Will all due respect to Futurama and the Simpsons, the pictures I used were mostly because they were available. Spoo, the other blue meat, comes from Babylon 5.
I enjoy sci-fi and dabble at trying to write in that genre because it's supposed to make you consider the possibilities. Orson Scott Card (author of Ender's Game) calls sci fi speculative fiction. It is the genre of What if.
There are all sorts of different philosophies expressed in sci fi.
Utopian sci fi sees all of man's problems being solved by the understanding of science and the application of technology. [star Trek]
Dark Sci fi sees man as universally flawed and his own biggest problem. [Aliens]
Luddite sci fi sees science & technology creating more complex and dangerous problems as man presses forward. [various sci fi network B movies]
Classical sci fi shows that man, despite the setting, is still the same animal. [star Wars]
These are just a few that I could think of off the cuff. Can you think of others?
There is no small irony in the fact that some of the absolute worst science fiction is being created by the Sci Fi Network which seems to have extreme difficulty differentiating between Sci Fi and Horror [yes, there is a difference].