'Precise steering' in your sense has never existed historically, yet we exist in a non-null state.

Aron, Robin, we're only just entering the phase during which we can steer things to either a really bad or really good place. Only thinking in the short term, even if you're not confident in your predictions, is pretty irresponsible when you consider what our relative capabilities might be in 25, 50, 100 years.

There's absolutely no guarantee that humanity won't go the way of the neanderthal in the grand scheme of things. They probably 'thought' of themselves as doing just fine, extrapolating a nice stable future of hunting, gathering, procreating etc.

Marcello, have a go at writing a post for this site, I'd be really interested to read some of your extended thoughts on this sort of thing.