> SF in general tends to rely on the "whig view of history": technological development and social progress moving forwards.

Notable exception: Cloud Atlas (pub. 2004), which admits that "Tortuous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president’s pen or a vainglorious general’s sword."

> a rise in post-rationalism and nonlinear chaotic events

I think we used to call this the Singularity.