Possibilities and fiction
A good way to distinguish science-fiction from fantasy: the first makes the improbable possible, the second makes the impossible probable. Improbability is an epistemological category, based on a perception of facts and an understanding of theories. Impossibility is a metaphysical obstacle, claiming it is probable requires a rejection of both fact and theory.
Although stores have been shelving science-fiction and fantasy books together, the audience of each and their motivation are thoroughly different. I for one can appreciate a story that extrapolates on social trends into a potential future, but find it mostly boring to dive into a fantasy opposed to everything I know the universe to be.
Art is fuel for the soul if it depicts a world as it could and ought to be, not so much if the representation thoroughly contradicts everything that has been and will be.
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