the one direction of futurology not heavily mentioned is the sociofuturistsYes, W'ON, not dealt with yet, although I did say - in response to tsuwm's article about SF becoming truth so rapidly it made SF almost redundant - that recent SF dealt more with the cultural and social implications of people having god-like powers (for instance).
1984,
Brave New World and
The Time Machine (and Ira Levin's
This Perfect Day, incidentally) could all be classed as the
intentional projection of (then-)present aspects of life into the future, thus enabling them to be observed as if from afar.
This is a very powerful and effective writing technique, and maybe proves my point that a concise term for projecting the present into the future would be
generally useful!
Making a fairy-tale story of current events is effective in a very similar way, and indeed,
Animal Farm takes exactly that approach. What would we call that?
Allegorizing?
the gracious and free-spirited sexual mores of Robert A. Heinlein's "Future History"...set in a far future world, but predictive of current trends in sociology?Hmmm, but is it? I see Heinlein's stuff as more of a straightforward projected wish-fulfilment. "Wouldn't the world be a happier and healthier place if we could all cast off our outdated sexual hang-ups?" kind of thing. But maybe I'm just an outdated prude.
OP
