Comment by jonathanlydall

Star Trek presents a super idealistic utopian post-scarcity society, probably naively so, but it's primarily intended as an inspiration.

Very good science fiction depicting post scarcity society are Iain M. Banks Culture novels. To me it feels like a far more realistic post-scarcity future than Star Trek (although The Expanse feels more likely than either).

In the Culture there are AIs which remove the need for humans to do any more work and at times in the book he mentions how citizens find meaning to their existence despite a lack of drive for wealth or materials.

In one book (I can't remember which one) in passing it talks about a spaceship being somewhat pointlessly assembled by people, not because it's needed (AI and machines can do it), but because those people wanted to do something they thought would be interesting, I guess they thought of it like building a cathedral.

In the Player of Games, the protagonist prides themselves on being able to master any kind of (non-sports type) game and has built their social status and identity around it.

Despite the utopian existence, messy situations do arise and the stories tend to revolve around an organization within the Culture called "Special Circumstances", which exist to handle "Special Circumstances" which is anything outside of the usual, sometimes covert, sometimes diplomatic, sometimes crisis solving.

Anyway, I highly recommend them if you're into reading.