This is part of a new Horrific/Terrific series called Laughing at the Apocalypse: absurdist vignettes about the end of the world, sent at the end of the week.
Products nowadays aren’t useful; they’re dangerous. Products which are useful and safe have no place in our society any more. Participating in late capitalism means putting people in danger with your products and then boasting about it. “This thing could KILL you if you’re not careful — and maybe even if you ARE careful!” you laugh into the mic of whatever podcast you’re currently a guest on — because you’re an entrepreneur, an inventor. It’s just good business. Think about it: what has a safe product ever done for anyone besides linger in the background, be unremarkable, and destroy all creative joy? How are you supposed to attract investors if your product can’t evaporate the ocean, or eradicate an entire species overnight (including humans)?? Is your product even worth paying for if it won’t one day completely obliterate all of us? In this economy, any new product must completely reimagine our reality so than none of us can remember our own names. It’s finally time to start thinking about new form-factors, not for electrical devices, but for all the sentient organic devices that roam the Earth (people, animals, whatever). We’re surely bored of being carbon-based lifeforms by now — let’s change that. People will die but it’s worth it; we cannot become stagnant; we cannot lose to metaphysics. Stop being lazy and alter the DNA of the universe with your for-profit research lab ffs. Do the right thing and create the fifth horseman of the apocalypse and get him to cancel Christmas and replace it with an offsite for your team.
That’s another thing: your team. They should fear you the most. Your products are dangerous, remember? Why would they want to work for you? If they all quit, that’s good; that’s marketing; that’s the cost of doing business. The more people quit, the more your stocks increase in value. Those who quit will write whiny little op-eds saying that they cannot possibly help build a product which is so powerfully dangerous. These embarrassingly altruistic pleas do nothing but ensure the public understand that your product is not dangerous in the conventional sense: it will not perpetuate a slow violence against humanity that can span generations, is nearly impossible to measure, and whose harms can be denied very easily by PR teams. That is what all products are like. YOUR product can and will cleanse the world of all natural things in an instant. That’s why it’s so GOOD. What actually is it? It doesn’t matter. What does it do? Shut up. How big is it? That’s what your mum said last night. The product will kill all of us; we know this for a fact. You’re the only one who can make it not lethal so we can actually use it. If we all stay alive, you’re a genius. If we all die, you’re still a genius — and you died doing what you love, which is being killed by your own product.