Humanity tends towards a hivemind.

What every scifi writer since the dawn of time has missed is quite simple: The most consistently improved technology in the human ambit has been communications. From Frank Herbert drastically underestimating Moore's Law:


" ... I sometimes think the ancients with their thinking machines had the right idea."

"They were toys compared to me," Piter snarled. "You yourself, Baron, could outperform those machines."

to the classic "Where's My Flying Car?" question. Everyone from Roddenberry to Gibson missed laptops and cellphones (if someone didn't, I haven't encountered their work yet).

Long and short:

Humanity tends towards a hivemind.