[detaro]

I think the in-universe explanation is that magic messes up electric devices, and they are thus not usable in areas with a lot of magical presence. It's not really answered if that could be fixed or not, generally wizards just don't have any clue about how muggle tech works.

[dTal]

Which of course implies that magic is detectable using ordinary electronic equipment (even inadvertantly - would Kings Cross Starbucks notice their WiFi dropped out twice a year?)

It also raises the question of how electric something has to be to not work. Flash photography works, so capacitors are seemingly okay. Even a simple one-wire telegraph system would be an improvement on owls.

[smhost]

I'm not sure that I want to live in a universe where a one-wire telegraph system is an "improvement" over a magical owl postal delivery system.

[dTal]

The owls aren't that magical - they are established to be obstructed by such mundanities as thunderstorms and glass windows. The communication latency is atrocious. To top it off they're sentient beings, presumably in finite supply, who can die in the line of duty. Interception and denial-of-service are both established to be not uncommon problems with owl communication.

Come to think of it, we come across actual magical radio broadcasts at several points. Even magical password-protection of same. Why the hell do they still use owls?

[greggyb]

We have strong cryptography and near-instant communication protocols. Why the hell is there a postal service in every country, and why is the quality of the postal service an indication of sophistication rather than lack of development in a country?

[bsder]

> Why the hell is there a postal service in every country

Because delivery of packages to rural areas is terribly unprofitable.

Certain things need to be socialized in order to keep a country connected and enable development.

Without things like the post office, rural electrification, and the Eisenhower Interstate system, vast swatches of the US would have zero economic output.

[greggyb]

Please read the parent to my comment, and particularly the last sentence of that.

Context is important.

[dTal]

I'm not sure if this is meant to be rhetorical? Either way - ideally you have postal service AND electronic communication, and the quality of both reflect on the country.

It's a fair question though - anecdotally, the two main uses for the postal service nowadays (in countries with internet access) are package deliveries and unsolicited marketing (possibly print subscriptions factor in).

To my mind, the unique advantage of the Muggle postal service for personal communications, apart from the globally federated physical distribution network - the one that would make me very hesitant to scrap it - is the difficulty of conducting mass surveillance on it.

[smhost]

No no, you're missing the point. You see, owls are quite adorable.

[mikeash]

Superb, even.

[detaro]

> Flash photography works, so capacitors are seemingly okay.

It does? But yes, these things are glossed over quite a bit, which is also odd since there are enough wizards that grew up as muggles and should have a fairly good idea about what technology can do, and would miss tech they'd have to leave behind ((EDIT: in a modern version) no smartphones, no internet would be quite a jump for kids used to them)

Any suggestions for fantasy that does it better? I can think of Charlie Stross' The Laundry Files (where technology is actively used to harness the power of the paranormal), the Harry Dresden series and the Night Watch series (which shows older wizards struggling with technology, younger ones actively using it, and at one point an army of humans with magical artifacts posing quite a challenge)

[dTal]

Nitpick - Harry Potter is set in the 90s, pre smartphone.

As for story suggestions - well, I don't read a lot of fantasy, but the "fanfiction" Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (by LessWrong's Eliezer Yudkowsky) is a deeply amusing take on what havoc might have been wreaked in the Harry Potter universe by someone who, finding themselves in it, applies the scientific method. (If that's not enough to pique your interest, at one point in the story Harry explores the possibility of using a time-turner to deterministically solve NP-hard problems through the forced creation of stable time loops.)

Another good story is Sam Hughes' "Ra", where magic is literally a field of scientific research and engineering. It scratches the same itch as Methods of Rationality (scientific deconstruction of magic), but in a universe built for that purpose. It's awesome.

[1] http://www.hpmor.com/ [2] https://qntm.org/ra

[taneq]

> It also raises the question of how electric something has to be to not work.

In the Dresden Files books, it's a sliding scale and the titular Harry Dresden drives an old VW Beetle because it's primitive enough to still (mostly) function in the presence of magic.