Boys and Girls in Space - and other things

The following is a somewhat tongue in cheek future-history that covers a few
recent topics:

After a couple of hundred years of gender wars (woman's revolution, man's
revolution, second woman's revolution, etc) large numbers of men and women
in the western world are heartily sick of each other. In the late 21st
centaury this causes a crash in First World population, which in turn causes
a sudden rise in personal wealth from inheritance. This paves the way for
the introduction of 'terminator style' personal androids, since only large
numbers of rich people could afford them. Once the luxury market has paid
off the initial R&D costs, the basic technology was used elsewhere and
revolutionised the economy and manufacturing industries - which culminate in
Stanford Torus style space colonies like New Giza. Though few would
considder marrying one, a significant proportion of young people think
androids make a viable alternative for boyfriend or girlfriend. The first
world consists of America, western Europe, and Japan.

The second world on the other hand keeps having children. Androids remain a
luxury item there, and though they make many of the parts, they have yet to
develop their own OS or hack the heavily encrypted western OS that make the
androids 'come alive'. They are starting to experience the same problems
western culture did in the early 21st centaury, including stalled economic
growth, and are lead by India and China.

-New Giza setting history

A major story theme being that change, good or bad, drives society forwards.
Trying to hark back to the past means you just end up going round in
circles. Ask NASA where that gets you.

John