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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/48364
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

"Hard" i believe leans toward environment characteristics. Uncaring leans toward other intelligent beings that, as intelligent they should, but for some reason they don't care for other intelligent life beings, same kind or not.

You need to define such a setup to excuse both. Obviously you have the protagonist(s) and other actors. The environment is 'hard' for the protagonist and can be also hard for the other actors or not. The other actors are also uncaring towards the protagonist, and possible among them as well.

Obviously a good setup will answer both: An environment not really suitable for life explains both the term "hard world" naturally and the uncaring of other actors that live in that world; they look to survive not chat, help or share valuable resources with the protagonist.

Example of such setups would be:

1. A colonization starship lands at a not suitable enough planet for any reason.
2. A mining colony in an unfriendly without support due to civil war at the sponsors
3. A derelict but partially functioning habitat space station where all outlaws goather
4. A previously normal world after an apocalypse event

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