I think social media and so on has caused a bit of a shift of focus to 'inner space'.
Older sci-fi especially seems to often just be 20th century society with teleporters, or the united nations, at galactic level, and so on.
But we are now living in a sci-fi era, where it's clear the real issues are around culture itself, and only a small percentage of sci-fi deals with that, and often not well.
Sci-fi purports to reflect our current society and illuminate aspects of possible societies, but I'd say in some ways it has been overtaken by reality.
Sure we can't FTL to Vega minor, or whatever. But if we could, should we? Who should get to go anyway? What would they do there? What are the implications for the rest of society? What about if they have children? Etc, etc.
Comments
I think social media and so on has caused a bit of a shift of focus to 'inner space'.
Older sci-fi especially seems to often just be 20th century society with teleporters, or the united nations, at galactic level, and so on.
But we are now living in a sci-fi era, where it's clear the real issues are around culture itself, and only a small percentage of sci-fi deals with that, and often not well.
Sci-fi purports to reflect our current society and illuminate aspects of possible societies, but I'd say in some ways it has been overtaken by reality.
Sure we can't FTL to Vega minor, or whatever. But if we could, should we? Who should get to go anyway? What would they do there? What are the implications for the rest of society? What about if they have children? Etc, etc.