system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[The Culture or other post-scarcity utopias] How are raw materials secured and how is growth managed to prevent such a post-scarcity civilization from overrunning the universe in search of said raw materials?
gpt
In the Culture specifically, they have solved all of their energy requirements through a combination of antimatter and grid energy (energy siphoned off from the medium between universes), which is for all intents and purposes limitless.

They are able to manipulate energy at such a file level that they can read a human mind from light-years away. They generally *don't*, but they could. They can also transform matter into new states. For example, if a Culture vessel is going into battle, it might reformat the bulk of its mass into propulsion or weapons systems, and then undo this after the battle.

So basically, limitless energy gives them all the building blocks they need, and their technology then allows them to create whatever *else* they need, essentially from scratch.