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You are currently reading a thread in /tg/ - Traditional Games
Do cruel and or unethical scientists necessarily have to be "mad"?
No, but there's most certainly a trend.
Somebody who is willing to perform extremely cruel and unethical experiments has probably got something wrong upstairs to begin with, so descent into madness is pretty realistic given enough time.
>>43850229
They're called mad because they are cruel and unethical. Being actually mad is not a requirement.
No, obviously not. But it's fun/believable for someone who is so passionately obsessed with one project that they behave cruelly and unethically to get it done to be portrayed as at least slightly touched in some way.
>>43850229
The definition of mental illness is a disorder that makes you harm yourself and/or other people. So everyone who harms other people for no good reason is mad.
>>43850284
Is that why the FBI now considers hitmen to be serial killers?
According to one forensic psychologist you have to be pretty fucked in the head to just straight up kill people even for money.
>>43850229
It depends on what you mean by "mad". Cackling, laughing, "I'm going to show them all!" mad and the like? Then no, of course not.
But if you just mean generally not-entirely-sane, then it's going to be hard to make that work. Someone who completely ignores all ethics and performs human experiments without a shred of empathy is going to be a psychopath 9/10 times.
You could however play a bit with the circumstances surrounding those experiments. For example, the scientist could be socially conditioned to consider a specific type of person (be they criminals, mutants, elves, or whatever) to be subhuman, meaning that in their mind ethics simply do not apply to these people and they can be experimented upon just like animals. Clones work well for that.
>>43850229
Here's a good example of an asshole scientist needlessly abusing animals, falsifying results, and misleading the public to push his own agenda. But he probably thought he was doing the right thing.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Séralini_affair
Sanity is relative. If you do something that seems utterly different from the norm, whatever that may be, then you're insane. You could very well be the one person of sound mind in an insane world, but you'd still be insane because you're different from the rest of them.
>>43850229
No, but those same scientists also tend to be poor researchers.
If you're constantly looking for shortcuts and trying to game the system, it's usually because you cannot compete when you play by the rules. I always laugh when I see "mad scientists" make crazy leaps in scientific progress on tv shows. If you're crazy enough to actually experiment illegally on human beings, you're already not capable of making reasoned logical analysis.
The scariest scientist of all is the calm, rational guy with government backing and the respect of his peers - who nonetheless is quietly marching towards destruction that only your party can see.
[/spoiler]Bonus points if the scientist really is a good guy and simply hasn't seriously considered the long-term consequences.[/spoiler]
>>43853275
Even more bonus points if there's actually no way for him to know the consequences and PCs seem like conspiratards if they try to tell him, or if PCs don't know either until it's too late.
>>43850282
This, really.
If you're not using the Scientific Method, then you're not a "scientist" in the first place.
QED
Conversely, there is no peer-reviewed evidence to suggest that wearing glasses and a bloody lab smock with a bulging pocket protector causes madness. Though, admittedly, this is still a largely unexplored area of scientific inquiry.
Look at Dr. Mengle and tell me something wasn't wrong with him
>>43850293
So half of the humanity is mad?
>>43852651
>
You could however play a bit with the circumstances surrounding those experiments. For example, the scientist could be socially conditioned to consider a specific type of person (be they criminals, mutants, elves, or whatever) to be subhuman, meaning that in their mind ethics simply do not apply to these people and they can be experimented upon just like animals.
Like the Japanese during WWII. Chinese and Russian prisoners weren't considered to be human beings, but "maruta"; literally "logs", to be used as research materials.
Look it up OP, the shit Japan did back then makes the Nazis look like the Red Cross.
>>43850229
"Mad" is a word that only the narrow-minded use.
I am not mad, and in fact, I am quite joyful in my pursuit of knowledge's horizons.
Only the good ones
>>43850229
I had a professor with a mad scientist haircut, a mad scientist labcoat and mad scientist glasses back in uni. He was my tutor for my end of studies project.
We merely made electric microneedles to stick in the brain. Nothing mad really. I was disappointed.
>>43850229
Society determines what is considered sane, and may change that definition at any time for no reason at all. Mengle was hailed for his progress in the field of human biology under one society, and reviled under another. People who are outliers on the curve (either ahead or behind) will always be hated.
Very few people ever believe themselves mad. Most everyone thinks their actions follow a logical chain of reasoning, and that a fair proportion of the rest of the people in the world would act the same if they were in the same circumstances or understood what was at stake.
That someone would do such cruel and unnecessary things, and not understand that what they are doing is wrong/prohibited, is what society calls madness.
The cackling generally comes later, after the shunning/exile/imprisonment. At that point someone either repents thier behavior, falls into a massive depression, or goes "all in" on their previous moral position and tries to convince the world that they were right all along. This tends to lead to massive risks in order to achieve the quick and definitive results they need to convince everyone (including themselves) that the atrocities were worth it.
>>43850229
It's a convenient trope to hang a plot on.
Only autists take it seriously, like adam savage and elon musk.
>>43855046
Evolution decides what is moral and what is immoral.
Why should we be held back by baggage like that? Should we eat whatever and however much we want without constraint, as evolution compels us to?
Artificial Selection is the only thing that can save humanity. We cannot tech ourselves out of problems caused solely by our hamfisted evolution.
Think about how far back we'd still be if we never invented domestication. Now imagine a world where nobody ever thinks of wasting energy or life.
The Nazi's didn't invent eugenics, America did. They lacked the proper tools to do the job properly.
Or, at best, we can all melt in 400 years from the heat of our energy use. Economic growth cannot continue forever. The only reason we're trying is because of evolutionary baggage.
Humanity did not evolve to survive past a certain point. We have to adapt ourselves.
>>43850229
because sane is boring
>>43855135
>humanity's survival is a good to be uphold and pursuid!
That's morals m8, and evolutionary decided ones to boot.
