As Sesc and Aekiel noted, wizards entering the Muggle world to "help" smacks of the Great White Hope mentality.

Then, there's the history to consider. JKR has included the early modern Enlightenment period of European witch hunts and persecution in canon history (rather than the false belief the famous witch hunts happened in the medieval period before "modern society"). Interestingly, however, persecution of witches were codified into law at least 500 years before Christ and still occurs today.

With that history, it is no more cruel not to share magic with Muggles than it is for you not sharing your lottery winnings with your next door neighbor who's murdered half of your family.

 

On the other hand, JKR's gone back and forth about whether those witch-hunts were an actual threat to wizards. The only time I recall witch-hunts coming up in the original books was to talk about how they almost never caught actual witches/wizards, and a real wizard could escape without any trouble if they did get unlucky.

 

Even if that were true, it just changes the argument to "attempted murder." The point still holds.

 

That's easy to say when you aren't starving or terminally ill. So no, your opinion doesn't "scale" up for all of humanity.

 

I really like how you ignored the rest of his post in order to keep the debate alive. Good going man.

To address your point. The scale of the problem shouldn't determine the entitlement one has. As I've said in an earlier post, difficulties and adversities are needed because they inspire us to come up with solutions and help us evlove as individuals and a society. As Sesc rightly said magical solutions will rob us off the chance to come up with it ourselves.

 

Is Mugglekind Cruel to Not Share Technology with Magicals?

Both Sesc and Zeemz have a point. Would I want someone to solve every problem in my life (Such as being side along apaprated instead of taking the bus)? No. If I'm a couple minutes away from death's door, would I want some magical help? Yes.

But then, you can't force every single wizard to help and nor should they be obligated to help every muggle just because they have powers. Not everyone has an Uncle Ben in their life.

Here are my own two cents on the subject: We need to differentiate between passively helping and actively helping (If those are the correct terms). Actively helping would be wizards going into hospitals and perfoming Episkey on every patient. Passive help would just be muggles being allowed to go into an apothecary and buying potions.

The best solution I think would be a trade agreement. Muggles may be a bit disadvantaged on thsi though as the only things they can offer come from the entertainemnt industry (Such as movies, games, etc.). They might be able to train some medication such as a non-peg shaped prosthetic (Moody) or painkillers (Can't remember if there are any in the HP Verse).

Besides, who's to say that there isn't a wizard out there in Doctors Without Borders or in a regiment in some war torn country?

 

So I should have ignored the controversial point to keep the peace? Besides, that was essentially all of his argument.

Again, platitudes like "help us evolve" or "inspire us" don't mean much to someone about to die. I'm sure you also think the Syrian refugees should stay in their country and take inspiration from their difficulties to evolve.

 

I think we need to put this in perspective as well. In order to cure muggle problems by muggle means you need to put so much more effort into it than if a wizard were to do it, and even then you're not guaranteed to succeed. There's something to be said for organising thousands of people and millions of pounds worth of resources to solve a given problem, but if that problem can be fixed by a single wizard in a single afternoon does that not cheapen the whole thing?

A single wizard of Dumbledore's calibre, not a group or society, but a single wizard, could singlehandedly solve the energy crisis with one spell. Gubraithian Fire; the flame that burns forever. Transfigure a generator or a mechanism around that and you have infinite energy generation. I don't think I need to explain how big of a deal that would be.

Add in an unbreakable charm and you could make a perpetual motion machine that could power the world. Even better is that these spells are implied to last beyond the death of the caster, so he wouldn't just be solving problems during his lifetime, but for the rest of history on Earth.

 

Muggles have hunted wizardkind in the past. Going by history alone that gives them enough of a reason to stay away. This is the point I was talking about, that I felt you've ignored.

You're right of course. What was I thinking? If there's one place the wizards need to interfere, its the Syrian crisis. I mean think of all the lives that can/will be saved with their timely action. All they have to do is imperious all the world leaders(democratic, dictatorial and everything in between) and get them to stop.

Easy-peasy, a war which has been ongoing for over ten years now, and has no visible resolution in sight, done away in ten minutes. While we're at it,might as well go the distance and throw in world peace in the basket as well and let's ensure something like this never happens again.

Congratulations... you've ensured world peace, removed hunger and everybody's happy.

There's just that little thing where the muggles have given up their freedom without even being aware of it, but why should we let a little thing like that come in the way of world peace? I mean it is in fact for the greater good... their greater good.

Magic is indeed the solution to all muggle problems.

 

The best and easiest way to help muggles is probably, like Aekiel said, pimping out their technology with magic, specially energy generation. Though it would be quite hard to do it with the Statute present--unless the change is minimal, which makes the magical intervention pointless. And, of course, selling the idea of revealing the magical world to the muggles so they can fuel more of their little toys could be a tad difficult.

I also doubt the practicality of the wizards directly solving every muggle issue worldwide, mostly due lack of manpower and the scale of some problems. Using magic to eradicate diseases and other health issues, for instance, would be incredibly taxing in resources and work hours. Even in the best of situations, if trained Healers are unnecessary for mundane problems and a relatively easy to brew Panacea Potion exists, there would be needed a great amount of brewers and ingredients. These people would have to be paid, the ingredients--which probably aren't produced at rate as big as this demand--would have to be acquired and someone would have to distribute them to the right people. And all that would have to be kept going until the underlying causes of disease and illnesses are eradicated, which solving would be another considerably difficult problem.

The easiest way of solving the problems would be ditching the Statute and working together with muggles, as it's pretty much impossible to make drastic change without anyone noticing. Also, a good portion of the working population would be freed up from Ministry's claws once maintaining secrecy is unnecessary.

Of course, assuming they don't kill each other, a whole new batch of problems would arise. Wizards would gain great economical and political power from solving the major issues and possessing the exclusive means of producing magical items and effects. A Wizardly oligarchy could easily form, one that you can only be born into and no amount of hard work or money could get you in.

Aaand now I want to read a story about that kind of stuff.