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Maybe the difference between those that feel fulfilled in life and those who don't are the addiction loops we've found our way into. It would be nice to hack t

Maybe the difference between those that feel fulfilled in life and those who don't are the addiction loops we've found our way into. It would be nice to hack those loops in a meaningful way. Make creation a drip fed, nicely chunked, and skinner box filled experience. There are some methods like pomodoro but something software based to use these novel approaches could do a lot of good for the world.

OliverJones 9y ago
B. F. Skinner's box was a scheme for performing controlled experiments. The point was to isolate complex systems (minds) so simple hypotheses about their operation could be falsified or supported. It was scientifically successful. My mother of blessed memory, daughter of two professors of psychology, in her childhood lived next door to Dr. Skinner on St. Ronan Street in New Haven, CT, USA. Myth in my family says my grandparents had the good sense to refuse a request to make Mom a subject in that box. In the 21st century West no academic psychologist would even propose using a Skinner box on human subjects. Their institutional review boards (IRBs: scientific ethics watchdogs) would just laugh. It might be interesting, as an experiment in ethics, to propose some aspect of Facebook's attention hacking as if it were an experiment, and see what IRBs make of it. In the meantime: human complexity good, Skinner boxes bad. Please be careful.
- octaveguin 9y ago
  Interesting story but not very related to what the parent was saying. Examples of skinner boxes are everywhere in society today. They've been around longer than they were identified by Dr. Skinner. Anything that gives a variable reward for pressing the same button is participating in a sort of skinner box. Mobile games use them, slot machines use them, and you can even think of facebook/instagram likes as such variable rewards you get for the same action over and over. They are pervasive in society already.
- pault 9y ago
  Totally based on hearsay, but: a family member worked with a person who was the child of a research associate of Skinner and that person and their sibling were used as informal research subjects by their parents. Both of them were extremely disturbed humans, and while I never asked for specifics there were whispers of some very dark doings.
  - gaius 9y ago
    There probably ought to be laws against psychology grads having kids. They simply can’t resist experimenting on them.

OliverJones 9y ago

B. F. Skinner's box was a scheme for performing controlled experiments. The point was to isolate complex systems (minds) so simple hypotheses about their operation could be falsified or supported. It was scientifically successful. My mother of blessed memory, daughter of two professors of psychology, in her childhood lived next door to Dr. Skinner on St. Ronan Street in New Haven, CT, USA. Myth in my family says my grandparents had the good sense to refuse a request to make Mom a subject in that box. In the 21st century West no academic psychologist would even propose using a Skinner box on human subjects. Their institutional review boards (IRBs: scientific ethics watchdogs) would just laugh. It might be interesting, as an experiment in ethics, to propose some aspect of Facebook's attention hacking as if it were an experiment, and see what IRBs make of it. In the meantime: human complexity good, Skinner boxes bad. Please be careful.

octaveguin 9y ago
Interesting story but not very related to what the parent was saying. Examples of skinner boxes are everywhere in society today. They've been around longer than they were identified by Dr. Skinner. Anything that gives a variable reward for pressing the same button is participating in a sort of skinner box. Mobile games use them, slot machines use them, and you can even think of facebook/instagram likes as such variable rewards you get for the same action over and over. They are pervasive in society already.
pault 9y ago
Totally based on hearsay, but: a family member worked with a person who was the child of a research associate of Skinner and that person and their sibling were used as informal research subjects by their parents. Both of them were extremely disturbed humans, and while I never asked for specifics there were whispers of some very dark doings.
- gaius 9y ago
  There probably ought to be laws against psychology grads having kids. They simply can’t resist experimenting on them.