> The reader doesn't actually know what the aesthetics are, nor does the reader get a taste of what it's like to actually use.

And this is how it should be. Johnny Mnemonic's 320GBs became the reality in mid 90' and mundane by 2005.

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thwarted 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Agreed. My point is that there's the perception of the characters and corporations as having some meaningful/cool aesthetics in these stories and in the genre, but you'd be hard-pressed to identify what they are or how they are different than what we have today. And that's part of what makes good stories timeless.

320GB progressed from amazing, to reality, to mundane, to trivial today, but it would take on different meaning if there was some breakthrough real-life research that indicated the human brain is, in total, say, only 325GB. Which is what Johnny Mnemonic is really about, even if the numbers and units used are dated.

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justsomehnguy 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> but you'd be hard-pressed to identify what they are or how

Oh, that's easy! They are cool!

NB in ~50 years cool would change it meaning and things would be no longer cool for a contemporary reader but some other word designating an awesomeness and delight.

	▲	thwarted 43 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Heh, and cool hunting is the setting in Pattern Recognition. That they are cool is the only thing that needs to be said. The reader fills that in with their own perception, which is how we're ending up with the Torment Nexus, because some people think the Torment Nexus is cool.