polymathwannabe comments on Open thread, Oct. 5 - Oct. 11, 2015 - Less Wrong

7 Post author: MrMind 05 October 2015 06:50AM

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Comment author: polymathwannabe 05 October 2015 04:34:59PM 8 points [-]

For the first time since Verne, real-life science has advanced so much that mundane sci-fi has gotten actually interesting. What's not to love about that?

Comment author: Lumifer 05 October 2015 04:43:04PM *  1 point [-]

I'm a bit confused about the concept of mundane sci-fi -- what's sci-fi about it or, rephrasing slightly, why is it not just plain old fiction?

Comment author: polymathwannabe 05 October 2015 04:48:54PM 3 points [-]

The sci-fi part of it is the extrapolation into practical applications or social consequences of established science. If we take, for example, genetics, both X-Men and Gattaca are genetic sci-fi, but only Gattaca is credible from a scientific standpoint.

Comment author: Lumifer 05 October 2015 05:04:34PM 0 points [-]

Your link defines mundane sci-fi as (emphasis mine):

stories set on or near the Earth, with a believable use of technology and science as it exists at the time the story is written.

I don't thing Gattaca qualifies.

As to X-Men, I don't consider them sci-fi at all, at least any more than, say, Twilight.

Comment author: polymathwannabe 05 October 2015 05:07:58PM 1 point [-]

OK, think Gravity vs. Star Trek (ignoring for the sake of argument the factual inaccuracies in Gravity).

Comment author: Lumifer 05 October 2015 06:04:13PM -1 points [-]

Gravity?

Comment author: polymathwannabe 05 October 2015 06:14:27PM 0 points [-]

Gravity.

Comment author: Lumifer 05 October 2015 06:42:35PM 0 points [-]

Ah, OK. Why is this sci-fi and not a regular drama? Because space..?

Comment author: polymathwannabe 05 October 2015 07:34:43PM 2 points [-]

Good question: what does Gravity have that Titanic doesn't? Both are survival tales that deal with what can go horribly wrong with the latest technology, but the eerily prescient Futility wasn't considered sci-fi at the time. I think it's a sign that we live in interesting times that the definition of sci-fi is getting blurry. Apollo 13 counts as historical drama despite having a very similar topic to Gravity, mostly because the events in Apollo 13 did actually happen. For comparison, The Prestige is classified as sci-fi despite occurring in our relative past, and Left Behind, although set in the future, is not sci-fi by any definition.

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