Skinner conceived Walden Two as a scientific, not political, experiment

Evidence

It was written by B. F. Skinner, an American psychologist and behavioral scientist famous for the Skinner box, in which a test subject animal learns to press a lever in response to specific stimuli. Walden Two reads like exactly what it is: a novel written by a scientist. To Skinner, everyone was potentially a test subject, and utopia was an experiment—not a political one, but a scientific one. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 177

Categorization

• XREF: The Skinner/Walden Two contrast sets up Odell’s later implicit rebuke of engineering wellbeing — against her preferred openness to the unmanaged. Useful as the foil for her account of attention and care. — connects to: Skinner saw Enlightenment freedom values as impediments to behavioral science — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1207; A revenge-driven commune leader replaced anarchy with a rigid Walden Two technocracy. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 201
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Skinner saw Enlightenment freedom values as impediments to behavioral science — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1207; A revenge-driven commune leader replaced anarchy with a rigid Walden Two technocracy. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 201

Broader Connections

• A revenge-driven commune leader replaced anarchy with a rigid Walden Two technocracy. #complicates (0.82) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 201