On a trivial level consider someone like a slightly psychotic disgruntled ex. She wants to make your life hell -- and sure, you can see that in her thoughts, she's not hiding that. But you can't hide from her either
Sure.
In the real world, my psychotic disgruntled ex has the physical ability to stand outside my front door and sing Barry Manilow songs all day, has the physical ability to throw bags of flaming poop at my head, has the physical ability to blow my limbs off with a shotgun. In shminux' telepath-world, they also have the ability to fine-tune their abuse based on an accurate telepathic perception of my reactions, so they're able to get even nastier than that.
But the thing is, in the real world, my ex is not actually limited by their inability to fine-tune their abuse based on an accurate telepathic perception of my reactions. Long before they get to that point, we've collectively stepped in and done something about it.
So the question becomes, can we do anything about it in shminux' telepath-world? E.g., can incorrigible flaming-poop-throwers be exiled or otherwise intervened with?
You seem to be assuming they can't, but I don't see why that should be true.
Perhaps the problem is scale? I would agree, for example, that if it turns out that basically everyone is an incorrigible flaming-poop-thrower to everyone else in the privacy of our own minds and the only reason we don't notice in the real world is that we're ignorant of each other's true thoughts... well, sure, in that case the telepathic society would suck incorrigibly.
I don't think that's likely, though.
I asked this question on IRC before and got some surprising answers.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, you get cryo-preserved and eventually wake up as an upload. Maybe meat->sim transfer ends up being much easier than sim->meat or meat->meat, or something. Further suppose that you are not particularly averse to a digital-only existence, at least not enough to specifically prohibit reviving you if this is the only option. Yet further suppose that sim-you is identical to meat-you for all purposes that meat-you cared about (including all your hidden desires and character faults). Let's also preemptively assume that any other attempts to fight this hypothetical have been satisfactorily resolved, just to get this out of the way.
Now, in the "real world", or at least in the simulation level we are at, there is no evidence that telepathy of any kind exists or is even possible. However, in the sim-world there is no technological reason it cannot be implemented in some way, for just thoughts, or just feelings, or both. There is a lot to be said for having this kind of connection between people (or sims). It gets rid of or marginalizes deception, status games, mis-communication-based biases and fallacies. On the other hand, your privacy disappears completely and so do any advantages over others the meat-you might want to retain in the digital world. And what you perceive as your faults are out there for everyone to see and feel.
As a new upload, you are informed that many "people" decided to get integrated into the telepathic society and appear to be happy about it, with few, if any, defections. There is also the group of those who opted out, and it looks basically like your "normal" mundane human society. There is only a limited and strictly monitored interaction between the two worlds to prevent exploitation/manipulation.
Would you choose to get fully integrated or stay as human-like as possible? Feel free to suggest any other alternative (suicide, start a partially integrated society, etc.).
P.S. This topic has been rather extensively covered in science fiction, but I could not find a quality online discussion anywhere.