Computers are magic.
Computers are like magic. Seriously! A witch or wizard slaves away for days, even weeks or months, writing arcane symbols in a specific sequence to create a servitor to do a specific task or set of related tasks, including using a servitor to make the process of writing and printing easier, or servitors specifically designed to make other servitors and/or make the process of creating servitors easier. Then these servitors and their cargo wander through invisible lines of force laid out like artificial ley lines around the world, which harness tamed lightning, so you can give a servitor a command in Mexico to do a task in Australia, or even out in the void of space. You can speak with and see people on the other side of the planet or converse with people in orbit around the planet in real time, even see through the eyes of a metal golem exploring a distant planet that would take you months, even years to get to in person.
There are entire kingdoms/realms existing solely in that aether, with walls of fire and other security magic, and the physical world is so dependent on these magical kingdoms that a sufficiently bad problem in one of these invisible kingdoms can collapse the entire global economy. Your entire identity can be stolen, putting your life in chaos. You can be legally declared dead at the whim of a malicious witch or wizard. You can be shamed or applauded by millions of people you’ve never met in five minutes or less.
Then, the larger Realm of the Internet is full of dangerous imps and monsters (viruses, worms, malware, ransomware, spyware, etc.) that can turn your own servitors against you, or destroy them outright, even making the magical box you use to interact with them completely useless.
And none of this would be possible without centuries of men and women hard at work in search of arcane knowledge, digging into the secrets of the universe and wielding them in new and cool ways. We are already a magic-using society. If you were to use an iPad or other tablet in the dark ages or middle ages, you would be burned as a witch. People lost in time from those eras finding themselves here in our era would be convinced we’d all sold our souls to Satan for these magical powers. How awesome is that? I think that’s pretty awesome.
What’s more, all of this is so commonplace to us that we frequently summon servitors solely to watch funny videos of cats, look up some silly little detail we’ve forgotten, or argue with total strangers over completely silly things. And that, more than anything else, is just mind-blowingly awesome.
This was cross-posted from http://fayanora.dreamwidth.org/1305760.html
You can comment either here or there.
There are entire kingdoms/realms existing solely in that aether, with walls of fire and other security magic, and the physical world is so dependent on these magical kingdoms that a sufficiently bad problem in one of these invisible kingdoms can collapse the entire global economy. Your entire identity can be stolen, putting your life in chaos. You can be legally declared dead at the whim of a malicious witch or wizard. You can be shamed or applauded by millions of people you’ve never met in five minutes or less.
Then, the larger Realm of the Internet is full of dangerous imps and monsters (viruses, worms, malware, ransomware, spyware, etc.) that can turn your own servitors against you, or destroy them outright, even making the magical box you use to interact with them completely useless.
And none of this would be possible without centuries of men and women hard at work in search of arcane knowledge, digging into the secrets of the universe and wielding them in new and cool ways. We are already a magic-using society. If you were to use an iPad or other tablet in the dark ages or middle ages, you would be burned as a witch. People lost in time from those eras finding themselves here in our era would be convinced we’d all sold our souls to Satan for these magical powers. How awesome is that? I think that’s pretty awesome.
What’s more, all of this is so commonplace to us that we frequently summon servitors solely to watch funny videos of cats, look up some silly little detail we’ve forgotten, or argue with total strangers over completely silly things. And that, more than anything else, is just mind-blowingly awesome.
This was cross-posted from http://fayanora.dreamwidth.org/1305760.html
You can comment either here or there.