 Ahoy, ahoy, and welcome to the video. I'm Dr. Smerian, not a real doctor, and today we're going to talk about how the SCP Foundation is... one of its core principles is actually pretty bad for the world in general. I'm going to move away from the word evil, but it's real bad. It's real bad. So what is it about the SCP Foundation? Well, I mean, let's be clear, the SCP Foundation does lots of things that are very questionable. It's not entirely surprising to list off one of their core principles as, you know, bad. But the thing is, it's one of the things that people least expect. So I'd say the SCP Foundation has three core principles. They're secure, contain, protect, right? What do those individually mean? I mean, you put things into boxes, but there's a reason for that. You put things into boxes so that the world is safe from danger most of the time. And that's one of the few things the SCP Foundation does that isn't actively evil. But the second thing it does is technically protect a lot of anomalies from destruction. There are people in the world, or exploitation. There are people and or organizations out in the world who would exploit or destroy anomalies. The SCP Foundation keeps that from happening. Protect the world from anomalies is first. And protect anomalies from the world is last. But second in there is keep knowledge of anomalies out of the hands and minds of the average public. Protecting normalcy. And this is where we run into the serious issues with the SCP Foundation's both mission statement and their actual actions. So the SCP Foundation is trying to keep every single bit of anomalous, you know, every anomaly, every anything that they think of as non-normal out of the public eye. But this is hugely anti-progress. Now what does that mean? Okay, well let's talk about what normalcy is first. Normalcy is a completely subjective measure of the world and saying that this is what is or isn't, this is way things are or aren't supposed to be. Now if you travel back in time, which itself would be an anomaly, but I mean mentally, if you travel back in time to 100 years ago, to 400 years ago, to a thousand years ago, you will find that baseline normalcy is completely different than what we would consider today. Things that we consider commonplace like, I don't know, cell phone for example. A basic cell phone is magic to someone just 100 years ago, to somebody 400 years ago. I mean 100 years ago you could kind of describe what it is in the terms of like it's like your phone, but portable. And people will be like wow the technology must be really high for that, but for some people it would just be straight up magic. Scientists might be able to at least look at that phone and be like okay I can see the underlying principles, the radio waves and all these other things. Microwaves technically, but it's regardless. Go back 400 years ago and it's just magic period. Galileo, well it's just and Copernicus and you know there's a variety of old astronomers. These astronomers by the way and this can be this can actually be useful in describing the difference between normalcy and not normalcy. Astronomers in the 1600s and so on were equal parts astronomers and physicists and all these and mathematicians in a dual sense also astrologers. They were studying the stars primarily at first anyway for the purpose of making predictions, horoscopes and that sort of things. That's something that's left to the wayside quite a lot. Magic was something that sort of just you know we understood to be a real thing and then as science progressed we kind of moved out of that you know, but that's the funny part. What was normal then is also stuff that we would consider to be magical now like the idea that the earth that the the rest of the universe revolves around the earth. That seems really wrong, but that was the normal at the time and that's actually a very simple and very easy way to explain the difference between normalcy now and say 100 years from now and this is the problem with the SCP Foundation. Now we're going to bring it back around. The SCP Foundation is actively preventing progress both scientific and elsewise both I should say scientific cultural and societal progress is being actively prevented by the secrecy of the SCP Foundation. Now from a writing standpoint from a narrative standpoint the masquerade or the veil or the idea that this sort of magical stuff is kept secret makes sense and in a lot of cases there makes sense that some entity or organization is helping to keep these things secret. If you go into any sort of supernatural fiction not all supernatural fiction but most supernatural fiction has this narrative conceit that magic and all these other things are not known to the wider world. Harry Potter is a good example of that. Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel both have that exact thing vampires exist but people are always surprised when they when they come up not everyone some people behind the scenes understand these things. So you can go through any supernatural fiction and most of them have at least some masquerade or veil and the fuse that don't you know had a masquerade or veil that's been broken again from a narrative standpoint this is great and for the SCP Foundation it's necessary for its narrative conceit because the narrative conceit of the SCP Foundation is this could this is our this is our world you've stumbled upon a database in our world and therefore there has to be secrecy relating to anomalies or else you would already just know about it but the justification of it of having the SCP Foundation be the group that is actually like the strong not the only one but the strongest towards keeping anomalies secret means that you know medical breakthroughs or technological breakthroughs or even just in general life-saving technologies are actively being prevented from being distributed worldwide okay SCP 500 can cure anything you don't think the scientists of the world somewhere somehow that aren't in the SCP Foundation might be able to examine those pills and if not replicated at least draw important what's the word I'm looking for here scientific breakthroughs from them all of the anomalous animals or plants out there that are being kept secret you have any idea how many life-saving drugs or life-changing treatments of disease have come about from studying novel animals and plants and the enzymes and the various chemicals that they produce and then examining how they interact with biology and using that to develop other things science is all this is the thing science isn't about being right and I feel like the SCP Foundation is set up as a sort of science ford quasi militaristic organization and that's fine but the fundamental understanding of science for the SCP Foundation feels like it's the opposite of the way it should be because the SCP Foundation is about ensuring that science is right and you might be thinking well of course that doesn't let the point no the point of science isn't to be right that that's the point of religion religion is about being right science is about being wrong about being able to make predictions about the world that match your findings and then being able to test those finds if you can't be wrong it's bad science okay if you if there's no you know and then if that's the thing like there are science there's science being done that is just plain wrong and they don't and but their findings come back and be like yeah absolutely everything is as it should be because the SCP Foundation actively keeps knowledge from the scientific community where they could understand fundamental principles of the world of how anomalies and anomalies in the SCP Foundation universe are part of the world they follow underlying principles and it's possible that a grand scheme of physics and anomalous anomalous physics could be found if enough people came together to actually work on it but nobody gets that opportunity because nobody knows that the magical poop statue exists if they did they'd be like okay well let's put that let's plug that into our data and start working on why this exists and how it works in doing and and let's not even talk about the individual costs of preserving the veil somebody discovers anomalies and they get amnesticized and yeah am i getting it right this time amnesticized i want to say amni it's amnest amnesticized in a lot of cases the amnestics are treated as though they aren't what's the word harmful okay but i feel like it's that's a cop out in a lot of stories and i think that it's i think it's worth it in many of the stories i've written and i've written quite a lot for the scp wiki i'm gonna probably start continuing continuing forward at least when amnestics are used understanding that there is a cost associated with wiping somebody's memory um because otherwise i feel like that you're missing some narrative value there but regardless amnestics probably have a permanent long-term effect on somebody's mental well-being they they must um because of the way the brain works and if not they're magical and also could you imagine the usage of amnestics on people with traumatic experiences if somehow it literally wipes them from your brain and all the effects of what happened from them and this is the this is this is just an example the scp foundation has a tool which would be incredibly useful to a wide range for a wide range of psychiatric illnesses and they keep it secret the scp foundation's active control of the veil and actively promoting the the secrecy around anomalies is uneval actually i didn't i said at the beginning i wasn't gonna say that i've actually changed my mind it is uneval because you are actively maliciously hurting the world by doing so and i don't really think there's much of an argument to be made else why it's like what is what's gonna happen well there's there's just this idea in fiction that if we knew that for example aliens we knew that aliens existed oh my god all the world religions would fault no they wouldn't they'd spend a day having an existential crisis and then the next day they would come up with this is how this the aliens uh fit into our scripture look right here it talks about angels coming down from the sky that's what these guys are that's it that's that's what happens religion's not going to be upended by knowledge they just they ignore the knowledge it doesn't fit with what they think does and the stuff that's unignorable they integrate into the religion that's how religion functions uh anyway or the world being like oh my god we have a cure for cancer now that's going to what no that's not gonna cause i mean that will cause societal shifts by the way because cancer is a primary driver of death so let's say you cure cancer and heart disease but you don't cure cognitive decline well that's going to put a huge pressure on uh on societies and cultures when they have to care for their 80 90 100 130 year old uh relatives and or just people in society in general who you know can't care for themselves anymore so yes there would be societal effects but the societies would adapt to them the worst part of all is that because of the arresting of natural progress now there is an argument to be made that there would be some harm from the masquerade or the veil being broken because they've kept it secret for so long they've held back the water for so long that when the dam does break there will be consequences but i still don't think those consequences would be serious enough to actually be a serious issue like i said with the say you finally cure for cancer and heart disease it's the one of the primary death types of death in the world is cancer or heart disease if you cure these things because you've not because the progress didn't come gradually as it would have if you had done nothing if you'd not interfered because that progress doesn't come gradually yes society would you know have a whole generation of people who are 130 140 years old that would have to be cared for in a certain way but again that assumes you can't cure cognitive decline which maybe you can the whole situation is you've created your own problem and then been like well we have to do it because you know if we don't the problem that we created will uh by doing it will become a problem no just get the fuck out of the business man keep the dangerous stuff in a box and let the rest of the stuff and like keep the dangerous stuff in a box and keep it publicly documented you assholes anyway that's it thank you very much for watching if you enjoyed the video hit the subscribe button and then hit the notification bill next to that so you're notified when i upload new videos and then head on over to patreon.com forward slash d samarian and pledge at any level like everybody here on the screen already has including mc kejmill who has pledged $50 and sin jerikey who has pledged at $100 it is nice to know that i'm not alone out here and also i guess i can say this now that it's over my birthday was yesterday i'm 36 years old no that is something to think about but it is nice to know that i'm not alone out here and i will see you all again on thursday