So on my first playthrough, the world ended. On my second, I managed to keep everything stable.
Then I wondered what would happen if I ignored the rules completely, and just did what seemed best. And nothing bad happened. I got a raise, even.
If this isn't a bug (I'm assuming it's not), then I feel like I (or, Grim) did something wrong the first two times. Maybe I was fine with following the rules because they weren't real people, or maybe because I've seen games like this before where the rules are enforced. But I still thought it was interesting/ kind of scary that it took until the third playthrough to try saving people and ignoring the rules.
Anyway! A really cool game that was unexpectedly introspective for me.