Where's the utopia in The Expanse? Humans move offworld; two communities with stable infrastructure spend a century abusing a scattered sub-class; then they all get into a war because a sociopath egotist finds alien technology powerful enough to wipe them all out or mutate them into components of itself. And then there's the meteorites...

Sounds idyllic.

The utopia is that humanity is not stuck on a single planet anymore, with all eggs in one basket - so to speak.

The rest I find just realistic though. I do not expect humans in space to behave much differently from humans on earth.

If I sum your two paragraphs new title can be: Swarm Of Locusts.

Yes, we are a result of evolution and it is our evolutionary imperative to find and fill any biological niche available. You can try denying our nature but it is a futile endeavor.

However, these "locusts" can discover and create. We can do art, science, understand the Reality and the Universe. I find this absolutely beautiful and breathtaking, especially for a "swarm of locusts".

I mean sure but who cares? It's a big empty universe - we owe it no moral consideration.

Yeah its as if politics while single planet species isn't hard enough already. Still i guess a lot of series and movies are still stuck in this end of history mode of the late 1990s and pre-2008 GFC. One single government inspired by the US system. A lot has changed in the last 14 years we seems to wade into a west vs east planet lets hope its stays a tech cold war.

There is no mutation. That's just the upload into a biocybernetical cloud substrate. Prepare to be disassembled for scanning!

Like living in airlocked spaces, with the constant hum of air conditioning? Oh, the slummers on earth have UBI which is basically worth nothing.

Can't wait to have 9/11 but with disenfranchised people up in the gravity well pounding down on us well-dwellers..

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

My shelves full of years and years of SciFi. Great majority - dystopias. Utopias are rather boring, I guess.