This criticism boils down to a disappointment in humanity's progress. It's true that humanity could be Star Trek-level in 2018, if things had gone a bit better

This criticism boils down to a disappointment in humanity's progress. It's true that humanity could be Star Trek-level in 2018, if things had gone a bit better for us historically. But we'll get there in 2118 or whatever. It's an inevitable result of technology building on itself. Even if it costs a dozen World Wars and rebuilding civilization from ashes. And it hopefully won't even cost us a WW3, though it may. The journey will be a rough ride for humanity but on the other side is an end to most forms of human suffering and limitation. We don't even know what's on the other side of this level of progress except that humanity will not remain humans as we think of ourselves today.