> >At the same time, people's lives are not so different from hundreds of
> >years ago, except many more people have automobiles, high technology
> >appliances and devices, and medicine, as well as entertainment.
I would agree that people's lives are not so different IN A FUNDAMENTAL
SENSE from hundreds of years ago. Fundamental problems remain the same and
fundamental patterns of solution also.
> I was wondering when would be a good idea to take a snapshot of published
> science fiction and science fiction from the Internet, and classify
> everything. An ontology of all the various forms of speculative science
> fiction, even space opera and fantasy, can be designed to some extent and
> utilized.
Now this is a beautiful idea. You may wish to look at
http://itsf.spaceart.net/, a project run by Maison d' Ailleurs and the Ours
Foundation for the European Space Agency and aimed at extracting good ideas
from the SF literature. Since the sponsor is ESA this project is very much
focused on space, but could be extended or another project created.
SF has descriptions of fundamental changes in lifestiles induced by
technology. Perhaps the most extreme example that I know of is Greg Egan's
book Diaspora which describes lives of future software entities in a
believable way.
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