I’m referring to @B_Munro’s Defunct Futures for a project I plan to do later down the line, though I’d like to use other potential ideas and concepts that people from the 1970s envisioned in the future. So what is there?
 
Depends what point of the 70s you want to take inspiration from, early 70s has Clockwork Orange, the end of the 70s had Alien. Both present much different versions of the future.

However that being said JD Ballard is a good start, Brutalist architecture that covers the landscape, humanity being tested and changed by technology, cultural stagnation and people suffering collective delusions. Essentially the Britian of the 70s with it's problems and underlying fears bought to the surface.
 
Considering our own world say this decade as a period of detante in the Cold War, would it be possible to see a 70's-punk world actually be a hopeful one? Somewhat similar in tone to star trek (Fitting, as the rivalrious part of the Space Race was just ending), with co-operation in society and going "Where no man has gone before/to infinity and behyond" as it becomes acceptable to wrestle with formally unquestioned assumptions? Obsession with peaceful space exploration (Perhaps driven by a need for resources, calling up the oil crisis) could be a key factor.
 
Considering our own world say this decade as a period of detante in the Cold War, would it be possible to see a 70's-punk world actually be a hopeful one? . .
To me, there’s a real tension. Because in the U.S., it was one of the few decades in which the median income (inflation-adjusted) was lower at the end than at the beginning. And I think the UK may have struggled just as much or more economically.
 
Gerald Ford

Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress Reporting on the State of the Union.
January 15, 1975


http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=4938

' . . . Economic disruptions we and others are experiencing stem in part from the fact that the world price of petroleum has quadrupled in the last year. But in all honesty, we cannot put all of the blame on the oil-exporting nations. We, the United States, are not blameless. Our growing dependence upon foreign sources has been adding to our vulnerability for years and years, and we did nothing to prepare ourselves for such an event as the embargo of 1973. . . '
Energy policy was in the air. It wasn't just Jimmy Carter.
 
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