In a democracy, there is no check against despotism, because the principle of democracy is supposed to be itself a check. But it guarantees only that… - B. F. Skinner

This is implied in the assertion that a man shows certain behavior because he was “born that way.” To object to this is not to argue that behavior is never determined by hereditary factors. Behavior requires a behaving organism which is the product of a genetic process. Gross differences in the behavior of different species show that the genetic constitution, whether observed in the body structure of the individual or inferred from a genetic history, is important. But the doctrine of “being born that way” has little to do with demonstrated facts. It is usually an appeal to ignorance. “Heredity,” as the layman uses the term, is a fictional explanation of the behavior attributed to it.

The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man.

One person manages another in the sense that he manages himself. He does not do so by changing feelings or states of mind. The Greek gods were said to change behavior by giving men mental states such as pride, mental confusion, or courage, but no one has been successful in doing so since. One person changes the behavior of another by changing the world in which he lives. In doing so, he no doubt changes what the other person feels or introspectively observes.