I really dislike the implication that everyone ought to live in a more limited, scarce, and suffering-prone world/state simply because one prefers stricter rules for the game of their life. (And it's a common thread in many speculative technology discussions, not just AI)

You can leave The Culture, but The Federation assumes there are no GSVs.

While kind of tangential, I’d like to say the Culture novels do, in fact, largely follow stories of humans with complete agency over their destinies, and often human choices almost entirely shape the story. Minds do take a large role, in some novels more than others(Excession of course being almost entirely dependent on the decisions of Minds).

With that said, I don’t think it’s realistic to assume we would ever choose a Federation style society without widespread use of AI. The value proposition of AGI is too high. I don’t know if Roddenberry genuinely didn’t expect AGI to be realistic or if he chose to omit it as a stylistic choice(leaning towards the latter because of Data).

Given the way the world feels now, I’d really love to return to a kindergarten where every day is growth, discovery and fun without existential dread.

My vote is for the Culture where the hedonism is balanced by good deeds - such as a hand discretely extended - for those crawling out of the mud looking at the stars which the culture leaves as close to untouched and untrammelled as they can.

Ironically culture citizens would largely disagree with the author’s conclusion. The culture teaches its citizens that meaning and purpose can be found in whatever form the citizen desires. Essentially, we chose what is meaningful to us. Further, the culture has Contact, which would attract precisely those ambitious people who the author relates to.