“
A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.
”
”
B.F. Skinner
“
The only geniuses produced by the chaos of society are those who do something about it. Chaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten.
”
”
B.F. Skinner
“
A person who has been punished is not thereby simply less inclined to behave in a given way; at best, he learns how to avoid punishment.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Beyond Freedom and Dignity)
“
The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man.
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”
B.F. Skinner (Contingencies of Reinforcement; A Theoretical Analysis)
“
No one asks how to motivate a baby. A baby naturally explores everything it can get at, unless restraining forces have already been at work. And this tendency doesn't die out, it's wiped out.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
We are only just beginning to understand the power of love because we are just beginning to understand the weakness of force and aggression.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
A fourth-grade reader may be a sixth-grade mathematician. The grade is an administrative device which does violence to the nature of the developmental process.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
What is love except another name for the use of positive reinforcement? Or vice versa.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
Some of us learn control, more or less by accident. The rest of us go all our lives not even understanding how it is possible, and blaming our failure on being born the wrong way.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
If freedom is a requisite for human happiness, then all that’s necessary is to provide the illusion of freedom.
”
”
B.F. Skinner
“
At this very moment enormous numbers of intelligent men and women of goodwill are trying to build a better world. But problems are born faster than they can be solved.
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”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
It is a surprising fact that those who object most violently to the manipulation of behaviour nevertheless make the most vigorous effort to manipulate minds.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Beyond Freedom and Dignity)
“
The mob rushes in where individuals fear to tread.
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”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
A scientist may not be sure of the answer, but he's often sure he can find one. And that's a condition which is clearly not enjoyed by philosophy.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
Democracy is the spawn of despotism. And like father, like son. Democracy is power and rule. It's not the will of the people, remember; it's the will of the majority.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless.
”
”
B.F. Skinner
“
I'm Losing Faith in My Favorite Country
Throughout my life, the United States has been my favorite country, save and except for Canada, where I was born, raised, educated, and still live for six months each year. As a child growing up in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, I aggressively bought and saved baseball cards of American and National League players, spent hours watching snowy images of American baseball and football games on black and white television and longed for the day when I could travel to that great country. Every Saturday afternoon, me and the boys would pay twelve cents to go the show and watch U.S. made movies, and particularly, the Superman serial. Then I got my chance. My father, who worked for B.F. Goodrich, took my brother and me to watch the Cleveland Indians play baseball in the Mistake on the Lake in Cleveland. At last I had made it to the big time. I thought it was an amazing stadium and it was certainly not a mistake. Amazingly, the Americans thought we were Americans.
I loved the United States, and everything about the country: its people, its movies, its comic books, its sports, and a great deal more. The country was alive and growing. No, exploding. It was the golden age of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The American dream was alive and well, but demanded hard work, honesty, and frugality. Everyone understood that. Even the politicians.
Then everything changed.
”
”
Stephen Douglass
“
It is not a question of starting. The start has been made. It's a question of what's to be done from now on.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
...not everyone is willing to defend a position of 'not knowing.' There is no virtue in ignorance for its own sake.
”
”
B.F. Skinner
“
Going out of style isn't a natural process, but a manipulated change which destroys the beauty of last year's dress in order to make it worthless.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
A piece of music is an experience to be taken by itself.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
Men build society and society builds men.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
But restraint is the only one sort of control, and absence of restraint isn't freedom. It's not control that's lacking when one feels 'free', but the objectionable control of force.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
The best thing about being a friend, is just being.
”
”
Laura Dower (BF4E* *Best Friends Forever (From the Files of Madison Finn, #4-6))
“
The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again.
”
”
B.F. Skinner
“
Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless. It enslaves him almost before he has tasted freedom. The 'ologies' will tell you how its done Theology calls it building a conscience or developing a spirit of selflessness. Psychology calls it the growth of the superego.
Considering how long society has been at it, you'd expect a better job. But the campaigns have been badly planned and the victory has never been secured.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
The majority of people don't want to plan. They want to be free of the responsibility of planning. What they ask for is merely some assurance that they will be decently provided for. The rest is a day-to-day enjoyment of life. That's the explanation for your Father Divines; people naturally flock to anyone they can trust for the necessities of life... They are the backbone of a community--solid, trust-worthy, essential.
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”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
The world's a poor standard. any society which is free of hunger and violence looks bright against that background.
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”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
It is a mistake to suppose that the whole issue is how to free man. The issue is to improve the way in which he is controlled.
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”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
Promising paradise or threatening hell-fire is, we assumed, generally admitted to be unproductive. It is based upon a fundamental fraud which, when discovered, turns the individual against society and nourishes the very thing it tries to stamp out. What Jesus offered in return of loving one's enemies was heaven on earth, better known as peace of mind.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
My phone buzzes, and I shut off YouTube so I can access my messages.
Logan: Just found the perfect xmas present for you in Boston.
A photo promptly appears, summoning a loud groan from my throat. The asshole sent me a pic of a novelty My Little Pony dildo. Damn thing is bright pink, with rainbow sparkles on the handle.
Logan: And it’s rechargeable! U don’t have to buy batteries. THAT’S handy!
Me: Hardy-har-har. You = comedian.
Then I message Grace: Tell your BF to stop being mean to me.
She texts back a smiley face. Traitor.
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Score (Off-Campus, #3))
“
In the world at large we seldom vote for a principle or a given state of affairs. We vote for a man who pretends to believe in that principle or promises to achieve that state. We don't want a man, we want a condition of peace and plenty-- or, it may be, war and want-- but we must vote for a man.
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”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
The tender sentiment of the 'one and only' has less to do with constancy of heart than with singleness of opportunity.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
Something doing every minute' may be a gesture of despair--or the height of a battle against boredom.
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”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
Society already possesses the psychological techniques needed to obtain universal observance of a code -- a code which would guarantee the success of a community or state. The difficulty is that these techniques are in the hands of the wrong people--or, rather, there aren't any right people.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
Any single historical event is too complex to be adequately known by anyone. It transcends all the intellectual capacities of men. Our practice is to wait until a sufficient number of details have been forgotten. Of course things seem simpler then! Our memories work that way; we retain the facts which are easiest to think about.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
Each of us has interests which conflict the interests of everybody else... 'everybody else' we call 'society'. It's a powerful opponent and it always wins. Oh, here and there an individual prevails for a while and gets what he wants. Sometimes he storms the culture of a society and changes it to his own advantage. But society wins in the long run, for it has the advantage of numbers and of age.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
The amateur doesn't appreciate the need for experimentation. He wants his experts to know.
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”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
Nowadays, everybody fancies himself an expert in government and wants to have a say.
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”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
Freedom is an illusion, but a valuable one.
”
”
B.F. Skinner
“
In a democracy, there is no check against despotism, because the principle of democracy is supposed to be itself a check. But it guarantees only that the majority will not be despotically ruled.
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”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
The rat is always right.
”
”
B.F. Skinner
“
The severest trial of oppression is the constant outrage which one suffers at the thought of the oppressor. What Jesus discovered was how to avoid the inner devastations. His technique was to practice the opposite emotion... [a man] may not get his freedom or possessions back, but he's less miserable. It's a difficult lesson.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
In a world of complete economic equality, you get and keep the affections you deserve. You can’t buy love with gifts or favors, you can’t hold love by raising an inadequate child, and you can’t be secure in love by serving as a good scrub woman or a good provider.
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”
B.F. Skinner
“
What the fuck? You torture my bf and then you expect me to fuck you? God, you are so fucked up you fucking bastard.” I said angrily. Then I stabbed him in the heart. Blood pored out of it like a fountain.
”
”
Tara Gilesbie (My Immortal)
“
You can only die once, to make sure it's worth it.
”
”
Vladimir Kamarisky
“
Your liberals and radicals all want to govern. They want to try it their way-- to show that people will be happier if the power is wielded in a different way or for different purposes. But how do they know? Have they ever tried it? No, it's merely their guess.
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”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
Fame is also won at the expense of others. Even the well-deserved honors of the scientist or man of learning are unfair to many persons of equal achievements who get none. When one man gets a place in the sun, the others are put in a denser shade. From the point of view of the whole group there's no gain whatsoever, and perhaps a loss.
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”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
Ad we interviewing each other?
Something like that.
What position am I applying for?
Best friend.
I thought I already had the job.
Don't be so sure, you arrogant son of a bitch.
”
”
Benjamin Alire Sáenz (Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (Aristotle and Dante, #1))
“
Severe punishment unquestionably has an immediate effect in reducing a tendency to act in a given way. This result is no doubt responsible for its widespread use. We 'instinctively' attack anyone whose behavior displeases us - perhaps not in physical assault, but with criticism, disapproval, blame, or ridicule. Whether or not there is an inherited tendency to do this, the immediate effect of the practice is reinforcing enough to explain its currency. In the long run, however, punishment does not actually eliminate behavior from a repertoire, and its temporary achievement is obtained at tremendous cost in reducing the over-all efficiency and happiness of the group. (p. 190)
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B.F. Skinner (Science and Human Behavior)
“
The hero is a device which the historian has taken over from the layman. He uses it because he has no scientific vocabulary or technique for dealing with the real facts of history-- the opinions, emotions, attitudes; the wishes, plans, schemes; the habits of men. He can't talk about them so he talks about heroes.
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B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
The most effective alternative process [to punishment] is probably extinction. This takes time but is much more rapid than allowing the response to be forgotten. The technique seems to be relatively free of objectionable by-products. We recommend it, for example when we suggest that a parent 'pay no attention' to objectionable behavior on the part of his child. If the child's behavior is strong only because it has been reinforced by 'getting a rise out of' the parent, it will disappear when this consequence is no longer forthcoming. (p. 192)
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Science and Human Behavior)
“
Why did colleges make their students take examinations, and why did they give grade? What did a grade really mean? When a student "studied" did he do anything more than read and think-- or was there something special which no one in Walden Two would know about? Why did the professors lecture to the students? Were the students never expected to do anything except answer questions? Was it true that students were made to read books they were not interested in?
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”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying. –B.F. Skinner
”
”
Mary Frame (Imperfect Chemistry (Imperfect, #1))
“
Once in a while a new government initiates a program to put power to better use, but its success or failure never really proves anything. In science, experiments are designed, checked, altered, repeated-- but not in politics... We have no real cumulative knowledge. History tells us nothing. That's the tragedy of a political reformer.
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”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
The final state of affairs may not have been foreseen. Perhaps we are merely reading a plan into the world after the fact.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
Science is human behavior, and so is the opposition to science. What
”
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B.F. Skinner (Beyond Freedom and Dignity (Hackett Classics))
“
The consequences of behavior determine the probability that the behavior will occur again
”
”
B.F. Skinner
“
Kung mahal ka talaga ng BF mo,hindi ka nya iiwan at wala syang ibang gustong BAGUHIN sayo kung di yang... Last name mo...
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”
connie mamauag
“
which is what he began to crave: that blackness, where time passed bf be wasn’t in it, where things were done to him but he didn’t know it
”
”
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
“
We can achieve a sort of control under which the controlled, though they are following a code much more scrupulously than was ever the case under the old system, nevertheless feel free. They are doing what they want to do, not what they are forced to do. That's the source of the tremendous power of positive reinforcement-- there's no restraint and no revolt. By careful cultural design, we control not the final behavior, but the inclination to behave-- the motives, desires, the wishes.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
In a pre-scientific society the best the common man can do is pin his faith on a leader and give him his support, trusting in his benevolence against the misuse of the delegated power and in his wisdom to govern justly and make war successfully.
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”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
B.F. Skinner, the world-famous psychologist, proved through his experiments that an animal rewarded for good behaviour will learn much more rapidly and retain what it learns far more effectively than an animal punished for bad behaviour. Later studies have shown that the same applies to humans. By criticising, we do not make lasting changes and often incur resentment.
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Dale Carnegie (How to Win Friends & Influence People)
“
Well, maybe we set high expectations for the people in our lives and when they don’t live up to those expectations, we feel betrayed and it feels like it was all a lie. But it’s not a lie. It’s just that we’ve built up this perspective in our head. And our perspective lets us down.
”
”
B.F. Queen (The Chance)
“
My 'Great Crown' is not a sentence
I could wish for anyone:
The dread talons of this monster
Wrench a father from his son.
”
”
B.F. Chylton (Troubled Princes, Unhappy Heirs)
“
I wear Lancaster’s red,
But this cloaks the truth:
My heart remains with York.
”
”
B.F. Chylton
“
Compare two people, one of whom has been crippled by an accident, the other by an early environmental history which makes him lazy and, when criticized, mean. Both cause great inconvenience to others, but one dies a martyr, the other a scoundrel.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (About Behaviorism)
“
Twenty-five hundred years ago it might have been said that man understood himself as well as any other part of his world. Today he is the thing he understands least. Physics and biology have come a long way, but there has been no comparable development of anything like a science of human behavior. Greek physics and biology are now of historical interest only (no modern physicist or biologist would turn to Aristotle for help), but the dialogues of Plato are still assigned to students and cited as if they threw light on human behavior. Aristotle could not have understood a page of modern physics or biology, but Socrates and his friends would have little trouble in following most current discussions of human affairs. And as to technology, we have made immense strides in controlling the physical and biological worlds, but our practices in government, education, and much of economics, though adapted to very different conditions, have not greatly improved. We can scarcely explain this by saying that the Greeks knew all there was to know about human behavior. Certainly they knew more than they knew about the physical world, but it was still not much. Moreover, their way of thinking about human behavior must have had some fatal flaw. Whereas Greek physics and biology, no matter how crude, led eventually to modern science, Greek theories of human behavior led nowhere. If they are with us today, it is not because they possessed some kind of eternal verity, but because they did not contain the seeds of anything better.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Beyond Freedom and Dignity (Hackett Classics))
“
Science not only describes, it predicts. It deals not only with the past but with the future. Nor is prediction the last word: to the extent that relevant conditions can be altered, or otherwise controlled, the future can be controlled. If we are to use the methods of science in the field of human affairs, we must assume that behavior is lawful and determined. We must expect to discover that what a man does is the result of specifiable conditions and that once these conditions have been discovered, we can anticipate and to some extent determine his actions.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Science And Human Behavior)
“
Autonomous man is a device used to explain what we cannot explain in any other way. He has been constructed from our ignorance, and as our understanding increases, the very stuff of which he is composed vanishes. Science does not dehumanize man, it de-homunculizes him, and it must do so if it is to prevent the abolition of the human species. To man qua man we readily say good riddance. Only by dispossessing him can we turn to the real causes of human behaviour. Only then can we turn from the inferred to the observed, from the miraculous to the natural, from the inaccessible to the manipulable.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Beyond Freedom and Dignity)
“
My whole life people have wondered "what" I am, what race or nationality. ... It's happened again and again: someone looking at me furtively, or calling me "exotic" and asking me "What's your heritage?" Once when I was making a purchase in a department store, the white salesman behind the counter was too nervous or too polite to ask--most likely not wanting to offend a white woman by assuming that she was anything but white. He needed to write on the back of my check the additional identifying information required back then: race and gender. Hesitating, his pen hovering, he tried to look at me without my notice. I watched his face as he deliberated after a second and third glance at my features, my straight, fine hair, my skin color and clothing. He must have considered, too, how I had spoken and whether any of those factors matched his notions of certain people--black people. I stood there and said nothing as he scribbled the letters WF, the designation for white female. In the same week, with a different clerk, I had been given the designation BF. That time I had not been alone: I had been standing in line at the grocery store with a friend who is black.
”
”
Natasha Trethewey (Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir)
“
It is a mistake to suppose that all change or development is growth. The present condition of the earth’s surface is not mature or immature; the horse has not, so far as we know, reached some final and presumably optimal stage in evolutionary development. If a child’s language seems to grow like an embryo, it is only because the environmental contingencies have been neglected. The feral child has no language, not because his isolation has interfered with some growth process, but because he has not been exposed to a verbal community. We have no reason to call any culture mature in the sense that further growth is unlikely or that it would necessarily be a kind of deterioration. We call some cultures underdeveloped or immature in contrast with others we call ‘advanced’, but it is a crude form of jingoism to imply that any government, religion, or economic system is mature.
The main objection to the metaphor of growth, in considering either the development of an individual or the evolution of a culture, is that it emphasizes a terminal state which does not have a function. We say that an organism grows toward maturity or in order to reach maturity. Maturity becomes a goal, and progress becomes movement towards a goal. A goal is literally a terminus—the end of something such as a foot race. It has no effect on the race except to bring it to an end. The word is used in this relatively empty sense when we say that the goal of life is death or that the goal of evolution is to fill the earth with life. Death is no doubt the end of life, and a full world may be the end of evolution, but these terminal conditions have no bearing on the processes through which they are reached. We do not live in order to die, and evolution does not proceed in order to fill the earth with life.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Beyond Freedom and Dignity)
“
Now that we know how positive reinforcement works, and why negative doesn’t, we can be more deliberate and hence more successful, in our cultural design. We can achieve a sort of control under which the controlled…nevertheless feel free. They are doing what they want to do, not what they are forced to do. That’s the source of the tremendous power of positive reinforcement—there’s no restraint and no revolt. By a careful design, we control not the final behavior, but the inclination to behave—the motives, the desires, the wishes. The curious thing is that in that case the question of freedom never arises.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
“
This is implied in the assertion that a man shows certain behavior because he was “born that way.” To object to this is not to argue that behavior is never determined by hereditary factors. Behavior requires a behaving organism which is the product of a genetic process. Gross differences in the behavior of different species show that the genetic constitution, whether observed in the body structure of the individual or inferred from a genetic history, is important. But the doctrine of “being born that way” has little to do with demonstrated facts. It is usually an appeal to ignorance. “Heredity,” as the layman uses the term, is a fictional explanation of the behavior attributed to it.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Science And Human Behavior)
“
What is referred to as the cognitive revolution in the sciences has gone through several phases. The first phase was marked by the work of Ivan Pavlov, and later by J.B. Watson, who considered psychology to be the science of behaviour, and whose focus was on ‘visibles’, ‘audibles’ and ‘tangibles’. Later, B.F. Skinner asserted that the mind does not exist, and psychology was concerned merely with behaviour dispositions. Mental events were not visible and objective evidence was available only in the realm of publicly observable behaviour. Though the psychologist William James was interested in the study of consciousness, the domination of behavioural psychology meant that it was assumed that such a project did not have any scientific respectability.
”
”
Padmasiri De Silva (An Introduction to Buddhist Psychology and Counselling: Pathways of Mindfulness-Based Therapies)
“
One may take the line that metaphorical devices are inevitable in the early stages of any science and that although we may look with amusement today upon the “essences,” “forces,” “phlogistons,” and “ethers,” of the science of yesterday, these nevertheless were essential to the historical process. It would be difficult to prove or disprove this. However, if we have learned anything about the nature of scientific thinking, if mathematical and logical researches have improved our capacity to represent and analyze empirical data, it is possible that we can avoid some of the mistakes of adolescence. Whether Freud could have done so is past demonstrating, but whether we need similar constructs in the future prosecution of a science of behavior is a question worth considering.
”
”
B.F. Skinner (Critique of Psychoanalytic Concepts and Theories)
“
A mathematician I consulted, Dr. Sanjeev Mahajan, had this to say: Crenshaw’s axiom can be rephrased as follows: Two categories of oppression when combined yield an entirely new, irreducible category of oppression. This seems a fair reading of her contention that the discrimination suffered by a Black woman is distinct from the sum of the discrimination that a Black person suffers plus the discrimination that a woman suffers. Let’s then consider a single individual who suffers four categories of oppression: Black (B), Female (F), Paraplegic (P), Lesbian (L). But then, per Crenshaw, we can form entirely new categories such as {BF}, {BP}, and {BL}. Then these categories can be combined to form yet another irreducible category such as {{BF}{BP}} or {{BL}{BP}}. These categories can be further combined to yield entirely new categories of oppression such as {{{BF}{BP}} {{BL}{BP}}}, etc. Now let us, per Crenshaw’s axiom, enumerate all possible irreducible categories of oppression. Given the 4 options, B F P L, there are 15 non-empty subsets, each of which is an irreducible category. Since these 15 categories are irreducible and independent, they can be combined every which way to give us 215-1= 32,767 non-empty subsets of the set of the 15 categories. Each of these 32,767 categories is an irreducible category of oppression. But then again, applying Crenshaw’s axiom, since we now have a set of 32,767 categories of oppression, we can combine them in all possible configurations to get 232767-1 non-empty subsets of a set of 32,767 categories. Repeating this process, ad infinitum, we get infinitely many categories of oppression.
”
”
Norman G. Finkelstein (I'll Burn That Bridge When I Get to It! Heretical Thoughts on Identity Politics, Cancel Culture, and Academic Freedom)
“
For all we know, the larger part of the motive for trying to expand science is not self-serving; it is merely mistaken. The idealistic element in it is its desire to achieve in the understanding of man what science has achieved in the understanding of matter. Its mistake is in not seeing that the tools for the one are of strictly limited utility for the other, and that the practice of trying to see man as an object which the tools of science will fit leads first to underrating and then to losing sight of his attributes those tools miss. (The mere titles of B.F. Skinner's “Beyond Freedom and Dignity” and Herbert Marcuse's “One-Dimensional Man” will, in opposite ways, suffice.) If it be asked, “But what did the nonscientific approach to man and the world give us?” The answer is: “Meaning, purpose, and a vision in which everything coheres
”
”
Huston Smith (Forgotten Truth: The Common Vision of the World's Religions)
“
He lays out the methods to achieve this, which he describes as “mind manipulation.” The goal, Nir says, is to “create a craving” in human beings—and he cites B. F. Skinner as a model for how to do it. His approach can be summarized by the headline on one of his blog posts: “Want to Hook Your Users? Drive Them Crazy.” The goal of the designer is to create an “internal trigger” (remember them?) that will keep the user coming back again and again. To help the designer picture the kind of person they are targeting, he says they should imagine a user he names Julie, who “fears being out of the loop.” He comments: “Now we’ve got something! Fear is a powerful internal trigger, and we can design our solution to help calm Julie’s fear.” Once you have succeeded in playing on feelings like this, “a habit is formed, [and so] the user is automatically triggered to use the product during routine events such as wanting to kill time while waiting in line,” he writes approvingly. Designers
”
”
Johann Hari (Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again)
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A government is challenged when its citizens refuse to pay taxes, serve in the armed forces, participate in elections, and so on, and it may meet the challenge either by strengthening its contingencies or by bringing deferred gains to bear on the behaviour at issue. But how can it answer the question: ‘Why should I care whether my government, or my form of government, survives long after my death?’ Similarly, a religious organization is challenged when its communicants do not go to church, contribute to its support, take political action in its interests, and so on, and it may meet the challenge by strengthening its contingencies or pointing to deferred gains. But what is its answer to the question: ‘Why should I work for the long-term survival of my religion?’ An economic system is challenged when people. do not work productively, and it may respond by sharpening its contingencies or pointing to deferred advantages. But what is its answer to the question: ‘Why should I be concerned about the survival of a particular kind of economic system?’ The only honest answer to that kind of question seems to be this: ‘There is no good reason why you should be concerned, but if your culture has not convinced you that there is, so much the worse for your culture.
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B.F. Skinner (Beyond Freedom and Dignity)
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This week we'll be learning about key elements of high quality picture books. Using the award winner lists in our course materials, select one picture book and share why it received its award. For example, Abuela is listed in the 100 Picture Books Everyone Should Know. According to Publishers Weekly, this is why it's so good: "In this tasty trip, Rosalba is "always going places" with her grandmother--abuela . During one of their bird-feeding outings to the park, Rosalba wonders aloud, "What if I could fly?" Thus begins an excursion through the girl's imagination as she soars high above the tall buildings and buses of Manhattan, over the docks and around the Statue of Liberty with Abuela in tow. Each stop of the glorious journey evokes a vivid memory for Rosalba's grandmother and reveals a new glimpse of the woman's colorful ethnic origins. Dorros's text seamlessly weaves Spanish words and phrases into the English narrative, retaining a dramatic quality rarely found in bilingual picture books. Rosalba's language is simple and melodic, suggesting the graceful images of flight found on each page. Kleven's ( Ernst ) mixed-media collages are vibrantly hued and intricately detailed, the various blended textures reminiscent of folk art forms. Those searching for solid multicultural material would be well advised to embark.
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B.F. Skinner
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Unable to understand how or why the person we see behaves as he does, we attribute his behavior to a person we cannot see, whose behavior we cannot explain either but about whom we are not inclined to ask questions. We probably adopt this strategy not so much because of any lack of interest or power but because of a longstanding conviction that for much of human behavior there are no relevant antecedents. The function of the inner man is to provide an explanation which will not be explained in turn. Explanation stops with him. He is not a mediator between past history and current behavior, he is a center from which behavior emanates. He initiates, originates, and creates, and in doing so he remains, as he was for the Greeks, divine. We say that he is autonomous—and, so far as a science of behavior is concerned, that means miraculous. The position is, of course, vulnerable. Autonomous man serves to explain only the things we are not yet able to explain in other ways. His existence depends upon our ignorance, and he naturally loses status as we come to know more about behavior. The task of a scientific analysis is to explain how the behavior of a person as a physical system is related to the conditions under which the human species evolved and the conditions under which the individual lives. Unless there is indeed some capricious or creative intervention, these events must be related, and no intervention is in fact needed. The contingencies of survival responsible for man’s genetic endowment would produce tendencies to act aggressively, not feelings of aggression. The punishment of sexual behavior changes sexual behavior, and any feelings which may arise are at best by-products. Our age is not suffering from anxiety but from the accidents, crimes, wars, and other dangerous and painful things to which people are so often exposed. Young people drop out of school, refuse to get jobs, and associate only with others of their own age not because they feel alienated but because of defective social environments in homes, schools, factories, and elsewhere. We can follow the path taken by physics and biology by turning directly to the relation between behavior and the environment and neglecting supposed mediating states of mind. Physics did not advance by looking more closely at the jubilance of a falling body, or biology by looking at the nature of vital spirits, and we do not need to try to discover what personalities, states of mind, feelings, traits of character, plans, purposes, intentions, or the other perquisites of autonomous man really are in order to get on with a scientific analysis of behavior.
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B.F. Skinner (Beyond Freedom and Dignity (Hackett Classics))
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La fortuna también se gana a expensas de los demás. Aun los honores bien merecidos del científico o erudito son injustos para muchas personas con iguales merecimientos que nunca reciben ninguno. Cuando se coloca a unhombre en un pedestal, se relega a otros hombres a la oscuridad. Desde el punto de vista colectivo no hay ganancia en absoluto y quizá sí una pérdida.
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B.F. Skinner
Katrina Kahler (Witch School / The Secret / I Shrunk My BF / Body Swap)
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Ta mère est morte et ton père est à l'hôpital depuis six mois. C'est parfaitement injuste ! A ta place, moi aussi je serais en colère. Mais ce n'est la faute de personne, et ta colère ne doit pas t'empêcher de vivre ; ta vie ne fait que commencer et te réserve encore beaucoup de bonnes surprises. Seulement, il faut que tu réagisses !
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B.F. Parry (Le Royaume des rêves (Oniria,#1))
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Oniria était le monde où se déroulaient les rêves et les cauchemars des humains. Un monde immense où les êtres, les objets et les lieux nés de l'imagination des dormeurs continuaient d'exister après que leurs créateurs s'étaient réveillés. Un monde fantastique où les elfes et les princesses de contes de fées côtoyaient les monstres les plus féroces dans un joyeux désordre. Un monde où l'on pouvait boire de la bonne humeur ou cueillir un tabouret. Un monde où l'on pouvait partir à la recherche d'authentiques trésors gardés par des dragons, ou encore remonter le temps pour rencontrer les Incas. Les seules limites étaient celles de l'imagination des dormeurs qui créaient Oniria, nuit après nuit, grâce à la poudre étincelante que le Marchand de Sable leur distribuait pour les faire rêver.
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B.F. Parry (Le Royaume des rêves (Oniria,#1))
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Witches old and witches young owls and bats and black cats too. Come together in this castle to bring out the best in you.
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Katrina Kahler (Witch School / The Secret / I Shrunk My BF / Body Swap)
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The problem of an efficient group structure alone is enough to absorb anyone's interest. An organization of a committee of scientists or a panel of script writers is far from what it could be. But we lack control in the world at large to investigate more efficient structures. Here, on the contrary, here we begin to understand and build the Superorganism. We can construct groups of artists and scientists who will act as smoothly and efficiently as champion football teams.
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B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
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It’s not that it’s impossible to discipline with reward. In fact, rewarding good behaviour can be very effective. The most famous of all behavioural psychologists, B.F. Skinner, was a great advocate of this approach. He was expert at it. He taught pigeons to play ping-pong, although they only rolled the ball back and forth by pecking it with their beaks.101 But they were pigeons. So even though they played badly, it was still pretty good. Skinner even taught his birds to pilot missiles during the Second World War, in Project Pigeon (later Orcon).102 He got a long way, before the invention of electronic guidance systems rendered his efforts obsolete.
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Jordan B. Peterson (12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos)
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The first educational.Psychologist EL Thorndike, developed an understanding of behavior in the 1920s that could be very useful for parents. He called it the "law of reinforcement". Later, the concept became the basis for a branch of psychology known as behaviorism, which I resoundingly reject. Behaviorism was described by BF Skinner and JB Watson and includes the unbelievable notion that the mind does not exist, Period.One of my college textbooks referred to behaviorism as "psychology out of its mind." Well said! It perceives the human brain as a simple switchboard connecting stimuli coming in with responses going out.
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James Dobson (The New Dare to Discipline ('Yong Yu Guan Jiao', in traditional Chinese, NOT in English))
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The first educational psychologist, EL Thorndike, developed an understanding of behavior in the 1920s that could be very useful for parents. He called it the "law of reinforcement". Later, the concept became the basis for a branch of psychology known as behaviorism, which I resoundingly reject. Behaviorism was described by BF Skinner and JB Watson and includes the unbelievable notion that the mind does not exist, Period.One of my college textbooks referred to behaviorism as "psychology out of its mind." Well said! It perceives the human brain as a simple switchboard connecting stimuli coming in with responses going out.
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James C. Dobson (The New Dare to Discipline)
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قادرون"
لو وُجِدَ السبب لبطُلَ العجب ولو أدركنا أن مآسينا من صنع أيدينا، لما تحسرنا على ماض، ولا ندمنا على حاضر وما خِفْنَا من مستقبل، فكل شيء يتم إصلاحه إذا أدركنا السبب وكل المساوئ تتسحن إذا قضينا على مسبباتها؛ نحن من نتحكم بحاضرنا ومستقبلنا، قادرون أن نجعلهما نعيمًا أو حتى جحيمًا، قادرون أن نحيا كما نشاء، لا شيء يمنعنا سوى أنفسنا.
#أسماء_حمادة_أحمد_BF
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أسماء حمادة BF
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...do you really think that geniuses come from genes? Well, maybe they do. But how close have we ever got to making the most of our genes? That’s the real question. You can’t possibly give me an answer, Burris, and you know it. There has been absolutely no way of answering it until now, because it has never been possible to manipulate the environment in the required way.
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B.F. Skinner (Walden Two (Hackett Classics))
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We now live in a world dominated by technologies based on B. F. Skinner’s vision of how the human mind works.
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Johann Hari (Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again)
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This disagreement seemed to me to lay the groundwork for one of the defining conflicts in the world today. We now live in a world dominated by technologies based on B.F. Skinner's vision of how the human mind works. ....Many of us are like those birds in cages being made to perform a bizarre dance to get rewards, and all the while we imagine we are choosing it for ourselves ... In a culture where our focus is stolen by these surface-level stimuli, Mihaly's deeper insight has been forgotten: that we have within us a force that makes it possible to focus for long stretches and enjoy it, and it will make us happier and healthier, if only we create the right circumstances to let it flow.
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Johann Hari (Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention— and How to Think Deeply Again)
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Some people have suggested that the “theory of variable rewards” explains our obsession with the digital world. This theory, created by American psychologist and behaviorist B.F. Skinner in the 1950s, resulted from his study of lab mice that responded more aggressively to random rewards than predictable ones. When mice pressed a lever, they sometimes got a small treat, other times a large treat, and other times nothing at all. Unlike mice that received the same treat with each lever press, the mice that received variable rewards pressed the lever more often and compulsively.
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S.J. Scott (10-Minute Digital Declutter: The Simple Habit to Eliminate Technology Overload)
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Perception is reality in the absence of fact
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Pieter BF Swart
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The movie has Marty say "blues riff in B" and then WHAM, the entire band is playing Johnny B. Goode like they've done so for years. It's amazing, and as a kid, I spent a lot of time trying to figure this out. How was it possible that everyone knew what notes to play and when to come in?? The backup guitar and drums both hit a beat at the beginning of the song without any communication whatsoever.
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Ryan North (B^F: The Novelization Of The Feature Film)
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Perception is the reality in the absence of fact.
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Pieter BF Swart