There are so many real world problems today that can be easily be fixed with magic. Food and water can be infinitely supplied through duplication and conjuration, diseases and probably all muggle ailments could be cured with easy spells, and indisputable justice could be carried out with truth serums.

To me, it's like not sharing my endless pile of food with a homeless, starving man right around the street corner. It would be cruel of me to not give him something.

And the argument that muggles would eventually turn against wizards and witches is pretty weak. They can just use confundus or similar mind-influencing spells to convince the resolution of problems as a normal occurrence to leaders/those who would investigate.

 

Jesus fuck read the books.

You think they should fix all the problems and then mind control/wipe the muggles? Lmao.

I've posted in a lot of questionable/trash topics in general lately, but this isn't even worth arguing about.

 

Well it might be the whole privacy vs. safety argument again, but if you could save starving African kids by sacrificing a few muggle memories then it's a lot less cut and dry than you imply.

 

Laws of transfiguration man. Can't make more food.

 

You can duplicate food and make more of it, just not conjure it out of thin air.

Edit: The quote directly from the wiki--
Hermione: "It’s impossible to make good food out of nothing! You can Summon it if you know where it is, you can transform it, you can increase the quantity if you’ve already got some..."

 

Fair enough. Would it be better if we just linked the last thirty wizard vs muggle threads and you read through those? I don't think most people here want to see this thread again.

 

My question was if they're cruel or not for helping muggles, not a fight. Even a single wizard could help out a lot. But I should have looked around more on this site. I did a quick google search with "DLP" and didn't find anything, but it may have been worded differently.

 

*sigh*

I'll say this. It's illegal. It's against the Statute of Secrecy. Later, JK wrote (some Pottermore stuff iirc) that during the Second World War, a lot of wizards and witches broke that rule and helped/aided the muggles, so in a huge crisis there might be wizards helping out in the background, but it's against the standing law.

Your question is one involving the Statute, and a philosophical one regarding human nature / growth / "if magic fixes all of their problems, how will they ever learn / do you want to spend your entire life as a muggle problem solver" kind of deal.

Why don't you fly to Africa and help out the poor? You have the capability to, as much as any wizard. Are you cruel because you don't?

It's not the wizards problem to fix all the issues and wrongs in the world. That's just not how the world works.

I'm sure someone can say it a hunder times better, but there it is. I'm not one for philosophical/political debates.

I almost always try to write a coherent post, but fuck if seeing this thread's title didn't make me sigh.

 

Do you know that there are still primeval tribes in the world that have not been touched by the global civilization? Look up Sentinel Island.

As for starvation, globally we actually make enough food to comfortably feed everyone on the planet, it's distribution that's the problem. That could definitely be solved super easily with magic.

But are wizards cruel to keep magic secret from muggles? Is Tom Cruise an ass for hoarding those hundreds of millions of dollars for himself instead of giving out $100 bills to everyone he meets?

A muggle could say that yes, it's not cool. A wizard could say that they're not hurting muggles, it's not their responsibility to solve the world's problems, so shove off. Personally, I don't think it's cruel of wizards.

 

I think it's cruel to throw this tripe out there for me to stumble into it.

I don't think it's cruel to treat the vast majority of the planet as if they have some worth and agency beyond being useless, passive things who exist to be coddled by their betters. People are PEOPLE.

And Trololol at the idea of someone - anyone - having the right to destroy your memories, your thoughts, your what makes you, you... Because utopia muggle omelette needs wizards to crack open a few heads eggs.

But truthfully, most galling aspect is that you would suggest it wearing Malcom Reynolds face. Irony, thy name is zeemz.

 

Thanks for the serious reply.

I didn't know about that pottermore info, but would you consider the SoS cruel or too strict? There are good reasons for it, but I think it's possible for a society that can stay so hidden, to also help and stay hidden.

That's just the thing, humans aren't making great strides to solve world hunger. It could probably be solved now by distributing the gross of food. But that doesn't happen. But if a wizard, I don't know, set up a charm to provide food and water so humans can worry about something else I don't see why not.

Compared to me going to Africa and probably doing nothing significant and getting hurt in the meantime, magic is better and more effective. I could spend every dime I have and still do nothing effective because I'm not setting up an infinite resource humans can consume.

It won't slow down human growth in other areas ruled by capitalistic tendencies. Humans would still have to worry about energy, the environment, etc. The key thing here is solving only the problems that are killing people now.

Your argument about stopping human growth would work for curing cancer, since humans put a lot of medical research into it, but it's hard to swallow.

 

Ultimate reason: Nobody wants to read Harry Potter and the Social Justice Wizards.

Yer a wizard 'arry. First we'll get yeh wand and then they'll be the sortin' - Good fun, tha'. Then it's off to Liberia to transfigure Ebola-stained bedsheets into treacle tart... Ohh shouldna told yeh that. Should NOT have told yeh that.

 

Wow, you're so clever. It's really impressive how your posts are always full of shit on a consistent basis.

 

You know the problem with this? You're trying to find a fictional solution to a real world problem. Harry Potter is a children's story and not a solution to world hunger so stop treating it like one.

 

This isn't meant to slander Harry Potter's world, sorry if it seems like it. And obviously this is all fictional. I'm talking about the wizards in the book not some hypothetical wizards existing in the real world. It's why I used the word muggles.

 

Crimson, zeemz considers that a "shitty reason."

Every book must challenge real world issues or else it's just cruel. Even if that means promoting complete destruction of individual agency.

 

World hunger is at its lowest in nearly 30 years, and the UN says it should be nearly eliminated in the next 20. If that's not great strides, I'm not sure what is.

 

Yes, nearly a ~40% difference from the 1990s, like in the Harry Potter world. How many muggles would die in the meantime? What great growth contributions occurred if it'll be gone by the 2030?

Maybe globalism is the answer, but is that worth the sacrifice of lives?

 

If you remove the magic from the sentence, you get "Group of people are able to help others, but since they do not, they are cruel".

By this definition, everyone on the earth is cruel, because every single person can find somebody less "lucky*" and go help him/her — except the very last one.

But it doesn't happen now, so adding other fictional races — wizards, goblins, veela, house-elves — it doesn't change a thing.