I think you're not giving enough weight to the idea of alien motivations.
The Happies were overwhelmed by empathic suffering due to their interaction with the Eaters. They considered empathy for negatively valenced feelings a flaw in their own designs to be fixed and replaced with just a stronger desire to help others. They don't want to bestow humanity with a way to feel each others' suffering so that we'll eventually join them in zit popping, tentacle writhing, hair waving good times, only after our lives become unbearable from all the constant exposure to nursing homes and awkward dating. They want to skip the unbearable part and and go straight to mechanically aided, metal bar supported, super-stimulus enhanced genital bumping (and super cooled crystal nucleating).
Even if we forget that and assume they wanted to give us direct empathy right away, their first thought wouldn't be to do it through telepathic handshakes. Talking and having sex were a joint concept for them, and dividing it into the mere communication component would be as weird to them as a human giving them just the mechanical stimulation of one's digestive tract aspect of eating. They think more efficiently than we do, so maybe they'd come up with psychic palms eventually, but the first formulation would be more like "Hey, Humanity! How about, before we start bargaining, we give you a chance to feel the thoughts of your children while you have sex with them. We think that might make this whole operation go a lot smoother. And see if you can find any with broken fingers!"
If the adult Baby Eaters had the same capacity to feel the pain of others as did the Super Happies, then The Winnowing wouldn't last very long after.
The Baby Eaters want to feel pain when they eat their children, whom they love. It's part of the great noble sacrifice for the group. They aren't just-like-humans except for being numb to infantiphagia: they regard mercy as evil. Also the crew of the Impossible did debate convincing the Eaters that Eating is reprehensible, and decided against it.
stasis
That's very sensible if you're interested in cooperation. If however you're fleeing from monsters, putting your species in stasis is a tactical disadvantage.
as a sign that their method of negotiation was just wrong,
This was kind of addressed too. The Happies say, "That matters less to our values than to yours,"
I like your point about exceptionalism and skill transfer.
The Happies were overwhelmed by empathic suffering due to their...
Even if we forget that and assume they wanted to give us direct empathy right away, their first thought wouldn't be...
For the first two paragraphs, are we assuming that the Super Happies are positive utilitarians in a moral sense? (which is to say, facilitating increase in pleasure among others is a moral per-requisite, and anybody who disagrees is wrong?)
...The Baby Eaters want to feel pain when they eat their children, whom they love. It's part of the great noble sacrifice for the group
Today's post, Three Worlds Decide (5/8) was originally published on 03 February 2009. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
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