What if every government in the world immediately ceased to function? How long would anarchy last? What would you do? Would you attempt to organize a new, orderly society? Or would you commit as many former crimes as you can before someone else imposes their authority upon you?

Just think: simple things like the speed limit would no longer exist (no police = no one to stop you from driving 100 mph next to an elementary school). Electricity would probably stop functioning, so you couldn't communicate with your friends and family via the internet or telephone. Corporations, if they still held together, could seize power and create new city-states with followers who want protection (kind of like medieval Europe).

Since I live in Texas, there will be a lot of people with firearms that could probably force their way into any place and take whatever they want. The first thing I would do is find supplies (food, water, and guns), a safe place (probably out in the country near a steady source of fresh water), and people I could trust. Eventually, I would want to create a new community much like the current society, but that might take many years. Safety and survival of myself would be my first concern.

Let's get one thing straight. Governments can only be ceased entirely if:

1) Aliens attack us, kill every member of every governments, cut off all of humanity's means of communication, then proceed to make all hell break loose. In this case, grab my semi handgun from the bottom shelf of the shelf in my room, find a way to load it then TO HELL WITH THE ALIENS!!!!

2) Class 4 zombie outbreak. The kind that infects peeps by biting. In this case, I rush to the nearest bookstore, grab a The Zombie Survival Guide and a Zombie Combat Manual, read both thoroughly (while the outbreak is not Class 4 yet) then follow the instructions to survive.

3) Total/Near Total Annihilation. Try to survive by any means possible.

Governments are created spontaneously. If, in the United States, the entire government and police system ceased to function, I imagine it wouldn't be too long before a new one was created. In fact, it might occur within a month. It might look differently - it might be authoritarian, if it's formed when a stereotypical rich-mafia-connected guy comes into power, or it might be democratic, if people come through and realize that they need to organize for the greater good.

As for what I'd do.. well, I live in a suburb, so people here are pretty nonviolent. I'd suppose we'd create our own ministate (maybe as large as a city, maybe just our general area) with a police force and keep on truckin'.

If you change the conditions to "There is no police and never will be", I'd buy a gun and continue with what I'm doing.

I totally expected this to be a Payne topic.

The way I see it, the collapse of governments and the lack of new ones, even if none of the above scenarios happen, will lead to the inevitable end of the Earth. My reasons being:

1) The degrading of Terra: No governments, nothing to keep nature from the greedy hands of humans. Wildlife hunted for food. Vegetation can be completely snatched from all over the world. Pollution goes untreated. And there are fires to worry about (in case your wondering why would people burn forests, let's remember the state of chaos here. Also fire can start in the wild for no apparent reason). Sure, there will be people trying to protect nature, but how long will they last, and how great will their impact be? Over time, the Earth will be totally wrecked by pollution and deforestation, and its greatest and most destructive inhabitants will succumb to their own unsatisfied physical needs.

2) The mutual assured destruction of Terrans: There's always the chaos caused by lovable criminals and psychopaths now that there's no major organization containing and fighting against them. The battle against crime will become that of an equal battle, where the more numerous but less experienced and widely unarmed civilians must face their less numerous but ruthless, experienced, barbaric and more well-armed counterparts, with communities no bigger than a small town against organized groups of evildoers and stealthy individuals out for their properties, precious supplies and lives. The result being civilians and bandits alike die because of the conflicts and famine, lots of bandits survive and further destroy the nature and civilians forced to resort to taking necessities from the wild. Speeds up 1) and lowers population.

3) The self destruction of Terrans: Let's try to picture this. All of your wife(s), aunts, uncles, father(s), mother(s), grandparents, children, siblings, etc. all die of some terrible cause. The leader of the town is being complete BS. Some petty thieves visited your house and took all your food, water, batteries, ammunition, weaponry, CDs and game consoles. They only left you with whatever furniture they couldn't carry, and a one-fifth loaded Taurus Raging Bull. No matter how tenacious you are, no doubt you'll consider for at least half a second to use that last bullet to end all this dipshit. Now imagine that most of the world's population are in a same or similar state, even among the bandits. There will be extravagant mass suicides, civil war within towns and gangs everywhere. All the chaos helps a lot to fuel all of the destructive measures mentioned in 1), 2) and 3).

4) Mass Chaos + Shitloads of Deaths + Fucked up planet + Psychology stress = Gradual Inevitable Total Annihilation. GITA. Pronounced GUITAR.


Me? I'll lock myself in some biolab and work recklessly until I am able to create a zombie virus, go infect lots of people with it, THEN grab my semi handgun, The Zombie Survival Guide, The Zombie Combat Manual and survive and be glad that I've at least slowed down the GITA of Terra by sacrifice a little bit shitload of Terrans.

Anyone seen the Stephen King movie "The Mist"? Yeah, something like that will happen (the fear aspect, not those things in the Mist)

Only hypothetical situation I can imagine where government could be sufficiently collapsed (without a cataclysmic event) would be if people were empowered individually with weapons that enabled fully anonymous, non-defensible killing of anyone who asserts their presence.

I would guess it would be like Anonymous taking over the earth.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Jan 12 2011, 6:22 am by Tuxedo-Templar.

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Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Sep 7 2018, 7:01 am by DavidJCobb. Reason: thoughts of a stupid edgy teenager, ugh

Only that you cannot draw a line between good and evil. Justice is not the law. Law can both be evil and good at the same time.

And if governments fall and no replacements can come up, we'll most likely be 'tribal', and constantly war each other for resources. We'd start killing all the men and steal all the women for kids, take food, tools, water, and whatever supplies that are of use. In that anarchy, power will be out within weeks. In the mainlands, water will either be cut off or be poisonous within months. In fact, anyone not near a good water source will die within a year.

Other than that, you could probably think of boom in disease rates and death due to some infection stuff. And when the industrial modern society supported population declines to a supportable level, a certain level of order may be put in place.

But that would mean we'd have to lose communications, transportations, with some apocalyptic disaster.

I would try to get my friends and families together in order to form a close knit tribe. We'd then raid other people, kill men, steal women, and be tribal!

Fallout. Pretty much. Without the vaults, radiation+mutants and energy weapons.
No seriously, play "Fallout: New Vegas" on Hardcore (where you need food and water) and you get pretty much my idea of how a world without civilization would be.

You'll get to see:
Everyone carrying a gun,
more campfires than electrical light (with exceptions),
people inventing delicious(?) recipes for rat stew and stuff,
abandoned homes,
small towns trying to be isolated and peaceful,
raider gangs,
people (trying to) screwing you over,
lots of crimes (theft, murder and rape mostly).

Unfortunately that's just human nature when there's no social structures.

That's interesting. I can't come up with a good explanation for why a government would just collapse - something always catalyzes it. Some change or want for change, and that creates factions.

[Speech 60] Real life doesn't have level ups.
[Intelligence 7] I'd try to form something like the NCR, which I'm sure could rapidly expand and bring about some system of authority.
[Guns 35] I have fired a gun at a target, so I think that would help.
[Barter 40] Despite lack of money and food I'm sure I could make something happen.

I'd have a shitload of fun in a Fallout-like universe (assuming of course that I don't get killed).

It's scientifically proven that evil will always win ;o.

And again, there is no fine line between good and evil.

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Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 15 2018, 9:48 pm by DavidJCobb. Reason: dumb teenagers have dumb takes

Doesn't do us any good though.

Havn't had the chance to play New Vegas, but I've played Fallout 3 quite a bit - is there a big change betweent the two of them? Hardcore mode seems the most attractive.

Return to topic: I live in the United Kingdom, so if in the case of government disapearing and police ceasing to exist, I'd expect a lot of violence to come from all the drug lords and gangs. Most common people have absolutely no access to firearms. Your 'no police' clause is a bit far fetched for myself. I'd imagine the military or police - or atleast, people with access to these armouries and organisations, would arm themselves and fight for the greater good of society as we know it today. Yet the criminal underworld would show its true face and things would get pretty damn ugly. I'd probably band together with a bunch of my close friends (students mostly) and head somewhere rural. Lay low until order is restored.

I imagine large cities such as London would be totally over run by gang warfare. Japan, similarly, would be completely overtaken by the Yakuza bosses. To completely remove government and police (and presumably military presence also?) is simply opening the floodgates for all of the misanthropists and malcontents which society contains. Good honest people will be gunned down, robbed, raped and beaten into submission. Not a nice scenario, realistically.

Yakuza? Nah. More like an easy military coup would be far more likely. And under a coup, it will be likely 'laws' and harsh ones will replace old ones. They'll probably be the regent, and people will turn to any organization that will give them order.

There is difference in presentation and background. Focus is more on bandits and robots rather mutants and less on 50's style. And there's new armor and weapons that make the game feel more like wild west/cowboy. The gameplay is identical (save for hardcore mode, which is optional).

From a role play point of view hardcore is very attractive, from a game play point of view it's just very annoying that you can't carry around ammo for all your weapons (they have weight) and have to reserve a good bit of your carry weight for food and water items.

When there's makeshift police vs. mafia there would probably only 1 punishment: Death. Since who's gonna judge them? Or who's gonna run the jails, do the paperwork (without computers!)...

Quote from BeDazed

Yakuza? Nah. More like an easy military coup would be far more likely. And under a coup, it will be likely 'laws' and harsh ones will replace old ones. They'll probably be the regent, and people will turn to any organization that will give them order.

Which reminds me...*dons Guy Fawkes mask*

There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high chancellor, Adam Sutler. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent.

In any case, chances are there would be widespread destruction, looting, homicides, and other extreme crimes. For around a week, until whoever manages to amass the strongest army takes control (probably within 24 hours), and people start to hear of it (the other 6 days). This militia would be led by people (or a person) that has more "power", by whichever currency becomes the new standard, most likely some kind of luxury that we consider everyday stuff now. Then a facsimile of order will take hold, but most likely the leader will indeed be more harsh.

Alternatively, order might be preserved largely without government. What makes a sane person commit a crime is not lack of punishment, but the crime itself. I think that if this scenario were to happen, this is the least likely outcome, but still a possible one. If everyone is suddenly free of all legal restraints, chances are little would change. At least in terms of felonious crimes, which could even decrease. Rape, murder, etc. are viewed negatively by society, which would deal justice in whichever way either the society, the victim's family, the victim themself, or some combination, believes is the best. Lesser crimes would be looked down upon, but they would still see an increase...maybe. Depending on the crime, such as robbery (which could justify murder, if someone breaks into a store or house to steal stuffs), knowing that the perpetrator risks losing their life for an incomparably small gain might deter most would-be robbers.

This all assumes that government could be removed. Think of the very definition of government, and you'll see what I mean when I say government is impossible to get rid of. The definition of "government", as given by Mirriam-Webster is "1: the act or process of governing; specifically : authoritative direction or control". Despite no entry for "governing" (only returns "self-governing"), we can work off of "authoritative direction or control" for the connotation of government. This essentially means that someone, something, or some group is in a position of power to say what is acceptable to do, and likely to enforce it as well. Think of a time when no person has ever been in control over another. Current times: definitely not the case. Ever-increasing regulations, length of career ladders, etc. all contribute to rob us of whatever misguided notion of absolute freedom we might have. Medieval times: Definitely not. Peasants, ruled by the noble class, had even less freedom than we do today. Ancient Greece/Rome: Not as bad as the medieval peasants, but (as an example) Spartan children that were deemed unfit were abandoned to die. Going further back, and I'll stop here because my wall o' text is already too big (to fail ;D), but even during Neanderthal times, when we were cave-dwellers and/or nomadic groups, there was always a leader, usually the oldest or most capable male.

TL;DR: No government could not exist. If our governments suddenly collapsed, either widespread crimes would occur, or little change would be seen before a new government would form. Most likely an autocracy or oligarchy, backed by military might, funded by the "rich" in whatever method of currency is now the most valuable.

You know... with all this talk about sudden massive panic and mayhem... why? Most people don't interact with their government on a day to day basis except to grumble at it and pay their taxes once a year. I think life would go on as normal for about 6 months before folks would even realize a change.

Blame the thread starter then. His conditons for creating this discussion were questionable at best. No police, maybe police. No mention of military. Simply no government. In that case, Vrael is absolutely correct. I think life would be better for those 6 months, and then a slow gradual decay as some smart arse decides to 'govern us all'.

On a completely unrelated note: