[World Building] Alt-History TL 8 Earth with open RPM

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by ajardoor

Hmmm, perhaps. What factor would you say is needed to stabilise the equilibrium and prevent (or at least minimise) any uprisings and oppression, assuming no great disaster rocks the boat and sends the world into free fall panic?

I'm thinking perhaps putting the majority of the magi to live in the outer planes and out of the mundanes' hair? Good fences make good neighbours, and a transdimeansional gateway can be a pretty good fence. Presumably, the power and promenience of magic didn't really become a huge enough "deal" (threat/destabilising element) until the end of the Cold War (perhaps Ritual Adept was very rare or non-existent until the outer planes were discovered?).

Maybe. The two red flags for me in the OP were the ambiguous bit about Civil Rights groups (id est, just how unsupportive are the governments?), and the mention that mages must 'let the government search their homes without a warrant, and so on,' which is pretty ominous. Unwarranted searches are oppressive by themselves, and then you said 'and so on,' implying other equally bad things, of not worse.

vick_molokh's post above seems a good place to start. In general, remember that denying one group rights that you allow others is a recipe for trouble, especially is the right was practically universal in your nation until recently. This is especially true if you need the work of the group you're abusing, and they are hard to replace. Ergo, you should not abuse them.