It's insurance. The same way you don't want to go too far with germline editing. There are genetic variations that you might need to save your species some day. The cost of that is people suffer.

We may need a close connection to that way of life again and not have to relearn it from scratch.

This strikes me more as one of those things that is shocking to hear but not incorrect. People get more upset that someone said it without actually having a counterargument.

He's not saying that we _should_ live that way but that we might need to.