Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="JohnSnow" data-source="post: 2919744" data-attributes="member: 32164">Well...true. But if you're going to tell me that you don't believe that, when it comes to most people, "power corrupts," I've got a bridge in California to sell you.Obviously, everyone believes that some people can be trusted. But usually, all it takes to bring that trust crashing down is a little kernel of doubt. You're telling me you could accept a society where people are told "these people can read your thoughts, control your actions, and generally do anything they want - but they won't (most of the time) so you can trust them."You can talk about themes all you want. But the simple fact is that trust is not something that's easy under the best of circumstances. The question isn't whether magic-users could ever be tolerated once they were in power, it's whether people would ever let them become powerful in the first place. Think about it. You don't know ANYTHING about these people. Someday, one of them could make you do ANYTHING. And, there's nothing you'd be able to do about it - then. Of course, if you handle it NOW, he's got no more power over you than anyone else.Who is trusting enough to let that go? And even if people ARE because their religion tells them to be, or something, then all it takes is one renegade wizard to destroy all that trust. Once one of them goes bad, distrusting them all is not an enormous leap.I'm not saying it's completely impossible. But I think the stable lifespan of a society based on the routine use of a power not everyone can control could be measured with an egg-timer.Like I said, if ANYONE can use magic, then it's different. That, of course, is where the technology argument falls apart completely. An individual may not understand how technology works, but it works the same for everyone. Magic may, or may not be, the same.But if it is the same, it's just technology dressed up in funny clothes because there's nothing "magical" about it.Possibly because I take a dim view of human nature. Of course, if I had a better one, I'd favor monarchies over democracies because they're more efficient. The stablest societies seem to be those that assume the worst of human nature - NOT the best.But you're of course entitled to disagree.</blockquote>

Verification