Quote:
Originally Posted by xg4bx
I think it's because we're living science "fiction". One text message has more memory than the computer used to put men on the moon, we're talking about floating cities on Venus, sending missions to Europa, mining asteroids, we have 3D printers that are revolutionizing medicine, computers are helping the blind see, etc. I think people just don't see a need for it when we live in a world of scientific wonders. My dad is in his 60s and was always a genre reader and his face lights up when we talk about what's going on.
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Scientific wonders are only wonders for a short time, then they become commonplace and SF is needed to speculate about the next wonder. I don't think new discoveries reduce the amount that is still to be discovered, instead they help us see how much more still lies undiscovered, allowing more speculation and providing more fuel for SF.
Edit: Also, SF is not limited by new scientific discoveries. If science says the Moon is not made from green cheese, that doesn't stop SF speculating about what would happen if it was. In fact discoveries of limits actually increases the scope for speculation. Knowing that ordinary matter can't be acelerated beyond the speed of light allows SF to speculate both on the consequences of that limit, and on what it would be like if that limit didn't exist.