On a trivial level consider someone like a slightly psychotic disgruntled ex. She wants to make your life hell—and sure, you can see that in her thoughts, she’s not hiding that. But you can’t hide from her either
Sure.
In the real world, my psychotic disgruntled ex has the physical ability to stand outside my front door and sing Barry Manilow songs all day, has the physical ability to throw bags of flaming poop at my head, has the physical ability to blow my limbs off with a shotgun. In shminux’ telepath-world, they also have the ability to fine-tune their abuse based on an accurate telepathic perception of my reactions, so they’re able to get even nastier than that.
But the thing is, in the real world, my ex is not actually limited by their inability to fine-tune their abuse based on an accurate telepathic perception of my reactions. Long before they get to that point, we’ve collectively stepped in and done something about it.
So the question becomes, can we do anything about it in shminux’ telepath-world? E.g., can incorrigible flaming-poop-throwers be exiled or otherwise intervened with?
You seem to be assuming they can’t, but I don’t see why that should be true.
Perhaps the problem is scale? I would agree, for example, that if it turns out that basically everyone is an incorrigible flaming-poop-thrower to everyone else in the privacy of our own minds and the only reason we don’t notice in the real world is that we’re ignorant of each other’s true thoughts… well, sure, in that case the telepathic society would suck incorrigibly.
Sure.
In the real world, my psychotic disgruntled ex has the physical ability to stand outside my front door and sing Barry Manilow songs all day, has the physical ability to throw bags of flaming poop at my head, has the physical ability to blow my limbs off with a shotgun. In shminux’ telepath-world, they also have the ability to fine-tune their abuse based on an accurate telepathic perception of my reactions, so they’re able to get even nastier than that.
But the thing is, in the real world, my ex is not actually limited by their inability to fine-tune their abuse based on an accurate telepathic perception of my reactions. Long before they get to that point, we’ve collectively stepped in and done something about it.
So the question becomes, can we do anything about it in shminux’ telepath-world? E.g., can incorrigible flaming-poop-throwers be exiled or otherwise intervened with?
You seem to be assuming they can’t, but I don’t see why that should be true.
Perhaps the problem is scale? I would agree, for example, that if it turns out that basically everyone is an incorrigible flaming-poop-thrower to everyone else in the privacy of our own minds and the only reason we don’t notice in the real world is that we’re ignorant of each other’s true thoughts… well, sure, in that case the telepathic society would suck incorrigibly.
I don’t think that’s likely, though.