If the aliens’ wetware (er, crystalware) is so efficient that their children are already sentient when they are still tiny relative to adults, why don’t the adults have bigger brains and be much more intelligent than humans? Given that they also place high values on science and rationality, had invented agriculture long before humans did, and haven’t fought any destructive wars recently, it makes no sense that they have a lower level of technology than humans at this point.
Other than that, I think the story is not implausible. The basic lesson here is the same as in Robin’s upload scenarios: when sentience is really cheap, no one will be valued (much) just for being sentient. If we want people to be valued just for being sentient, either the wetware/crystalware/hardware can’t be too efficient, or we need to impose some kind of artificial scarcity on sentience.
If the aliens’ wetware (er, crystalware) is so efficient that their children are already sentient when they are still tiny relative to adults, why don’t the adults have bigger brains and be much more intelligent than humans? Given that they also place high values on science and rationality, had invented agriculture long before humans did, and haven’t fought any destructive wars recently, it makes no sense that they have a lower level of technology than humans at this point.
Other than that, I think the story is not implausible. The basic lesson here is the same as in Robin’s upload scenarios: when sentience is really cheap, no one will be valued (much) just for being sentient. If we want people to be valued just for being sentient, either the wetware/crystalware/hardware can’t be too efficient, or we need to impose some kind of artificial scarcity on sentience.