Not quite. You’re right that scientific knowledge and career prestige are not zero-sum competitive games, but the competition for scientific funding often is. Anyone who’s sat down to write a grant proposal knows what a struggle it can be to get support for even the most promising research.
If (big if, but it is the topic of the discussion at hand) self-experimentation is increasingly normalized, and through normalization attracts funding, one can imagine the competition for said funds incentivizing researchers and labs to take extreme measures to garner attention and acquire support.
Money, the same motivation that pushes athletes to extremes, is not something scientists are immune to, even if the ultimate utility of the money serves different purposes.
