but I don't think any of them are nearly similar enough to humans that anyone would ever for an instant mistake them for human
Really? The article says "Run around the Citadel and you'll be damned if you find more than two or three humans out of hundreds of citizens milling about, shopkeepers hocking their wares, and government officials eyeing you suspiciously. The entire government of the galaxy, known as the Council, is run by non-humans."
That all sounds exceedingly human to me. You can't start an article with engulfs all of science fiction's greatest universes and then say that. There are some /really/ great universes out there. A government? Seriously?
A government? A mixed species government? Shopkeepers? Wares? This isn't an amazing genre beating non-human future, this is small-town-humans-in-space-in-weird-bodies. AI and FTL and life goes on? Multiple civilizations and they're all basically equal in brainpower?
Really? The article says "Run around the Citadel and you'll be damned if you find more than two or three humans out of hundreds of citizens milling about, shopkeepers hocking their wares, and government officials eyeing you suspiciously. The entire government of the galaxy, known as the Council, is run by non-humans."
That all sounds exceedingly human to me. You can't start an article with engulfs all of science fiction's greatest universes and then say that. There are some /really/ great universes out there. A government? Seriously?
A government? A mixed species government? Shopkeepers? Wares? This isn't an amazing genre beating non-human future, this is small-town-humans-in-space-in-weird-bodies. AI and FTL and life goes on? Multiple civilizations and they're all basically equal in brainpower?
Take a read of this short story http://robinhanson.typepad.com/files/three-worlds-collide.pd... and then say this game is Taking Non-Humans Seriously as a concept.