Science fiction is about imaging how the future would look like and not essentially about space travel.
Bruce Sterling even managed to write science fiction that happens at the same year it's written with Zeitgeist. It's a quite good book. It manages to name Osama Bin Ladin as a significant player even through it's written in 1999 (and published a year later). It also features the NSA and how they manage to wiretap everything in the world.
Technological progress also hasn't ended. 20 years ago flying drones bringing your packages to your door step was science fiction and today Amazon rolls out field trials where they do that.
Given how technology prices change the costs of bugging equipment sinks fast. Cheap bugging that can be deployed by individuals features a role in Bruce Sterling's Distraction. The book also looks at a gene-manipulated guy who lives in a country where gene manipulation is outlawed and as a result he can't run for office.
There plenty of technology and change to be written about. Apart from that the future is "Old people in cities who are afraid of the sky".
This thread is for asking any questions that might seem obvious, tangential, silly or what-have-you. Don't be shy, everyone has holes in their knowledge, though the fewer and the smaller we can make them, the better.
Please be respectful of other people's admitting ignorance and don't mock them for it, as they're doing a noble thing.
To any future monthly posters of SQ threads, please remember to add the "stupid_questions" tag.