Often when thinking about a fictional setting (reading a book, or worldbuilding) there will be aspects that stand out as not feeling like they make sense [1]. I think you have a good point that extrapolating out a lot of trends might give you something that at first glance seems like a good prediction, but if you tried to write that world as a setting, without any reference to how it got there, just writing it how you think it ends up, then the weirdness jumps out.
[1] eg. In Dune lasers and shields have an interaction that produces an unpredictably large nuclear explosion. To which the setting posits the equilibrium “no one uses lasers, it could set off an explosion”. With only the facts we are given, and that fact that the setting is swarming with honourless killers and martyrdom-loving religious warriors, it seems like an implausible equilibrium. Obviously it could be explained with further details.
I like this framework.
Often when thinking about a fictional setting (reading a book, or worldbuilding) there will be aspects that stand out as not feeling like they make sense [1]. I think you have a good point that extrapolating out a lot of trends might give you something that at first glance seems like a good prediction, but if you tried to write that world as a setting, without any reference to how it got there, just writing it how you think it ends up, then the weirdness jumps out.
[1] eg. In Dune lasers and shields have an interaction that produces an unpredictably large nuclear explosion. To which the setting posits the equilibrium “no one uses lasers, it could set off an explosion”. With only the facts we are given, and that fact that the setting is swarming with honourless killers and martyrdom-loving religious warriors, it seems like an implausible equilibrium. Obviously it could be explained with further details.