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David asked:
A mature human civilization, one that doesn’t have all of its problems solved, but at least is not only not destroying the Earth, but has stopped polluting and has restored ocean and land habitats?
anon answered:
This reminds me a bit of Arthur Clarke’s picture of our present as it might have been, presented in The Deep Range, with well educated and employed people grinding away at moral and ethical problems with ingenuity and more-or-less good will, despite, or because of bureaucrats and governments.
Philip Shane answered:
You might enjoy checking out Alastair Reynolds’ Blue Remembered Earth.
Tanith Lee’s novels, Don’t Bite the Sun and Drinking Saphire Wine, describe a post-scarcity future in which a human population of limited/sustainable size is divided between three domed cities, each of which is basically a self-contained paradise. People are functionally immortal. They can change bodies at will, and death (usually by suicide or misadventure) results in immediate resurrection in a new body.
Life is experienced in graduated stages, with the “Jang” phase manifesting as a protracted youth of hedonism, sex, drugs, and rebellious behavior.
Inhabitants can remain Jang for as many decades (or centuries) as they want, getting the need for aimless stimulation out of their systems before finally transitioning into a cerebral adult phase.
Without pollution and human interference, the world outside the domes has returned to a natural state. Vegetation returning. Previously irrigated areas becoming desert again. Animal populations rebalancing.
There are imperfections and challenges in the civilization depicted in these two books, but most major problems appear to have been solved.
Tanith Lee explored some interesting implications of a closely managed future civilization where “management” is not a euphemism for totalitarianism.
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