This is kind of a peripheral point in the novel, but wouldn't something like mindspeech completely change a society? I can't think of more than a couple of scientific advancements in human history that have been anywhere close to as important to the nature of human interaction than that would be. The telepathy itself is cool, but not all that important. The part that matters is that it is impossible to lie. Of course, people could still speak lies, but how could they ever get away with it in anything important?