I thought about writing a long stupid setup, but I lost interest in the middle of the third word of the second sentence. I will, however, define the choices.
If you choose the telepathy option, you get mostly receptive abilities. You can basically hear the thoughts of persons within, oh, let’s say 100 feet of you, so long as there is no physical barrier–a wall, say–between the two of you. You can turn the ability on and off like a faucet. When the power is on, you’ll be able to hear the thoughts of all the people in range, so if you’re in a crowd you must focus your attention on the person you’re mentally eavesdropping on. You cannot probe a person’s memories. To broadcast your thoughts to another person, you have to have touched them, skin to skin, for a few seconds beforehand; once you’ve done so, the two of you can communicate psychically for an hour, or until one of you severs the link by an act of will, whichever comes first.
If you choose the precognition option, you’ll find it working on three levels. Most of the time, it’s like Peter Parker’s spider-sense; you get a warning only of danger, and generally only a second or two before the danger would strike–enough for your reflexes to protect you, in other words. With a greater danger you’ll get more warning, but no more than one minute). You can also, by an act of will, peer ahead up to one week in the future. But whenever you choose to do this, however, you disable the spider-sense; if you decide you wan to know Friday’s Powerball numbers today, you can find out, but at the cost of the automatic short-range predictions. Lastly, the precognition includes prophetic dreams on an average of once a month. Said dreams are never about you and never about anything pleasant; they’re always of someone else in danger of violent death or assualt. You can choose whether or not to intervene after receiving the dreams, but you cannot control when you get them. The dreams do not affect the spider-sense or willed prophecies.
Telepathy. Whether or not we genuinely enjoy free will, I’m far happier believing in it than not - precognition would make it much harder. There is also the possibility that, though we normally enjoy free will, the act of precognition “locks” the future in place - that was a major theme of Frank Herbert’s “Dune” series. In this event, becoming precognitive would mean that I may well deprive millions of the freedom of will they once had - an act monstrous beyond the wildest imagining.
The telepathy option could be abused hideously, of course - but from your description, it sounds like I could turn it off entirely if I wished. Not so with the precognition. Besides which, I can imagine some legitimate (or at least harmless) uses of telepathy. If nothing else, I imagine it could be fun in more … private … relationship moments.
I chose telepathy. Assuming you can turn it on and off, I think it would be a very useful skill to have. How many times have you desperately wished you could silently communicate with your partner? For me it is quite often. I doubt I would use it for ease-dropping, as you always find out something you wish you didn’t know.
Precognition assumes to much responsibility. If I knew someone was going to suffer a violent death or assault, once a month, it would tear me up if I couldn’t do anything about it. I would probably try to intervene and end up making thing worse.
I’ll go with the telepathy, too. With the precog dreams, you have a moral obligation to decide what to do about them. With the telepathy, our standard “listening in on others’ conversations” rules are already a good guide on what is or isn’t OK.
That fits my notion of what the hypothetical precogs will be doing. There are countless possible futures, but by foreseeing and picking one, the precog locks himself on that path and can no longer experience any other, just as he can no longer experience any possible histories. That’s why, if I foresee Friday’s powerball numbers and decide “this is the future I want to move toward,” the spider-sense stops working in the interim.
While in truth, to be a telepath would be to live in hell among the random and petty thoughts of those around us…I’d still pick that option. There are just too many possibilities. From tracking/finding/discovering major criminals or serial murders with little or no risk, to knowing where people hid their ill-gotten gains (to turn in or to find and keep for yourself), to being able to find trustworthy pot dealers if that’s your bag, to knowing if your subordinates and “trusted associates” can really be trusted.
You’d know if people are plotting against you. You’d know if they’re setting you up for failure, or if your bosses “absolute highest priority” job is really all that. You’d be able to determine the best way to get into people’s good graces based on what they think about. You’d have all the blackmail material you ever wanted or needed. You’d always have the best gift for them. You’d know when they don’t want to see you, or when they do. You’d know if that girl is going to have sex with you before you waste three dates on her. You’d know if she’s a fucking nutbag, or if that guy is a total douchebag, before you got involved.
Oh, right. I’ve seen those in other people. Fortunately when I had my spleen removed back in '37 I became immune.
In the last twenty-four hours, I am sure that dozens of people in the United States have been raped and murdered; I just don’t know about them. As long as the precognitive dreams are not too intense (which, I realize, I neglected to specify in the OP), they’d be no worse than reading the news. (I wouldn’t want the Cordelia chase type of vision, in other words. She was actually experiencing the fear and trauma happening to the person Angel was supposed to go save.) Assuming the dreams are no more vivid than ordinary dreams, I’d not feel obliged to intervene unless it was someone I knew and loved, because I am not Superman. (And if I were Superman, well, I’d be sticking my nose in either way, no?)
Besides, I can easily win the lottery under these conditions. With millions of dollars, I can hire somebody to help the helpless if the dreams are bad.
I opted out of telepathy because even I don’t think I can be trusted with it.
Chimera, the OP does specifically say you can turn telepathy off completely. Obviously, if you’re in a crowd, you’re going to turn it off.
I’ll take the precog. I think it would be pretty useful for improving the quality of my life. Besides, most times it’s easy enough read people - no telepathy required.
I don’t have any illusions about the universe – I already believe that free will is a nonsensical idea, equally unsustainable by reason whether you believe in a deterministic universe, a random one, or one created, ruled, and/or guided by some kind of God – so it’ll be the precognition for me, too.
I don’t need to know what the people around me are thinking; and just having the ability to know would make it basically impossible for me to interact with other human beings as equals. It would be a very isolating and unhappy sort of superpower, even if I had the willpower to prevent myself from using it on my friends, which I doubt.
As appealing as lottery wins might be, just being able to pick up the feel of a poker table would make you a nice living just knowing when to holdem and when to foldem. That or being able to get a consensus from dozens of folks in the know at a sports book could be just as good as precognition.
Also being able to read people in a variety of business and personal dealings would make you a serious force to be reckoned with. Making sure that a customer who might be thinking “this is too expensive because of X” you can address “X”. Job interviews would be a snap. You know exactly what people are thinking. Wonder if that woman thinks you are hot, dial her in and find out. If a date is polite but internally looking for an out, you can give her that out minimizing everyones discomfort. You could poke around a crowd wondering who is lonely, who needs help, who is lying, who is in it for the money, who is trying to scam you, what member of the opposite sex secretly thinks you are all that but cannot really hit on you because you are a customer or client where such behavior would be frowned upon.
I would absolutely never want telepathy. I believe that it would be nearly impossible to maintain friendships. People think petty, nasty things all the time. We all do. I don’t want to know those things.
Yeah, but would I be able to resist the urge to turn it on? Probably not; and I am sure that I would end up seeing or reading - be it precog or telepathic - stuff that I wasn’t meant to know, stuff that will make me miserable, stuff that will make me distrust the people I love, stuff that will make me greedy, etc…
Also: The game of life sort of loses its flavor when you’re the only one who is allowed to cheat. Don’t want to be a griefer either.
