I envisioned these powers as having different levels of intensity for different telepaths, so not everyone is having to sing LALALA. But the default is people have to learn to deal with them. You are not born having control over these abilities.

My thinking is these powers can cause people to become extremely callous or autistic. They can force people to completely withdraw from their fellow beings, to want to turn off the trauma of being assaulted by other people’s concerns and feelings.

To my mind, lots of people in SF envision these powers as dissolving boundaries.

Boundaries are necessary for healthy adult relationships. And without respect for boundaries, there is an enormous potential for abuse and exploitation. I don’t assume people who have warm and fuzzy-seeming abilities like telepathy are always going to be warm and fuzzy themselves.

We’ve seen plenty of examples of professional counselors and psychiatrists abusing their close connection with their charges. Why would we assume telepathy would make people better people? The appearance of empathy does not ensure kindness or goodness.

We have ample evidence in the real world that people with wonderful advantages and abilities are not always wonderful people.

And then there are also situations where if you were a “good” person-telepath, you would NOT want to know the other person’s thoughts or feelings. People you don’t particularly like, for instance. Or those who want to suck you into the black hole of their own souls.

What I think is interesting is that many people assume that feeling someone else’s pain would make people feel sorry for them, and that’s just not the case. Knowing other people’s pain gives some people who inflict pain a sense of power.

It’s some people’s idea of joy.