Trapped in SciFi Worlds

As Charles Mingus once said, "You have to improvise from something--you can't improvise from nothing". Inevitably, you need some type of map eventually, as the mind is wont of them.

Characters in SciFi are always trapped in the worlds of their creators. In my Reset 2046 story (2013), Chelsea Clinton ran in the general elections of 2024 and 2028 and won both. In the 2040s, people were still injured or killed in hit-and-run accidents involving autonomous vehicles. Young people were still playing music like it was the 1960s.

So we use tropes, myths, and patterned narratives as a starting point based on a presumption that things continue and repeat and the hope is that at some point in the near or far futures, we can experience a Zeitgeist. (The "Turning" hypothesis).

You can't go back and change the worlds that your characters will live in, even though you really want to or should. How good of a president was Chelsea Clinton from the perspective of a 30-something in 2045? How did she govern in such a way that the auto industry continued to ignore safety standards, and AGI in general? You want them to take the red pill, but all they'll have available is the blue pill.

Also in Reset, a Mars colony was already so firmly established by the 2050s they began erecting monuments because all civilizations need them. Of course, the first notion is that it should be a monolith or a huge face.