Three Mile Island

A nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, PA, USA, that came close to having a melt-down.

"The idea [in previous paragraphs regarding the TMI disaster event] is that the scientists' system of beliefs is bound to result in some destructive action; that is, the implied attitudes of today's scientists lead them to be less careful of life than they should be, and separate them from nature in a way that leads to some contempt on their parts of individual living things. The leaders of religious cults, like that of Jonestown, overexaggerate grandiose ideals of brotherhood and love, for example, while often forbidding* the natural expression of love on the part of one individual for another - assaulting family affiliations and so forth. As a result the idealized love becomes more and more inaccessible, with the growth of more guilt and despair.

"In the same way the scientific community [of the 1970s] speaks of grandiose ideals, of man's triumph over the planet and nature. At the same time these ideals further divorce the scientists from daily practical experience with their fellowman; and since they see animals as objects, they're bound to see human life in somewhat the same fashion. The sacrifice of, say, thousands of lives in a nuclear accident almost becomes justified in their minds if it is a means toward the grandiose goal of learning how to 'triumph over nature.' Again, this intent automatically turns them into mechanics.

"The scientist carries the burden of this alienation, and in his heart he must hope that his mission fails - for if it succeeds he will have effectively separated man from man's nature in the world of beliefs, philosophically casting man adrift as meaningless psychological debris. Therefore, the scientific community often sabotages its own efforts."

-- JaneRoberts, The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events; her emphasis

(*) Recall that, like members of a religious cult, DOE and similar black-ops scientists are often forbidden to date people who have failed a "background check", and that these checks may fail for the most trivial reasons, such as ethnicity.