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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jeremy Ackerman-Yost" data-source="post: 408831" data-attributes="member: 4720">There is a certain logic to your position.  Point conceded.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />But that brings up another thought.  What would the impact of magic be on the globalization of culture?I'm pretty sure arcane magic would ultimately increase globalization.  People start building portals and it becomes possible to live in a backwater town in Italy and work in Manhattan.  Or live in Podunk, Arkansas and work in Paris.  (Man, and here I thought it wasn't possible for me to feel bad for Parisians).Nationalism probably wouldn't last too long under those conditions, at least not among the magic-rich countries.  One of the nice things about having magical research in universities, though, is that it would spread more rapidly to other countries.  My department alone would want portals to several places in Europe, Madagascar, Brazil, Japan, India, a few places on the African continent, and Sydney, Australia.  Just for research and collaboration purposes.  When you start factoring in the ones we would make for personal use and the ones from other departments...Heck, a large university could put several airlines out of business.  That ought to bring an end to deregulation.Divine magic, as Chrisling pointed out, would be a thornier problem.  Religious tolerance would go right out the window no matter what.  The only situation that could possibly avoid a new Holy War is if every religion got divine magic from an identifiably identical source, and if anyone who tried to prompt a holy war would get their power yanked.  Even then, you have to deal with the people who have been waiting all their lives to be proved right about God and the Afterlife, who are suddenly proven irrevocably wrong.  Despair among the clergy would be commonplace.This probably wouldn't effect daily life much where I am, but then I live in a college town in the Northeastern U.S.  Religion has about as much place in people's daily lives here as a speed bump.  Every once in a while, you run into it, but if you even notice it, it's not like it alters the course of your day.  I imagine in other places this would be more noticeable.</blockquote>

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