I would definitely go to church, look my fellow parishioners in the eye…and grin.
This one?
Hmm… Suppose everyone around you has an earworm. Would mass insanity result?
That looks to be the one.
I couldn’t remember the name of the story that your quote came from until I googled it.
That was a great story by Dr. A!
I vote doom and thank you for the Hee Haw reference. 
You’re welcome.
I just finished reading it. It’s a good story.
Someone will invent some kind of shielding helmet, and he’ll be the World’s Richest Person. Otherwise . . . total chaos. Just sexual thoughts alone will end civilization.
Or greatly expand it.
You only need to have watched Scanners to know how badly that would turn out.
I think everyone basically knows the sort of thoughts other people are having about them, since they tend to have the same type of thoughts. It shouldn’t be shocking to find out that you annoy some people or other people find you attractive. So I think we’d learn to cope pretty quickly with this. The things we knew were probably boiling under the surface (although we may not know to which degree) would be out there, but they wouldn’t be coming from nowhere. There’d probably be more minor conflict, especially early on, but the world would more or less continue to function as it has.
Exceptions to that would be now essentially everyone would have universal lie detectors… justice, politics, etc. would be way different.
I think that the universal thought that everyone would transmit would be “Oh god, everyone can tell what I’m thinking.”
Actually, would other’s thoughts have a voice? Could you tell, in a crowd, who is thinking what? If not, how would you distinguish your own thoughts from everyone else’s?
One of my favorites by him, actually. And while the circumstances presented in this thread aren’t quite as extreme as the outcome of the story, there are still enough similarities to make that quote relevant.
The OP states “read on demand”-you pick which minds to read.
Ah, I missed that bit. Though I wonder how that would work. It’s not like I can selectively listen to people speak, after all. (Well, sort of I can.)
But in that case, I think that people would very quickly learn that if you don’t want to know what someone’s thinking, don’t receive their thoughts. If I’m thinking something offensive about you, for instance, and you get offended, well, hey, you shouldn’t have asked in the first place.
I think people would adjust pretty quickly. (But you knew that. And I knew that you knew that. And you knew that I knew…)
Would it eliminate the need for meat-market bars?
Either that or we’d be getting laid like oil pipe!
Nearly all businesses would immediately fail because 90% of their employees would be fired. People would have to cooperate more to get their basic needs met, and I don’t see that happening on its own. The majority of romantic relationships would end, as would a great many friendships. New ones would start to form spontaneously as people pick up thoughts from similar minds. I think there’d be a great deal more guilt and regret over little things. Most people would try harder to not annoy each other, for instance.
Yeah there would certainly be a lot of chaos, but I’m sure a small population would survive and learn to live with their new ability.
The mean and petty thoughts, most of which are easily dismissed or controlled within our own minds, would overwhelm each of us when we are subjected to an involuntary bombardment of those thoughts from everyone around us.
And I think tdn is wrong. The entire world would be subject to break outs of insane mass murder sprees. Because you’re thinking it. And he’s thinking it. And that other guy is going to kill you before you kill him. Then everyone is panicking, and reacting, and in short order, we’re all killing each other in a sea of broadcasted murderous thoughts and paranoia.
Then you’re thinking pissy thoughts about Billy Bob driving slow in front of you, so he deliberately slams on the brakes and comes at you with an axe.
Then a racial slur passes through your mind unbidden in a room full of people and you’re being stabbed with butter knives.
Then your boss hears all your true opinions of his ideas and you hear his true opinion of your worth, and all hell breaks loose.
Then you hear the true thoughts of that greasy, smooth talking, always smiling friend…
Then you’re hearing your lover thinking of someone else.
Or their true thoughts about you.
Hell is other people’s thoughts.