cross-posted from: https://diagonlemmy.social/post/6753
Alternative Harry Potter narrative: since the global wizarding wars, many attempts were made by companies to sell their tech to Muggles. It was tolerated by the institute of Magic as long as it was not advertised as such. Above is an example of a banned, confiscated attempt to show the magic more openly. However, over time it turned out that Muggles weren’t even interested in the magic behind it, they wanted their devices easy to use and understand; and everyone else eventually joined the wizards and witches.
Eventually, all regulations to sell magical devices were erased and since the late 80s with the introduction of the world wide web, the rise of wiz-tech has only increased in pace: next came the introduction of the iPhone by young wizard Steve Jobs, introducing wiz-tech to the broad public and lately, even magic itself can be channelled through so-called AI agents and the Floo-Network begins to open up to Muggles as well with the Fediverse.
However, with the rise of bad effects that came with it, too, some Muggles are becoming more and more weary of the whole situation and in the wizarding community, people are calling for bringing their knowledge to the Muggles, taking some responsibility beyond their own magical realm, while others call for the institute to again take a stronger stance on the devices in the muggle world due to the negative effects they caused.
How can a good future for both the wizarding and the muggle world look like?
I don’t know, I thought wizards can turn anything in pretty much anything. They have no “material needs”, which would explain why they overwhelmingly have no interest to really cooperate with the muggles. If there was any material advantage then it would have happened long ago. So if you’re worldbuilding you’d need to make some rules that muggles can give wizards something besides “useless gold” :D
No no, there is actually a whole economic going on and someone analyzed it: https://academic.oup.com/ooec/article/doi/10.1093/ooec/odac004/6646895
And its not so different and similary flawed than that in our world ;)
Huh thanks, not that interested in the Potterverse specifically but that first bit is very interesting.
This is way too long lol. Did you read it? So do they trade with muggles?
I read it only in parts. Apparantly, there actually is a dollar-galleons-exchange rate carried out by Gringots.
“Consider first the Galleon–Dollar exchange rate (i.e. the exchange rate between the muggles’ money and the wizards’ money), which is not mentioned explicitly in the original 7-volume Harry Potter books, but we know from the books that the Gringotts handles such exchanges (Rowling, 1999a, p. 50). Based on information from three sources, we estimate that the Galleon–Dollar exchange rate is about $7.30/Galleon.”
The best of these sources is Rowling herself I think: “Third, in an interview on March 12, 2001, when asked by Rebecca Boswell, ‘What is the approximate value of a galleon?’ J.K. Rowling’s reply was ‘About five pounds, though the exchange rate varies!’ (Source: https://www.hp-lexicon.org/2007/02/04/wizard-money/, accessed June 6, 2022.) We conclude therefore that the Galleon–Dollar exchange rate is about $7.30/Galleon.”
Arthur Wesley after all also bought a muggle car and bewitched it.
Thanks! That is really my only impression, Arthur, even though an expert in Muggles, sees only amusement value in muggle tech. That’s why I’d think there isn’t really any significant trade possible. Wizards can just create anything with magic. Except maybe land. So the exchange rate would drop if you’d try to trade significantly more. Just my speculation of course :)