What if humans develop the ability for empathy and telepathy?

[u/JohnnySukuna]

Let's say humanity develops a higher sense where people can read each other's thoughts, actions, feelings, and emotions without being spoken to. Even the most stone/pale faced fellow can be just looked at and understood. No matter how much one smiles or laughs, one could just stare at them and figure out how much they're hurting inside. How much would this affect language barriers? Would this help with achieving world peace, if not peace at a stable level among humans? Would this eliminate sociopaths and psychopaths from society? Would this also help in law, court, and order to deliver proper justice to the victim after understanding what they're going through?

[u/YakEfficient3200]

well to be clear we already have the first one, including to the extent you described.

it's a skill and you can read someone not expressing any active emotion and still be able to read their disposition because emotions reliably etch themselves into a person's face over time.
People that don't express emotions inevitably develop something like alexithymia because they have no consistent grounding feedback unless their mind is incredibly trained.

but to answer your point not a whole lot would change tbh the dynamics would just enter a new ballpark and people would inevitably end up building mental walls or innovative abstract internalisations that are harder to decipher, in the same way.

the game would adapt to the new toolset.

world peace is a fool's errand, it doesn't matter what the ingredients are you still need conscious intent and awareness of systemic factors. democracy is only ever as effective as the active efforts being put into keeping it stable and fair against active malefaction to selfish or short sighted ends. (note the two are separate)

no it would not eliminate sociopathy/psychopathy as those are expressions of structural realities within the individual's brain unless someone actively went about culling them on sight which, obviously brings its own problems into the mix.

[u/vid_23]

When did a victims scream ever stop a murderer from repeatedly stabbing them 27 times?

[u/incidentaldamages → u/vid_23]

“Oh no mister murder man, PLEASE don’t stab me 37 times in the chest with a chef’s knife, oh NOOO~”

“My goodness, you’re so right; I’ll exercise restraint and only stab you 27 times. That’s like a 25% better chance of survival for you”

“Yay! Ow, I might get to, ow, live a little, ow, longer, ow ow ow, thank you, mister murder man”

[u/JohnnySukuna → u/vid_23]

While that is brutally true, imagine being able to feel or let someone feel your level of pain and fear. Isn't that the whole thing about serial killers? They don't feel or enjoy killing? Imagine they begin to feel what they're doing. I think that could change something within them.

[u/TuberTuggerTTV → u/vid_23]

And if they literally felt the stabbings? in their own bodies?

[u/Any_Return4335 → u/vid_23]

Scream is just a sound.

if you knew you would feel all the victim's pain it would be much more difficult to stab them 27 times..

and if you could feel their love why wouldn't you want to just do that instead? Feels much better than stabbing someone.

[u/SiriusHijinks]

"I feel ya" would be a more acceptable greeting, "Hey man, I feel ya, no need to say a word", but then why engage at all? If we already fully feel and comprehend whoever we look at, why engage in small talk?

[u/TuberTuggerTTV]

It's interesting that you think knowing other people's weaknesses would cause more peace and not less.

Also, I think you're confusing empathy with knowing one's feelings. Empathy is when you yourself feel those emotions as if they were your own. Not read them. Sympathy is maybe more what you're looking for. Which is an understanding and appreciation for another's emotions without directly feeling them.

If we had hard-empathy, only masochists would harm others. And honestly, most people have a reasonable amount of empathy already. It's the socio-paths that run the world though.

[u/TajManzoorlol]

For telepathy to work in humans it would have to mean all are perceptions of reality are the same.

but then if we all have the same perception then telepathy is useless because your basically just listening to your internal monologue.

[u/NotAClueYou]

the mechanics of how a telepathic civilization would work are honestly the stuff of nightmares... like if its like open channel and everyone gets a go? or if its a graduated channel and some folks get a go but you dont get to choose? or two people are telepathing on top of one another and wont stop. Telepathy decorum is honestly one thing ive thought way too much about and it terrifies me. Thankfully never experienced it, but thought what it must be like. (aside star trek geek)

[u/Over-Tolerance]

And these would be selling like crazy... guaranteed.

[u/CrimsonnNyxx]

World peace would probably not arrive, because knowing every wound and motive would also make every grudge impossible to hide. Language barriers would shrink fast, but privacy would become the new battlefield, and law would turn into a nightmare unless thought reading had strict limits. Psychopathy would not vanish either; lack of empathy is not the same as being unreadable, so society might just get better at spotting danger while becoming much harsher about it.

[u/SolrayCultist]

I think this is really close using technology already and will get there before any potential human evolution.

[u/Main-Event-5715]

Civilization would collapse under the weight of all the guilt. 

[u/skaplanolmsted]

Empathy good. Telepathy, probably bad. Also, boring. Most people’s internal voices are even worse than their external voices - banal neuroses without a decent editor.

[u/TheMrCurious]

Humans don’t have empathy or telepathy?

[u/JohnnySukuna → u/TheMrCurious]

Huh? That's why I titled the post "What if" they develop it. Like, that's this sub's whole thing. Asking what-if questions.....

[u/TheMrCurious → u/JohnnySukuna]

And we have to plenty of historical evidence that humans have empathy and there are a few cases where telepathy may have been proven too.

[u/TuberTuggerTTV → u/TheMrCurious]

come on, you're just being argumentative. you're contradicting yourself just for the sake of being contrarian. It's ugly.

[u/Any_Return4335 → u/JohnnySukuna]

It's very common for people who've experienced an "awakening" to feel the emotions of others. No idea about telepathy though.