We're millennia away from building a floating civilization similar to the spaceship societies depicted in several science fiction works but we can try and imagine how humanity will function once that idea has become reality. Several sci-fi novels and shows have already done so with various outcomes. Here are some of them.
Starship UK — Doctor Who
The fifth season episode “The Beast Below”, saw the Doctor and Amy on their first proper adventure, forward into the future to a ship known as Starship UK. In the 29th century the Earth was threatened by solar flares, but the entirety of the United Kingdom (minus Scotland, who wanted their own ship) could not manage to make an escape to space. A star whale appeared, and the humans captured it and built their ship around the whale.
However, the humans never realized that the whale was offering its assistance freely and so they elected to keep torturing the whale and use it as their means of transport. When Amy and the Doctor figure out that this was the case, they decided to do something about it. The Doctor wanted to lobotomize the whale but Amy instead found a better solution by releasing the whale through an "abdicate" button.
In some of the scenarios depicted in these works, it follows the same issues humans have faced on Earth. Living in outer space is no different because the conditions of scarce resources still apply. How humans work out that situation will determine whether spaceship societies can thrive, let alone survive in space.
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