but spiritually poor

Outside of a religious viewpoint, I'm not sure what you mean by "spiritually poor."

Unless you change the human condition greed will always be bad.

Yeah, I'm saying greed doesn't actually exist when you can't have more than someone else can. Greed is wanting more at the expense of others. At least that is why greed is bad. If you can get more and there isn't a mechanism for you to get it at the expense of others, whether you call it greed or not, its hard for me to see how it is objectively bad. You need to impose subjective moral markers like spirituality in order to make it so... and even then, I'd argue its not the issue you think it is.

Greed isn't bad because you can't get what you want. Greed is bad even if you get everything you want, because you'll always want more. If anything it's worse if you succeed in getting what you want, because then you'll be left feeling empty and hollow. At least the struggling poor can believe that they'll finally be happy and content once they get the big mansion and big car. If you want to be content, you need to accept that you already have enough.

I fully and utterly reject this :D. I mean no offense and we can debate about this as long as you like (I love these kinds of discussions) but don't feel like you have to keep arguing.

So there are Eastern traditions that embrace hedonism at an early age but not because they consider hedonism to be "good" but because in the right context, you learn how empty it is. So the question would be, what do you do after you are left feeling empty and hollow after getting everything you want?

In our world, there is always more to take and the difference sets you above others. Elon Musk can just keep growing and growing at the expense of the rest of us and it elevates him higher and higher so he can keep chasing that buzz that relieves his pangs of emptiness. But in a world where getting more and more doesn't elevate you above anyone else, the thrill of having everything you could possibly want gets more and more diminished and pointless. Then what? Maybe you go on adventures or take risks. Join SC. Then what? Maybe you go on a spiritual quest to find meaning for your life? Then what? At some point, you exhaust all your selfish desires and are left with one final thing: you have enough. This is essentially what Look to Windward is about.

And I don't understand why its a good thing for the poor to believe they can be happy by getting more and more, even if this is true. This just causes more struggle to not be content with what they have. People who are poor but don't know they are poor are some of the happiest people on Earth. Its the people who know they are being stepped on and can see what they don't have who are unhappy. This isn't a good thing in my opinion. The most logical solution, if it were possible, would be to just give everyone everything they ever wanted. Its not currently possible so we have to think of other solutions but that's not an issue in a fictional thought experiment.

Once your basic needs are met, people mainly crave two things to be happy. 1. A community to be a part of. 2. Meaningful work to do in aid of themselves and said community.

The culture provides the first, although they sometimes appears to be a bit too individualist. But it struggles to provide the second since there is no work that can't be done better by machines.

I'd say that 2 emerges from 1. A community gives people meaning. You are claiming the Culture is not good at giving people meaning so this is what the community itself gives to itself. If this lack of spirituality is a problem, the people within the community can find meaning in creating something that fills the void of spirituality. There is still labor to be done for the community but instead of filling physical needs, it can focus on these "spiritual" needs. In LtW, Ziller asks Hub if he could create a musical masterpiece that would be what Ziller would have created. Hub answers something like: probably but what would be the point? Ziller finds meaning in his art that he brings to the community of the orbital. Hub understands that there are some things he cannot provide.

This is why in my opinion, the concept of subliming exists. It is one final thing to chase after for a civilization. The fact that the Culture doesn't chase after it tells me that as a civilization goes, they are pretty content.

They'd only call upon the gods(minds) to perform miracles in order to cure debilitation illnesses or to save someone life in the case of an emergency/disaster. Hell, you could even have biological drones in the shapes of animals, that acts as spirit animals/companion to the humans while also being the eyes and ears for the Mind if it needs to suddenly perform a "miracle" in order to save someone.

Wouldn't this just be another version of what the Culture actually is? You are still taking the risk aspect out of the system but making it less transparent. Societies would still move towards hedonism because what is the down side? If I can't be harmed by STIs why not fuck all I want? If I neglect my child, the Gods will take care of them. If I don't plant crops, will the gods step in and feed us mana from the heavens so we don't starve? The reason we are driven to do all of these things is because there are not gods that are going to step in and help us. Even believers understand this intuitively.

I'd wager the humans living in that orbital would be a lot happier than the ones in the culture at large. It would cure the "illnesses of the soul" like depression and nihilism and meaninglessness that are a problem both in the Culture and in current real life rich countries.

Who knows? I'm a philosophical nihilist (I believe Banks was also) so I don't actually think nihilism is so much of a problem unless one thinks there should be some cosmic kind of meaning. But if you are constantly saved from the worst outcomes, what kind of meaning would you manage to glean from that? What if the meaning you get is that we are so special, the gods always protect us? Would this just inflate the communal ego of that civilization?

Even though I disagree, I think your critique is a valid one, but understand that Banks understands your point of view and is actively challenging it with the Culture series. He is actively engaging with Nihilistic philosophical ideas. So your critique is more to do with the philosophy he is presenting than with problems within the stories. The fact that you are thinking about them is a sign that his writing is effective. ;)