Oh, gosh, noooooooo. It’s a scary enough place inside my own mind, why would I bring someone else into the mix? I agree, ignorance is more than bliss.
Grin! Far from it; we all get the occasional crazy thought. (No few of us post them right here on the SDMB.)
But why would knowledge of these thoughts destroy civilization? Why would the lack of all secrets destroy civilization? It would change civilization. We’d know better than to create ICBMs, because we’d know that the launch codes could never be kept secret. But that’s okay, because we’d always know, in advance, who was thinking about using nuclear weapons.
Telepathy, if it included true sympathy, might avert war. It would be a lot harder to kill someone if you felt the pain of their dying. (I’ve heard good arguments against this reasoning, too: we won’t know until someone invents a true telepathy machine. Which, with modern brain-scan technology, might not be impossible.)
There’d be far fewer of certain kinds of crimes. Confidence games and scams would be obsolete: you can’t fool a mind-reader! Diplomacy would become vastly more difficult: everyone would already know everyone else’s negotiating points. There wouldn’t be any surprise attacks.
Destroy civilization? Hell, it might make civilization a lot more moral!
I think it would destroy civilization “as we know it” as the other poster said, but I think you’re right that civilization would continue on in some form and that it might even be better. We would adapt pretty quickly, I think, but it would involve some big changes.
I suspect anyone above the age of a pre-teen might struggle, and many might devolve into a permanent state of insanity. But the youngsters would adapt and be resilient, and within the next generation, there’d be a new norm.
To quote from one of my old favorite short stories (based on a different premise): “Happy goldfish bowl to you, to me, to everyone, and may each of you fry in hell forever.”
I would vote yes but only with my husband and only with the consent of both of us and if we could turn it off and on at will. Generally we communicate well with each other, but there are days where we Just. Don’t. Connect. It’s hard to explain because I haven’t figured out the cause, but it kind of goes like this:
Me: the sky is blue
him: the grass is green
Me: Right, that’s fine, but I was talking about the sky
Him: I KNOW. But I still say the grass is green!
me: Yes, but what do you think of the sky?
Him: Yeah, the sky is composed of air. It’s the grass that’s really long right now!
me: Who the #%# cares about the grass? We’re talking about the sky!
… and we descend into an argument about nothing either one of us can figure out or untangle. Just the other day I saw this happening and avoided the argument by wryly commenting that we’re clearly having a “can’t communicate” day. It’s like when you get married, something in both of your brains gets fried.
Think how depressing it would be to note the exact moment that “I must divorce this creepy mind-reading bastard” popped into your wife’s mind.
I’ll stay out of other people’s minds, and they can stay out of mine, thanks.