Towards a more Elvish vision for Technology
At the end of this piece you say we are much more like Elves than we used to be, but that's not really true. Elvish magic works the way it does because in classical/Tolkien-esque fantasy, the natural world is friendly to elves: they live forever, they're immune to disease, they heal quickly from injuries, they bound effortlessly across treetops or walk over snow banks, etc. They develop a symbiotic relationship with nature because it's kind to them.<p>Nature isn't kind to humans. Sure, we've acquired many of these elvish capabilities: we can live longer if we use fire to scare away hungry bears, we can heal faster if we have some bandages or build a hospital, we can travel fast if we sit in a vehicle. But our relationship is fundamentally with our technology, not with nature. We've developed a symbiotic relationship with technology. Nature is still a deadly Other.<p>So unless we someday genetically engineer ourselves to be more elf-like and resilient out in the forest, I don't think we'll ever adopt an Elvish outlook. We fundamentally improve ourselves via that which we create, and defend ourselves from the hostile environment which existed before us. In fantasy everyone's made by a benevolent creator, in reality we've evolved under the rule of survival of the fittest. The elves didn't dominate their environment because they didn't need to.<p>(PS: In Tolkien, there actually is someone who's out of harmony with the natural order from day one, and has to go engineer his own world as a response. Complete with orcs and trolls and enormous fortresses that keep nature out. He's known as Morgoth and when they finally catch up with him they throw him in eternal jail!)