I don't know if it's a question of collective commitment, as much as it's a rationalization of where we might be headed. Science and technology needn't advance at the same pace as politics or culture more broadly. So our level of empirical knowledge and our technological opportunities might drag us down a path, which will force us to accept where we are and what we've become, or to delude ourselves and pretend things are otherwise. The noblest option would indeed be to take charge and chart a course for humanity. But we're hardly all in charge of ourselves, let alone the species.