The Death of Grass
At first the virus wiping out grass and crops is of little concern to John Custance. It has decimated Asia, causing mass starvation and riots, but Europe is safe and a counter-virus is expected any day. Except, it turns out, the governments have been lying to their people. When the deadly disease hits Britain, society starts to descend into barbarism.
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What Hacker News says
- If ever you feel that your day is too cheerful, go read John Christopher's The Death Of Grass; it'll sort you right out.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/941731.The_Death_of_Grass
In it, a rice virus mutates and wipes out all grass crops in Asia and Europe --- rice, wheat, barley, oats, you name it.
tl:dr: it doesn't go well.
- > Where else would the next major advance come from?
Probably from sustained and detailed study of the universe around us and the way it works. That's how we figure out most things. Not that (board) games can't be useful as training but IMO they're a form of navel-gazing. (Games based on high fidelity simulations are definitely useful - look at the AI research using GTA5 as a simulator for self-driving cars, for instance.)
> I certainly believe story-tellers and players are absolutely critical if humanity is to pull through.
In the sense of us dealing with our own demons and learning how to handle the general awfulness of reality (ie. psychology / philosophy), I completely agree. In the sense of us dealing with outside challenges, though, not so much.
> Just curious -- what do you see as the "current existential dangers"?
Right now? Our current economic system is close to its limits, with a growing percentage of humans permanently unemployed and that percentage is growing rapidly with new tech. Various ecological systems are collapsing. (eg. pollinators like bees being wiped out by insecticides - have you ever read John Christopher's "Death of Grass"?) Runaway climate change is a real possibility (ocean warming causing methane clathrates to release large amounts of methane into the atmosphere). Higher human populations and population densities increasing the evolution rate of diseases beyond what our immune systems can handle. And all that on a backdrop of a looming AI singularity which even in the best case will make the world weird and confusing beyond the comprehension of baseline humans. There's a lot going on.
- In the post-apocalyptic science fiction novel The Death of Grass (and the movie No Blade of Grass), a virus threatens all the world's grass crops. Some governments begin plotting to nuke (their own!) cities to reduce food demand.
There is a worrying analogy to global warming, where governments might consider nuclear war to reduce carbon emissions (from other countries). Though at the point global warming is really bad, it would probably be too late to make much difference.
