If an unseen supernatural force suddenly gave everyone in the world telepathy, what would happen in the first week after?

It would be intresting to see what the outcome would be on a global political scale and what the result would be on the diplomatic service. Either World War III would break out or, finally, politicians would have to sit round a table and be honest with each other.

I know there would be a full scale riot in my office but I would feel confident of my husband being able to read my mind as I have always been honest with him and I, in return, trust him completely.

The survivors of such would be more inclined to live life honestly, for a change.

Fantastic Question - I would imagine total loss of privacy, chaos, war, revenge, betrayal, anger, resentment, suicides from the relentless pressure of 'noise', demolition of Govt and Commercial secrecy, outright social anarchy and warfare as people find out what others think of them instantly.. complete breakdown of family, social and work relationships, and utter utter chaos.. destabilisation of almost everything we rely on being our lives are so based on 'secrecy' of information and constant 'lies' made for operational necessity. Thought... it is the last real human barrier that we each guard our thoughts and so called 'empathy' is all an illusion... with this... all restraint would be gone... people would entirely have to change...many would die at their own hands and others I fear...

Many technologies and institutions will be pointless.... even Facebook would be hard pressed to survive without dramatic change...depending on the conditions and range applicable to people's abilities..and telcoms also might be remarkably impacted

new technologies would race to perfect screening, control mechanisms, security and privacy devices... international relations would be chaotic and race riots would be massive...marriages often doomed...we would need entirely new laws as all our evidential based trials by jury would be meaningless, criminology and science would change, so would education and people's tolerances for work heirachies would be heavily impacted if we all knew what people thought of us... negotiations, sales, buying, all would totally alter...and languages .. wow.. don't forget when you heard people THINK it would be in THEIR native language even if they actualy spoke yours a bit or a lot...

interestingly there is a new highly rated teen sci novel:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2118745.The_Knife_of_Never_Letting_Go

based on the very concept of a boy in a world where 'Everyone can hear everyone else's thoughts in an overwhelming, never-ending stream of Noise'...

all human life on earth would have completely wiped themselves out....

get rid of all the cell phones, messengers, post n things like that...
e.g.- nokia will go down alright...but they will produce better equipment than phones...maybe a hand held dvd player...
but fisrt week will be the worst...coz telepathy isn't what we actually think it is.
1st day: its cool, fun, superawsum
3rd day: it sux, confusions, brain damage, can't think..
then...
no more leaders, presidents, teachers, schools...its going to be a total kiosk!
no more 'genius' everyone can think by reading the mind of an einstein!

It would be great,because I'm a teacher and my students always lie to me when they don't do their homework or come to school without any reason.And I would never tell them the rules of English Grammer because of their telephatic understanding:)

Ever see the invetion of lieing. Well that's what would happen.