>On Wed, Jul 21, 2004 at 03:01:59PM -0500, Mike Holmes wrote:
> > Then, one of two things is true. Either those who do not belong to the
> > mother cult are taking a big risk with themelves and their children, or
>the
> > cults who provide this sort of support do it for everyone, not just
>those
> > who have a relationship to the cult.
>
>... or, the suggested scale of modifiers greatly exaggerates the degree
>to which specific magic is essential to the whole process, I would
>suggest. (Though I wouldn't say that either of the above aren't factors
>at all, I hasten to say.) If the net result is to make reproduction
>orders of magnitude more dangerous and/or unlikely without such magic,
>it fails my test for 'feels right for a world that's supposed to be
>mythically resonant with our own' both in principle, and in practice
>(since such circumstances aren't even that unlikely, even in Glorantha).
What I'd proposed was that magic would lower the death rate amongst women from 7% to 5%. Not orders of magnitude. This seems quite realistic to me, if you compare magic to medical attention, etc. It might seem marginal to you, but try telling your wife that if she doesn't get a particular medicing that her chances of dying increase by 25%.
I don't mean to denigrate the female condition, but statistical reality flies out the window where pregnancy is concerned. My wife was very serious after our first pregnancy about getting doctors to be more sensitive in their presentation of statistical data during pregnancy. When she was pregnant, our doctor told my wife that because of anomalies on the sonogram, that our child had a 25% higher chance of having a certain birth defect that would cause a form of retardation. My wife, normally pretty stable, lost it right then. It was the end of the world. When her friend had similar information given to her, she had the same reaction.
Small percentages don't matter; bad news is bad news to a pregnant woman. Pregnant women will stop smoking, drinking, and stop all manner of vices that they normally would not give up for anything, despite knowing that doing these things in moderation has only a small chance of affecting their babies. They'll take vitamins to avoid the tiny chance of spinal bifida and other problems.
In a non-technological society, where they can't even rely on statistics, this would be worse. The magic involved would be said to, "Give the child and mother a better chance of surviving." If you think for one moment that any woman wouldn't absolutely demand this better treatment, then you've never had a pregnant wife.
So, I think that it's realistic to assume that even when these things only provide marginal advantages, when it's a matter of survival and reproduction, marginal becomes absolutely huge.
Mike
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