This TED Talk features physician Margaret Bordeaux, recorded live at TEDx-Speakon Street, 2015.

So have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in a place with no rules?

That sounds pretty cool.

You wake up one morning, however,

and you discover that the reason there are no rules

is because there's no government, and there are no laws.

In fact, all social institutions have disappeared.

So there's no schools, there's no hospitals, there's no police, all social institutions have disappeared.

So there's no schools, there's no hospitals, there's no police, there's no banks,

there's no athletic clubs, there's no utilities.

Well, I know a little bit about what this is like because when I was a medical student in 1999,

I worked in a refugee camp in the Balkans during the Kosovo War. And when the war was over, I got permission unbelievably from my medical school

to take some time off and follow some of the families that I had befriended in the camp back to their

village in Kosovo

and understand how they navigated life in this post-war setting.

So post-war Kosovo was a very interesting place because NATO troops were there,

mostly to make sure that the war didn't break out again.

But other than that, it was actually a lawless place.

And almost every social institution, both public and private, had been destroyed.

So I can tell you that when you go into one of these situations and settings, it is absolutely

thrilling for about 30 minutes, because that's about how long it takes before you run into a

situation where you realize how incredibly vulnerable you are.

...