I have sometimes mused that accumulating political power (or generally being able to socially engineer) is the closest to magic that we have in the real world. It’s the force multiplier that magic is used for in fiction by a single protagonist. Most people who want magic also do not follow political careers. Of course, this is only a musing because there are lots of differences. No matter how much power you accumulate you are still beholden to someone or something, so if independence is a big part of your magical power fantasy then it won’t help.
I would argue that the closest real-world analogue is computer hacking. It is a rare ability, but it can bestow a large amount of power on an individual who puts in enough effort and skill. Like magic, it requires almost no help from anyone else. The infrastructure has to be there, but since the infrastructure isn’t designed to allow hacking, having the infrastructure doesn’t make the ability available to everyone who can pay (like, say, airplanes).
If you look at the more fantasy-style sci-fi, science is often treated like magic—one smart scientist can do all sorts of cool stuff on their own. But it’s never plausible. With hacking, that romanticization isn’t nearly as far from reality.
I have sometimes mused that accumulating political power (or generally being able to socially engineer) is the closest to magic that we have in the real world. It’s the force multiplier that magic is used for in fiction by a single protagonist. Most people who want magic also do not follow political careers. Of course, this is only a musing because there are lots of differences. No matter how much power you accumulate you are still beholden to someone or something, so if independence is a big part of your magical power fantasy then it won’t help.
I would argue that the closest real-world analogue is computer hacking. It is a rare ability, but it can bestow a large amount of power on an individual who puts in enough effort and skill. Like magic, it requires almost no help from anyone else. The infrastructure has to be there, but since the infrastructure isn’t designed to allow hacking, having the infrastructure doesn’t make the ability available to everyone who can pay (like, say, airplanes). If you look at the more fantasy-style sci-fi, science is often treated like magic—one smart scientist can do all sorts of cool stuff on their own. But it’s never plausible. With hacking, that romanticization isn’t nearly as far from reality.
I feel that lock-picking has roughly the same features.
And, indeed, hackers are quite interested in lockpicking.
or programming in general.
Similarly I have mused that the closes thing we have to magic in the real world is the ability to forecast.
The closest thing we have to magic in real world is advanced technology.
Move your mind a hundred years back and look at your phone.
“Any technology that’s distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced”
-- Contrapositive Arthur Clarke
“Any magic that is distinguishably coming from technology is sufficiently signalling that the technology is broken.
---- Contraceptive Art Hurts Clerk