Don't be too quick to judge when reading this. If you read on till the end of the fourth paragraph (see "BUT") you'll see that I don't condone the use of force in any context at all.
Yesterday I daydreamed that when telepathy becomes a technology, it could become a thing that some people would force others into telepathy, a kind of mental rape. And for a moment I could imagine myself just considering to do something like that without feeling guilty about it, in spite of how much physical rape angers me: why did the thought of one kind feel so wrong and the other didn't? At first it felt like if I could deal with the experience of telepathy, so should the other person, and that if they don't, they just don't know any better what's good for them, but that didn't sound so different from what rapists think.
And yet in telepathy, the difference would be that I'd feel the other's pain, so the golden rule "don't do onto others what you wouldn't want them to do to you" isn't broken because I would be doing it to myself. It seemed like whichever will would win over the other would be right: either the other person's consciousness would make me feel like it's wrong, or my own would make them feel like it's right for another person to do this to me — and I value all consciousness over all else, and devalue anything that represses it.
BUT, of course, a moment later I realised that it wouldn't actually work, and would only end up making the other person dissociate from themselves in an attempt to dissociate from me, so that it would only decrease their consciousness, and that is something I think is wrong to allow to happen to anyone: it would harm the other person no matter what my idea of right and wrong. After all, it's only through freedom that someone can grow to become more conscious, so make no mistake, we'll be right to consider it a felony, second in seriousness only to murder.
Forced telepathy would be far more traumatising than physical rape, in fact, it would drive them insane, as they would dissociate their consciousness into so many parts that their ego would disintegrate entirely. But for a moment I didn't realise this because it's a reaction that I can't imagine: I understand it only rationally. It's messed up that I considered such a thought even for a moment and dropped it only for rational reasons, and I realise that: my coming out for it doesn't mean that I still think it. So yes, I considered a crime that doesn't exist yet, but only in the first moment that I was still processing the concept of that crime and its implications.
I think it will be hard to find someone with whom I could telepath, as there are things in my consciousness that would fill other people with existential terror, like the idea that all consciousness is equally valuable and pain and pleasure are meaningless except as just another part of our consciousness. But I can think of one way to find someone that would do it, and it's through a publicity stunt: I would declare to the media that I'd give, for example, a million dollars to someone who would keep a telepathic connection with me for, say, a week. That way, I'd take advantage of their sensationalism to reach millions of people with my request, and with any luck, there'd be someone like me that values the whole spectrum of consciousness in all its forms, no matter what boundaries it transgresses, because they would not identify with any boundaries.
I probably wouldn't actually have to give anyone a million dollars, because whoever would succeed would probably have wanted it either way, as there is nothing for which anyone would otherwise want to give up their values of right and wrong, especially if that's what makes them value money anyway — but that's just my guess, and the risk I'd have to take. This is the one time that I have a reason to hope that by then, money will still exist and that I'd find a way to earn lots of it.
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