Poll of the Day > Why is it that some secret socioties live in the past?

(+) Yeah! (+)

The biggest example is Harry Potter. Why do wizards insist on living with outdated technology and not get with the times? I mean I know they can do magic, but there's other things that would make their quality of life better, and I never understood why they always refuse to embrace it.

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Guns make Avada Kedavra completely irrelevant

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Elitism, mostly. Specifically elitism upon which their entire sense of self-worth is founded.

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The same reasons a modern political party and their financiers continue to live with a 1950s mindset (sans reasonable tax rates)? The point is, before anyone starts attacking that question for stupid reasons of their own, that groups of people will sit comfortably in what they consider the best times of their lives, and how dare you insist they grow up or move on? How dare you burst their safe bubbles of some perverted illusion of the past? Anyone who judges them is beneath them, and somehow the ones living in a bubble.

So of curse there are Vampires stuck in Victorian era clothes and aesthetics. Of course there are wizards living in some technologically-savage backend of society. Of course, of course, of course... To a lesser degree, and for a real-life example, of course a lot of us live with nostalgia for the 80s and 90s as though that was the best and only time to live.

inB4 someone misses some keywords to what I said, and must prove me wrong for the sake of whatever mind palace they're living in.

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Theyre British.

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Assuming the secret society has influence over regular society then they have people doing things for them. They don't need to adapt to new advancements because it doesn't make their lives easier. Advancements will make the lives of their servants easier.

hypnox posted...

The biggest example is Harry Potter.

If a wizard wants to move they wave a wand and speak a few words until everything is shrunken down to fit in a suitcase. Then they just hop on a broom.
If a muggle wants to move they need a carpenter to build a cart and domesticated horses to pull it. Eventually they'll invent the automobile, and hand trucks, and winches to make the process just a little easier.
The wizard doesn't need new ways of doing things.

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SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

If a wizard wants to move they wave a wand and speak a few words until everything is shrunken down to fit in a suitcase. Then they just hop on a broom.
If a muggle wants to move they need a carpenter to build a cart and domesticated horses to pull it. Eventually they'll invent the automobile, and hand trucks, and winches to make the process just a little easier.
The wizard doesn't need new ways of doing things.

They can until they can't, and they can't until they can. It's a flaw in the writing, really; the author waving her hand to move the plot in any direction she pleases.

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Harry potter is a secret society?

BEERandWEED posted...

Harry potter is a secret society?

yes

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Mead posted...

yes

There is a book and movie series about it.

BEERandWEED posted...

There is a book and movie series about it.

yes

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BEERandWEED posted...

There is a book and movie series about it.

Those are muggle propaganda. Real harry potter isnt like that at all

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Hey Mead, do you think the Harry Potter series needs more BEER and WEED?

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Wasn't there a wizard in one movie reading a science book and using magic without a wand to stir his coffee? Maybe him willing to venture into science made him the best wizard

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Sarcasthma posted...

Hey Mead, do you think the Harry Potter series needs more BEER and WEED?

yes

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Okay okay, but that Spanish word s. What does it mean in English?

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adjl posted...

Elitism, mostly. Specifically elitism upon which their entire sense of self-worth is founded.

Yup.

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Sarcasthma posted...

Okay okay, but that Spanish word s. What does it mean in English?

s deez nutz

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hypnox posted...

The biggest example is Harry Potter. Why do wizards insist on living with outdated technology and not get with the times? I mean I know they can do magic, but there's other things that would make their quality of life better, and I never understood why they always refuse to embrace it.

Well, the books imply that the wizarding world became hyper-insular following, presumably, the witch trials as a way to protect itself. To them it's a defensive measure meant to keep themselves secretive that, unfortunately, results in them being largely cut off from technology. I mean, can you imagine just how swiftly Hogwarts would be exposed in the modern era thanks to social media and a bunch of dumb kids/tweens posting to twitter, tiktok, and whatever else? If you wanna stay secret best to just outlaw phones for all except a very small portion of trustworthy people.

But, in a more general sense, it's because no one would take, say, a camp made specifically for demigods if the daughters of Diana were learning to hunt with modern hunting rifles and drone scouting instead of a bow and arrow. Or a magic school that teaches kids spells in Latin but doesn't have a course about how to speak Latin. It not only breaks the immersion but ruins the whole point of what makes the society special in the first place.

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everyone was happier before the internet
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Mead posted...

s deez nutz

oooohhhhhHHHHH

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