I thought it came and went about 30 years ago? I was taking that vision literally. George Orwell thought we would have this totalitarian world by 1984, like Kubrick envisioned a futuristic 2001. So, I take it you believe in a totalitarian future like the one in 1984 is going to happen? If so, why? I tend to think that such a society can never come to pass because those who would implement it no longer have the power to do so.
In the 20th Century the fear was that Marxist collectivism would take over the world. In the 21st Century the fear I have is that corporate oligarchies will rule our lives (much of which they already do).
Agree with that, I think we do live in a corporate oligarchy but the kicker is that through a combination of the two, they've managed to convince everyone that we don't. There's just enough freedom to give the illusion that we have true freedom and aren't just indoctrinated, industrial products of the corporate machine that continue to carry out the functional aspects to perpetuate this system.
As for what the future will bring, increasingly depraved porn.
Something bit more serious: I've noticed people increasingly care more and more about themselves and how things benefit them. And society is sorta being structured because of that, that mindset is permeating into other aspects. For example, there are fewer and fewer people in theoretical based sciences and the more hard sciences. Instead, people are going into the applied fields because it's easier to make money in those fields. There are some serious geniuses in hedge fund companies and the like, but their talents and smarts are being utilized for something truly meaningless. Ph.D.'s in such companies usually know fairly advanced nonlinear pde stuff. That stuff is also used in the sciences and especially physics. But their genius in such fields are being wasted on such pointless ventures. I hate that. And I find that it's kind of widespread. More people are going into engineering and less into the harder sciences.
Another thing is something you might consider sexist, but hear me out. To me, women are more sociable than men in almost all aspects. If you disagree, that's fine cause I have nothing really to back up that claim. This one you sorta can't though. There are increasingly more women in college. So much so that I think that women are starting to outnumber male enrollment. I forget where I read this. So you have more women in college and because they're more sociable, they tend to gear towards careers and degrees that more geared toward social aspects. I mean, I'm sure you've noticed the female to male ratio goes vastly down when you look at liberal arts degrees as opposed to STEM. Even when you look at within science, the harder sciences such as physics, chem have less female than the softer sciences bio, environmental, etc.
So with that, I think that in the future, more people will shift towards the softer sciences and applied stuff like engineering, technology based degrees, etc. and more towards liberal arts/humanities/non-STEM. There will be more pseudo-sciences as well. Industries and corporate entities are obviously encouraging this. More people will shift towards those light sciences due to ambitions of material wealth and general narcissistic tendencies.
You can already see the effects of that sorta nowdays. I think there are more fantasy/supernatural shows now than sci-fi shows. People believe that they know science because they have access to wikipedia and google. This is especially evident in sci-fi tv. And the sci-fi shows are light science because the people behind them have that kind of mentality. They don't even care about the science aspects. In the past and past sci-fi tv shows, there was a sort of reverence and respect for the sciences. There were even inspirational in many ways, encouraging people into the sciences and even inspiring technology/ideas. But nowdays, the science is shafted to the background in favour of narcissistic melodramas. You have these half-assed shows. Think we'll have more pseudo-sci-fi shows in the future, if any. And the science will just serve as window dressing. It'll just be a platform for stupid melodramas. They'll continue to depict scientists as emo, narcissistic, incompetant, hipster-y, melodramatic messes, etc. Most scientists and math people I know aren't like that; in fact they're really laid back and cool and passionate about science and math. But instead, through these depictions, people will think that they're not. And this pisses me off. Pisses me off oh so much.