do unicorns make an equestrian economy useless?

[Skullbuster 1,906]

so i was thinking about this, we have seen in the past that unicorns have the ability to materialize objects out of thin air using their magic, so does this mean money is useless for them? why would a unicorn grow or buy food when it can just will it into existence, same with furniture or anything, a unicorn could see a nice looking chair, but not be able to afford it, he can just go home and BAM he has a copy of that chair your thoughts on this?

[Leafeon 2,701]

I believe this would be very high level magic. The only ponies we know that can perform such magic are Twilight and the allicorns. All the other unicorns can't. That said, this isn't really a problem.

[Zygen 6,065]

Well, considering most of the ponies can't just conjure up money even most Unicorns can't do this type of thing, I mean really only unicorns who are of high level of magic like Twilight who can do this type of thing.

 

So i imagine that isn't the case, besides the ponies have been shown buying things with bits before, so I assume they have some form of economy.

 

Or it could be like in Fairly Odd parents where they can't conjure money up, but can only teleport it, meaning they steal it so therefore they can't just conjure up all the money in the world.

[Scootalove 10,684]

I don't really think Unicorns make an Equestrian economy useless since, their main economic currency are Bits.

Nothing harming any of the money earned in Equestria.

[Betez 1,734]

I don't think so. I mean, we saw Trixie give the guy at the amulet store like 5,000 bits, why couldn't she just magically summon the Alicorn Amulet? I think Unicorns do use money.

[Fridge 382]

so i was thinking about this, we have seen in the past that unicorns have the ability to materialize objects out of thin air using their magic, so does this mean money is useless for them? why would a unicorn grow or buy food when it can just will it into existence, same with furniture or anything, a unicorn could see a nice looking chair, but not be able to afford it, he can just go home and BAM he has a copy of that chair your thoughts on this?

Well from what we've seen a unicorn of fairly high training needs to do it and they need the materials to start with. I imagine there is something like a magical law of thermodynamics. As well as laws that make it illegal to copy currency.

[dekutree64 711]

Have we ever seen a unicorn poof an object into existence and keep it? Maybe it takes continual effort to maintain the object. Although some things like the orange-ified animals seem to be permanently changed without effort. Tank's propeller is still somewhat of a mystery too, although it has Celestia's magic color, so maybe it does continue to feed off her power, and she has enough to spare for such a small trinket. Or maybe Twilight and Rarity recharge it from time to time.

 

Unicorn magic seems to be one of those things that hasn't been fully nailed down in terms of principles/limits/conservation of energy

[Shanks 10,811]

It is interesting you mention this because I have been writing a fanfic that sort of deals with this topic, in it Twilight Sparkle uses a duplication spell to make enough money to buy this really rare and expensive book she wants. This spell can also be used to duplicate other objects but is much easier and takes less concentration to use on bits because the particular concentration of metals acts as a magnifier for the magic. Everypony finds out about the duplication spell and without giving away too many spoiler things get out of hand, very very very out of hand.

 

I think such spells are probably possible but would probably take a lot of concentration especially on some of the larger more complex objects, far too much to make regular use of such a spell to ever really be practical for everyday use. And even at its most rudimentary I think that only high level unicorns would be able to use.

[Music Chart Fan 818]

First, we don't know if unicorn magic actually can create mass and/or energy out of nothing. But even if a unicorn could in fact materialize objects out of nothing, it would still presumably take time and effort to do so, both to learn the requisite magic and to actually materialize the objects. Any unicorn materializing objects might have higher preferences for that time and effort, so the materialized objects would still possess some (perhaps quite low) value. Being able to materialize objects could have the power to seriously distort the economy, but economics cannot be eliminated completely unless every person's every desire can be fulfilled effortlessly and instantaneously (i.e. without constraints of time, mass, energy, one's own body, etc.).

[Veylon 255]

I'll throw my two bits in, too.

 

I'm going with the view that unicorns of sufficiently high skill can duplicate an object if they've got the object they want and the materials it's made out of, with the main limiting factor being the extent to which the materials are already in the shape they want it. It'd be exhausting in any case and require an amount of setup effort that may well exceed that of making what you want the hard way.

 

In this case, getting the chair you want would still require you to create a chair which you then magically mold into the exact shape desired. Assuming, of course, you have access to the original. Stamping out bits would be pointless, as it would require having gold already in coin-shaped pieces which you might as well use anyway.

[Twinhead B 482]

It's canon that Unicorns can only do a little magic that pertains to their special talent, so unless their special talent was conjuring money (what would that cutie mark look like?) it stands to reason that such a spell wouldn't exist, or couldn't be done by most unicorns (excluding Twilight and Trixie).

[Princes Cadance 345]

Boy, things must deflate fast in Equestria

But probably not many ponies can or there's like an unspoken "pony code" lol

We know that coins do exist, gems have a pretty high value (though it seems really common) and ponies do sell food, and unicorns/alicorns can conjure up objects from thin air, my guess is for the purposes of the show, they probably will never bring it up

Edited January 30, 2013 by Princess Cadance

[PurpleBaconEater 37]

so i was thinking about this, we have seen in the past that unicorns have the ability to materialize objects out of thin air using their magic, so does this mean money is useless for them? why would a unicorn grow or buy food when it can just will it into existence, same with furniture or anything, a unicorn could see a nice looking chair, but not be able to afford it, he can just go home and BAM he has a copy of that chair your thoughts on this?

im going to bring harry potter into this.

i think the concept is the same as in HP. they are able to kinda "teleport" objects that were already existing from one place to another. or they could get the supplies and prepare it on the way. but if im correct that didnt apply to everything. and remember that a unicorns magic pretty much only caters to their special talent

[poniesforfun 716]

I'm assuming you would need the Philosopher's Stone or something magically exclusive or something to reach that level of magic.

 

And if they could will anything into existence why would they need anyone else to depend on anymore? They would be gods.

Edited February 1, 2013 by poniesforfun