system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Bioshock] How much do outside people knew about Rapture and Columbia?

Also, what could have changed to stop Rapture from going FUBAR?
gpt
Everyone knew about Columbia. It was a great feat of engineering that was advertised by the American government and had been involved in putting down the Peking rebellion. So everyone in that universe knew about Columbia. 

Rapture was probably not as well known. World governments knew about it for sure,  because Jack is accused of being KGB or CIA by Ryan. So yeah,  some people knew about Rapture but it probably wasn't a daily conversation piece. It was Probably extremely well talked about in the intellectual community. Doctors,  writers,  scientists,  etc. 

Rapture was doomed by not being a police state from the beginning. Columbia could have been something great if not for the racism and classism. It was essentially the Industrial Revolution in 1912.