On Tue, 2014-09-09 at 20:56 -0400, Bruce A. Metcalf wrote: > Indeed, much good science fiction is just that; sociological > treatises > on the human condition, viewed through a literary "if" filter. > > These traditional "if" filters for SF being, "What if," "If Only," > and > "If this goes on." The latter in particular is an effective tool for > extrapolating present trends to see if they're leading in a direction > the reader wants to go.
This is fascinating, but the problem is that history serves the same purpose for societies. If you compare what is known of AD 1000 with AD 1500, and then what is known of AD 1500 with what we know of AD 1800 we have an idea of the direction in which societies moved in 800 years - which is a reasonable number for human history. Sci Fi on the other hand is "exploring the future" - it is not examining the records of the past. There is another important difference. From the beginning of human history till about 1700, human history was predominantly about humans. >From 1700 onwards human history has been about humans+technology. Sci Fi deals only with "humans+technology". It is easy to anticipate or create technological change, but humans are not evolving physically or mentally to keep up with that rate of change. History should be a good pointer to what humans do with technology. If we ignore the industrial revolution and look at individual "game changing" technological advances that have occurred in the past - say from 10,000 BC to 1700 (The wheel, domestication of animals, agriculture, bows and arrows, writing, bronze, iron, steel making) we can make a rough comparison of how changes in technology were applied and used by human societies "back when" as compared to what has happened after the industrial revolution. I would have thought that such studies are more in the field of expertise of historians, sociologists and perhaps anthropologists, rather than Sci Fi writers? shiv
