In 1945, a behaveralist named B. F. Skinner wrote a book called Walden Two. The idea behind this book is to show what society might look like if it used Skinner's work to train people to be better and left all of the strenuous or busy work to those who specialized in it or to machines. Skinner believed that the society this could create would be a paradise, but there are some aspects of human behavior that he might have overlooked. The following story is inspired by Skinner's Walden Two and is what I believe would happen if he became the overlord of the world.
The Observer
I'm not sure where I came from or how I got here. All I remember from the start is suddenly being able to remember. The world was already here by that time, and even if I tried I couldn't influence anything. All I could do was watch. It was a bit frustrating at times but as the millennia passed, I made my peace with it.
I remember for years I watched these funny little creatures called humans build families, civilizations, and empires. I watched for years as they developed science and art and language. They even came up with a word that I think suits me very nicely, observer. I've always liked the ring of that.
There's another shapeless being like me here, but it can influence and control the world unlike me. I call it the Creator since I'm pretty sure it created this world, but I don't really interact with it. I'm not really sure that I can since it's above me in a way. Humans are aware of its existence even if they don't realize it, and have come up with their own idea of what it is. Yahweh, Allah, the universe, and Odin are a few ideas they have come up with. Personally I find the idea that it's an angry lightning bringer that runs around impregnating people to be one of the funnier ones. I usually find that I don't have a better answer than they do. I'm not sure it is something that can be comprehended or understood.
For thousands of years every civilization did what they believed was their own right way to do things until one day this man came along. His name was Burrhus Skinner, and he had an idea that changed the world. When he took over the world he implemented a worldwide society based on the idea that all human behavior could be changed via a technique he called "conditioning," and thus the new world was created.
The main idea was to create utopias that allowed everyone to have everything they needed and do whatever they wanted with their free time. No one would be sick or go hungry or be unhappy. Food was harvested by farmers that grew only enough food to sustain its designated city or town and people earned the right to eat by earning credit hours instead of money since money was done away with. Each person had to earn five credit hours a day to be able to access the resources like food and supplies and if they didn't earn your credits for that day, they didn't get to eat. It was against the rules to transfer credits or take more than their allotted supplies to give to someone else. Bulletin boards in communal sections held what jobs needed to be done that day and how many credits were given for completing that job. Anyone could choose any job they wanted unless it took a particular skill in which case they'd have to provide identification that proved that they had the training necessary to complete the task.
Each settlement was ruled by a group of managers who managed things like food and medicine. New managers were trained by the old ones who then trained the next ones and so on. Planners were also put in place to continuously find new ways to optimize the town itself but also the programming techniques used to train out what they call "undesirable behaviors" which ranged from aggressive and harmful behaviors to any behavior deemed "not useful'' by the planners. They designed and participated in experiments used to find ways to better society. It was a continuous process and even if they found something new, it wouldn't be long until they're onto the next thing. They avoided having a kind of law enforcement since they didn't want to have punishments in a technical sense, but when the need arose due to aggressive humans and settlements trying to separate from the others so that they can run things how they wanted, they created a group called the Enforces, the one sense of a ruling body that finds problematic citizens and helps transfer and implement new ideas to the other cities.
