Throwing around inappropriate skiffy terms seems to be as good a gag as any to try to get people to read a popular science article online.
Seems just retribution for science fiction's habit of inappropriately throwing around science terms.
-Humans being depicted in the future without the cybernetic and genetic "improvements" they no doubt will have.
That's true.
Star Trek's more then happy to suggest blind people may get optical enhancements, but balks at the idea of regular people following the hint. Generally when it comes to improvements like that pop sci-fi is most comfortable with it when it's replacing a loss - like Luke Skywalker getting a cybernetic hand to replace his missing hand. Trading in our human parts for something better or wiring our brains to computers is just a little harder of a sell... but I'm not entirely sure it's
that underused. Doesn't like every other cyberpunk title toy with this?
-Language being basically understandable with a few technobabbly words thrown in. The language really should also evolve in another way, not just jargonny neologisms. It will adapt common words to new meanings that will be incomprehensible to anyone who doesn't understand the metaphor.
Take English the 18th century, and then have a look at it now. Language two or three hundred years hence would be similarly quite different. And that'd be assuming people still widely speak English or something we'd basically recognize as English.
It's hard to try and feasibly predict what kind of changes we'll see in language, though (I think Firefly's half-hearted nod to Mandarin is about as good as it gets), and it's basically a lot of work geared towards making you
harder to understand. It almost seems counterproductive for entertainmnet.
Sure, I'd watch a show where everyone speaks a made-up language and it's all subtitled, but I'm not exactly a representative member of any audience.
-The general lack of depicting technological changes that will occur in clothing and accessories.
On this point I'd say... the little things. Sci-fi is often so busy with the spaceships and the warp drives and the humanoid robots you suddenly notice people are still using phones with cords on them or having notebooks with pen and paper. If we have interdimensional travel, surely we've moved beyond VHS?
I expect capitalism to continue into the indefinite future. Philip K. Dick is one of the few sci fi writers I can think of who did a good job integrating the consumer society into sci fi.
I'd give Pohl and Kornbluth little credit here, too. Granted,
The Space Merchants is a little unsubtle in its CAPITALISM BASICALLY RUNS EVERYTHING NOW dystopia, but it's a damn fun read.
