful man-portable energy weapons in a few hours each.