Does magic slow down technological development or accelerate it?

Magic provide tools, information distribution and easier access to materials, all which can lead to faster technological advances. However, how common and easy magic is will dictate what type of advances a society will eventually produce.

If teleportation magic or flight is common place enough to be a viable replacement for land routes, people will have little reason to advance sailing and bridge building, for example. And for that to happen we don't even need that every peasant be able to flight or teleport. Even it's present enough that a rich merchant would have access to those spells or a wizard able to do them, then people would just transport goods to teleportation hubs that would be linked to a distribution network.

In a setting with lots of spells to send messages, teleport, send images, talking mirrors, there's no reason to invest time and energy in information technology. And if you can use mana to power machines, you'll have machinery being produce earlier on and refined overtime, but there will be no need for electricity for a while.

My point being, the easier the access to magic is and the more things it can do, less people will 'need' technology.

However, magic might allow us to do things like precision cutting, shrinking/enlarging objects, crying to see micro parts, producing equal copies of a part, etc. Those are all part of the industrial process. In a world where it's easy to duplicate items, armies with standard gear will be common. This will lead to a evolution in what that gear should be because then you will want all your soldiers to have the best possible equipament and improve on it, instead of everyone bringing what they can afford, or being given of what's available.

And then there's the 'needs of magic'. If mages need crystals, it's possible we see mining technology advancing further to supply mages with them because magic is such a central thing in economy.

Also incredibly useless. If it depends on the setting, then give an example and explain how it pertains to that example. Just saying "depends on the setting" adds nothing to the conversation and everyone already knows that anyway.

It would probably alter technological progress fundamentally. You might seriously retard the development of firearms since and dickbag who knows the 'sparks' spell can blow the fuck out of a black powder shipment, which makes the stuff pretty unpalatable from a logistics point of view.

That said, there's no reason you wouldn't eventually reach an analogue of certain technology through magic. It just wouldn't work on the same principle.

It is still a useful reminder that the person is asking a question about a fictional thing so there's no 'correct' answer, although some will sound more smart or creative than others.

It's like the whole "wyvern vs dragon" thing. People love to use the six-limbs vs four-limbs things as if that's a science, but the truth is that whatever the author says goes for his setting as canonical truth. Doesn't mean that it's not more interesting to have a elaborate metadiscussion about dragon classification. But it invalidates someone trying to classify as 'wrong' the word of an author about their own world. Because the 'truth' is related to the setting, not the possible meta knowledge.

In such high magic setting we would have guns shooting spells powered by mana or whatever is energy that magic uses. It's really stupid how rare this is even if it's the most logical conclusion.

You would be right if this thread had a better OP. Right now this thread is made up of vague responses to an even more vague answer. Everyone is making assumptions about how technological development and magic works because they have nothing substantial to work with. If OP had provided a concrete example for us to work with and had then asked if in this example if magic would accelerate or stall tech development than it would be fine. Take for example the anons claiming that tech and magic are the same thing. Who am I to tell them they are wrong or right? There are no real world examples for me to prove my argument so it becomes meaningless to try to counter or support their assumption about the setting. An assumption that has huge ramifications as to OP's question. There's no discussion to be had because there are no right answers. Not unless OP or some other user happens to have a setting worked out for us to talk about, but don't know the answer to the question themselves just yet.

>ritualistic
That's exactly how you operate technology.
You push buttons in a specific sequence, speak specific words, provide certain items to power the system, etc.

>directly controlled by gods
Well then it's either not magic and simply divine intervention, or there's a specific set of phrases or actions you use to access the 'divine power field' and your 'righteousness' is your user credentials approves your access.

Altering fate.

Man, most of Escaflowne was pretty alright but it really fell apart towards the end, huh

>passive-aggressive non-answer spammed by faggots

Can you fuck off already?

Shut the fuck up. If it's too vague for you, ignore this thread, instead of showing how upset you are that other people can hold a conversation.

Your entire post is a sad joke, because people are conversing despite your claims that they couldn't possibly be doing so in a "productive" fashion.

Name one real world instance of magic affecting technological development. There are no answers to this thread because there is nothing to build an answer upon besides what you pull out of your ass. Even the magic = tech argument is just made up shit and the counter-argument are equally made up. To answer OP's question we need an example setting that gives us at least some assumptions so we can piece together an answer. Otherwise it is an exercise in non-answers.

It's a totally correct answer. OPs post alone has insufficient information, we need to know the setting to give an answer. As we have no magic in rl, the answer is setting reliant.
The only one springing out is always you.

Casterfags and whimseyfags will say it slows down technological development. Autists and magitechfags will say it speeds it up.

depends,just imagine in the field of medicine who gives a shit about cancer and genes when u can just lay on hands that shit

Well, on my setting, magic was used to augment certain areas of technology, also there isn't much distinction of knights and mages, the rulers are basically magic knights with huge polearms and strong magic. basically feudalism+magocracy, the difference is that knights are also magicians.

Isaac Newton would have been a wizard.

magic will lead to magic powered robots that shoot magic missiles and have laser guns

this is inevitable

Why are the only possible answers two polar opposites?

Newton tried his damndest to be a wizard IRL.

Including the virgin part, where most of us would've used the money for bitches

Hey, what part of shut the fuck up didn't you understand?

No one else is getting hung up except you idiots, and you are STILL trying to push your passive aggressive non-answer as anything other than pure faggotry.

Too vague for you? Then fuck off, and take your shitty forced meme with you.

It goes sideways at an uncertain velocity from normal tech development

Dude, just report it as shitposting and move on.

>>ritualistic
>That's exactly how you operate technology.
>You push buttons in a specific sequence, speak specific words, provide certain items to power the system, etc.
It'd only be ritualistic if it's executed for its own sake rather than as serial deliberate actions--such as in 40k where use of technology is often treated like an arbitrary religious rite to be observed, and complex devices are thought to house almost animistic spirits.
Just because it's something done in sequence does not make it a ritual. At least not literally; there's of course the figurative use.

>forced meme
...in what fucking universe is that a 'forced meme'? It's a sincere answer to bullshit vagaries. The correct response is for the person(s) who want responses to supply scenarios, not for random fucking passers by to invent almost-certainly-irrelevant shit to argue for no reason when the OP is either making a worthless thread or has specific fucking qualia in mind in asking the question.

This isn't a Voight-Kampff test, if you want people to be able to have a response germane to what you're asking then you need to be less vague to begin with.

Generally, it slows down technological development, because magic is generally more difficult to use than technology. You never need to learn the physical and mechanical principles behind how a car works to operate one, or the intricacies of machine logic to use a computer. But you do have to learn how magic works to use it. Enchantments are viable, but they're generally seen as requiring significant individual effort, as opposed to technology, which can be automated. At the same time, though, it's generally far more useful on an individual level, meaning the kind of people who would learn science will often instead just learn magic. Which means scientific progress will be held back in favor of magic, to the detriment of society as a whole.

All hell breaks loose at the point when someone manages to automate enchanting which is inevitable. Then it's magical singularity.

An easier alternative slows down development, not a more difficult one. For example, during the Civil War the South had significantly less railroads than the North because the more extensive waterways of the South make it cheaper and quicker to use river transport than developing rail infrastructure despite the benefits of railroads.

Your scenario also functions on the assumption of magical stagnation. There is no reason to assume that magic would remain difficult and time-consuming, especially with the practicalities that magic affords both the user and society.

He can't, as he is the one shitposting. Depends on the setting is a valid answer and is on topic. He being an insufferable sperg is not on topic and thus shitposting.

Please, shut the fuck up and quit defending your dumb forced non-answer.
No one cares how upset you are about people enjoying a conversation that allows people to compare different settings, so just fuck off already and quit acting so defensive.

Why is it no surprise that whiny passive aggressive faggots would defend their forced meme in a whiny and ineffectual manner?

Isaac Newton was an alchemist first, scientist after.

Magic will always be more difficult than science, though, because in any setting where it isn't completely innate, you need to learn to use it in a way that you don't with technology. You might need to learn how to turn a computer on, but you don't need to learn computer science first, and you don't need to learn electronics to learn computer science, or physics to learn electronics, and so on.

Of course, once you get past that barrier, magic is almost always far more flexible and useful. With only a little more investment, you can add on all kinds of effects. Once you know how to use that computer, you can also make it function as a toaster, a refrigerator, a vacuum, a washing machine, a lighter, a pistol, and so on. Meanwhile, if you invest the same amount of effort in learning science as you did magic, you might be able to advance it incrementally... and that's it.

So ultimately, it's a societal prisoner's dilemma. We'd all be better off if people learned science instead of magic. Then everyone could benefit. But it's better for the individual to learn magic instead, and just learn to use technology other people invented if they need something magic can do. Which means most people who have the time and ability will learn magic, meaning less scientists, meaning everyone who doesn't have the time and ability to learn magic will get stuck in technological stagnation.

Well your pic right there certainly did a number on that world by applying scientific and industrial methodology to magic. He only lost because lol ancient alien gods.

it means that the OP should be more specific on what he wants to know.
DOes he want to know how to make a setting where magic helps improve technology? Or one where it hinders it? Or one where it's neutral?
Does he want to know if in his ffavorite setting magic should interfere with ttechnology or work alongsie it?
But he made a vague question so he gets vague answers, unless you want people to write a 100 pages PDF on how to apply magic and technology in various settings.

You're putting the cart before the horse with the computer analogy. You're making a comparison to a post-industrial, non-analog machine. When working on a societal level where learning magic is restricted to a small segment of the population technology will be the choice of the majority of civilization out of necessity. You don't need a large knowledge base or understanding of fundamental facets of nature to invent or innovate, and in many cases they are driven by practical needs rather than a theoretical drive for improvement. A wizard has no reason to develop the stirrup, since he's not riding into battle on a horse, nor does he have a reason to develop the bladed plow, as he's not tilling a field.

Generally, magic becomes a field of science as long as it's consistent. If it's not consistent it looses ground to reliable sciences.

Dude, I get you're point about "Depends on the Setting" reply being entirely unproductive but you need to articulate this better than "Forced meme" and "STFU"

>Does Tool(magic) slow down technological development or accelerate it?
Depends on the one using it.

The existence of magic in a community will slow the development of technology if those using it rely on magic instead of technology.
>Why develop better farming technology when we can just pray and sacrifice for a good harvest?

However, if a magic user is focused on developing better technology and uses magic to aid them in that pursuit, then it will accelerate the development of technology.
>Why spend time and effort doing gruntwork or acquiring resources when we can use magic for that while we experiment and develop better tools?

Sorry, it really does depend on the user.
Not even trying to meme answer here.

You sound really mad user. Is everything okay?

I can't think of the last time that the 'sufficiently advanced technology' line actually made a world more interesting, instead of less.
Arthur C. Clarke didn't start out as the Patron Saint of No Fun Allowed, but that's the world we've built.

Most of this boils down to how hard it is to get magic.

Interestingly enough, The Spellmonger series actually dives into this a bit. The short answer is that a mage will sell their talents to whomever can pay for them.

>Why is it no surprise that whiny passive aggressive faggots would defend their forced meme in a whiny and ineffectual manner?
He says while defending his vague and therefore useless question in a whiny and ineffectual manner.

I like to play it so that you have advancement in one or the other, but not both at the same time, because the mindsets needed to conceptually handle one is different to the other. Like you can be more logical with technology, but it restricts your grasp of magic. But magic is more wild, so it restricts your grasp of technology.

If you don't want to have a discussion then why even post.

It depends on how useful magic is.

It stands to reason that if magic is readily available to anyone and easily learned, then it would hinder technological development because people simply won't have to create new technology that solves existing issues.

But in a setting where magic is extremely difficult to learn and use, then it probably wouldn't have a huge effect.

Of course, there's the third option where you need technology to use magic, then you have a symbiotic growth between the two.

Arcanum did this by making technology not work with magic and it was quite glorious. They even managed to make it somewhat believable why magic doesn't agree with technology even though it falls short in game itself where a sword forged with modern techniques is considered tech item while similar one tradionally made isn't. The game also had enchantments against all the odds.

>They even managed to make it somewhat believable why magic doesn't agree with technology
I've heard great things about Arcanum, but I still don't believe this claim.
Never seen this done without being "Kate & Leopold" level stupid.
My cousin literally got up and left when all the world's elevators stopped working.

One possibility:
Advancement for the whole of society remains the same. The fundamental and consistent practices of magic become folded into mainstream technological advancement.
Chemistry, mathematics, biology and psychology are become part of the common science and the world moves on.
Divination, evocation/invocation, psychokinetics still exist but they require incredible dedication on the part of practitioner to use and can produce volatile results. So the mystical practices could not be easily folded into the common science or common industry. In time the existence of lone practitioners of unorthodox powers would become more of threat to society than a benefit.

The fundamentals of magic would be woven into modern society and taken for granted while the dedicated seers and sorcerers would be pushed to the shadows.
However their presence would still be felt. There would be hedge mages toiling in basements to create magic that works so sporadically even they doubt it's real. Secret societies and the wealthy would practice magical skills to further reinforce their superiority. Every government would have it's own school of occultists working to undermine their enemies.

Magic would be an active part in the world but only subtly.

I'm not saying technology doesn't work with magic. I'm saying our ability to invent gets limited by mindsets, like the hardwiring only allows for one or the other, so you can't advance in technology if your society is focused on magic, because there's no way to innovate with that mindset.

Depends on both the magic and the technology.

Some forms of magic understand technology as another form of magic. Other forms of technology, understand magic as another form of technology.
Some forms of magi-tech promote other forms of magi-tech. Other forms of magi-tech inhibit other forms of magi-tech.

All of this is constrained by our cultural and linguistic biases.

>you can't advance in technology if your society is focused on magic, because there's no way to innovate with that mindset.
There could always be a partnership within socirty.
As in >Why spend time and effort doing gruntwork or acquiring resources when we can use magic for that while we experiment and develop better tools?
But your approach is valid.

>make it believable why magic doesn't agree with technology
Since others bumped the thread, I'll pose this question:

>Has the concept of Magic interfering with Technology and visa versa ever been done intelligently well?
I can imagine iron, or whatever, inhibiting magic like Faye magics and magic causing EMP-like effects the prevent electronics from working, but beyond that, I can't make sense of an actual "Magic vs. Technology" conflict.

>dat pic
Fuck yeah, Escaflowne.

>Escaflowne
Is that where I know that from.
I gotta find that cheap.
I only ever saw like 10% of it and that was back before Cowboy Bebop was a thing, sometime in the last millennium.
Still some of my favorite music.

>I gotta find that cheap.
But user, this is the internet. It's basically cheap taken to its logical absurdity.

True, but my lazyness, complacency, and abundance of Netflix left to binge has left me ignorant of where to find shit.
Last thing I wanted to find was Wizards and Fire & Ice which took all of one YouTube search.
I just assumed Escaflowne would be harder.

Escalfowne Manga>Anime>>>>>>>>>>>>>Movie

>Escalfowne Manga>Anime
I believe you, but could you kindly explain.
Most Manga I've read has only been marginally superior.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>Movie
Haven't seen it, but no explanation needed.
I've seen enough movie adaptations.
I just recently read about the organal proposal to the Masters of the Universe sequel that would have made Highlander II seem like a masterpiece.

Mate, nyaa.pantsu.cat

Which of the three manga?

Well, see, magic is often a matter of personal power. Generally, magic is something that only some people can do, and while it generally works on a sort of random basis irrespective of race, religion, sex, class, et cetera, and therefore is a sort of political equalizer in that sense (can't treat the peasants too badly if any given rando peasant child might start being able to sling fireballs around some day), it'd still create a lot of power concentrated into the hands of a few people that can't be distributed well.

So, you might end up with a sort of complacency problem. Because developing technology requires a few things: time, knowledge, resources and need. Like, the ancient greeks had the idea for steam power, they even made a few mechanisms, so why no industrial revolution? 1) They didn't have good enough materials, 2) The people smart enough and wealthy enough didn't see any need to do it because they had slaves to do all their work and life was pretty sweet for them already. It wasn't until some miserable fucker at a coal mine in britain went "shit, mining coal sucks, but we have some good steel and maybe I could use steam to make mining coal less like sucking an ass made of lung diseases" that you had an industrial revolution.

So if magic can do what any prospective technology can do, but is in less supply because mages aren't common enough and have better shit to do than your menial utility crap, then all the people who would be potentially wealthy enough to fund technology will just be able to hire mages for their own needs, and all the poor people who have the need and can't afford to hire a mage will just have to suck a dick.

>Does magic slow down technological development or accelerate it?

It accelerates the development of technology, but not as fast as actual technological development would.

The problem with magic -as I'm sure others have mentioned- is that a lot of it's power and development can be done independently and doesn't always strictly depend on the cooperation, skills, and knowledge of other people. A magic user 'can' be unto themselves an island, will they be happy? Successful? Better at magic then someone who's had help? No, of course not, but they CAN ultimately achieve the same power by themselves with enough commitment and effort.

With that said, though, magic can't and doesn't keep it's secrets forever and even the best wizards either long to or accidentally pass down their knowledge (even just a fraction of it) to apprentices, friends, family, or even just the hired help so they don't have to do EVERYTHING themselves. That's really where it begins and ends with: what the wizards themselves want and their own whims or conveniences, magic is very restricted and gated after all.

Technology, though, requires levels of infrastructure and workers that progressively need to be educated so they can do factory work, menial jobs, operate machinery, and support further technological developments n' so forth.

They really need to do a remake with a proper budget so the animation quality doesn't suffer towards the end, and less padding of the episode length with generic anime love triangle relationship crap.

>dimentional portals are a thing
great, now nobody bothers shipping goods through murderous oceans and just use magical portals instead. bye bye boats

>you can read minds
perfect, no need for torture anymore then

>it's possible to fry a man just by saying a few words calling upon some random god
why bother flailing a huge steel thingy to kill cunts then ? direct all your effort into learning those magical words

etc

Judging by the fact that 99% of magical settings are permanently stuck in medieval technology, I'd say it retards it to the point of stopping progress entirely.

I always feel magic could lead easily to the rise of sorcerer kings and the active suppression of people advancing or gathering knowledge. In that case stagnation would make at least some form of sense.

Slows it considerably.
No longer does man need to manipulate his environment, "magic" does that for him.

It's the reason why things never really get invented in D&D. The reason why it's always medieval fantasy. Because the world never needs to change. Man always has an easy way out. A way to cheat the burdens of life.

Yes.
Some things won't be necessary or as advantageous to develop because of magic but likewise magic can lead to leaps over otherwise insurmountable hurdles to develop new technologies.

Magic is a type of technology.

>It's the reason why things never really get invented in D&D.
I just never bought this as a premise.
Necessity mothers invention.
Blacksmiths are gonna refine their techniques and refine their technology as they improve their craft.
You can't prevent innovations, just inhibit their widespread growth due the ease of magic.

If magic replaces technology, it effectively becomes technology.
If it doesn't, technology will develop and fill in the gaps.

The only other option is a mage conspiracy, like >magic could lead easily to the rise of sorcerer kings and the active suppression of people advancing or gathering knowledge.

I reasoned this out a lot when trying to keep guns out of my setting.
I failed, but enacted a minor conspiratorial creation of a cheap and artificially widespread cantrip that ignites gunpowder.
It made guns too prohibitively expensive to replace bows and change the face of warfare, but still existent.

The presence of one suppresses the other.

magic advances in times of peace when the wizards can study freely.
technology advances in times of hardship when the common man needs solutions to problems.

No, fuck that. Clarke's Third Law makes no sense in a fantasy setting.

I would imagine that it would greatly accelerate it to some extent but I guess it could cause you to not develop some things like why would people invent flamethrowers if you can just shoot jets of flame from your hands?
The biggest issue I can think of is if the magic in question is the kind that reacts negatively to technology as a rule.

Because shooting flame from your hands requires lots of training. However a flamethrower powered by mana batteries doing the same thing could be can be used by anyone.

yes becuase non magic users need to be able to compete, kings and shit will gladly pour money into r&d to protect from magic

>Clarke's Third Law makes no sense in a fantasy setting.

How about "Any sufficiently analyzed magic system is indistinguishable from technology"?