Social effects of super senses

Question

Vampires are often depicted as having enhanced senses all around: they can hear their preys heartbeats, smell blood and approaching people from miles away, see in complete darkness, pretty much tell who you are and maybe your lineage from the taste of your blood, "smell fear" or tell if someone is lying because unconscious body reactions and why not, etc... But I don't recall any fiction that dives in the implications of this abilities other them vague and obvious stuff such as "yes yes, I knew you were coming before you enter my estate".

This leads to the question, how super senses will shape their social norms and interactions? I am not focusing on vampires though, nor in special individuals, but a general specie/society where this general level of heightened senses is the norm. My only thought so far is that privacy is probably non-existent and lying will always get you caught, since they might overhear I chat from two blocks away and can tell if someone is lying.

Answer 1

Society will adapt to heightened senses

If one person can overhear chat from two blocks away, then the persons chatting will chat with such lower volumes (because their senses are also heightened) that the person will be not able to hear from two blocks away. So liars will keep lying.

If the senses of all the persons in the society are heightened, the society will learn or devise new methods to keep their secrets. In this way, society will reach to some other norms but things will keep going as they are now.

Answer 2

it wouldn't fondamentaly change the fabric of society.

"the death of privacy"

Well, if you live long enough in a flat, you will realise that even without eighten sence your upstair neighbour fuck loud while doing home renovation in high heel while they party... but most of the time you don't give them slack for it, as it's understood that you tolerate the noise they make as long as they are not anal about it, you won't knock on their door to say all the thing you ear.

same thing, it's not hard to eavesdrop on people at a cafe or a restaurant.

the main change i would see is that people would tend to be more quiet and the isolation in appartment would be of much greater quality, and car might much less prevalent to keep the noise pollution lower.

and crime wouldn't decrease by much. sure, policemen might need less ressources to bug your place, but it wouldn't help by much all and all.

On the lying.

i think it's where shit get interesting.

in our society, even without super sence, we can often sence somebody lying, but it is understood that sometime a lie is preferable to the truth and you won't push the person on it. for a quick example, even if you know somebody is not doing fine but tell you they are doing so, you shouldn't for them to disclose everything

But their, as it is nigh impossible for people to lie, saying "i wont answer" could be a genuinly valid response and considered rude to press somebody on that matter, or as we do today, obviously lie as a way to say "dude, don't press me on this"

the ability to detect lie isnt the ability to know the truth.

being a good lier would on the other hand be a great asset but highly frown upon, as only a few individual can actually pull that off. being a known lier would definitly burn a lot of relationship as people are wary about the fact that you can just say thing freely that are false, and people would be naturally drawn to beliving you on their habit to detect such thing. but for some kind of job, like police or inteligence it would be

in conclusion

I think what would mostly change would be the courtesy rule, to accomodate to those sence, but it wouldn't transform society. people would in general try to not abuse those "power" even if normal, as they don't want to be under active scrutiny

Answer 3

Privacy should not be non-existent. The ability to mask yourself from super senses should grow along with the super senses. After all, rationality in humans is a super sense compared to all other animals, but we can still lie to each other, and defraud each other, we just have to make sure our story makes rational sense.

We don't have a great olfactory sense, but we can smell some things. So we invented frequent showers, high air circulation and deodorants to mask our odors. A super sense of smell might be useless in society, because the people inventing deodorants have it too, and will tinker until they something that works despite a super sense of smell.

The same thing for eyesight. If a woman has super eyesight, then she will apply makeup that makes her look good in her own eyes, literally. Same for an artist.

In many cases you just raise the playing field, but it is still just as level a playing field as we have today.

That said, super senses reveals information about others that doesn't have to be told. Reading body language and micro-expressions may tell even a stranger's state of mind without having to be told, resulting (I hope) in greater empathy and less need to be told what they are feeling. (But they are aware of this too, and might be faking it.)

So conversations may seem shorter, quicker and more abrupt. I know what you are feeling, you know what I am feeling. When I ask a question, I can tell as soon as you comprehend it how you feel about answering it, and vice versa, which means I am already thinking in the right direction before you finish answering.

But otherwise, I don't think a group with super senses will behave too much differently than a group without them. If the former observed the latter, their main question might be "Why do they ask questions when the answers are obvious, and why do they keep telling people personal things that are so obvious? Why do they waste so much time? Is it some sort of a social convention?"