Methene, you may not be self-hating, but don't try to tell me this one is not...

 

* giggle *
Naah... I have too much fun, and am too busy, to be doing the self-hatred thing. Who has the time, anyway? This is an intellectual problem, no more. I've had this headcold for weeks, and I wanted a distraction.

 

I will not personally allow a board like this to exist that's part of the general use section. Speaking for myself anyhow.

You do not need to have an entire essay to be part of a discussion. Thats why the politics subforum has degenerated into shit, you have a few folks with valid opinions who try to add something to a conversation, then they get chased out and flamed by the few asshats here who post basically small books of crap, with a million cross referenced hyperlinks.

Again, adding something to the conversation or giving your thoughts on it doesn't require 10,000 words min. But you also shouldn't be making pointless 1 sentence posts either. That thinking irks the living hell out of many people here, and that elitist way of thinking is pure crap, not everyone has a half hour to make a post.

 

I think both parties have a good chance at winning.
If Muggles would start the thing, wizards would probably be screwed,
you may or may not be protected by protego against bullets, but if you are shoot by a profi you didn’t even notice you are dead before you hit the ground. Most wizards underestimate Muggles and their technology and wouldn’t start worrying until it is too late. And they are a very small minority. But they could just as well win, who knows?
I hope we never have to find out…

 

What is a profi?

 

Muggles win hands down. Theres 18 pages of this, and I can't read through them now so sorry if I repeat anything already said.

To become magical there must be some genetic trait, an extra chromosone somewhere. All that is needed is for scientists to find out that single thing, and create some biological weapons that target the abnormality.

If this is impossible, then Guns would still work. A wizards reflexes aren't as fast as bullets, so any sort of suprise attack would kill them. To find their secret hiding places all you need is some sort of informant, or hostage to lead you there.

Technology wins, plain and simple.

 

Pieman, don't try and take a side until you've read all 18 pages, there is substantial proof each way, though personally I think wizards would win because wizard = muggle + magic. They can do anything muggles can, and they can also use magic.

 

I'll get around to reading it tommorow, for now I must sleep. But before that;

No, they can't. They don't possess the knowledge to, and most are unwilling to gain it. Even the muggleborns seem to intergrate with the rest of the society that they don't even bother with technology anymore. And even if they attempted to use it, most would give up due to impatience as any magical use near it will disrupt it. Maybe not to the Hogwarts extent, but it would still affect any technology near it. And even if some hardcore muggle fanatic does struggle through and use muggle technology, they sure as hell aren't convincing anyone else to follow them.

 

I'm mostly apathetic about your arguments in this case, Pieman, because they've been disputed to death, but this one...

Is just outright wrong. Magic doesn't affect technology unless one of two things is true:

1) There is a massive amount of it in the area; Hogwarts massive.
2) The magic was used to do so intentionally (say, an electricity disruption spell or something of the like).

No person has enough magic to cause technology to flicker. Not Dumbledore, not Voldemort, no one wizard. It is only in highly condensed areas that magic disrupts technology without any intent behind it.

 

A "profi"..., I´m sorry, I forgot that isn´t an English word...I mean a professional sniper or sharp shooter..."Profi" is short for "Professioneller Schütze" or something simlar, it is a German term which just sort of slipped in...sorry.

 

Oh god, it's starting again.

I'm staying out of this one. I still haven't got round to replying to the monster-posts at the end of the previous run through of this thread, when Bel and Garret posted 13k words between them in 2 posts.

 

@XxEnvyxX
Thanks for explaining.

 

I believe we have this misconception mainly because of the way J.K wrote her books. She invented so many spells, that if used would have changed her world radically. We look at her world and see the spectacular. Yet the Weasley's still live in a hovel, and diagon alley (which looks like a dump) is the only sort of city that is given.

However, when you take into account the numerous spells and charms that exist, you start to question why her world is like this. Wizards should have taken over the muggles centuries ago. They have very able spells that if used could have benefited their society greatly.

Let me give you an example. Take these two spells. The expansion and weightlessness charms. They are presumably relatively simple to learn as I would think they are taught at Hogwarts, or if not later in life when required. With just these two simple spells, the wonderful magical world J.K created would be radically changed.

Wizards wish to segregate themselves from muggles. Why not build cities in the skies then? I would assume with a hired builder that it would not be hard to put these charms on every home. Which when combined together could lift a city into space, far away from the prying muggles.

Expansion charms should make every wizarding house as big as a football field inside. The spell scourgify should have numerous medical benefits, with the wizarding world a clean haven for house elves. Unfortunately, this does not occur. Rowling left numerous spells and charms unaccounted for.

Her world simply does not make sense to my mind. I can see why many of you think muggles would defeat wizards based on what we have seen so far. However, if you take into account what the world should be like and possibly is outside of Britain, then you have a race of wizards that can easily defeat muggles with a twiddle of their thumbs.

Also, another interesting thing to note is that the whole series is based from Harry's perspective. We know about as much of the wizarding world as Harry Potter does. Who I am sorry to say is incredibly limited in this aspect. His lack of wizarding geography makes him look as though he is mentally impaired.

He does not realize that there are separate schools from Hogwarts, or a whole other world for that matter until the 4th book at the quidditch match. From what we have pieced together, Harry knows where diagon alley is, where Hogwarts is, where Ron lives, and were hogsmeade is located.

As the population of the wizarding world is far greater than simply diagon alley and hogsmeade, the world is most likely a far bigger place than we have the impression of. I think it is safe to assume that there exists wizarding cities which could far outrank diagon alley.

I also have a problem with people who claim that Diagon alley's wards would fall from a nuclear blast. I doubt a place as big as that could go unnoticed in London, even with muggle repelling charms. Therefore, either the place is underground, which would mostly shield it from a nuclear blast.

Or, diagon alley is in fact a small tract of land that has numerous expansion charms placed on it. Mind you, this is just a theory, but I believe that if every location in diagon alley had wards placed on it (to keep out intruders), then the energy would combine into that small tract of land.

Let's say while spread out the wards would fall from a nuclear blast. However the wards would be compacted into that small tract of land due to the expansion charm. Which means that the small tract of land that is diagon alley would be much more resilient to a nuclear blast.

Let's say diagon alley is 20 times or maybe even 100 times bigger than it is due to expansion charms. This means that diagon alley in itself would have 20 to 100 times stronger wards than the average home. Keep in mind that the energy from a nuclear blast is largely spread out, not concentrated in one place.

Which means that the small tract of land that is diagon alley would really not receive that much destructive force as people believe. Combined with the fact that the wards are compacted, pretty much gives you a very shielded city, which I believe would stop the power of a nuclear blast.

 

Actually, I've always assumed that the Alley is more like a pocket dimension, or perhaps it's slightly out of phase with the rest of the world. The only fact that seems to refute that idea is that owls can fly in and out easily. Still, if the Alley relies purely on muggle-repelling charms to stay hidden from the muggles, then it'll be found soon. Today's mapping and computer modeling techniques allow for something like .5" error over a square mile - and the property in the London area is *expensive.* People pay attention to property values there. Anomalies will be noticed.

And consider the amount of disruption caused by that much magic in a concentrated, highly electronically dependant area like today's major cities. How long would it take IBM or Sprint Communications to define a geographical area where their hardware and software fails catastrophically and irrecoverably All The Time?

 

A small tract of land the size of the leaky cauldron could be bought and then placed with muggle repelling charms. The property would be considered bought, and passerby's wouldn't notice the appearance due to the charms. I would think that diagon alley is the size it is due to expansion charms, or it could have been built underground.

 

You're assuming that whatever spells are on the alleys cannot also fool maps (which we know is possible, due to Unplottability).

Edit: Damn, I just remembered I was going to stay out of this one...

 

I would think that unplottability merely prevents revealing charms. The marauders map uses charms to track the places, and a map such as that could have been fooled by the unplottable property. But I doubt let's say if you make a tract of land the size of manchester unplottable, it will cease to show up on maps. For the reason that the maps already were drawn with the location.

I assumed that unplottability merely prevents someone from finding a specific location through revealing charms and other things. The user would just have to travel in the direction were the location is in order to find it.

 

You would think wrong, since unplottability is clearly defined in canon as the inability to place somewhere on a map.

The entry from the Lexicon Encyclopedia (the book):

 

It defines it as something impossible to include in maps. However people can't include it in maps because they don't know where it is, and what the location looks like. You can make a map by simply drawing it. If you knew were the location was you could draw the map.

The people who made it unplottable could draw the map, just not make a map that is used magically. Neither could they locate their property with revealing charms unless they had some sort of password. I think most magical maps work by showing you a location when you want to find something. If the location was unplottable the map wouldn't be able to show you because it cannot track it.

However if you have a mental image of the map, then I think you would be able to draw it. Remember, drawing a map just gives a person an image as to what the terrain looks like. You can assume where it is located based on the nearby terrain, and then fill in the area.

 

Not if it has an unplottability charm on it, since an unplottable charm prevents a place from being put on a map. It's the same principle as the Fidelius charm. You know the location (if you're in on the secret), but you can't say it.

That would count as mapping the location, so would not be possible.

When we're told what unplottability is, we're told it means you cannot place the area on a map. Not magical maps, all maps. Full stop, end of, no ifs and no buts.