Skinner Was A Dangerous Man In My Opinion.

In Skinners’ book “About Behaviorism”, the first line in the introduction is quite interesting.
“Behaviorism is not the Science of human behavior; it is the philosophy of that Science.” And Philosophy is a quest for knowledge.

In Skinners world, there was no “Positive Punishment” or “Negative Punishment” – if anyone can find mention of either of these in Skinners’ books, please SHOW me and I’ll shut up. I want to see it from Skinners’ books, not trainers interpretation of it. Applying “Negative Reinforcement” is removing the animals “Positive Reinforcement” – and that is what Skinner called “punishment”. What is positive reinforcement? The removal of “Negative Reinforcement”.

But all society knows is “have a treat”. That’s not “Positive Reinforcement” ladies and gentlemen and this ignorance is dangerous.

Understand something very clearly, Skinner did experiments on animals in a lab in order to understand us – the human animal. We were the target of his research, not the dog, not the mouse or the rat. Skinner was a dangerous man in my opinion, he figured humans out. Skinner knew he could shape society into whatever he wanted, and he didn’t need our brains to accomplish it. Apply Negative Reinforcement to the population, and they will beg for positive reinforcement. Skinner held a PhD in psychology – the study of the mind and behaviour. I love Psychology, it appeals to my aspergers brain.

Skinner applied shock as a Negative Reinforcement to animals in a lab. When he removed the power, he called at a form of Positive Reinforcement – the removal of negative. Positive Reinforcement comes in many forms. When he started working with pigeons, he realized quickly that he couldn’t shock their feet consistently due to the biological makeup. So what happened? He started focusing on the birds positive reinforcement – the need for food – survival is part of “Operant Conditioning”. Skinner turned starving and underweight pigeons into pathological gamblers in order to understand the mechanism that makes humans want to gamble. Pigeons became slot jockies – he was feeding them on a variable schedule of reward. He wasn’t rewarding good behavior – he was creating behaviors.

Negative reinforcements are part of nature, they don’t need to be applied. Things we fear, things we don’t want in our lives, things we want to remove from our lives are negative reinforcements. Your positive reinforcement is both positive and negative – it’s your desire for the good things but also, your desire to remove the bad things you don’t want in your life. So too for the dog or any animal. That’s generally fight or flight – think about it, it’s your positive reinforcement.

Positive Reinforcement isn’t always good, and Negative Reinforcement isn’t always bad.

Negative reinforcements aren’t always bad as they make you want to make the world a better place. When you see shelter videos of dogs in crates and it affects you – it’s a negative reinforcement to you. If you give a monthly donation in return, that’s your positive reinforcement too.

Sometimes we belly up to the negative reinforcement. What starts out with one beer can knowingly lead to punishment. The removal of positive reinforcement because you drink knowing that the hangover is going to be bad. It’s interesting that we can preemptively self punish. Psychology is a complex subject.

If you step outside and it’s cold, that’s a natural negative reinforcement. What is your desire? To be warm, you put on a coat – that’s your positive reinforcement – the removal of negative. A pot of boiling water is a negative reinforcement – but you learned at some point to handle a hot pot of water. You became indifferent to it, made it not a big deal – that’s a positive reinforcement. Sometimes we need to learn the hard way that things are a natural negative reinforcement – something to avoid. Child touches a hot stove and gets burned, lesson learned leads to self management of behaviors. Monty found a wasp nest one day, stung 12 times. He learned to steer clear – but yet, a single wasp doesn’t bother him.

If you are scared of spiders, they are a natural negative reinforcement to you. When you see a spider, you’re going to either fight (aggression), flight (reactivity) or become indifferent which is socialised – you can overcome the fear of the spider. So, you can kill the spider or throw it outside, that’s you removing the negative reinforcement – AKA your positive reinforcement. You can choose to flight – remove yourself from the negative reinforcement – that’s also your positive reinforcement. Overcoming a fear leads deeper down the rabbit hole.

Why are you afraid of spiders in the first place – why are spiders a negative reinforcement to you but not to me? It could be a rational fear – maybe at some point in your life you got bitten, you have a reason to fear just like the child touching a hot stove. Most times, the fear is irrational – there is no real reason for it. My friend and his wife are scared of spiders, their girls were too even though they never had a bad experience with a spider. The parents made spiders a negative reinforcement by threatening punishment. Don’t go near that spider, it’ll bite you – yeah, there’s your fear. It’s not just spiders – Don’t go near the water, it’ll drown you. How many of these things to do kids hear in their lifetime?

A mouse that is born and raised in the wild would learn and understand all of the natural negative reinforcements all around them. How many predators do mice have to avoid, all negative reinforcements that mean end of life? I don’t know the answer to this, but if you put a lab raised mouse in a cage with escape route and put a hungry cat in the cage. Would a mouse born and raised likely for generations in a lab know to run away? Or would it be a meal. Would the mouse know that the cat should be a natural negative reinforcement that they should flight/avoid?

If you’ve gotten this far – you should now understand that positive reinforcement isn’t a technique, it’s not something you apply, it’s not have a treat. It’s the desire that all animals have. Negative and positive reinforcement – fear and desire. Quietly yearning for what you don’t have while dreading losing what you do.

When anything major happens from war to terror attacks etc happen – I don’t look to who did it. I always one question – Cui Bono – who is benefiting? If you need to understand whodunit, figure out who benefits from it.

After 9/11, the US government brought in some temporary measures to keep the country safe. They brought in homeland security, TSA into airports and body scanners. National Defense Authorization Act, The Patriot Act etc. People were trying to get on a plane screaming “this is tyranny”. Well, 20 years later, all these “temporary measures” still exist and they have gotten worse. People became indifferent through it all – they have become socialised to it – made it not a big deal. It’s expected now. This is how rights are removed – apply negative reinforcement – scare the shit out of people – and they will beg for positive reinforcement. Take a foot, give back an inch – you’ll never get it all back.

All this covid nonsense. Who benefits? Not you. Governments etc world wide benefited. They all applied negative reinforcement to their populations – and they had their populations begging for positive reinforcement. People were locked in their homes being fed a steady diet of negative reinforcement from news and social media, and governments. They applied negative reinforcement in many forms like mandates and had people begging for positive reinforcement. When the vaccine came out in early 21, take one or else – they applied negative reinforcement yet again with mandates. Please Mr. Government, we did as you asked, we took the shot – please remove the mandates, the negative reinforcement. They had you begging for positive reinforcement. Take a foot, and give an inch – you fight, flight or become indifferent to it. People didn’t fight, they flight and they became indifferent to it all.

People “NORMALIZED” it just like they did everything else.

That’s Skinner in action – but society thinks it “have a treat”.

Thank you Skinner. Dog trainers are outright lying to you – whether they realize it or not while governments and corporations use the real Skinner on you.