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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DogBackward" data-source="post: 3603899" data-attributes="member: 50642">I think it would make for both a more open and a more suspicious society. For one (as I understand it) you're constantly "leaking" thoughts, unless you make a consciuos effort to stop it. A lot of problems stem from people not communicating, from not voicing our problems. If you never say what's wrong, how are you going to fix it? This could end up in a more open and honest society, where problems are voiced "aloud", whether you want to or not. This, combined with the natural distrust of people who stay too far away (the 60ft darkvision thing) would make people tend to group together, and at the same time force them to work through their problems more often.And after that, you get the highly suspicious outlook. You have to make a conscious effort to not leak your thoughts. So, anyone walking down the street that's not broadcasting draws immediate suspicion, odd looks and outright hostile stares. What's that guy trying to hide, anyway? What's he thinking that's so bad he can't let anybody "hear" it? Closing off your thoughts would be considered both incredibly rude and suspicious behavior.I'm also assuming that material barriers don't prevent the telepathy. So coordinating work becomes even easier, since you can talk just as easily to a guy three floors up and two buidings over, despite the several walls in between you.All of this together will both encourage and possibly prevent crime. People can easily lurk beyond darkvision range, and nobody uses light sources. You can communicate with your fellow thieves easily, over long distances and through walls, without anybody else "hearing". Which means that pulling off a complex and lucrative job would be much easier. But then again, you'd have to keep quite during the day, both before and after the job, so that nobody hears your plans for the job. Which means people will automatically become suspicious of you, which is a very danagerous thing. Which means a lot of crime could be prevented without anybody knowing what the crime even is.With all this together, I think visual disabilities would be slightly more stigmatic, and oral and hearing disabilities much less so. Sight is much more valuable with darkvision, so a blind person is losing more, while a deaf or mute person is losing only the ability to communitcate with "heathen mouthspeakers". On that note, mental deficiencies are far more stigmatic, because not only does it denote a problem with the mind (where telepathy comes from) but the lightly afflicted would be forced to keep their thoughts close, drawing suspicion, while the heavily afflicted won't be able to stop sending, and what they send would be very disturbing, at the least. Which would probably end up with the mentally ill that can't control themselves being either expelled from society or outright killed, becaues nobody would be able to stand taking care of them. Alternately, those heathen mouthspeakers could be employed to do that job, since they can't "hear" their ravings.So, yeah, this combination of abilities, I think, would lend itself to a society both far more open and honest, and at the same time very insular and suspicious. An interesting idea, actually...</blockquote>

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