Thread by @KrisAtLarge

the possibility of someone like Tetsuo existing is the inevitable result of humanity's intersection with the numinous. if this sort of thing is *possible at all*—if it's possible for an ordinary human being to acquire godlike powers over matter and energy—then Tetsuo is possible.

magic doesn't exist, so the #Christians and @michaelshermer both say (curious how they always agree in almost every way) but the human _fiction_ about magic seems to grasp this fundamental truth: magic + humanity = world-shaking catastrophe, with appalling ease.

~Chara

it's not clear that humanity *can* safely wield "true magic", which for the sake of discussion I'll define roughly as "magic capable of causing objectively measurable changes on matter and energy". casting a fireball ought to be *measurable*—producing real heat and flame.

~Chara

humanity does have *some* kind of magical knowledge; we've lightly brushed the outer edges of this tremendously intricate and enormously varied body of lore. every culture on Earth has probably had *some* form of magical practice. magic is at least as varied as *music*.

~Chara

but the achievements claimed from such magics are rather modest: getting glimpses of the future, changing someone's *luck* (for good or ill), trying to deflect the course of human events in some small way.

nobody's trying to cast mage lights or "Trace On", I don't think.

~Chara

"Trace On" is one of the *smallest* acts of "true magic" that I can imagine—and it is, so far as we know, completely impossible. nobody serious thinks this can be done. (yet.)

and maybe there's a reason for that. maybe humanity *shouldn't* be pulling crap like this.

~Chara

I'm not saying that from doctrinaire #Christian reasons—it's never even been clear to me whether Christianity and magical practice are incompatible. there's lots of people who felt they could live together just fine. and there's been Jewish and Muslim authorities, too.

~Chara

the real problem is something quite *personal*: it's too easy to imagine the sort of person who'd casually break the sky in two with magic, if they thought it would get them something. Kingpin from "Into the Spider-Verse" is just the sort of person—a self-pitying hoodlum.

~Chara

he's fiction, but @elonmusk is real life, and he seems just about as heedless and self-centered as Kingpin with "his" particle collider. would you trust Elon Musk with "true magic"? I'm not sure I'd trust him with a pair of scissors.

~Chara of Pnictogen