We need research into a developing phenomenon. Mankind is developing telepathy. People are able to read one another’s thoughts. We know what is going on in other people’s heads.
Don’t believe me? Spend some time reading social-political editorials and social media. These people always seem to know what other people are thinking. And, coincidentally, it always seems to confirm the writer’s world view.
I recently saw a case of this that saddened me. Someone in a position of authority and responsibility had an opportunity to take the path of least resistance and punish someone. Instead, they chose to help the person in a way that turned the situation into a positive. In short, someone did a kind thing for someone else.
And yet someone, reading this, decided they knew the heart and mind of the person doing the kindness and just knew that person would not have acted the same way if the recipient had been a member of a different group. Good deed erased, just like that.
I find that amazing. The person commenting has never met the person in the article, never even knew they existed until reading that article. And yet somehow they can read this person’s mind. They know, dammit, know this person would not have been nice to everyone equally.
It got better! Several more people waded in, insisting they knew the mind of the first person to comment. It was a mass-mind-meld, and I swear they’re growing increasingly common.
Similarly, we know exactly what politicians were thinking, what motivated their decisions, when they vote on legislation we likely have never read and are relying on gross simplifications from the media to understand. We just know the deep, dark motivations of their crippled souls.
It’s incredible! This amazing new mental power is gathering surprisingly little attention from the scientific community! Mankind is gaining telepathic powers of apparently limitless range, and no one seems to be concerned!
That, or we need to stop assuming we know people. We need to stop judging others with no evidence beyond our own prejudices. Perhaps if we start assuming the best of others instead of the worst we might actually start getting the behavior we we hope for.