# Government By Mad Scientists? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 3, 2014, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/government-by-mad-scientists/706267 "2014-12-03T23:14:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![antechinus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/fbc32d/32.png) [@antechinus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antechinus)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2014, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/government-by-mad-scientists/706267/21 "2014-12-04T11:21:55Z")
After the Mad Scientist that introduced me to Mad Scientologism: **Brinleyocracy**. From [Bertrand Brinley](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mad_Scientists%27_Club). ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2014, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/government-by-mad-scientists/706267/22 "2014-12-04T11:42:15Z")
Surely, once the Mad Scientists start governing, they are no longer mad scientists, but rather Mad Legislators or Mad Executive Authorities. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2014, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/government-by-mad-scientists/706267/23 "2014-12-04T12:12:56Z")
Psychotocracy ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2014, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/government-by-mad-scientists/706267/24 "2014-12-04T15:20:27Z")
> [@vontsira](#): > > One thinks of the third book of Jonathan Swift’s _Gulliver’s Travels_, in which the hero visits the land of Balnibarbi, which is ruled – with disastrous results – by mad scientists. (Some folk are of the opinion that Swift was, here, eerily prophetic of various twentieth-century abuses against humanity.) The word “Balnibarbocracy” might be suggested: admittedly, it’s rather a mouthful. > [@njtt](#): > > Didn’t the mad scientists who controlled Balnibarbi actually live above it, on the flying island of Laputa? Laputocracy is quite a good word (although it could also be taken to mean rule by prostitutes, an altogether superior system of government). If I ever had the relationship between the two straight, I’d long forgotten it. I do gather that Swift – never averse to a bit of sleaze-and-smut – indeed manufactured the name of his flying island, from the Spanish “la puta” (reckoning I suppose, that his fellow-Brits, notoriously bad linguists, would be oblivious). “Laputocracy” has a splendid ring to it, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_blistering_barnacle/32/3386_2.png) [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Blistering_Barnacle)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2014, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/government-by-mad-scientists/706267/25 "2014-12-04T16:18:33Z")
As a Mad Scientist, if I wasn’t ruling alone, I could only settle for a _ **cabal** _. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2014, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/government-by-mad-scientists/706267/26 "2014-12-04T17:04:15Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > Authoritarianism > Autocracy > Despotism > Dictatorship > Totalitarianism > Democracy > Representative Democracy > Monarchy > Oligarchy > Aristocracy > Military junta > Plutocracy > Stratocracy > Timocracy > Anarchy > Anocracy > Kritarchy > Particracy > Republic > Theocracy Fools! I’ll destroy them all! [Well, someone had to say it…] ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2014, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/government-by-mad-scientists/706267/27 "2014-12-04T18:15:03Z")
> [@vontsira](#): > > If I ever had the relationship between the two straight, I’d long forgotten it. I do gather that Swift – never averse to a bit of sleaze-and-smut – indeed manufactured the name of his flying island, from the Spanish “la puta” (reckoning I suppose, that his fellow-Brits, notoriously bad linguists, would be oblivious). “Laputocracy” has a splendid ring to it, anyway. It does, but “Voyage to Laputa” is more like rule by ivory tower academics than what we normally call “mad scientists”. Possibly the closest approach which would have existed in Swift’s day. ---
**Author:** ![Toxgoddess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Toxgoddess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxgoddess)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2014, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/government-by-mad-scientists/706267/28 "2014-12-04T18:47:18Z")
One could argue that “Government by Whores” is what we have now. (Someone had to say that too). ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2014, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/government-by-mad-scientists/706267/29 "2014-12-04T22:40:45Z")
Nerdocracy? ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/government-by-mad-scientists/706267/30 "2014-12-05T00:14:40Z")
> [@blue\_infinity](#): > > So how do you explain \*Admiral \*Janeway? The Higher-Ups took her out of the Captain’s Chair: now she’s flying a desk. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/government-by-mad-scientists/706267/31 "2014-12-05T01:29:28Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > Nerdocracy? No-no-no…that’s running a Science Fiction Convention. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/government-by-mad-scientists/706267/32 "2014-12-05T01:42:15Z")
> [@yabob](#): > > It does, but “Voyage to Laputa” is more like rule by ivory tower academics than what we normally call “mad scientists”. Possibly the closest approach which would have existed in Swift’s day. I don’t think that is right. It is my understanding (and Wikipedia confirms it) that Swift primarily intended Laputa as a satire on the Royal Society, and I believe that the Royal Society, at the time when _Gulliver’s Travels_ was published, was still (as was certainly the case not very much earlier) dominated by rich, amateur science enthusiasts (and their protégés) rather than by career academics: much more like mad scientists than ivory-tower scholars.\* Indeed, I do not think there was much place for scientists, apart for one or two mathematicians, in British universities yet. Anyway, the Laputans were far from being entirely impractical and ineffectual (as the stereotype ivory-tower academic is). After all, they had successfully developed the technology (and it was technology, not magic) to make their island fly, and they then effectively (in most cases) used it as a weapon to impose their rule on the Balnibarbians below them. It all seems very mad-scientisty to me. ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬ \*Newton was still president of the Royal Society at the time, but he had long since left academia for politics and public office. Newton, with his eccentric range of intellectual interests, his paranoia, his (somewhat justified) megalomania, intense misogyny and misanthropy, and generally ill-tempered and anti-social attitudes, as well as his very real genius, is actually a pretty good prototype of the “mad scientist”. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/government-by-mad-scientists/706267/33 "2014-12-05T01:45:02Z")
> [@Toxgoddess](#): > > One could argue that “Government by Whores” is what we have now. > > (Someone had to say that too). Well, nowadays we are governed by metaphorical whores. I was suggesting that government by real whores might be better. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/government-by-mad-scientists/706267/34 "2014-12-05T04:05:03Z")
Pinkyocrity! [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/iJPFSNu_QNs/hqdefault.jpg "Pinky and The Brain Intro") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJPFSNu_QNs) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/government-by-mad-scientists/706267/35 "2014-12-05T04:48:18Z")
> [@Toxgoddess](#): > > One could argue that “Government by Whores” is what we have now. > > (Someone had to say that too). There’s already a word for that: [pornocracy](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pornocracy). ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/government-by-mad-scientists/706267/36 "2014-12-05T11:19:52Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > I don’t think that is right. It is my understanding (and Wikipedia confirms it) that Swift primarily intended Laputa as a satire on the Royal Society, and I believe that the Royal Society, at the time when _Gulliver’s Travels_ was published, was still (as was certainly the case not very much earlier) dominated by rich, amateur science enthusiasts (and their protégés) rather than by career academics: much more like mad scientists than ivory-tower scholars.\* Indeed, I do not think there was much place for scientists, apart for one or two mathematicians, in British universities yet. > > Anyway, the Laputans were far from being entirely impractical and ineffectual (as the stereotype ivory-tower academic is). After all, they had successfully developed the technology (and it was technology, not magic) to make their island fly, and they then effectively (in most cases) used it as a weapon to impose their rule on the Balnibarbians below them. It all seems very mad-scientisty to me. > > ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬ > \*Newton was still president of the Royal Society at the time, but he had long since left academia for politics and public office. Newton, with his eccentric range of intellectual interests, his paranoia, his (somewhat justified) megalomania, intense misogyny and misanthropy, and generally ill-tempered and anti-social attitudes, as well as his very real genius, is actually a pretty good prototype of the “mad scientist”. With the paranoia element: I seem to recall from the book, that there was a prominent “Big Brother” aspect to Laputa / Balnibarbi: those who ran the polity harboured strong doubts as to their subjects’ loyalty, and had an elaborate apparatus for snooping on said subjects, including prying into people’s correspondence. The authorities had a tendency to the complicated imagining / “interpreting” of seditious coded messages in people’s letters; whereupon the supposed culprit was rounded up, and forced to confess to treasonous activity. All remarkably like the USSR under Stalin ! ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/government-by-mad-scientists/706267/37 "2014-12-05T12:01:52Z")
> [@vontsira](#): > > With the paranoia element: I seem to recall from the book, that there was a prominent “Big Brother” aspect to Laputa / Balnibarbi: those who ran the polity harboured strong doubts as to their subjects’ loyalty, and had an elaborate apparatus for snooping on said subjects, including prying into people’s correspondence. The authorities had a tendency to the complicated imagining / “interpreting” of seditious coded messages in people’s letters; whereupon the supposed culprit was rounded up, and forced to confess to treasonous activity. All remarkably like the USSR under Stalin ! It is far too long since I have actually read _Gulliver_, so I will have to take your word for it. However, if so, I do not think _that_ aspect of Laputa fits what I know of the 18th century Royal Society very well. Newton’s paranoia was on the personal level; AFAIK it did not permeate the Society as a whole. Also, although stuff like coded messages in letters was quite a significant component of scientific communication in the earlier _17th_ century, the Royal Society, from well before Newton’s time, but continuing in the 18th century, was rather consciously and overtly engaged in moving away from that sort of secrecy towards a more open, public style of scientific communication: for instance, by founding the first scientific journal, the [Philosophical Transactions](http://rstl.royalsocietypublishing.org/) ([still](http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/373/2032) [appearing](http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/370/1659)). (I suppose Swift may not have been sufficiently close to the scientific culture of his time to understand the distinction, or the change that was underway, though.) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/government-by-mad-scientists/706267/38 "2014-12-05T12:32:53Z")
[sings] It’s our problem-free Technocracy Harkonnen Mentata! [/sings] – Dune – The Musical by CalMeacham [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=167075&highlight=Dune+Musical](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=167075&highlight=Dune+Musical) ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/government-by-mad-scientists/706267/39 "2014-12-05T15:42:10Z")
I envision mad scientists as not being evil but capable of making decisions based purely on science and ignoring some of the natural processes the world might go through having catostraphic effects. ``` Shortcutting evolution by means of gentic engineering. Culling of what they felt was detremental to the earth or culture. Asigning us to what they felt was our best place in life things like that. All for the greater good. ``` ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/government-by-mad-scientists/706267/40 "2014-12-05T16:58:34Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > IIRC there was a past thread in the SDMB that showed a lot of evidence and well based opinion that most of the mad scientists you see in fiction are in reality engineers. > > So I will go for [Technocracy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy), with rulers that are evil. Exactly - What sort of Mad Hypotheses do they test? Has anyone ever submitted an article for Mad Peer-Review? > [@DocCathode](#): > > As a Mad Scientist, I object to the uninformed and hateful belief that all Mad Scientists are evil. Many of us are good. We don’t want to unleash doomsday devices, deathrays, or robot armies. We want a better world. I could speechify on just what I mean, but imagine the world of Futurama- a world where unfettered Science can and does meet our every need. It’s just that dath rays, doomsday devices and robot armies are sometimes the best solution to a Mad Engineering problem. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/government-by-mad-scientists/706267.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/government-by-mad-scientists/706267.md?page=3)