# Good science fiction is self-consistent People are incredible at noticing when something is ‘off’ so suspension of disbelief is quickly shattered inconsistencies in a fictional world. [^1] Novels set in the real world get self-consistency for free because for the most part [^2] the real world is self-consistent. Fantasy novels get to design everything from scratch. Good science fiction (especially ‘hard’ science fiction) walks a fine line between the self-consistency of the world we live in today and the self-consistency of a manufactured world. Walking that line is extremely hard and *most science fiction is not good science fiction.* Either it fails at self-consistency or it’s so unmoored from reality that it’s just fantasy with space lasers. In addition to consistency, [[Good science fiction makes second-order predictions and includes nonlinearities]]. The difficulty of creating self-consistent science fiction makes works that succeed at it worth paying attention to. [[Treating Science Fiction as case studies from a future history]]. Obviously, we also have huge blindspots to inconsistencies (like not noticing people in gorilla suits walking through basketball games) so there are ways for fictional worlds to have inconsistencies that ‘cheat’ and hide in blind spots. I suspect these are corner cases, but don’t have strong evidence to back this up. [^1]: Something something uncertainty minimization theory of mind something something evolution. [^2]:At really big or really small scales you start running to weird things ### Related * [[Self-consistent worlds enable you to draw off of the edge of the map]] * [[Scientists, Engineers, and Economists should write more science fiction]] <!-- #evergreen --> [Web URL for this note](http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/Good+science+fiction+is+self-consistent) [Comment on this note](http://via.hypothes.is/http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/Good+science+fiction+is+self-consistent)