I think you’re wrong about an important point here, actually, which is that not all things are as exciting as other things. Not all things are equally exciting.
Riding a dragon is actually way cooler than hang gliding for any number of reasons. Riding animals is cool in and of itself, but riding a dragon is actually flying, rather than hang gliding, which is “falling with style”. You get the benefits of hang-gliding—you can see the landscape, for instance—but you have something which natively can fly beneath you. You need to worry less about crashing on a dragon than you do on a hang glider. You can ascend and descend at will. You can take off from a lot more locations—hang gliding usually requires you to go somewhere inconvenient to get to, and if you want to do it again, then you have to get your glider all the way back up to where you took off from. And of course if dragons are sentient, sapient beings, that adds a whole additional level of coolness.
Magic not readily replicable by science—the ability to personally fly, shapeshift, clairvoyance (though we have replicated that to some extent with cameras and drones, they are much less convenient), teleportation, and the like are very cool. The ability to throw fireballs or lightning bolts is much less cool, because we CAN replicate those abilities with science (or at least reasonable approximations thereof).
Really though, is any magic cooler than, say, computers?
Understanding protein folding is cooler than special relativity, because there is a lot more you can do with protein folding than special relativity. Special relativity really only comes into play when you’re dealing with outer space, which is very expensive and outside of the realm of day-to-day life; GPS is pretty much the only thing which really cares about it as far as normal life goes. Conversely, protein folding allows for all sorts of biological shenanigans, is vital to engineering lifeforms, and allows for all sorts of novel medications, not to mention potential for creating new materials en masse.
It is true that magic is often used as an escapist fantasy. And it is true that it is a logical flaw in such stories (to some extent; it depends on how magic works, after all. And it might also give a lazy person motivation).
I agree with your basis of reasoning to a significant extent. You’re right in saying that certain aspects of limitless fantasy are way cooler than the limited reality which often need specified conditions. The convenience of portable wand or say a whistle to call out for your pet dragon is always a better and preferable choice than having to go to a designated place, fulfil all the hectic conditions and then finally getting to hand glide for a moment provided we have proper supervisors all the time. This is not really the freedom to navigate through the uncharted places like it is on the dorsum of one’s own dragon friend.
I think you’re wrong about an important point here, actually, which is that not all things are as exciting as other things. Not all things are equally exciting.
Riding a dragon is actually way cooler than hang gliding for any number of reasons. Riding animals is cool in and of itself, but riding a dragon is actually flying, rather than hang gliding, which is “falling with style”. You get the benefits of hang-gliding—you can see the landscape, for instance—but you have something which natively can fly beneath you. You need to worry less about crashing on a dragon than you do on a hang glider. You can ascend and descend at will. You can take off from a lot more locations—hang gliding usually requires you to go somewhere inconvenient to get to, and if you want to do it again, then you have to get your glider all the way back up to where you took off from. And of course if dragons are sentient, sapient beings, that adds a whole additional level of coolness.
Magic not readily replicable by science—the ability to personally fly, shapeshift, clairvoyance (though we have replicated that to some extent with cameras and drones, they are much less convenient), teleportation, and the like are very cool. The ability to throw fireballs or lightning bolts is much less cool, because we CAN replicate those abilities with science (or at least reasonable approximations thereof).
Really though, is any magic cooler than, say, computers?
Understanding protein folding is cooler than special relativity, because there is a lot more you can do with protein folding than special relativity. Special relativity really only comes into play when you’re dealing with outer space, which is very expensive and outside of the realm of day-to-day life; GPS is pretty much the only thing which really cares about it as far as normal life goes. Conversely, protein folding allows for all sorts of biological shenanigans, is vital to engineering lifeforms, and allows for all sorts of novel medications, not to mention potential for creating new materials en masse.
It is true that magic is often used as an escapist fantasy. And it is true that it is a logical flaw in such stories (to some extent; it depends on how magic works, after all. And it might also give a lazy person motivation).
I agree with your basis of reasoning to a significant extent. You’re right in saying that certain aspects of limitless fantasy are way cooler than the limited reality which often need specified conditions. The convenience of portable wand or say a whistle to call out for your pet dragon is always a better and preferable choice than having to go to a designated place, fulfil all the hectic conditions and then finally getting to hand glide for a moment provided we have proper supervisors all the time. This is not really the freedom to navigate through the uncharted places like it is on the dorsum of one’s own dragon friend.