What happens if there is no future?

So last week I'm watching a show on the History channel or Discovery channel that discussed the top 10 ways the world would end. One of the quite intriguing and demoralizing ways (though one scientist called it very exciting) was an asteroid striking the Earth. To an extent I agree with the scientist, but more with how society would handle it.

And interestingly enough, as I write this, I'm watching Children of Men, an intriguing movie in which the human race has been unable to create children for 18 years. What strikes my interest is how society decides to live with this knowledge, knowing that within their lifetime (or only a few years after) the world would end. Outside of England wars and riots engulf society. Within England the government wields an iron fist, putting up a wall around the island and taking every step to keep the status quo. Hell, there is a scene in the movie where a soccer game is on tv...SOCCER!

These two shows lead me to wonder what society would be like if we knew the world was coming to an end. The history channel show addressed it to a degree, wondering if any law and order would exist. And I wonder as well, would it?

If man knows there is no future, knows the time and date and manner of his demise...would he follow the letter of the law? Whether the law is created by man (as jab to the side of my state atty friends, "Laws are made in Tallahassee...") or gods? What kind of effect would this knowledge have on the mind of man?

Would man revolt, live the anarchist life that men of order fear? Or would man live the life so sought after by true libertarians and those Founding Fathers who preferred a life of freedom and to be left alone? Or would man, realizing the end was nigh, find comfort and spirituality in the end of his days and peacefully coexist with all, achieving something not possible in the entire history of human existence? I just don't know, and I could go on for volumes trying to work through all the possibilities. Which is why I agree with that scientist from earlier who said the most exciting end to the world would be from an asteroid strike. I like to think that that is the moment we all find out the true meaning of life, and the true makeup of the human soul.