Regarding this topic, one would have thought that technological advances might actually have begun the process of "healing" the planet. 

When I think of the ultimate evolution of technology, the visual I usually get comes from Wall-E*, of humans turned to giant marshmallows floating around in their chairs.

*this is not an endorsement for the movie!

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Such reliance is a sign of the inequal distribution of the world's wealth and our inability to control population growth. A world in which work is mostly automated is scary if only a select few own/command the automated workforce.

Capitalist societies run on a system where money is king. Money comes either from ownership or work. If avenues for work are eradicated, only those who own have the money and the world could become a terrible place for the rest.

I don't disagree with that, but what you're describing there is not a post-scarcity society.  In fact, the extreme case you describe is almost a pure-scarcity society.  Scarcity is the key ingredient to every economic model, except (obviously) post-scarcity. Also, because it's never been possible, post-scarcity is just a twinkle in the eye of Iain Banks novels and the like.  So, not really anything resembling a proper theory.  But  again, I submit, a laudable goal.

I think the trick to thinking about post-scarcity, apart from the fact that we aren't currently able to do it, is posing "what if that was solved?" to any objection to the idea you may come up with.  For example, the housing problem. Mansions are expensive, right?  Well, what if they weren't?  What if a big machine could come up and 3d print your mansion in an hour? That gets less implausible by the year.  If everyone got such a 100' x 100' footprint 3-story house (30,000 sq ft total), the total land area required to house 10 billion people in posh luxury would be the total land area of the US.  And why limit yourself to land?  Or 2d layout cities?

In a recent podcast with Joe Rogan, Sean Carroll addressed the point about what if technology made it so people didn't have to work.  What if that made someone just wanted to lollygag all day?  Well, in a post-scarcity society, so what?  If literally everybody did it, it couldn't even impact the resources of a post-scarcity civilization. He noted how some of his rich friends don't have "jobs" they have "projects." What if that was everyone?  What if it wasn't even plausible for someone to expend their life's energy doing a job they don't like and can't quit? What if instead, everyone spent their time bettering themselves for no other reason than they wanted to?  It's fun to think about.

I'm reminded of a line from My Dinner With Andre: "I grew up on the Upper East Side, and when I was 10 years old, I was rich! I was an aristocrat. Riding around in taxis, surrounded by comfort, and all I thought about was art and music. Now I'm 36, and all I think about is money!"

Sadly, despite some startling technological advances that give some hope, we are a long way from everyone being able to be an "aristocrat" in that sense. As long-term goals for a civilization though, it no longer seems invisible.

Once upon a time, salt was a highly valuable resource. Your post-scarcity proposition relies upon humans not being able to dream up some new concept or service that is in high demand/low supply.... Which I believe they always will.

Also, your idea of a continental landmass entirely consumed with mansions sounds truly nightmarish and the apex of the environmental recipe for disaster ultimatly dictated by our crazy-big population.

Human's have an ingrained instinct to compete, even if there is more of the resource than they could possibly need.

Consider people boarding a plane when they all have an allocated seat. there is no scarcity of resource there, they all have a seat after all. But yet, they do not board at their leisure. They line up; they try to get ahead. 

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I can't speak for everyone who boards a plane, but the reason I try to get on a plane as soon as possible is to make sure that I can put my carry-on in the overhead bin next to my seat. The bins are the scarce resource. If I have no carry-on, then I board the plane at my leisure.

>>The trouble with your post-scarcity notion, is that the very fundamentals of the way western society thinks and operates is based on supply and demand.<<

Yes, it'd be like asking tribal cavemen to live in a modern first-world society.  They'd have a fundamentally wrong mentality, they wouldn't fit the culture.  One of the things that would need to change to have a post-scarcity civilization is us.

Carl Sagan once said, " It will not be we who reach Alpha Centauri and the other nearby stars. It will be a species very much like us. But with more of our strengths and fewer of our weaknesses. More confident, far-seeing, capable and prudent."  Likewise we are probably the wrong people for any future society, whether it be a post-scarcity utopia, Zombie Apocalypse, or literally any other way it turns out. The mentality of the people doesn't just fit the times, it defines it.

>> Your post-scarcity proposition relies upon humans not being able to dream up some new concept or service that is in high demand/low supply<<

Why?  Wouldn't thinking of new things be a primary activity for people who don't have to struggle to survive?  Even today, the first thing you do with "new things" is try to make it enable the broader population, not make it ultra-exclusive.  There's a new Raspberry Pi microcontroller board that's more powerful than my first several computers that's about the size of a stick of gum and costs $5. It was designed specifically to expand access. We've come a long way from the IBM CEO Thomas Watson who declared "there's probably a market for maybe five computers" in 1943.   In 1943, he was probably right too.  Things change.

>>Also, your idea of a continental landmass entirely consumed with mansions sounds truly nightmarish and the apex of the environmental recipe for disaster ultimatly dictated by our crazy-big population.<<

I merely used that as an example to show our actual capacity limits can be quite large. For the sake of argument we can assume a highly advanced post-scarcity civilization would have overpopulation and/or population decline problems licked. But even if taken literally, why would it be an environmental disaster?  Is it because they'd pollute because we pollute? Must we pollute? There are 10,000 inactive (full) landfills in the US. Just garbage we don't want anymore.  If you could magically transport just one of those landfills to the moon, and you wanted to build a moonbase, you'd build it next to that landfill because the "garbage" would be the most valuable thing on the moon.  Think of the many years worth of metal and organic material that we just discarded but which would be priceless treasure on the moon. All you need do is bring that mentality back to Earth.

I could not possibly pretend that I or anyone else have all the problems worked out, but every time an objection is brought up, it seems rooted in assumptions that may longer apply now, and couldn't in that situation. I assert only that this is a laudable goal.  My definition of  a "grownup" humanity--one that is truly elevated beyond us and no longer living on the Raggedy Edge. 

Indeed. I absolutely detest when an airline boards from rear to front because I know from experience that more than a few backseat passengers deliberately load their carry-ons as far front as possible. It causes nothing but chaos and anger.