By which I mean the kind who hire a private army fiercely loyal to them, come up with
some brilliant scheme to blackmail/threaten the leaders of the free world (for greed,
lust for power, or what they themselves might consider “ulterior” motives), and
either succeed or fail (thanks to some goody-goody types like James Bond or
Austin Powers). Nobody has proven to be THAT cunningly sinister, or they figure
that halfway intelligent agents would stop their schemes cold in five minutes?
[If this is too silly for GQ then feel free to move it]
Well, your hypothesis is not really practically falsifiable, but a reason could be that most people sufficiently smart to be a “Mad Scientist” simply do not have resources to do so, and even if they do they have no desire to do so. I’m using four assumptions as the fundamental premises -
A very small percentage of scientist are capable of actually orchestrating something like that
A very small percentage of people in the world have the resources to orchestrate something like that.
A very small percentage of people want to terrorize the world like that
There is no reason to believe there is any significant correlation between any of the above three groups, and people collectively belonging to all three of the groups above are unlikely to interact socially much less cooperate on any sort of project.
From another perspective we can claim that some dictatorial governments developing weapons of mass destruction is in a way isomorphic to a “Mad Scientist”. Except the “Mad” and the “Scientist” parts are represented by different individuals or groups of individuals.
The reason the cinematic “genius master criminal” doesn’t exist in real life is because in real life really smart people have so many legal or quasi-legal ways of making money.
In real life a genius mad scientist doesn’t invent a death ray and hold the world hostage for one million dollars. In real life a genius mad scientist invents a death ray and sells it to the government for 100 million dollars. In real life master criminals don’t plan elaborate schemes to break into bank vaults. In real life master criminals already own the bank and steal the money with the stroke of a pen.
Following up on growman’s point, even if you found a physics/engineering genius who was malevolent AND sufficiently charismatic to pull such a feat off, he’s still not going to be able to do it in any reasonable time frame, nor to do so without gathering a lot of eyes.
The person would have to amass wealth, he would have to hire on troops and train them, create a hidden base of operations, get the materials for his 1920’s style death ray, manufacture the ray, hire on further scientists and engineers to help him with it, and do all this without the police or any governments noticing.
Theoretically possible, but very very difficult. Just think of how hard it was for the US to keep the Manhattan Project secret from the USSR.
Except for the fact that he operated solo, and prefered to live in a shack rather than a private island hideaway, wouldn’t the Unabomber be reasonably close to this mad scientest meme.
Power mad, paranoid loonies don’t gravitate to science.
They go into politics, where they take over a party, take over a government, crush internal opposition, and start invading neighbors. They may be killed by an upcoming madman (watch out for colonels), or live to a ripe old age.
I think more than likely the person unknown behind the 2001 Anthrax attack comes close but not all points:
scheme to blackmail/threaten the leaders of the free world (for what they themselves might consider “ulterior” motives),
Check
either succeed .
Check
Bond-like activity
Probably - but apparently ineffective
private army fiercely loyal to them, come up with
No. (Not so far as we know)
Sometimes, I feel that a disgruntled professor who didn’t get tenure is working at night in his little laboratory and producing this crud." - Former Head of the U.S. Bioweapon Lab - he says more this is context for the OP - but not the entirety of that quote
If you lower the bar a bit, I’m sure you can find a few that would fit the general mold. Nikolai Tesla comes immediately to mind, as do the scientists at P&G, responsible for bringing the world such products as Olestra and Intrinsa (a ‘female Viagra’ with side effects such as deepened voices and hair growth).
I have a feeling that it’s the same reason Osama hasn’t been able to snag some engineering, physics, and chemistry grads at set them to work building nukes: The people who have the skills and knowledge to pull these kinds of things off, understand the consequences of using them all too well. They know, for example, that if they build Osama a nuke and he uses it, then it’s pretty much game over for much of the Mid-East. They also understand the environmental damage which would be done by this.
In the real world, I’ve noticed, “Mad Scientist” types tend not to become supervillains—they just work for them. “Henchmen,” in other words. Like Gerald Bull, Shiro Ishii, or Josef Mengele.
I mean, if you’re a real scientist (crazy and/or evil or not), would you rather spend time rallying masses and gaining power, or spending time on your real work?
