I think the key point is that the exclusion of transhuman and posthuman tech makes the scope of possible futures orders of magnitude less appealing, even at maxima, than that of possible futures that do include such tech.
The jump from there to outright refusal to consider such futures and a rejection of their utility seems a bit extreme, but I would never have made or seen a parallel with religion until someone else mentioned it. IME, the grandparent comment would mostly / most frequently be interpreted (even by random people) as “Hey, wouldn’t it be really really awesome if we had X? The rest / real life seems pretty boring by comparison.”
Aaarrrgh, The Enemy!
I think the key point is that the exclusion of transhuman and posthuman tech makes the scope of possible futures orders of magnitude less appealing, even at maxima, than that of possible futures that do include such tech.
The jump from there to outright refusal to consider such futures and a rejection of their utility seems a bit extreme, but I would never have made or seen a parallel with religion until someone else mentioned it. IME, the grandparent comment would mostly / most frequently be interpreted (even by random people) as “Hey, wouldn’t it be really really awesome if we had X? The rest / real life seems pretty boring by comparison.”