A background detail I see in SF from time to time

[james_davis_nicoll]

You're writing about the future. Perhaps you want to avoid offending people by writing about extrapolations of cultures you are unfamiliar with. Perhaps you want to show that the events that led to your setting were catastrophic enough to cause not just the death of whole nations but whole continents. Maybe you subscribe to the There Can Only Be One! theory of future history cultural development.

[Poll #1681518]