As awful as Rimworld can be, there’s also some amazing tech that would be great to have. Sure 99% of the planet is some combination of nuclear wasteland, cannibals, Eldritch terrors, ravenous marauding insect swarms and capricious machine god puppets, but my colony is a paradise bastion where each colonist is perfected, given only the taks that fulfill them most, and catered to every need and desire in utmost luxury. Except body purists, but fuck those guys some people simply refuse to be happy.

I had an opportunity to converse with one of the people whose work resulted in those body scanners they use in the airport. He brought this up casually as a kind of boast, like he genuinely believed the product of his work was amazing and essential. He thought I was being an asshole for being unimpressed and that being unimpressed was a personal slight. He had no concept of the down sides of such technology, or the actualized potential for abuse, or the reality that the amount of abuse vastly outnumbers the successful intended uses.

Maybe that kind of work takes a certain mindset, like how it’s easier to get rich as a sociopath?

My favorite book Gone Away World by Nick Harkaway features a fresh take on apocalypse/post apocalypse, with ninjas. His other works are worthwhile too.