How would a minority of psychic humans survive in our modern society?

Question

A minority of humans awakened their psionic potential. I'm going to choose people with Asperger's for this question, because I like to write about my people.

We know that humans fear the unknown and probably we are going to end up like guinea pigs due to our low numbers. Or imprisoned at concentration camps. Let's say I managed to warn most of my people, but sadly our powers were discovered and now governments and religious groups around the world fear us.

We are constantly persecuted.

The psychic powers grant the ability to read the mind of others and know their true intentions. The most powerful psychics are able to melt the brain of a single target instantly at the range of 100 Meters.

Psychic power scales with intelligence.

How can we survive or even fight back if we band together?

Answer 1

If low-level telepathy can in the very least learn intent, these espers could, through trial and error, learn what rhetoric best changes intent.

The persecution could be overcome by some publicity stunts with some of the more powerful ones reading the intent of the crowds and making persuasive speeches.

Then, of course, the same could be done through media types. A PR campaign and gaining the sympathy of as many people as possible to beat back the persecution would be necessary. Publish a strict code of conduct for your espers and enforce it. You want to get out ahead of your fears.

Since your people will be of higher than average IQ, push high visibility, benevolent roles that require education such as scientists and doctors. DON'T become insular, but integrated.

Persecution and scapegoating is easy when the persecuted group retreats to enclaves. It is far easier to hate "them" than it is to hate "doctor Bob".

Answer 2

If it happened in todays World, your people could just move to the third World, they'd be viewed as maybe eccentric, but most foreigners are weird, no one cares because they have skills that are useful. Being socially reticent (unsure exactly what aspergers entails) is fine, they could set up expat communities of their own, again, no one would care.

There could be a bunch in my country right now for all I know. Lots of strange expats around, many of whom are more than likely not very welcome wherever they came from. So long as they stick to business and don't cause too much trouble they're not noticed. They rarely mix with the locals and keep to themselves.

Answer 3

Escaping Persecution

The abilities provided seem quite useful for this purpose - 100m isn't that far, but since (from what I understand) Asperger's is difficult to observe immediately from a distance (i.e., compared to skin color) it's plenty of room to notice someone approaching with hostile intent in most circumstances. The big question is whether they can distinguish the people who would be violent towards them before the person is actually aware that there's someone with Asperger's nearby.

If it's a very widespread persecution with very few sympathizers that would present more difficulties because you'd need to be find people willing to employ you, sell you food, etc. In that case, it seems likely those with Asperger's would try to form their own hidden communities in remote locations. Here you have the same difficulties that domestic abuse victims have - how do you reveal the location of a community to potential members without revealing it to anyone who would seek to destroy it? That's difficult, but people do manage it, and a lot of people would probably be satisfied that those with Asperger's were simply gone rather than feeling the need to eliminate them entirely. Some would undoubtedly pursue them, but their powers can most likely defend them.

Fighting Back

This is where things get really difficult. If you're talking about serious conflict on a large scale, then governments are going to start using real military hardware against you. 100m isn't enough to protect against a drone strike or a sniper, so you have no real defensive advantages from your powers.

Answer 4

It is more likely the psychics are protected than hunted

These new abilities may be worrying to the general population but anyone looking at the bigger picture will want to ensure their psychics are looked after. Perhaps the message to the public is that the psychics will be detained but why would a government want to persecute a group of people who could be so useful and drive them into the arms of a more accepting country.

In the developed world there is usually some sort of database containing information on people with disabilities for benefits or some such. This would make knowing where they were a lot easier for the government to collect them before the mobs got to their doors.

Answer 5

Since Aspies aren't good at "reading people," reading thoughts and feelings of people may have the exact opposite effect.

In other words, you might not even know they have Asperger's especially if they have this ability from a young age, because they can use their abilities to compensate for having Asperger's.

They might start off being straight forward about it, but, Aspies aren't stupid. If they notice that people don't like their abilities or don't like when they mention what they can see, they'll adjust, they'll just seem a bit odd.

The most powerful psychics are able to melt the brain of a single target instantly at the range of 100 Meters.

That there is a preeettty good reason to fear anyone remotely like this. I am going to say that people will think this is a hoax or look for a more reasonable explaination. Unless there are a lot of deaths like this, in which case, yeaaah, I am kind of FOR finding your kind and making sure, at the very least, you don't breed. Because I have no idea when these powers manifest, and if a three year old throws a tantrum and heads start exploding...

So how do you escape persecution? You police your own, and track down those who have families, and monitor them, maybe training them and letting them know what to expect.

I would go ahead and lie to them and tell them that they will need a certain pill from you, otherwise there's a chance they might die so it's more likely to be reported.

Let's say I managed to warn most of my people, but sadly our powers were discovered and now governments and religious groups around the world fear us.

How, exactly? Just don't tell anyone and they never will know. But hey, that head explosion thing--I don't often stand behind religion, just going to say, it feels right, reasonable, and not at all insane to fear you.

How you do this will depend on two things: How detectable are you? and Do you have better information than the government does when it comes to tracking your kind down?

The answer to survival, whatever your answers might be, is to HIDE and find a way to track your own so that you can teach them to HIDE.

The answer to fighting back is to place people in society in order to gain information needed to keep your people hidden.

Unfortunately, "banding together" or meeting in one place in any way is likely to be a bad idea. Like the kind of bad idea that results in a building exploding. Because, you see, electronic surveillance, absent of people close to you, can get your hunters everything they need. You'd need cells, structured like any good resistance, and most of your people would not have contact with others (max 2 others, for a cell of 3).

Answer 6

So... first question: why would religious groups be opposed and which ones are they? Keep in mind that it's likely not a universally held belief and many people of faith do actively work to help people in crisis such as this. One of the reasons the then current Pope during WWII was rather silent on the issue of the Holocaust was because as the figure head of the religion, he was well aware that many Catholic Churches were working to get Jewish and dissidents out of territory held by fascist regimes. Had he been critical, he would have drawn attention to the churches operations, but by not publicly criticizing what was happening, he was given a wider berth by these regimes which would have lost public support if they harassed the majority religion in the area unduly. In fact, it's now widely believed millions of people escaped Nazi persecution with the aide of the Catholic Church in some form... some even taking a path through the Vatican itself.

Similarly, the underground railroad focused on word of mouth and given the fact that abolition politics was a big political divide in the United States at the time (and considering we had a civil war that included the single largest battle by all measure in the western hemisphere to date over it, I'd risk saying it's the biggest political divide in the United States of all time. Never Trump/Never Hilary is a friendly discourse compared to the vitrol on abolition) you were likely to know who was sympathetic to the plight of escaped slaves and could be relied upon to help them if there was a need. Most likely, telepathic communication would only make aide easier. As this is a modern setting, I'm assuming appealing to peoples sensabilities would be easy as many people are much more likely to call foul on governments that withhold human rights so blatantly.

As stated, though, you don't go into what you are hiding. How obvious are these powers and what are some tell tales that they could be in use? Also, given that there are ties to both intelligent and dangerous use, what is the portion of the population of these individuals that can say "you know what, we should be policed... not all of us are not going to do that!" They could work for the government looking for people... could they detect active psychic powers? Also, how much control does an individual have... a 100 meter radius of effect on brain melting is pretty large... what if they lose control and fry everyone in the area of effect without intent?

From a narrative standpoint you set this up pretty one sided in favor of the telepaths, but you have some pretty narrow views of the reaction. You assume that the government is going to be opposed to this not being policed in the worst ways possible, which is wrong, because psychics are all good people who would never do that. You also assume all people who are religous would be opposed to psychics existing because of some kind of doctrine (I can't even see what doctrine would specifically push that... hell, there might even be some people who worship psychics as proof of a diety(ies)).

I write this to point to a personal observation: Bigotry is the most ironic of human concepts: It does not favor one race, creed, religion, sex, sexuality, or capability above another nor below it. It poisons with equity. But most ironically, it shares this trait with tolerance.