Operant Conditioning..... Skinner, Huxley, and being dumbed down...

Brave New World was first published in 1931 by Aldous Huxley, but he didn't consider the dystopian world that he'd depicted to be an imminent threat.

Nearly thirty years later - after the Second World War - Huxley changed his opinions.
In 1961, he issued the following warning:
"...In the future ruling classes would learn that control of a populace could be achieved not only with the explicit use of force,but also with the more covert method of drowning the masses in an endless supply of pleasurable diversions..."

How?

Can pleasure be used to deprive people of their freedom?

Yes, through operant conditioning...

This is a method of modifying an organism’s behaviors.

The Harvard psychologist B.F. Skinner once performed a set of experiments in which he tested different methods of introducing new behaviors (in rats).
These experiments illustrated just how “the powers that be” can condition humans to love their servitude.

The experiment...

In one set of experiments, Skinner attempted to cultivate new behaviors via positive reinforcement - he provided the rat with food anytime it performed the desirable behavior.

In another set of experiments he attempted to weaken or eliminate certain behaviors via punishments. (as opposed to rewards).
He triggered a painful response to the rat when it performed the behavior Skinner wished to eliminate.

Skinner discovered something....

He found that punishments temporarily put an end to undesirable behaviors, but did not remove the animal’s motivations to engage in the same behaviors in the future.
Behaviors that were conditioned via positive reinforcement,
were more enduring, and in fact, led to longer term changes in the animal’s behavioral patterns.

Huxley was familiar with Skinner’s experiments.

He understood the socio-political implications - and the potential ramifications.

In Brave New World (and other works), Huxley predicted an emergence of a controlling oligarchy.

Huxley pointed out that this oligarchy would conduct similar experiments on human beings.
Why?
To condition docility and thus minimize the potential for civil unrest.

Skinner also understood the social implications of his experiments but believed, contrary to Huxley's perspective,that operant conditioning could be used by social engineers for the 'greater good'.
His understanding of the psychology of psychopaths, sociopaths and malignant narcissists, seemed to be woefully lacking.

He thought that is would lead to the development of scientifically managed utopia (Benevolent technocracy).
In Skinner’s book (Walden Two, 1948) he changes his position somewhat, and reveals that such a mass conditioning would, in reality, make it very possible for a non benevolent tyranny...

A tyranny, in which the masses would be enslaved but feel themselves to be free.

In Huxley's Brave New World, the main reward used to condition subservience via positive reinforcement, was a super-drug called Soma.
Soma was to be ingested daily by the citizens of this Brave New World.
Huxley called it a “holiday from reality” (willful delusion).

It stimulated feelings of euphoria, pleasant hallucinations,
(very similar to the effect of MDMA in today's world)...

It also served to heighten suggestibility,(everything is a good idea when you're on MDMA!) thus increasing the effectiveness of the propaganda which the citizens were continuously subjected to. 'The Raver generation' meets the MSM oligarchy?

The World Controllers of Brave New World, however, did not rely on Soma alone. Sexual promiscuity was promoted by the State as another tactic
to ensure everyone enjoyed their servitude. (free love of the 60's , ravers culture of the 90's, plus planned parenthood and the culturally accepted norm of the abortion of fetuses...?).

“Everyone belongs to everyone else” was a slogan drilled into the minds of the citizens from young (marxist/socialist ideology).
The institutions of monogamy and the were family abolished,and everyone was able to indulge their sexual impulses without hindrance. (MDMA, anyone?)
The constant access to sexual gratification served to help ensure the citizens docility by keeping them too distracted to pay attention to the reality of their situation (servitude).
Huxley called it the “non-stop distractions of the most fascinating nature”.
...State sanctioned entertainment also played an important part in creating the happy concentration camps of 'Brave New World'.

The parallels which exist between Brave New World and societies of the modern day are not just undeniable - they're in your face!

In Brave New World Revisited (1958), Huxley asked himself how future social engineers could convince their subjects to take drugs “that will make them think, feel, and behave in the ways find desirable.”

He concluded that:
'...In all probability it will be enough merely to make the pills available...'

Today, it's estimated that one in six Americans are on some form of psychotropic drug.
An opioid crisis has also spread through the western countries.
Online pornography addiction.
Smart phones and other technologies provide mindless - and pleasurable - distractions (this alone, consumes the attention of a large group of people, most of the day).

Are these diversions intentionally pushed upon us?
Are they spontaneous, organic responses, to consumer demand?

Whatever the answer (I think it's a case of 'the pusher' offering the product to an audience, an audience that they know will lap it up - the sheep).

The reality of the matter, is that a distracted and dumbed down population, lack the mental resources to resist their own enslavement.

“Give me liberty, or give me death” is simply not a concept that a population brought up on marxism, and sustained with toxic fast foods and sugars, can even begin to intellectually comprehend..

So long as people trade their liberty - for pleasure and comfort - then the social conditioning Huxley warned us of, will only become more effective.
Think the current elections with Joe Biden. He quite obviously no mentally 'all there'. What does that say about the (supposedly) 70 million people, who voted for him?
Just how compos mentis are they really? ...if they go and vote to support a walking cabbage in a suit? (for the most powerful political position in the entire world).

As technologies advances, and more insight is gained in regards to how to predict and control human behaviors and if the current trends continue , humanity may soon be divided into two distinct groups.

There will be those who welcome their pleasurable servitude - happy zombies.(ubi and slavery).

and there will be those who choose to resist it for the sake of retaining not just their liberty, but their actual humanity.(lefty zombies cannot even grasp this humanity concept)

Former slave Frederick Douglass noted in the 19th century - and long before Huxley wrote Brave New World, "...when a slave becomes a happy slave, he has, effectively, relinquished all that which makes him human..."

...Maybe 'Generation Z' stands for 'zombie', and not a time period at all.....