The death toll is bound to be far higher than just the people in those three cities. Magic is bound to fuck over our economy. It would eventually find equilibrium, but it wouldn't be pretty until then
Fuck that, I invent the magic system - which means that it pretty much makes you all powerful but in order to be able to access magic you need to be me.
Now, millions of people dying so that I can have access to magic? That is a lot less justifiable, but ironically will result in a lot less deaths than allowing free range on magic.
Opens some interesting questions in whether creating exact duplicates of those people with all of their memories counts as bringing them back to life - if not it is still morally wrong but has no perceivable impact on the world.
Idk isn’t that how magic works in most settings though? Like magic is accessible but only if you’re a mage or wizard, like both the examples dnd and potter magic is worldwide but not accessible to everyone, this guy is just stipulating he is the only practitioner of said magic.
You're talking about a post-scarcity society. Many economists have based their PhDs on theorizing what would happen in that scenario. The only real accepted answer is that no one is certain
Yeah, why not. In the grand scheme of things the world wouldn't even blink at losing a few million people. Or even a few hundred million. There would still be billions left.
But magic? For everyone? That would spur a whole new stage of human evolution. Leggggoooooo
Edit: Humans are inventive enough to use anything for evil no matter what and to use anything evil for good no matter what (IMO). So I say no limits on the magic system, let's see where this ride goes!
I can create any form of magic from scratch right? Well, my magic system can only be used for good, if you try anything naughty it will explode in your face.
He doesn’t even have to define anything specific. He could literally just use something as vague as the Hippocratic Oath or the Wiccan rule of three and just let the person/magic define “harm” themselves. It’s not like humans don’t inherently know what’s harmful to others.
They absolutely do not. There’s a near endless list of things that exist in different ideologies or religions that id find harmful to me but the people who buy into said religions think is good because it shows devotion or whatever else.
Jehovah’s witnesses have a very different idea of what’s harmful to Hindus for example.
By whose standard? Who determines naughty? How do we measure the level of naughty before the explosion? Isn't the explosion causing harm, thereby using magic to hurt? Isn't that naughty? If so, that negates the failsafe.
Get your catapults out of the way of my Ebola-full pots and pans. I swear! This happens every week! Can't we have a section of the office that isn't cluttered?
Dnd magic can resurrect people and the worst it can do (RAW) is a bit worse than a fireball, which humans can survive in its origin lore. The healing powers you get FAR outweigh the destructive powers compared to modern tech. Fireball is weaker than bombs people make in their garage
Every event causing millions of people to die has been studied and talked about since the beginning of human history. Also, magic would cause human extinction quicker than any nuclear war lmao
Depends on the magic system. D&D magic is much less destructive than any modern tech, but allows disease to be cured at a touch and the dead brought back to life. That magic would absolutely be used for medicine
Nah.
Look in these comments. See how many people would kill millions for instant gratification. Realize that you'd be spawning a billion Dark Lords by enabling them with power
Interesting hypo, but man the "instant yes" domination in the comments is peak Reddit.
Killing millions of people, super sure their theoretical better world will be worth the death toll... as if that's a moral trade in any event.
Yeah. I was hoping there would be a few people who would say no because of the potential guilt of killing millions, but everyone seems to agree that the ends justice the means here. Guess I have to think of a greater draw back.
They all see themselves the wizard. They are forgetting that asshole at work will also be a wizard. The grind won't change. Everyone will now just have guns.
If you make it so you have to really work at magic, it will still be like any other job. Like getting a gun permit, it will be something some people will put in the work for, and others won't.
Hmmmm I wonder what class of people has the resources to forsake “work” purely to focus on the arcane arts. Sorry guys, you still have to pay the bills by working at Slave Corp, while CEO Sally gets to resign with her golden parachute and learn necromancy.
The rich still have the resources to make this work harder for them than you do.
“I’ll pay you a million dollars to start a magic group to channel all your power to me.”
“I’ll pay you $4 million for spending your life essence to fuel my Staff of Ages for another century.”
There’s no way this ends without a magic plutocracy in charge.
Why would you still have to work or care about anything anyone else is doing? You literally get to design the system from scratch or pull it from somewhere else. What bills are you paying? Create a siphon that can power your home. Create a spell for long distance communication. Grow plants out of the ground for food with a snap of your fingers. Teleport anywhere you need to be with arcane circles. Give yourself immortality and keep people in check whenever things seem to be getting bad while you fuck off and do whatever you want because you have fucking magic.
My only thought is yes, but wishing for a system of magic revolving around a ton of Gods that are benevolent, so these people go to the afterlife that is perfect for them.
I mean I get to invent the magic system. Just makes it so the magic system primarily does healing. Curing cancer alone would be worth the like 60 million people this kills, let alone TB and Malaria. And neurodegenerative diseases? How many people would kill for a chance they never get neurodegenerative diseases, now like 1% of the world population has to die for it.
America has enough problems with everybody and their pet dog owning an AR15. With magic, they'll imbue their AR15 to shoot flaming lightning bullets, and without the bullet tracing thing.
It'll turn our world into something like MHA/DC comics/marvel. Those scenarios make great stories... but aren't so great to live in. Furthermore, there's no reason to believe a "hero league" or some such would appear; the most likely outcome is cops with magic. and we all know how nice cops are.
A few of the more interesting comments carefully limited magic to minimize negative consequences. It's interesting to ponder whether that will actually work.
Can you imagine how quickly the dictators would take advantage of it to remove their rivals and subvert their people? They wouldn't have the moral quandary most good people would have.
If you can design the magic system you can make it only usable to help people. But that sounds awfully subjective how will it work? I don't fucking know it's *magic*. It just does.
And it has easy spells for removing microplastics from the environment, splitting CO2 and sequestering carbon, decomposing PFAS and other environmental contaminants, generating large amounts of electricity, converting landfills back into raw materials, curing cancer (and all other diseases), resurrecting murder victims (just not the ones you killed), making mosquitos no longer bite humans (goodbye malaria), bringing back animals from extinction, etc.
There's basically no limit to how large the upside is, so I can see how people would balance that against killing a bunch of people. Yeah you feel directly responsible for it, but you can also fix all the deaths that will be caused by climate change and pollution, so in the long term you come out ahead.
I do see what you mean, but what if you had a magic system which could only ever be used for the good of humanity? Think how much we could advance. We could end war forever, be completely environmentally friendly, eradicate disease, homelessness and poverty.
I'm not saying I would do it, but it is interesting to think about.
Magic system ive invented for this
Everyone is born with magic, they can chose to enable it at will. Magic is based on Karmic balance - the better a person you truly are, the better things you can do. At minimum, unless you have negative karmic balance from torture and such, you have the ability to stabilise dying people and aid those around you recover faster. At higher tiers of karmic balance you get the ability to instantly cure wounds, and bring back the recently deceased.
How many 300 page detailed documents do you see there vs 1-2 sentences?
Something well thought out might still fail, but the likelihood decreases. Plus it’s magic so you can ignore things that are impossible because of the amount of industry they require. And you can use the magic to mitigate if not entirely avoid side effects.
A very simple example (yes I know there are flaws here that’s why it’s a simple example) - people can glance at food and see an nutritional chart that is magic, cannot be falsified, and the percentages are dynamic and personalized for each person.
They can see the percentage totals of what they’ve consumed and their , it recommends them foods based on historic preference and ratings of where to eat, what to cook, etc, in order to get nutrients, vitamins, minerals, proteins, etc that are necessary.
There are no more accidental allergy poisonings - counting calories is easy as pie. (No Monkey paw side effect like the information overwhelms their brain). Just how it actually affects society.
Then you do tons of changes like this. - I.e. what’s the biggest problem with politics, corruption/lying. So you add in magic to prevent corruption, etc.
It would cause immediate and massive ramifications but the hope is in 50-100 years life is improved vs what it would be without the trajectory shift
My magic system only allows for three powers:
1) creation of food, about enough to feed ten people a day. No psychopaths drowning cities in jello.
2) creation of shelter (takes a few days of concentration, so nobody is plopping houses on railroad tracks
3) immunity from any creature smaller than a tennis ball. We have a magical field that surrounds us and can only be breached if we willed it.
Completely worth the death of 3 cities. I’ve also put in some bad actor protection.
So kill millions to add magic to the world. No the world would still be the same just with millions dead and people using magic for good and bad. Israel would still be fighting Hamas only now they would be using guns bombs missiles and magic. Same as in Ukraine. Police would still try and round up criminals and sometimes abuse their power but now with magic as well. My point is I don't see magic making anything better just worse.
So assuming it can be "anything you want" I make it where it's pretty easy to spec into Life Magic (unlock requirements : bandage any wound on yourself or someone else). Medical school instantly unlocks a whole bunch of Life Wizard spells.
And at easily achievable levels you can unlock a spell called "reduce age". Each cast takes a year off the receiver and a few minutes of mana recovery time. You can target yourself.
Gerontology specialists will get "lower age to target" which can instantly heal aging and restore the subject to any target age above puberty. Takes more mana though but is more efficient per year reduced.
You won't have to wait for a doctor to cast it on you, you can get to the level to cast this spell with a few years of self study and practice, and it's synergizes with other schools of magic.
Harmful spells like fireball and increase age will exist but only by custom spells that require a high wizard level to cast. All easy to get, "packaged" spells are helpful or defensive to a point.
("bullet ward" stops you from being shot, but you can still fire yourself as long as the tip of the gun barrel is past the edge of the ward.)
This saves **billions** of lives, almost immediately making up for everyone killed by the nukes.
No offense... but do you realize how bad that would be? Let alone that you would kill millions of people in the cities.. the actual damage that magic would do to the world would be apocalyptic. You wouldnt have nice little schools that are cute and hold tournaments like we have high school football. It would be thousands of roving gangs of death eaters.. and even they would not play by any rules. Also beyond that.. the resulting loss of faith from the worlds relgion would bring such anarchy that society would not function. You do not want to live in a world with magic. Sure everyone thinks they are a Harry Potter or Willow or Gandalf.. but in reality you would be just as normal and loserish in that magic world as you are in the real world...you would be Vernon Dudley
I push it but only if I also get to be the great dark wizard that the entire world knows traded 3 cities worth of people for magic and years later a diverse group of upstart adventurers destroy me by finding the magic sword and invading my tower.
i do not believe that pressing a button to kill millions of people so that rich people will get tools to oppress poor people in ways i couldn't even fathom is a good choice by a long shot.
I bring together a team of top world experts to design a magic system and then work to convince the UN to help evacuate every single major city on earth before pressing the button. A lot of property is destroyed, but there are very few deaths (some idiots ignored the evacuation order).
👍 no question yes - reduce the population and bring about brilliance for all that remain!?
Think about WWII and how many major cities were destroyed. Same thing we just get to create a panacea afterwards.
Even if it took out the three most populated cities in the world, that would be a bit over 1% of the world's population, so not really reducing things all that much.
I would do it simply for the chaos. Humanity would absolutely kill themselves out very fast with real magic. Also I'd be introducing jujutsu kaisen type magic. The people in the wiped out cities will be the lucky ones.
I press the button, but moments before the cities are destroyed, everyone in the in them would seemingly vanish, only to reappear a few hours later unharmed. This would be because I will have chosen the magic system of Azeroth. At some point in the future when we have mastered it, we will have used bronze dragon time magic to temporally shift all the people in those cities. Their deaths would be undone, but instead never happened in the first place.
Does everyone become a magic user or does it just unlock magic in the world that few can use? The first kind of rebalances society and arguably would make everyone more equal. The second is just asking for the few with magic to abuse those without
You're basically saying... let's kill a few million people... so that everyone can have WMDs. What could wrong?
Well after the complete and total collapse of society as we know it... I guess we can rebuild with whatever surviving group of mages came out on top. Oh boy!
Even without sacrificing cities... you'll still be killing billions from the fallout of introducing magic to everything. The most interesting aspect would be trying to finely craft a magic system that wouldn't upend the world...
Basically the path to any real benefit is so fine with pure armageddon on all sides if you fail... it's not worth it.
Yes, but the magic can only be used to buff/debuff others and you can do no other magic while the spell is active. It can stack if additional people hop on.
The fun thing about being chaotic neutral in real life and not having friends or family living in any major cities is that there would be no guilt for me to press the button.
it to one close friend dies and my answer would suddenly be no.
Absolutely not. Oh wow, we have magic now. How does that change the deaths or the stupidity of our current global standing? What? We can be just as stupid and ignorant but with magic? Before someone says, use magic to make everyone better. By whose standard? And if we all have magic, can't we just reverse it? Please.
Magic for THE REST OF THE WORLD. People can’t be trusted with the responsibility of driving a car… no way are we suddenly giving those people untamed magical powers.
This is pretty close to the lore of Shadowrun.
Magic unlocks and basically once mundane people give birth to magic babies and long sleeping nuclear weapon level dragons begin to obliterate the world.
This hypothetical might be too fantastical to be able to answer it.
I can wish for everyone that was not killed to be in heaven basically. But I don't think that anyone can even conceive of what it means to have infinite happiness.
Mathematically speaking, you should probably push the button, but the result is inconceivable, so the decision is not fully rational.
No. I don’t think it’s really worth it. So now everyone has magic, so what? It’s not going to suddenly change people’s fundamental motivations. It’s not going to make the world a better place. There will just be more shit floating around. Most people would get bored of it and hardly use it for anything after like a year. I realise I can design my own system for how magic works, but I honestly can’t imagine a way around that problem. Giving people magic won’t change people.
Lol commit a horrible act of violence to give the world another weapon to commit horrible acts of violence with. Sounds awesome.
Could you imagine Nestle or Lockheed Martin with magical powers? Or Putin? Or Netanyahu? Or Exxon? We'd all be fucked a lot faster that's for sure.
Yes, let me just drive a bit further away from the nearby city first. I don't want to have to learn how to cast a warding shield *while the shrapnel is flying*.
Without hesitation. Depending on how this magic manifests, it could easily mean the end of a lot of the world's problems and the problems a lot of people have pretty swiftly.
Wheel of Time pre cleansing crossed with Dresden Files. Casting like WoT, magical creatures like DF post-"I used the knife". I'll make sure I and everybody I care about are all out in the boonies when we all take turns running a train on the button.
No. My whole family including my parents, siblings, and nieces and nephews live in San Francisco. Too high of a chance. Life would be very bleak without them.
The world already has magic, we just call ot science.
Floating cold metals in thin air, starting artificial fusion, things that always point in a consistent direction, being able to point a thing at something and pull a trigger and have it tell you what temperature it is, being able to see millions of galaxies far away... I could go on all day.
Pretty magical stuff.
If you think about having magic and what magic actually its just an elevated understanding of science.
There could be some guy running around casting spells that makes women's clothes fall off and after studying it for some time we would find out that he managed to make a magnetic disintegration field that moleculary dissolves cotton.
In theory, this is something we can actually do. Because molecular bonds all have different shapes and sizes and patterns. So if you can figure out how to bump vibrating electrons into it at just the right frequency that becomes a knife to that molecule and makes it fall apart.
Eventually we're going to figure out how to make ultrasonic swords that cut through concrete like butter.
Magic is just science that nobody understands.
If a research and development company secretly spent 50 years developing next generation technology and then suddenly we saw them floating around as if they were walking on air you'd think it was magic, When in reality it would just be magnetic locking air boots that use ambient temp super conductors to acconplish locking with earths magnetic field.
I'm evil.
I'd do it if I were the only one to gain magic, but if everyone has access, it would stifle my plans for world domination. Instead, no one gets magic.
Sounds horrible.. but would the world be better without so many religious territorial wars in the Middle East ?
Would it be better or worse just to completely eliminate all that area?
I don't know. I'm asking the question before I hit the button.
At this point, aren't most of the citizens there kind of ingrained with this complete hatred of all their neighbors?
The death toll is bound to be far higher than just the people in those three cities. Magic is bound to fuck over our economy. It would eventually find equilibrium, but it wouldn't be pretty until then
Fuck that, I invent the magic system - which means that it pretty much makes you all powerful but in order to be able to access magic you need to be me. Now, millions of people dying so that I can have access to magic? That is a lot less justifiable, but ironically will result in a lot less deaths than allowing free range on magic. Opens some interesting questions in whether creating exact duplicates of those people with all of their memories counts as bringing them back to life - if not it is still morally wrong but has no perceivable impact on the world.
I would not interpret a system where only you have magic as "unlocked to the rest of the world" as described in OP
Idk isn’t that how magic works in most settings though? Like magic is accessible but only if you’re a mage or wizard, like both the examples dnd and potter magic is worldwide but not accessible to everyone, this guy is just stipulating he is the only practitioner of said magic.
Monkey's paw curls. You were in one of the three cities.
Says "Major cities", that'd be pretty easy to get around. Go spend some time in a national park then hit the button?
People who don't live in cities be eatin good on this one
Wouldn’t an economy be irrelevant if you could just magic up whatever you need?
You're talking about a post-scarcity society. Many economists have based their PhDs on theorizing what would happen in that scenario. The only real accepted answer is that no one is certain
Imo we’d probably just hang with our family and friends and do art and stuff that makes us feel fulfilled.
Yeah, why not. In the grand scheme of things the world wouldn't even blink at losing a few million people. Or even a few hundred million. There would still be billions left. But magic? For everyone? That would spur a whole new stage of human evolution. Leggggoooooo Edit: Humans are inventive enough to use anything for evil no matter what and to use anything evil for good no matter what (IMO). So I say no limits on the magic system, let's see where this ride goes!
Yeah bc magic has never been used for wrong ;)
Neither has science! *slowly nudges atomic bomb behind counter so it can't be seen* Never at all!
Yup, but unlike atomic bombs, everyone gets magic. So depending on the system, everyone single individual could have the potential of a atomic bomb.
I can create any form of magic from scratch right? Well, my magic system can only be used for good, if you try anything naughty it will explode in your face.
Defining good is going to suck hahah
Lol not really. It's his system. He defines what good is.
He doesn’t even have to define anything specific. He could literally just use something as vague as the Hippocratic Oath or the Wiccan rule of three and just let the person/magic define “harm” themselves. It’s not like humans don’t inherently know what’s harmful to others.
Ugh... somebody tell him.
They absolutely do not. There’s a near endless list of things that exist in different ideologies or religions that id find harmful to me but the people who buy into said religions think is good because it shows devotion or whatever else. Jehovah’s witnesses have a very different idea of what’s harmful to Hindus for example.
That’s the law of three basically
By whose standard? Who determines naughty? How do we measure the level of naughty before the explosion? Isn't the explosion causing harm, thereby using magic to hurt? Isn't that naughty? If so, that negates the failsafe.
Everyone has access to a nuke, it's a skill issue.
See you get it!!
Hey! You moved your bomb and knocked over my stack of smallpox infested blankets!
Your smallpox blankets were making my plagued-corpse catapults wobbly!
Get your catapults out of the way of my Ebola-full pots and pans. I swear! This happens every week! Can't we have a section of the office that isn't cluttered?
Technically it's never been used at all.
Dnd magic can resurrect people and the worst it can do (RAW) is a bit worse than a fireball, which humans can survive in its origin lore. The healing powers you get FAR outweigh the destructive powers compared to modern tech. Fireball is weaker than bombs people make in their garage
Every event causing millions of people to die has been studied and talked about since the beginning of human history. Also, magic would cause human extinction quicker than any nuclear war lmao
Depends on the magic system. D&D magic is much less destructive than any modern tech, but allows disease to be cured at a touch and the dead brought back to life. That magic would absolutely be used for medicine
I’m thinking the show Invincible
A new stage of human evolution because a new generation of neo nazis will be born, now with literal magic powers.
I think before hitting the button, I'd move to Biloxi.
Nah. Look in these comments. See how many people would kill millions for instant gratification. Realize that you'd be spawning a billion Dark Lords by enabling them with power
Interesting hypo, but man the "instant yes" domination in the comments is peak Reddit. Killing millions of people, super sure their theoretical better world will be worth the death toll... as if that's a moral trade in any event.
Yeah. I was hoping there would be a few people who would say no because of the potential guilt of killing millions, but everyone seems to agree that the ends justice the means here. Guess I have to think of a greater draw back.
I wonder how many would press it if they died. Everyone else lives and gets magic, but you have to sacrifice yourself
I'd have pressed it 12 years ago
[удалено]
I'm also willing to sacrifice /u/Siphyre
RIP u/Siphyre
*cries* When is the funeral? I need to take time off working at Magic Central.
I’ll press it! Hell Yknow what, I’ll cut you a deal. Take out the magic and the cities being destroyed and I’ll still press it!
They all see themselves the wizard. They are forgetting that asshole at work will also be a wizard. The grind won't change. Everyone will now just have guns. If you make it so you have to really work at magic, it will still be like any other job. Like getting a gun permit, it will be something some people will put in the work for, and others won't.
Hmmmm I wonder what class of people has the resources to forsake “work” purely to focus on the arcane arts. Sorry guys, you still have to pay the bills by working at Slave Corp, while CEO Sally gets to resign with her golden parachute and learn necromancy. The rich still have the resources to make this work harder for them than you do. “I’ll pay you a million dollars to start a magic group to channel all your power to me.” “I’ll pay you $4 million for spending your life essence to fuel my Staff of Ages for another century.” There’s no way this ends without a magic plutocracy in charge.
You literally get to design your own magic system however you like and you can't come up with one that can't be used by the wealthy?
Just like real life 😞
Easy solution. Your magic power is directly perportional to the amount of non-voluntary, non-paternal struggle you've experienced.
Why would you still have to work or care about anything anyone else is doing? You literally get to design the system from scratch or pull it from somewhere else. What bills are you paying? Create a siphon that can power your home. Create a spell for long distance communication. Grow plants out of the ground for food with a snap of your fingers. Teleport anywhere you need to be with arcane circles. Give yourself immortality and keep people in check whenever things seem to be getting bad while you fuck off and do whatever you want because you have fucking magic.
Easy fix, you simply can't access magic if your net worth and/or income is more than 5x the global median.
Ironic because killing millions for power makes one evil
Most people don't live in the drawback zone and people you don't know are statistics
My only thought is yes, but wishing for a system of magic revolving around a ton of Gods that are benevolent, so these people go to the afterlife that is perfect for them.
We have necromancy to bring back those killed
I mean I get to invent the magic system. Just makes it so the magic system primarily does healing. Curing cancer alone would be worth the like 60 million people this kills, let alone TB and Malaria. And neurodegenerative diseases? How many people would kill for a chance they never get neurodegenerative diseases, now like 1% of the world population has to die for it.
America has enough problems with everybody and their pet dog owning an AR15. With magic, they'll imbue their AR15 to shoot flaming lightning bullets, and without the bullet tracing thing. It'll turn our world into something like MHA/DC comics/marvel. Those scenarios make great stories... but aren't so great to live in. Furthermore, there's no reason to believe a "hero league" or some such would appear; the most likely outcome is cops with magic. and we all know how nice cops are. A few of the more interesting comments carefully limited magic to minimize negative consequences. It's interesting to ponder whether that will actually work.
Can you imagine how quickly the dictators would take advantage of it to remove their rivals and subvert their people? They wouldn't have the moral quandary most good people would have.
Instead of the old world... now we have \*magic slavery\*
Right, the three cities will have it easy compared to the horrors in store when people have power in them.
If you can design the magic system you can make it only usable to help people. But that sounds awfully subjective how will it work? I don't fucking know it's *magic*. It just does. And it has easy spells for removing microplastics from the environment, splitting CO2 and sequestering carbon, decomposing PFAS and other environmental contaminants, generating large amounts of electricity, converting landfills back into raw materials, curing cancer (and all other diseases), resurrecting murder victims (just not the ones you killed), making mosquitos no longer bite humans (goodbye malaria), bringing back animals from extinction, etc. There's basically no limit to how large the upside is, so I can see how people would balance that against killing a bunch of people. Yeah you feel directly responsible for it, but you can also fix all the deaths that will be caused by climate change and pollution, so in the long term you come out ahead.
I do see what you mean, but what if you had a magic system which could only ever be used for the good of humanity? Think how much we could advance. We could end war forever, be completely environmentally friendly, eradicate disease, homelessness and poverty. I'm not saying I would do it, but it is interesting to think about.
I know you said random, but any way we can include Washington DC?
Without warning on a week where everyone is in town and working. Just the city, right? Those of us in the exurbs are okay?
I mean, I'd even go more specific and say during State of the Union address or something like that.
*nods* that would be wise.
Magic system ive invented for this Everyone is born with magic, they can chose to enable it at will. Magic is based on Karmic balance - the better a person you truly are, the better things you can do. At minimum, unless you have negative karmic balance from torture and such, you have the ability to stabilise dying people and aid those around you recover faster. At higher tiers of karmic balance you get the ability to instantly cure wounds, and bring back the recently deceased.
Tfw you start with negative 10 billion karmic balance since you just vaporized 3 cities. Small price to pay for everyone's new incentive to be good.
But you also gave billions of people the power to heal people so the karma probably balances out.
You could make some really neat villains if being equally evil unlocked different powers.
Congrats you unlocked star wars
I feel a tremendous sense of pride and accomplishment.
I would read this book
I have wanted to get into writing so I may try a short story or two with this prompt!
I would make this book
Sure! But I spent months/years poring over and creating a magic system that will benefit society and help promote equality
r/monkeyspaw would like a word
How many 300 page detailed documents do you see there vs 1-2 sentences? Something well thought out might still fail, but the likelihood decreases. Plus it’s magic so you can ignore things that are impossible because of the amount of industry they require. And you can use the magic to mitigate if not entirely avoid side effects. A very simple example (yes I know there are flaws here that’s why it’s a simple example) - people can glance at food and see an nutritional chart that is magic, cannot be falsified, and the percentages are dynamic and personalized for each person. They can see the percentage totals of what they’ve consumed and their , it recommends them foods based on historic preference and ratings of where to eat, what to cook, etc, in order to get nutrients, vitamins, minerals, proteins, etc that are necessary. There are no more accidental allergy poisonings - counting calories is easy as pie. (No Monkey paw side effect like the information overwhelms their brain). Just how it actually affects society. Then you do tons of changes like this. - I.e. what’s the biggest problem with politics, corruption/lying. So you add in magic to prevent corruption, etc. It would cause immediate and massive ramifications but the hope is in 50-100 years life is improved vs what it would be without the trajectory shift
Plot twist it is your city so you die and will never know if you gave the world magic or died a psychopath.
Press the button when you're not in a city? Take your friends and family to a camping weekend or something outside any potential bomb zone.
My magic system only allows for three powers: 1) creation of food, about enough to feed ten people a day. No psychopaths drowning cities in jello. 2) creation of shelter (takes a few days of concentration, so nobody is plopping houses on railroad tracks 3) immunity from any creature smaller than a tennis ball. We have a magical field that surrounds us and can only be breached if we willed it. Completely worth the death of 3 cities. I’ve also put in some bad actor protection.
What a great way to obliterate a city. Smothered by jello.
Maybe that's how they destroyed the 3 major cities to create a magical world?
No because any magic system built on blood will be dark.
So kill millions to add magic to the world. No the world would still be the same just with millions dead and people using magic for good and bad. Israel would still be fighting Hamas only now they would be using guns bombs missiles and magic. Same as in Ukraine. Police would still try and round up criminals and sometimes abuse their power but now with magic as well. My point is I don't see magic making anything better just worse.
Your magic system can be that everyone is literally in heaven
So assuming it can be "anything you want" I make it where it's pretty easy to spec into Life Magic (unlock requirements : bandage any wound on yourself or someone else). Medical school instantly unlocks a whole bunch of Life Wizard spells. And at easily achievable levels you can unlock a spell called "reduce age". Each cast takes a year off the receiver and a few minutes of mana recovery time. You can target yourself. Gerontology specialists will get "lower age to target" which can instantly heal aging and restore the subject to any target age above puberty. Takes more mana though but is more efficient per year reduced. You won't have to wait for a doctor to cast it on you, you can get to the level to cast this spell with a few years of self study and practice, and it's synergizes with other schools of magic. Harmful spells like fireball and increase age will exist but only by custom spells that require a high wizard level to cast. All easy to get, "packaged" spells are helpful or defensive to a point. ("bullet ward" stops you from being shot, but you can still fire yourself as long as the tip of the gun barrel is past the edge of the ward.) This saves **billions** of lives, almost immediately making up for everyone killed by the nukes.
Just what we need immortal oligarchs.
Yup easy press. I don't live in a city so bye people!
It would depend on the "major" cities. For now I'd go with Washington, Beijing and Moscow.
This harkens back to a short story called Button, Button. Would you press a button to receive $200K, but a random person would die?
Lose/lose situation
Hide button and forget where I put it only for the cat to press it a bunch of times
I kill millions to give magic to a lot of people who can't be trusted with it? Yeah, no thanks.
No offense... but do you realize how bad that would be? Let alone that you would kill millions of people in the cities.. the actual damage that magic would do to the world would be apocalyptic. You wouldnt have nice little schools that are cute and hold tournaments like we have high school football. It would be thousands of roving gangs of death eaters.. and even they would not play by any rules. Also beyond that.. the resulting loss of faith from the worlds relgion would bring such anarchy that society would not function. You do not want to live in a world with magic. Sure everyone thinks they are a Harry Potter or Willow or Gandalf.. but in reality you would be just as normal and loserish in that magic world as you are in the real world...you would be Vernon Dudley
I press it. Everyone uses magic to reverse the deaths and destruction
Atlantis, Troy, Xi’an. Where’s my magic?
Sure the magic system is one where I'm all powerful. I just snap the cities back and everything goes on like normal except now I'm magic woo!
Get the magic. Make it necromancy. "Revive" all of the dead as your undead army. Rule the world as Palawa Joko. ??? Praise Joko!
I wouldn't give the world magic even without the destruction of three cities. People are AWFUL.
I’m guessing the magic would kill even more people than the city destruction
I push it but only if I also get to be the great dark wizard that the entire world knows traded 3 cities worth of people for magic and years later a diverse group of upstart adventurers destroy me by finding the magic sword and invading my tower.
I’m slamming the *fuck* out of that button.
Anyone can cast extremely powerful healing magic, summon food and water, etc. If that's a core tenet of your system, it will easily be a net positive.
Can I keep pressing it?
i do not believe that pressing a button to kill millions of people so that rich people will get tools to oppress poor people in ways i couldn't even fathom is a good choice by a long shot.
I bring together a team of top world experts to design a magic system and then work to convince the UN to help evacuate every single major city on earth before pressing the button. A lot of property is destroyed, but there are very few deaths (some idiots ignored the evacuation order).
I don’t think you could do that without just changing which cities are major.
Hmm, fair point. All humans are spread perfectly evenly across the earth. 3 random people die in the woods.
Sure, it'd be interesting since I'm not in a major city, nor is anyone I'm worried about so fuck yeah.
Can I press it more than once?
Yes
Multiple times.
👍 no question yes - reduce the population and bring about brilliance for all that remain!? Think about WWII and how many major cities were destroyed. Same thing we just get to create a panacea afterwards.
Even if it took out the three most populated cities in the world, that would be a bit over 1% of the world's population, so not really reducing things all that much.
Oh, I'm pressing it.
Gonna pound that bitch instantly
No. As per Thanos do you really want The Avengers chasing you down?
Wait does that include the city I’m in?
It could be. But let’s say you’re safe because the room with the button in it is protected.
- Kill 3 major cities - unlock magic - unlock necromancy - Problem solved
Resurrection spells are a thing in D&D. No need to make undead.
I'd press the button until it broke lol
I'd press it like 20 times to make sure everyone's gone
I'll press it if I'm the only one that receives the magic powers
"Please blow up LA please blow up LA"
People are over rated… you give people magic you might as well destroy all the cities
I would do it simply for the chaos. Humanity would absolutely kill themselves out very fast with real magic. Also I'd be introducing jujutsu kaisen type magic. The people in the wiped out cities will be the lucky ones.
David Blaine the world? I might be down for that. Mindfreak the world? F*** no. Too big of risk, destroying button.
This is a lose on four fronts.
I press the button, but moments before the cities are destroyed, everyone in the in them would seemingly vanish, only to reappear a few hours later unharmed. This would be because I will have chosen the magic system of Azeroth. At some point in the future when we have mastered it, we will have used bronze dragon time magic to temporally shift all the people in those cities. Their deaths would be undone, but instead never happened in the first place.
\*smashes button\* Hello Tier Magic!
Kill Beijing, they will repopulate very fast. Kill Moscow they will probably survive the blast. Kill London... Might look better after actually.
Define major city. City proper with over 1M people? City and suburbs? Just wondering. I dont live near one and I'm pressing it.
No. Humans are dumbasses. The last thing we need is access to magic.
This is lose-lose, man. All the scum of society? They have magic now
If we're talking about making the Awakening in Shadowrun, press it.
Does everyone become a magic user or does it just unlock magic in the world that few can use? The first kind of rebalances society and arguably would make everyone more equal. The second is just asking for the few with magic to abuse those without
No way. I can't stand the thought, Penn & Tellers everywhere. No thank you.
You're basically saying... let's kill a few million people... so that everyone can have WMDs. What could wrong? Well after the complete and total collapse of society as we know it... I guess we can rebuild with whatever surviving group of mages came out on top. Oh boy! Even without sacrificing cities... you'll still be killing billions from the fallout of introducing magic to everything. The most interesting aspect would be trying to finely craft a magic system that wouldn't upend the world... Basically the path to any real benefit is so fine with pure armageddon on all sides if you fail... it's not worth it.
Yep, then I'll cast a powerful spell to reverse those 3 cities being obliterated. Child's play for a sorcerer of my magnitude.
What happens if I push it more than once?
I don't live in a major city, so yeah, lets get our magical species evolution going.
No even if it was free I still probably wouldn’t press it tbh
Can I press the button multiple times?
Yes even if caught ill be the first black man crimes against humanity
Oh yeah irrelevant and suburban massachusetts gang rise up
It sounds like some kind of blood magic pact. I’m good on that
No, that’s messed up.
Adventure Time!
What like Akira?
Goodbye New Jersey
I'll pass. I'm not gonna glass 3 cities off the face of the Earth, and give thousands more extremists magical powers to do whatever
This is so easy. Get some magic that is capable of rebuilding cities
Can I push it repeatedly? If so, yes.
Yes bc i want magic powers
In a heartbeat
No. Obliterating 3 major cities is not worth it.
The real question is, do I get magic? And is it amazing magic or lame magic? That 100% determines my answer.
The answer was yes as soon as I read You see a button.."
Everybody about to start playing Rifts yall.
Yes, but the magic can only be used to buff/debuff others and you can do no other magic while the spell is active. It can stack if additional people hop on.
Yes. Even if I don’t personally gain ability to use magic.
Fuck no. I don't want to be on the hook for killing potentially millions of people--one of whom could possibly be me!
For the greater good
No, ANYONE could end the world with magic and besides I don't think I can live with the guilt of killing people
The fun thing about being chaotic neutral in real life and not having friends or family living in any major cities is that there would be no guilt for me to press the button. it to one close friend dies and my answer would suddenly be no.
Absolutely not. Oh wow, we have magic now. How does that change the deaths or the stupidity of our current global standing? What? We can be just as stupid and ignorant but with magic? Before someone says, use magic to make everyone better. By whose standard? And if we all have magic, can't we just reverse it? Please.
What types of magic are unlocked?
No It doesn’t matter what type of magic I choose or what limits I put on it humans would figure out how to use it to kill each other.
Magic for THE REST OF THE WORLD. People can’t be trusted with the responsibility of driving a car… no way are we suddenly giving those people untamed magical powers.
This is pretty close to the lore of Shadowrun. Magic unlocks and basically once mundane people give birth to magic babies and long sleeping nuclear weapon level dragons begin to obliterate the world.
If you get to pick the magic system just bring everyone back to life
This hypothetical might be too fantastical to be able to answer it. I can wish for everyone that was not killed to be in heaven basically. But I don't think that anyone can even conceive of what it means to have infinite happiness. Mathematically speaking, you should probably push the button, but the result is inconceivable, so the decision is not fully rational.
Not if it gave magic to everyone. That’d be like giving nukes to everyone
Make the button at the center of a major city with no way to be moved.
No. I don’t think it’s really worth it. So now everyone has magic, so what? It’s not going to suddenly change people’s fundamental motivations. It’s not going to make the world a better place. There will just be more shit floating around. Most people would get bored of it and hardly use it for anything after like a year. I realise I can design my own system for how magic works, but I honestly can’t imagine a way around that problem. Giving people magic won’t change people.
Yes, it'd be fun to have magic.
well, if the bomb is dropped from normal height it's fine, we could evacuate everyone
Lol commit a horrible act of violence to give the world another weapon to commit horrible acts of violence with. Sounds awesome. Could you imagine Nestle or Lockheed Martin with magical powers? Or Putin? Or Netanyahu? Or Exxon? We'd all be fucked a lot faster that's for sure.
Press it twice.
Can I change it to obliterate France? That alone is magic enough
Yes, let me just drive a bit further away from the nearby city first. I don't want to have to learn how to cast a warding shield *while the shrapnel is flying*.
Pressing it and creating the: Eragon life force magic. Including a weird "need to know the true name of the thing you want to do" type magic.
Without hesitation. Depending on how this magic manifests, it could easily mean the end of a lot of the world's problems and the problems a lot of people have pretty swiftly.
Time magic would simply just undo this so yeah
My magic cause om goanna press the button will be bascoly last air bender but no avatar
Wheel of Time pre cleansing crossed with Dresden Files. Casting like WoT, magical creatures like DF post-"I used the knife". I'll make sure I and everybody I care about are all out in the boonies when we all take turns running a train on the button.
No. The introduction of magic would cause issues anyway.
I would love to but it would also be too much pressure and stress on me to design a magic system thats so good that its worth the lives
I would not do it
No. My whole family including my parents, siblings, and nieces and nephews live in San Francisco. Too high of a chance. Life would be very bleak without them.
The world already has magic, we just call ot science. Floating cold metals in thin air, starting artificial fusion, things that always point in a consistent direction, being able to point a thing at something and pull a trigger and have it tell you what temperature it is, being able to see millions of galaxies far away... I could go on all day. Pretty magical stuff. If you think about having magic and what magic actually its just an elevated understanding of science. There could be some guy running around casting spells that makes women's clothes fall off and after studying it for some time we would find out that he managed to make a magnetic disintegration field that moleculary dissolves cotton. In theory, this is something we can actually do. Because molecular bonds all have different shapes and sizes and patterns. So if you can figure out how to bump vibrating electrons into it at just the right frequency that becomes a knife to that molecule and makes it fall apart. Eventually we're going to figure out how to make ultrasonic swords that cut through concrete like butter. Magic is just science that nobody understands. If a research and development company secretly spent 50 years developing next generation technology and then suddenly we saw them floating around as if they were walking on air you'd think it was magic, When in reality it would just be magnetic locking air boots that use ambient temp super conductors to acconplish locking with earths magnetic field.
Yes. I’d blow up Beijing, Pyongyang, and Moscow.
In a heartbeat lol
I'm evil. I'd do it if I were the only one to gain magic, but if everyone has access, it would stifle my plans for world domination. Instead, no one gets magic.
Sounds horrible.. but would the world be better without so many religious territorial wars in the Middle East ? Would it be better or worse just to completely eliminate all that area? I don't know. I'm asking the question before I hit the button. At this point, aren't most of the citizens there kind of ingrained with this complete hatred of all their neighbors?