this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2025
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted, clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts: 1
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What about War of the Worlds? That was published in 1898. Are you saying the book where aliens invade from Mars and then die because of their inability to tolerate our microbial biome isn't science fiction?
EDIT: or what about 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea? That's 1870.
EDIT: shit, what about The Last Man?
that's the most sci-fi sounding gd thing tho
In the 2nd century some guy wrote about travelling to the moon...
Where he found Moon people who were at war with the sun people.
By your definition, isn't that also SciFi?
Kinda! I wouldn't say that it is exactly science fiction since our modern understanding of the scientific method didn't really exist back then, but it's fiction using extrapolations of what might be possible based upon the natural rules of the world. Those extrapolations are used to justify and explain the things that would otherwise be impossible, which is the core of what science fiction is to me. It probably doesn't vibe like modern sci-fi, but science fiction is not based on vibes.
Like, don't get me wrong, I fucking love 50s and 60s sci-fi. I read Rendezvous with Rama (EDIT: 70s, not 60s! I'm surprised, I thought Rama came out before 2001) when I was 8 and the novelization of 2001 right afterwards and that had a tremendous impact on my life. I just don't think Arthur C. Clarke or Heinlein or Asimov created science fiction. They pioneered new subgenres and ideas that have been hugely influential for everything that came afterwards.
Didn't exist when Mary Shelly did either...
That's my point, by it's very nature "the first scifi" isn't a fixed date due to scientific advancement.
Agriculture is a science, and it was a bigger deal than electricity when it was new, but we don't say every story with a plow is scifi anymore.
Hell, look at Jason and the Argonauts using bleeding edge navigation skills to travel to far off lands we couldn't imagine. The only difference is water instead of space.
This isn't a new process, we're talking about where modern humans draw a line that's been redrawn since the dawn of humanity.