André Gorz predicted the revolt against meaningless work (2023)

As usual with communist work, the critique is poignant but the prescription is trash. It is true that we live in a post labor society, that a fraction of the work done is actually required for survival and that automation and the forces of international capitalism has crushed what is left of the true working(production) class, and that much of "GDP" is just meaningless consumerism that has no bearing on productivity. However, the proposed self-determining, post-work activity will be equally if not less meaningful. This left-existential view that you can "community" your way into purpose is just BS. Purpose comes from needs and having a post industrial society where needs are cheaply met means nihilism is inevitable.

Gene Roddenberry had a different perspective on the outcome.

Gene Roddenberry was not a political scientist and wasn't trying to develop a plausible theory or model of a post-scarcity society, and Trek depends on magitech like replicators, free energy and FTL that we can't have in our universe. So his perspective isn't really worth much beyond its entertainment value.

Taking Trek seriously for its politics is about as pointless as taking Asimov seriously for cybernetics and AI.

Humans are social creatures. Part of our set of needs is having a community around us, be it family, or friends, or whatever. If we get cut off from community we tend to develop mental problems and die young.

I guess we could AI our way out of this, and create some kind of pretend AI community around ourselves, but I don't think that's workable; we'd always know it was actually AI. Like winning an FPS game against bots isn't actually satisfying.

There are lots of intentional communities (amongst other experiments) where people are trying this stuff out. There are lots of problems, but the root hypothesis; that people are happier when living together and sharing their lives, seems to be confirmed.