# On Science Fiction **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 2, 2015, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491 "2015-06-02T23:38:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2015, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/101 "2015-06-08T21:38:47Z")
Sci fi is about potential societal changes and how they will affect people. It doesn’t have to be spaceships and lasers. It could be, like Einstein said “the fourth world war will be fought with sticks and rocks” and so you’ve got some primitive cave-man humans battling it out for post-apocalyptic dominance. Though to distance it from an actual cave-man book, like Clan of the Cave Bear, you’d probably have detritus from our current civilization hanging around and being used in clever ways. Landfill miners and whatnot. “Cave people” who live in crumbling skyscrapers. To clarify, sci-fi is about change that hasn’t happened yet (and may never happen, but it certainly isn’t about changes that already have happened). So a book about the Civil Rights struggle and how that affected the people who lived through it wouldn’t be sci-fi. But a book about a world in which Jim Crow still held force in 2015 would be sci-fi. Or conversely, a book about if the Black Panthers took over and forced white people into second-class citizenhood and/or slaves would be sci-fi. Although neither book would be about space, or aliens, or lasers, or even technology at all. I think of “science fiction” like the scientific method, applied to people. You create a hypothesis, and the book (or movie, or whatever) is the experiment. “What would happen if people evolved a third arm?” “What happens if airplanes were never invented?” “What consequences would result if a planet destroying doomsday bomb becomes as cheap and readily available as chewing gum?” It just happens that a lot of the early sci-fi came out during an optimistic era when people believed we’d be flying our cars around the solar system on vacation, hunting alien meat with our blasters, any old day now. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2015, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/102 "2015-06-08T22:54:59Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > . . . To clarify, sci-fi is about change that hasn’t happened yet (and may never happen, but it certainly isn’t about changes that already have happened). So a book about the Civil Rights struggle and how that affected the people who lived through it wouldn’t be sci-fi. . . . Disagree… I think that SF can explore past events, highlighting the moral lessons, retelling the stories and drawing perhaps new conclusions from it. Their Majesties’ Bucketeers by L. Neil Smith, was a re-telling of the Darwinian debate of the late nineteenth century, set on an alien planet, as the intelligent people there wrestled with the same moral and scientific issues our ancestors had to deal with. It’s a clever story, and an interesting look back. One of the reasons this can be “extrapolative” fiction is that the results don’t actually have to match the results we experienced. An alien-species retelling of the Civil Rights struggle might end up rejecting the moral view of individual equality…or accepting it immediately as obvious without an actual struggle! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2015, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/103 "2015-06-08T23:08:23Z")
_Hamlet_ is a very good work of literature, but terrible science fiction. One might object that it’s not science fiction at all… but if Shakespeare had set it on a different planet instead of a different country, and given Hamlet tentacles, it would still be terrible science fiction, if the planet and the tentacles weren’t relevant to the story. It would probably still be good literature, though. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2015, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/104 "2015-06-09T02:13:03Z")
But what about a retelling of Hamlet on a world where dead people’s personalities – memories and everything – are stored and can be consulted. Hamlet wouldn’t have been the only one to know his father’s tale: it could be brought out in open court, and Claudius publicly accused. What about a retelling of Hamlet where Polonius had mind-reading powers? Or Ophelia? Although not exactly SF, what about a retelling of Hamlet with everyone’s sex changed. The Princess of Denmark. What about a retelling of Hamlet, set today, with modern criminal forensics? (“This man had poison dropped into his ear…”) This is why I believe “The Literature of Ideas” is not wholly an invalid cognomen. The whole point is to brainstorm new ways of thinking about problems, and to come up with an angle, some “topspin,” that no one else has ever had before. SF does have tropes and formulae…but fewer than other genres. (Like Romance, which is so formulaic, computer programs can write it.) ---
**Author:** ![ralfy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ralfy/32/600_2.png) [@ralfy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralfy)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2015, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/105 "2015-06-09T03:05:43Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Not off the top of my head. Even near-future cyberpunk uses AIs. But the issue isn’t using or not using the tropes, the issue is using them in a boring way or not. I’m not sure if that was the point in your previous post. > [@](#): > > Were the survivors still breathing? Oxygen, I mean. You know, the stuff made by all those plants that died. And if all the animals are dead too, _including_ bacteria (or why would windfall apples still be good to eat years after the trees are dead?) we wouldn’t be able to survive for more than a couple of years, I don’t think… From what I remember, there were references to decline of plants and animal species that served as food for human beings. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2015, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/106 "2015-06-09T05:29:53Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > Sci fi is about potential societal changes and how they will affect people. It doesn’t have to be spaceships and lasers. It could be, like Einstein said “the fourth world war will be fought with sticks and rocks” and so you’ve got some primitive cave-man humans battling it out for post-apocalyptic dominance. [“Me am play Gods!”](http://dresdencodak.com/2009/09/22/caveman-science-fiction/) 😃 ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2015, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/107 "2015-06-09T05:32:57Z")
> [@ralfy](#): > > I’m not sure if that was the point in your previous post. It was: > [@](#): > > fail in being good SF because\*\* it relies on some tired trope\*\* like, oh, the end of the world and being the last few humans around\*\* as though this was in-and-of-itself a shocking new thing\*\* to contemplate. Never mind the scientific holes in the whole setting… > [@](#): > > From what I remember, there were references to decline of plants and animal species that served as food for human beings. That’s not how I remember it (I don’t own the book to check.) I remember it as all plants, and the non-rotting apples stuck in my mind too. ---
**Author:** ![ralfy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ralfy/32/600_2.png) [@ralfy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralfy)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2015, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/108 "2015-06-10T06:52:04Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > It was:That’s not how I remember it (I don’t own the book to check.) I remember it as all plants, and the non-rotting apples stuck in my mind too. If only we experienced the end of the world lots of times. Also, what we have is what the characters perceived, so we can’t assume that all non-human life died. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2015, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/109 "2015-06-10T10:01:22Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Were the survivors still breathing? Oxygen, I mean. You know, the stuff made by all those plants that died. And if all the animals are dead too, _including_ bacteria (or why would windfall apples still be good to eat years after the trees are dead?) we wouldn’t be able to survive for more than a couple of years, I don’t think… Interesting scenario. If all the animals, plants and other organisms on the Earth died and stopped respiring, the oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would remain at tolerable levels for thousands of years, possibly hundreds of thousands of years. The oxygen in the atmosphere would remain where it was until it was absorbed by geological processes, and CO2 would slowly increase because volcanoes emit a certain quantity over time. Eventually our planet would resemble a very anaemic Venus - but not for millions of years. If there were any humans alive on the surface of such a dead world they would have plenty to eat and breathe- assuming there were no decomposing bacteria. Hmm; these surviving humans would need a population of bacteria in their gut; this might be enough to restart decomposiition on a worldwide scale, and on a surprisingly rapid timescale, too. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2015, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/110 "2015-06-10T10:04:39Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > _Hamlet_ is a very good work of literature, but terrible science fiction. One might object that it’s not science fiction at all… but if Shakespeare had set it on a different planet instead of a different country, and given Hamlet tentacles, it would still be terrible science fiction, if the planet and the tentacles weren’t relevant to the story. It would probably still be good literature, though. Hey- it worked for _The Tempest_. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2015, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/111 "2015-06-10T22:26:27Z")
_The Tempest_ was halfway to being science fiction already, though. And _Forbidden Planet_ did more than just add tentacles. ---
**Author:** ![Moris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moris/32/2846_2.png) [@Moris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moris)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2015, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/112 "2015-06-11T01:04:26Z")
People who are not in SF (let alone good SF) are often confusing _science fiction_ with _space opera_, the most naive SF’s subgenre. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2015, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/113 "2015-06-11T04:21:39Z")
And a lot of people who \*are \*into SF consider those to be made-up distinctions. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2015, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/114 "2015-06-11T10:59:58Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > Ithe oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would remain at tolerable levels for thousands of years, possibly hundreds of thousands of years. The oxygen in the atmosphere would remain where it was until it was absorbed by geological processes Naah. Oxygen loves to combine with shit, if there wasn’t any active sources, it’s all gone real quick. With all our iron rusting and our cities burning (not to mention all those dead forests) it’ll be accelerated. Currently, oxygen has an atmospheric residence time of ~ 4500 years, but tip the balance towards strictly uptake without production, and that will drop drastically. Maybe expecting everyone dead in a few years from just that is exaggerating, but people’d feel the effects way before it got completely depleted. Just a drop by a few percent will do that. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2015, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/115 "2015-06-11T12:34:13Z")
Maybe if you’re going to talk about nothing except the plausibility of _The Road_ it deserves its own thread, since this is now pretty far from the question in the OP. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2015, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/116 "2015-06-11T13:27:36Z")
The OP’s assertion’s already been debunked. But I’ll get off The Road. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2015, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/117 "2015-06-11T16:54:01Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Naah. Oxygen loves to combine with shit, if there wasn’t any active sources, it’s all gone real quick. With all our iron rusting and our cities burning (not to mention all those dead forests) it’ll be accelerated. Currently, oxygen has an atmospheric residence time of ~ 4500 years, but tip the balance towards strictly uptake without production, and that will drop drastically. Maybe expecting everyone dead in a few years from just that is exaggerating, but people’d feel the effects way before it got completely depleted. Just a drop by a few percent will do that. Remember that the top surface of the crust of our planet is already bathed in a oxygen rich atmosphere; in short it is already oxidised. To remove significant amounts of oxygen from the atmosphere would require new material to be exposed by weathering and other geological processes, a process which takes time. The atmosphere holds about 10E18kg of oxygen; chemical weathering absorbs only 5 x 10E11kg of oxygen per year. Oxidising the entire biosphere would eliminate about 10E15kg, so even if the dead life on the entire land surface caught fire the oxygen would only go down by one percent. No matter what you do to it short of removing it mechanically, the oxygen in our atmosphere isn’t going anywhere fast. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2015, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/118 "2015-06-11T17:11:06Z")
> [@](#): > > Currently, oxygen has an atmospheric residence time of ~ 4500 years Consider what this means. The biosphere takes 4500 years to absorb and re-emit a mass of oxygen equivalent to the oxygen in the atmosphere; but if respiration ceased, the biosphere would no longer be involved in this cycle. The most the biosphere could absorb is equal to about twice the mass of carbon it contains - around 3 x 10E15kg. An insignificant amount. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2015, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/119 "2015-06-11T22:06:10Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **eburacum45** : > > The atmosphere holds about 10E18kg of oxygen; chemical weathering absorbs only 5 x 10E11kg of oxygen per year. Oxidising the entire biosphere would eliminate about 10E15kg All of those numbers are a factor of 10 high, and “5 x 10E11” is a really funny way to write 5E12, which leads me to believe that you’re misunderstanding scientific notation. “10E18” means “10_10^18". “1E18” means "1_10^18”, or just “10^18”. If it helps, think of the “E” as meaning “times ten-to-the”. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491/120 "2015-06-12T06:38:48Z")
Yeah. I usually write these figures as 1E11kg (or 1e11) and so on but the figure I found for chemical weathering gave it in the form 10E11, so I was attempting to be consistent. Apologies. Perhaps my original source was worrying that he might have been talking to someone who doesn’t use base ten. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-science-fiction/721491.md?page=7)