History Main / FutureSocietyPresentValues

** "Literature/TheUglyLittleBoy": The lack of any ethics, or any requirement for ethical approval, is shocking--especially given that ethical treatment of research subjects was a very hot topic (due to the disclosures of Nazi experimentation on concentration camp victims just 13 years before the story was written). It's not certain that a [[AllCavemenWereNeanderthals Neanderthal]] would be considered any more of a person than a chimpanzee is, which was probably Dr Asimov's point. Outside of Ms Fellowes and Dr Hoskins, Timmie is known as "ape-boy" rather than a person.

* ''Literature/TheLordOfOpium'': In the future, nations between Mexico and the US export drugs to other countries in exchange for patrolling the border between the two nations. One of the nations of the Dope Confederacy exports marijuana in the 22nd century. Seeing that the book came out in 2013, it's odd that a nation would need to make marijuana to export illegally, seeing that many nations at the time of the time of publication and at the time this entry is being written (April 2015) are relaxing marijuana laws or even outright legalizing it. Could be justified that it sells to a few holdout nations, or progress was reversed.

* ''VideoGame/{{The Punisher|THQ}}'' goes out of its way to [[LampshadeHanging address this]], with Frank Castle noting that while Hell's Kitchen isn't all that crime-ridden anymore, the [[BigRottenApple old New York]] is just below the surface, with the criminals now operating out of sight of the general population.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' takes place in the far-off year of 3000, but the world is socially and culturally pretty identical to how they were in the early 2000s of the show's production, just with a whole universe to explore and futuristic technology to use. [[InvokedTrope This was the point of the show]] -- rather than trying to paint an accurate picture of the future, it's mainly using the utopian and dystopian ideals of what {{science fiction}} largely predicted to be the future as a vessel to satirize the culture of today, illustrating that even with spaceships and robots and aliens, people will mostly remain just as [[HumansAreFlawed bumbling]] and [[HumansAreAverage average]] as we've always been.

** Heinlein's short story ''Literature/AllYouZombies'' features a sex-segregated future in which astronauts and space pilots are always male, and the spaceship stewardess/prostitutes in skimpy outfits are all female. Written not long after WWII, the story fails to anticipate that the horrifying events of that war would lead to very strict legislation about medical procedures and informed consent. His central character is placed under general anesthesia -- and wakes to be informed, ''after the fact'', that they have been subjected without consent to sex (''not'' gender) reassignment surgery. In our world such a character would not be relegated to a hand-to-mouth living writing confession stories, because they would sue the hospital and doctor into bankruptcy.

** "{{Literature/Omnilingual}}": Written in the 1950s and set in the 1990s, where a multinational mission to Mars has a gender-equal crew and a female protagonist who makes an important discovery. All these people have a cocktail hour after work finishes for the day.

** In "Four Day Planet", the racial ancestry of any human is indeterminate due to extensive intermarrying over the past few thousand years, and a person's name will likely not line up with their visual race. But one fellow with a Scottish last name shows signs of strong Japanese heritage -and this, unfortunately, gets him tagged with a nickname that today is a racial slur.

Related to ValuesDissonance, FairForItsDay, ScienceMarchesOn, TechnologyMarchesOn, SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale, and FailedFutureForecast. EternalProhibition, and EverybodySmokes are specific cases.

** In ''Literature/LittleFuzzy'' and sequels, the cocktail hour is the setting for a great deal of exposition.

* Parodied on ''Series/MadTV'', with the ''ComicStrip/BuckRogers''/''Franchise/FlashGordon''/''Series/CaptainVideo''-esque "Rocket Revengers" series, which took place in a time TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture from the 1930s and 1940s that the films ostensibly were made in. Of course, despite having a black man (played by Creator/PhilLaMarr) on the three-man team, he was constantly talked-over by the leader of the team, who also espoused purely-American values. ("Thank the world's one God we all survived!") The black people also lived on the separate but equal continent of Antarctica. The main villain of the series was a YellowPeril caricature known as Tuca, Queen of the Chinese, and the sole woman who aided the Rocket Revengers group, Betty, was treated as little more than a secretary.

* Parodied on ''Series/MadTV'', with the ''ComicStrip/BuckRogers''/''Franchise/FlashGordon''/''Series/CaptainVideo''-esque "Rocket Revengers" series, which took place in a time TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture from the 1930s and 1940s that the films ostensibly were made in. Of course, depsite having a black man (played by Creator/PhilLaMarr on the three-man team, he was constantly talked-over by the leader of the team, who also espoused purely-American values. ("Thank the world's one God we all survived!") The main villain of the series was a YellowPeril caricature known as Tuca, Queen of the Chinese, and the sole woman who aided the Rocket Revengers group was treated as little more than a secretary.