> Behalf Of Bryon Daly > > On Wed, 25 Aug 2004 08:19:47 -0700, Nick Arnett > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Doesn't science fiction require *fictitious* science, i.e., > stuff that > > hasn't been discovered/invented yet? > > I don't think so. You can take currently existing science and/or > technology, make > some extrapolations, and write a "What if?"-type story that would most > likely be > considered SF. Ie: "What if there was a global nuclear war - what > would life in the > aftermath be like?", "What if a society used technology to create > public-accessible > 24-hour surveilance of everyone, with near total lack of privacy?", > "What if human > cloning was legalized and became common?" The science and > technologies here > are largely available; the questions are really about how > they are being used.
Wouldn't those last 2 be a *bit* more than extrapolations and fit the definition of fictional science. The fact is that the technology doesn't exist to create a publicly accessible 24-hour surveilance system or to actually clone humans on a large scale (or, as far as we know, on any scale). Sure, the basics are there but actually doing either of these are beyond our current capabilities. (Or so we think... dum, dah, dum...) - jmh _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
