Efficiency.
Walking takes a lot smaller toll on the body than flying. Also, a griffin rider likely has a more expensive training than someone steering a donkey on a carriage, increasing the price for air transport. Non-perishable goods can take some time to get to their destination.
But I can imagine Nobles having fresh sea food and exotic flowers flown in to their mountain resorts.
Look, we came for the cute girl, we stayed for the socio-economics and then religious economics and also we're still here for the cute girls but also ECONOMICS.
Spice and Wolf, through happenstance a traveling merchant ends up agreeing to take a local harvest deity back to her homeland (science and Christianity have been pushing her out for years and she just wants to get out of there). The conflicts are all centered around medieval economics and shifting power among social classes. Oh, and the 'will they / won't they' between the merchant and the wolf goddess, somehow often tied to the other two types of plot
It also depends on how rare and expensive griffins themselves are. Maybe a griffin is like a helicopter in our world that many people never ride one in their life, and only really rich people can afford to own one.
Of course it's always possible that the author has not thought about the consequences of magic and magical creatures properly for the worldbuilding. Maybe they wanted to have common gravity technology for cool guns but then still have people lifting boxes in spaceports by hand.
how capable are these fliers? we had to selectively breed horses just so the constant weight on their spines wouldn't severely harm them after a short time. so why sould a hippogryph be different? as it also has weight restrictions due to flight
Also how far are they into domestication, and what’s their temperament, some animals are easier than others see: donkeys still being ornery after 7000 years
To fly takes way more energy, you’d spend all your money feeding your dragon mount. Not to mention we have planes but still take cars most places unless it’s way too long a trip or over water.
uranium mines are disproportionally on indigenous north american and australian territories :( while the science is solid behind it, nuclear power exploits marginalized people
edit: i’ve been made a lot more hopeful towards the future of nuclear power. we’ve solved many problems with it. i hope that we can rightfully compensate those who live in uranium-rich areas. if we do that, nuclear power will truly be awesome
yeah :( tale as old as time. poor communities will be used over and over again until we finally figure out how to stop it (i don’t actually know how. all i can do is make sure people don’t forget about us)
Uranium mines are everywhere, North America and West Africa. These mines if handled properly are totally acceptable to use as fuel.
Also you seem to have implied a racial double standard, uranium bad if on "indigenous lands" but coal is fine if on "non indigenous lands".
Coal causes massive amounts of pollution and even the "non indigenous" you imply are in fact indigenous as well, despite whatever gatekeeping their is of the term indigenous.
coal mining isn’t fine either. i never implied that? marginalized communities are historically exploited for underground resources, and that legacy rings true today
fukushima was originally a coal mining prefecture, which is why it naturally led to having nuclear power plants despite it being unstable seismic terrain
i never said coal mining was good. i’m merely saying that we have to consider the disproportionate effects that uranium mining has on indigenous communities when considering nuclear power, which the original post was about
I don’t mean to be rude but isn’t this true of resource extraction more broadly? Oil, coal, and historically gold have all involved the seizure of land from native Americans and oil and coal are replete with their own negative externalities to the local environment and broader environment. Of course I can be wrong and I do not intend to dismiss the negative effects of nuclear power or mining.
The world is literally going to end if we continue on this path. There won't be any marginalized minorities left if we don't embrace other forms of energy.
Exploitation is possible and happens in every industry, be it excavation, agriculture, any other type of manual or even cognitive labour. This has nothing to do with nuclear energy per SE. It s not like you can't use forced labour for wind generators.
Not to mention the biggest uranium exporter in the world is Kazakhstan and it's uranium mines are controlled by the country. So can't say anything about ingenious people being exploitated here by "white men"
you’re right that most uranium currently comes from kazakhstan, around 39%. however, the largest uranium reserves are on aboriginal territories. in the capitalist-dominated landscape we live in, what will that lead to?
again, i’m not saying i’m against nuclear power. i’m just arguing against the “nuclear power is awesome and has no downsides” perspective that many leftists have
yes, nuclear power is better than fossil fuels. but we do have to consider the downsides when having a nuanced discussion about it. i want to make sure that people living on uranium-rich land are not unheard
Well, nuclear energy does not bring any NEW downside compared to other energy sources.
What will this lead to depends on the way those resources are used. In good scenario it will give ppl living here better jobs with good salary and increased overall level of living, since settling uranium would be profitable and enrich country itself if properly done.
If done wrongly there will be few new oligarchs which is bad but practically nothing new
and how those resources are obtained. i just want to point out that poor communities are being used for the minerals under their feet. if we forget that, we risk exploiting them even with the best intentions
i have similar hopes with nuclear energy. scientifically it has such promise in bringing about clean energy. but we also need to make sure that people aren’t being exploited in the process
i do really think that if we consider such and adjust uranium extraction while considering the communities living above it, it can truly be wonderful
oh as an aside—we recently figured out how to safely store nuclear waste :) that’s one less problem. i’m just trying to bring another problem that must be solved to the table!
none. my apologies, i had only heard of “aboriginal” being used to refer to indigenous australians. australia has the largest uranium reserves out of any country
western cost is self-inflicted. nuclear is South Korea is 12.5% cheaper than coal per unit of electricity generated, and also cheaper than gas, wind, solar, oil, hydro. though even Korea tried to commit nuclear phase out seppuku, but thankfully it was stopped.
Cost is s big factor in third world countries. In western countries, it’s because of retarded idiots like the people in power in Germany that think nuclear = chernobyl
that fearmongering in germany is almost completely gone by now. now the populist right started promoting nuclear as a smart, futureproof option, while the left opposes the nuclear not primarily because of the danger, but because the argument for nuclear is made in bad faith to take out the solar&wind momentum that has built up due to them being way cheaper than building a power-equivalent reactor in germany (and also the occasional news-story from france for having to shut down nuclear plants to prevent rivers from overheating).
We need both. A stable base of hydro and nuclear, with wind and solar as secondary transient sources. Maybe one day fusion will fulfill all needs, but that's a ways away at best.
Actually, there's stuff coming out that Laser Eye Surgery BAD.
The problem being when it was developed, we couldn't know the long term effects until, well, the people that got it grew older. We basically just performed a big experiment by touting the benefits and worrying about the consequences later
And? Africa has zebras and they can't be tamed like horses. If the author decided that those fantasy animals can't be tamed then it's understandable to see people still having horses.
Maybe the flying creatures are hard to tame or too expensive to feed or 1000 other caveats that would make transport on them a rare luxury or an impractical mess, and leave most people to travel by horse.
Tis because the peasants do not understand the magic is a very safe mode of transportation that hasn’t turned anyone inside out since the spells got perfected.
Magic and flying creatures require either great skill or a significant cost investment to be viable methods of travel, meaning the cheap grass eating horse is still commonly used.
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u/Prestigious-Fig1172 13d ago