Like a big red flag

[james_davis_nicoll]

Reminiscent of the long-dead population of Easter Island , humanity is stuck in a solar system-sized bubble and, as time ticks away, they can’t help but cannibalize everything good in their ever-failing quest to leave the solar system behind.

Comments

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

It's been a while since I read the book but my memory is that the limit isn't Total Stuff but the available toolkit; a large part of the plot centers on a visionary attempt to expand that toolkit/a grotesquely inhumane experiment in Mad Science inflicted on an innocent population.