Why do people use such a dull and thoughtless argument...

Fair enough, but meeting our basic biological needs and desires isn't that hard. Sex, a sense of community, food, shelter, entertainment. I would argue that the desire for these things is the extent of human nature. As long a system satisfies these needs it doesn't matter how else it is structured, meaning that the human nature argument isn't really worth much.

You'd be wrong. It's not just about needs, it's about aptitude. Our brains are well suited to particular tasks. This should be inescapably obvious given how difficult AI has been to develop. Engineering is one of the things we're the best at, and that's because our ancestors evolved specifically to have high spatial intelligence. On the other hand, we are very bad at long-term planning by and large. We're susceptible to manipulation from strongman types, especially when the chips are down. The main reason this kind of thing isn't common knowledge is because we don't have any non-humans to compare to regularly.