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But if Gizbak stops maintaining his Summoning Circle tomes, the whole world of magic will fall apart (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 78 points 4 weeks ago (4 children)

Or giant megacorporations each hire 200,000+ of them to create products for the non-magic folk to consume.

After a few decades, the idea of being a wizard is synonymous with working 8+ hours a day on magic that no wizard really wants and there is so little new spells and magic being created in the world that everyone wishes there wasn't any.

Then leaks come out that the products these megacorporations create have been slowly killing the planet and they've known for decades. But since they have so much power and money, nothing can stop them until the world dies.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Chemists are wizards?

[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

I mean chemistry direct predecessor, alchemy, was basically in large part magical practice attempt.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 weeks ago

True. They didn't make gold, but they discovered phosphorus...I think? The reducing urine one experiment.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 weeks ago

Yep. You wouldn't have adventurous magicians going out and casting spells against dragons. The variety of spells known by D&D type wizards wouldn't even be a thing. You'd have a guy who was a specialist in ritual-casting flame spells whose job consisted of continuously heating up cauldrons of metal ore so it could be smelted. If he was jumped on his commute home, he couldn't fight the attackers off with "fireball" or something. Maybe that was covered in school decades ago, but he's spent his entire career doing nothing but that one smelting spell Or, you'd have the "Gate" wizard whose entire job was to keep up a portal for their entire 8 hour shift, so that tourists could pass back and forth.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Stop, I can only get so depressed!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 weeks ago

Bro made fantasy stuff into a capitalist dystopia

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

This comment made me sad.

[–] [email protected] 75 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

"If"

You realize embedded systems engineers are real, right?

[–] [email protected] 36 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

And if anything qualifies as esoteric, arcane knowledge, it's embedded systems programming

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I'd say OS and driver programming is also in that category. It is the deep magic.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

True, true. I have a vague idea how embedded systems work. I have no idea how you even get started with driver development.

OS development isn't terrible though. There are numerous books to help you make your own kernel and OS

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

For linux driver development you can start by reading "Linux Device Drivers, Third Edition" pdf.
It is free and give you an idea about how everything works.
The real learning is by reading and using the linux kernel api doc or directly the source code of the api you want to call.
Source : i did this for a school project where i had to implement multiple kernel modules.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 weeks ago

Neat! I'll add it to my long list of things ADHD will never let me finish!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I think the real issue with driver development is that almost nobody ever has a reason to do it. It's a much more constrained way of programming compared to normal programs, and isn't necessary unless you need to talk to hardware or something. So, nobody has an excuse to learn it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

... Unless you want to talk to hardware. Or something.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

“There are lots of books on harvesting your own primal power source, but most people these days make a pact with the demon Linus and simply channel his power”

[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

This makes me feel so much better after spending a morning banging my head against some wild pointer arithmetic, thank you much much! (Ultimately the pointer incantations were successful, praise be!)

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (3 children)

That's literally Megumin from KonoSuba lol. She's supposed to be one of the strongest wizards around, but refuses to learn anything other than explosion magic. Explosion magic is basically useless in most situations, as it just flattens a huge area.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

If explosion magic doesn't solve your problems then you're clearly not using enough explosion magic.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)

Megumin's other problem is she only specced into things that would improve her explosion's damage output, neglecting basic mage things like mana capacity and efficiency. So she can only cast one (stupidly overpowered) explosion spell before all but passing out from using more mana than she actually has. It's why no other party would take her, because even in situations where the spell would be useful she becomes a massive liability after casting it.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 weeks ago

Don't be too harsh she just played Lineage 2

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

That's why you let her ride around in a backpack worn by the Big Guy in the party.l, asking with a bunch of potions.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Is this a game?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 weeks ago

Book/Manga/Anime. Also a game, yeah

[–] [email protected] 33 points 4 weeks ago

*I didn't ask how close those buildings are, I said "I cast FIREBALL" *

-Megumin, if they played D&D

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 weeks ago

Expulooooshon

[–] [email protected] 38 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

If magic was real, expert magic users would not trust it at all.

"Haha yeah I mostly do transfiguration magic but I do some evocation too occasionally. No I don't eat any transfigured food or do any of that at home or anything honestly I'm surprised it works at all."

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 weeks ago

Right, so literally computer security

[–] [email protected] 26 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

Discworld wizards represent!

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 weeks ago

Ponder Stibbons inserts another punch card into Hex. Ants flow through tubes and gears begin turning.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

I've been slowly reading through rimworld and honestly I love how Pratchett balanced out the existence of magic by making it such a pointless persuit that wizards are basically just beurocrats

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

There’d be hair restoration & ED specialized wizards within a year.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 weeks ago

Oh great wizards finasteride and dutasteride, give me back my hair!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (2 children)

Ergo, Wizards can't be exploited by capitalism

[–] [email protected] 38 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Imagine thinking that PhD's and postdocs aren't exploited by capitalism.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 weeks ago (5 children)

To be fair, PhDs and postdocs can't call down lightning from the sky or reanimate the dead to do their bidding.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Of course they can and do call down lightning; the magic spell is called "lighning rocket".

To revive the recently deceased a spell called CPR combined with Defibrilation is used.

Some wizards dedicate their lives to researching even higher level spells

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

That one kind of magic would be capitalism. I mean the situation from OP post is the current state of liberal economics.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 weeks ago

Yes

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

Haha, look, it’s my career!

🫠

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 weeks ago

Now that's just academica.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago

Grasshopper mind sorcery

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago

no way it's the yomi hustle guy

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