Skinner’s WWII pigeon-guided-missile project transformed his psychology into a technology for society
Evidence
Skinner set out on a new path defined by the promise of behavioral engineering. In 1947 he told a symposium, “It is not a matter of bringing the world into the laboratory, but of extending the practices of an experimental science to the world at large. We can do this as soon as we wish to do it.” The missile project had cast the meaning of his experimental work “in a new light,” he reflected years later in his autobiography. “It was no longer merely an experimental analysis. It had given rise to a technology.” — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1146
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to Foucault’s notion of power/knowledge and to techniques of social engineering — the militarized origin of behavioral technology parallels the postwar synthesis of war research into civilian control. — connects to: Skinner advocated a behavioral technology comparable in power to physics and biology. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1169; Skinner’s utopia rested on treating humans as engineered organisms — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1185; Pentland recasts society as a causal system to be engineered from behavior data — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1382 (+4 more)
- SEED: Angle for an essay: the specific historical moment a lab technique becomes a ‘technology for the world’ — Skinner’s missile project as the hinge where experimental analysis becomes an instrument of control.
Broader Connections
- Skinner envisioned a population-scale technology of behavioral control that rejected freedom
#corroborates(0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1012 - Pentland recasts society as a causal system to be engineered from behavior data
#expands(0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1382 - B.F. Skinner extrapolated laboratory animal behavior into grand theories of social organization
#expands(0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1147 - Skinner saw freedom and accidents shrinking as computation expands knowledge of behavior.
#corroborates(0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1167 - Skinner anticipated surveillance capitalism’s practice of rendering private life into behavioral data
#expands(0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1174