Spiderwort

Well I suppose it's a matter of perspective.

Black hole of need?

How about just different shapes of people, with differing tastes. Some obsess over money. Others over art.

The worm criticizes the hawk for crawling improperly.

I can tell this means a lot to you. I suppose it's a matter of taste.

Yes, I get the point.

It's something I haven't delved into enough to arrive at a definitive conclusion, actually. The subject delivers little thrill for me.

No, modern sci-fi evolved over time like all the other complex stuff tends to.

Modern sci-fi is created by every fellow with a strange idea. Who thinks maybe I could get my idea across better if I framed it as a narrative and put it in scientific terms. because science is such a lovely language for talking about strange ideas.

Yes, like I said, fetishwear. Nonfunctional costumery

But you don't need spaceships and aliens to do that. It's just fetishwear at that point.

In real scifi it isn't fetishwear. It actually serves a purpose.

Greg Egan, Iain Banks and Sam Hughes are good stuff, if you haven't.

Also, there's this amazing new genre, "LitRpg". Basically fantasy where an rpg type videogame became real.

Most of it is the usual dreck but some of it goes hard sf, delving into the existential stuff.

A couple of the rationalists have even taken a swing.

Try

Mother of Learning

Death after death

Friendship is optimal

So ya, real development is still alive.