An interesting topic, but I think you've overlooked an important sex difference on the whole "each gender goes its own way" scenario. When it comes to relationships men are generally looking for an affectionate, physically attractive sex partner, so the idea of building non-sentient (or otherwise specially engineered) companions seems plausible.
But women are primarily looking for a source of material support, preferably of high social status. This pretty much requires a partner her society considers a legal person, capable of earning money and ow...
This is a great device for illustrating how devilishly hard it is to do anything constructive with such overwhelming power, yet not be seen as taking over the world. If you give each individual whatever they want you’ve just destroyed every variety of collectivism or traditionalism on the planet , and those who valued those philosophies will curse you. If you implement any single utopian vision everyone who wanted a different one will hate you, and if you limit yourself to any minimal level of intervention everyone who wants larger benefits than you provid...
Good story, and a nice illustration of many of the points you’ve previously made about cross-species morality. I do find it a bit disturbing that so many people think the SH offer doesn’t sound so bad – not sure if that’s a weakness in the story, commenter contrarianism, or a measure of just how diverse human psychology already is.
The human society looks like a patched-up version of Star Trek’s bland liberal utopianism, which I realize is probably for the convenience of the story. But it’s worth pointing out that any real society with personal freedom and ... (read more)