What sort of society do you get...
 

Humanoid - Racial ability Telesend, Broadcast, Racial, Vague, Always On.

Species is Chummy to Gregarious.

Vague is very strictly emotions. Usually the recipient can learn that someone is experiencing an emotion and the magnitude of it but doesn't feel it themselves unless it is very strong or there is a close tie to the sender.

How does something like this play out on the macro scale?

Re: What sort of society do you get...
 

Mob rule and mindless panic during disasters? That always on is the big killer, IMO.

Re: What sort of society do you get...
 

Yeah... I see a "pure' communist mob that reacts in masses to threats, panics, etc. But also mobilizes easily and organizes naturally for relief efforts and group support.


Or more likely than pure communism would be groups of Big Man reciprocity societal/economic groups, "communist" in whole, but localized around central leadership. Possibly even being a republic in governmental form.


Did this idea arise from the latest Sluggy Freelance storyline?

Re: What sort of society do you get...
 

I feel like there would be a stigma against "Downers". Not that most people would have negative feeling imposed on them but the few times they "caught" a feeling from someone who is oddly effective at projecting or at a time when they were more susceptible to contagious emotion makes everyone wary of people who can't keep up a positive attitude.

Re: What sort of society do you get...
 

I also see a lot of ways this could go wrong, and only one where you could have this utopian society.

Re: What sort of society do you get...
 

Don't be shy - list'em if you got'em.

I need to plug holes with societal conventions and work out dark underbellies.

Re: What sort of society do you get...
 

I do think that Mind Reading would probably work better for a society than Telesend. I think that Telesend would result in a race of homicidal loners while Mind Reading would result in a gregarious and truthful race (the latter gives you a reason to trust people while the former is like having every pretentious and narcissistic vlog on Earth broadcasting into your mind). An entire race with Mind Reading would likely have Charitable, Easy to Read, Gregarious, Honesty, and Truthfulness because no one expects deception and unlawful behavior.

Re: What sort of society do you get...
 

I have a hard time seeing this actually changing humanity much. We already wear our emotions on our sleeves: this just makes it harder to hide.

I'm unsure if it'd be easier to become hostile to different groups of humans, leading to greater divisions in society, or if the ability to sense when someone is being sincere about caring for someone would facilitate the efforts of peacemakers.

In some ways, its similar to a society that always tells the truth.

Re: What sort of society do you get...
 

Mind Reading - Always On would be no different in regards to your vlog analogy and I don't want it to be selective. Pretty sure that mind readers will learn how to shield thoughts or be intricately deceptive with them. GURPS wise I would need to tear out a lot of the expected back and forth with attempts to read minds rather than using Telesend's Broadcasting. If Mind Reading is automatic it really changes nothing but complicates play.

I will have to think on what it would take to mitigate the Telesend. Drugs, meditative practices, Will rolls? And does that reduce the range to a minimum or actually create a non-emotional state?

I think that the response to knowing that people are having a rough time is for those around them to step in early and help mitigate it even if it is just to comfort the heart-broken not flee from it or want to murder them. I also think that the institutions of society would be different with more of a "We are all in this together" attitude rather than Social Darwinism and stratification of society so that the systems in the society don't chew people up and make more misery. Hmmm principles of such a system? Create the most joy for the greatest number ?

Re: What sort of society do you get...
 

There are pathologies of compassion. Your brother-in-law may have drunk up the rent money; but if you step in and give him a check so that your sister and her children won't be out in the street, you have just encouraged him to drink up the next month's rent money too.

Ethical philosophers, discussing utilitarian theories, have come up with the concept of a "utility monster": given that the ethical goal is the greatest happiness of the greatest number, if there are people who feel more intensely than the rest of us, they are entitled to be given greater consideration, to increase the sum of happiness. In our world it's not really possible to measure this. But in your world it would be. So if there are people who suffer deeply from any lack of satisfaction, other people will disproportionately try to do nice things from them, and they will gain from this, leading to a tendency to breed for intense feelings—in the long run, for the power to dominate other people by NEEDING things from them.

Or as C told me decades ago, when we first met, "Life is opportunistic."