Much has been made over the argument about the negative effects of unbridled capitalism and artificial scarcity on our own planet's population...
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...and when applied on a galactic or even universal scale the issue of scarcity sounds even shakier. My main question, as the thread title indicates, is that does the idea of a galactic civilization being in danger of "running dry" despite having easy access to the near limitless resources available in space and possessing advanced enough technology to create a post-scarcity society make any sense?
The next thing that comes to my mind after Infinity War is the Dead Space game series, about how centuries in the future humanity is undergoing some vaguely-defined imminent resource crisis and collapse due to unbridled Space!Capitalism despite having conquered the stars and possessing the ability to break down entire planets for their vast resources via Space!Mining by Space!Corporations, and said Space!Resource Crisis can only be staved off by the Space!Corrupt Government (tm) experimenting with Space!Artifacts that generate infinite energy and reanimate corpses into Space!Zombies that are worshiped by Space!Scientologists...hmm, that sounds even more ridiculous than Infinity War the more I think about it.
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Contrast this to something like Star Wars, where despite the Galactic Civilization not being a true post-scarcity society ala Star Trek or The Culture, what with its Space!Capitalism and Space!Imperialism, vast divide between rich and poor, etc., still doesn't seem to be in any danger of running out of resources or mass starvation as a whole despite having persisted for tens of thousands of years and having millions of populated worlds and a population of who knows how many quadrillions of sentient beings, apparently due to things like super-fast and easily accessible FTL, incredible power generation via hypermatter, and the fact that they haven't forgotten that resource recycling exists, with even the tightly-strapped Rebellion making good use out of vast salvage yards (seen in X-Wing Alliance) to recycle metals they so desperately need, and thus can operate as fugitives in deep space and don't have to be dependent on Imperial-controlled worlds and territory for resources.
Basically, the more I think about it, the more the idea of a spacefaring civilization with casual interstellar travel and advanced technology having to undergo any kind of general resource crisis, and the things that spawn from it like resource conflicts and imperialism, falls apart. In my completely uneducated opinion that may or may not be ripped to shreds in any replies to this thread, the only way it makes sense to me is if the conflict driver is some kind of explicitly rare special resource, like Avatar's plot device Unobtanium, rather than mundane resources in general like what drove Star Trek's Cardassian occupation of Bajor, which like a lot of DS9 is modern or historical problems being projected onto a futuristic society rather than thinking of what new problems might arise from technological and social advances.
Then there's the question of the subtrope of this, We Will Use Manual Labor in the Future, labor scarcity and things that arise from it like slavery and exploitation of workers under Space!Capitalism and ensuing labor revolution, rather than the today's very real concern of workers being phased out via automation and the question of what new jobs and problems might arise from new advances, which sounds just as absurd as a writer from the Middle Ages thinking we'd still be a bunch of serfs and peasants toiling in fields under feudal lords; the difference is of course that they couldn't likely foresee something like the Industrial Revolution happening, while I like to think we have an at least somewhat better idea of what future technological advances might be like.
One setting which seems to avert this trope that immediately springs to mind is the Homeworld game series. Despite being released in 1999 and having minimal worldbuilding (albeit extensive backstory), it appears to have all the makings of a post-scarcity spacefaring society that can transcend capitalism: Not just casual FTL and energy generation, but also things like widespread Phased Disassembler Array devices which break down matter to its base components allows for both easy access to raw materials and recycling, advanced fabrication and construction tech allows for efficient use of those resources (and presumably smaller scale food and component replication given that in the first game you play as Space!Fugitives with zero access to planetary infrastructure for months on end...which, come to think of it, makes the existence of Space!Pirates in that same game rather nonsensical, hmm...), and hints of massive use of automation, with things like a kilometer-long warship having only a crew of 150 and a massive multi kilometer long mining and construction vessel having a mere 1,150 souls operating aboard it at any one time, and the latter taking less than three weeks to build. And strangely, despite all this advanced technology, they still can't design a point defense system for their warships worth shit!
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