The way people use computers and the Internet has been a huge change. Wikipedia sounds like something that couldn't possibly work, except it turns out that it

The way people use computers and the Internet has been a huge change. Wikipedia sounds like something that couldn't possibly work, except it turns out that it (mostly) does. Self-landing rockets are pretty impressive. I think the rise of free and open source software would be surprising to most people. The fact that Russia and the United States haven't directly fought a war with each other in all this time and our cities haven't been reduced to rubble by nuclear weapons would seem pretty remarkable to an 80's person. (Though one might want to hold off a few weeks/months before declaring premature victory on that front.) Dystopian predictions about the environment were kind of right -- the effects are there, but American cities don't look like Blade Runner quite yet. Manipulation of society doesn't look like 1984 unless you're in an authoritarian country. Instead, big brother watches you from electronic devices that people voluntarily buy and use, and "big brother" is usually a private adtech company.