It's often pointed out that many of the devices in 19th- and 20th-century science fiction are now a reality. We have instant telecommunication devices; we have digital newspapers; we have flying machines; we have automatons that build things for us; we have self-driving quadricycles; we have superfood that survives wild climatic variation and is stuffed with nutrients. We even have ways of obliquely planting ideas directly in people's minds, through propaganda in the press and psychological manipulations in advertising.

If we have all these things, why doesn't the world feel like what we imagine science fiction worlds to feel like? There are many reasons for this, but I'm just going to focus on one aspect here: naming.