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Originally Posted by Nate the great
The science that made 1984 different from us was psychology (propaganda, mainly). Fahrenheit 451 was SF because of the sociology (the pattern of behavioral norms that existed in that society but not ours). The science that made Brave New World SF was an advancement in reproduction (mass-reproduction). And The Handmaid's Tale took one aspect of our current society, emphasized it, and added a technological event (some kind of disaster with fertility).
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All of them are dystopian cautionary tales of the "If this goes on..." form, postulating bad ends that might result from current directions. And all are set in the future. Remove the future setting, and you remove the premise and the story.
I talked about SF tropes, but the tropes don't have to directly include science or technology.
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The thing is, Luke, is that you've confused technology with science. The 2 are not the same. You've listed a bunch of classic stories that are SF because of the science, not technology.
Also, you're wrong about Brave New World. There would be no story if not for the technology.
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Another common error is too narrow a view of science. While "hard" SF tends to be based on physics or chemistry, plenty of other sciences have been fertile seeds for SF. Linguistics is one, like Samuel R. Delany's _Babel 17_. Anthropology is another, like most of the work of the late Chad Oliver. In the case of Brave New Worlds, it's genetics, and the consequences of trying to breed a new, improved humanity.
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Dennis