The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
B. F. SKINNERA vast technology has been developed to prevent, reduce, or terminate exhausting labor and physical damage. It is now dedicated to the production of the most trivial conveniences and comfort.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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Do not intervene between a person and the consequences of their own behavior.
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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.
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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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A child who has been severely punished for sex play is not necessarily less inclined to continue; and a man who has been imprisoned for violent assault is not necessarily less inclined toward violence.
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Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
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We shouldn’t teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.
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Those who have had anything useful to say have said it far too often, and those who have had nothing to say have been no more reticent.
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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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The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again.
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The mob rushes in where individuals fear to tread.
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It has always been the task of formal education to set up behavior which would prove useful or enjoyable later in a student’s life.
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Science is a willingness to accept facts even when they are opposed to wishes.
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We have seen that in certain respects operant reinforcement resembles the natural selection of evolutionary theory. Just as genetic characteristics which arise as mutations are selected or discarded by their consequences, so novel forms of behavior are selected or discarded through reinforcement.
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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.
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When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
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