> I would love for the species to develop Telepathy.

I pray if we do it's opt-in, and not driven by advertising...

Yeah, I think actually it really is opt-in, and that may just well be the reason it "doesn't work".

Here's an unpopular point of view. I believe we have telepathy already - but we repress it consciously or unconsciously for the simple reason that down that road lies madness. Let's say for example that people can telepath. How do you turn it on or off? Maybe you can't turn it off: that is the definition of insanity. You hear voices talking to you and they never shut up. Or, you have an argument with someone, but they are telepathic. When they leave the room, you still hear them shouting at you - the argument goes on and on even though physically you are no longer in the same place. Definition of insanity right there. Who would want that? No one really. Telepathic ability is repressed for good and logical reasons. Why would you want telepathy? So you can know what people are thinking without asking them? Wouldn't that be a huge invasion of privacy? Would you want people finding out your thoughts without your permission? Another nightmare scenario. If you think about it long enough - telepathy is a truly bad idea.

I think one avenue almost feasible today would be:

Electromyography on the larynx > silent speech recognition > transmission of the data through wireless network > speech synthesis > ouput audio to wireless earphone.

If you implant both ends you have something indistinguishable from (consensual) telepathy.

So just a couple "apt update && apt upgrade"'s away, and we're there ..

Which it no doubt will. The only question for me is whether it will use wires to route the signal into your brain directly, magnetically 'beam' it in (by inducing neuron activity), or sent chemically through additional specialized neurons grown on your brain for that purpose.

My father (and no doubt me at some point) has hearing aids that have bluetooth in them. He can answer the phone and talk on it without an additional earpiece. Cochlear implants can be augmented to use it[1]. So at some point understanding how to inject sound into your head will become so well understood it will simply be a matter of how much you're willing to spend.

[1] http://www.medel.com/us/bluetooth-wireless-connectivity-and-...

Why?

Telepathy seems like a nightmare or curse. Esp if it comes quickly. As in without millions of years of evolution to adapt socially to it.

careful what you wish for, everyone has their dark side

And an exceptional front light side. I'm always amazed how most people give the best of themselves during casual social encounters. The big effort we do in social interactions is kind of an art, we're not so good in daily life with our close ones, simply because we can't maintain that effort for so long. Telepathy would ruin this, I guess.

It depends if there were some sort of control mechanism for just how much telepathy was 'allowed' - like, its not - imho - full mind-reading, but rather "selective understanding" from the target sides' point of view .. I wouldn't want to know everything, just a few things during actual real incidents. Therefore, there still has to be a line between individual choice and social sharing.

That truly is the beauty of thinking about it, and letting imagination temper itself with the banality of reality.

Like, for example, the experience of having watched the birth of the Internet, and seen it actually channel itself into 4chan, parish, et al., was .. yeah .. kinda enlightening.

If we Get Telepathic, its going to be useful to have gotten over such things. Just a hunch.