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∂AIL Editor %2Stanford Daily%1:∞
To the Editor of the Daily:

	Judging from the %2Daily%1 review and the posters, the movie
%2Wizards%1 advances two propositions, both of which are mistaken and
both of which have caused great suffering in the past and will cause
more suffering in the future.

	The first proposition is that the fate of the world is
determined by a struggle between good and evil forces and that if
the evil forces can be overcome, good will result.  In its simplest
form the proposition takes the form that if only the bad people
can be killed, happiness will result.  It is easy to take pleasure
in such a movie; it is only necessary to identify with the good
people and rejoice when the bad people are killed.  In fact,
society is like a machine that doesn't work as well as it might,
and good can be done by repairing it and even rebuilding a part of
it that one has come to understand.

	The second wrong proposition is that technology is bad and
magic is good.  Perhaps if magic worked, it would be even more fun
than technology.  But magic never has worked and never will, and
Benjamin Franklin saved more church steeples from destruction by inventing
the lightning rod than all the attempts to appease or control or
fight the %2Spirits of the Air%1.

	Every attack on technology as such, that diverts people into
making careers of redividing what there is rather than
creating more, will have its consequences in human suffering.
The water system on which Stanford depends was built in 1913, and
we are about to suffer the first mild installment
of the predictable and predicted consequences
of neglecting to keep it up to date.

.sgn