Charles Stross on his dis-satisfaction with far future SciFi where the participants are "Essex suburbia goes interstellar"or "Whitebread Middle American Suburbia to the Stars". Partially explained by a thought experiment of a denizen of 2014 returning to 1914 with enough money to survive for one week.

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/12/on-the-lack-of-cultural-estran.html

Good stuff in the comments as usual.