Would it be nitpicking to point out that stone age people had lots of survival skills that modern folk just plain don't? I think the panelists have understimated the technical skill involved in flint knapping, hunting, and trapping without store bought equipment.

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As "The Captive Mind" posits that the primary means of ensuring compliance from "the people" is not propaganda, but physical coercion. The state does not 'reason' or 'debate' with non-compliance. 'Students' are forced to go to school and learn the 'official' version of history, for example (home schooling aside), and accept it (i.e., the hierarchical "binge-purge" model of education in which regurgitation of ossified narratives is valued more highly than any independent or creative thought).

Propaganda serves as post-facto justification in order to give people some way to rationalize what goes on around them. This helps to allow the threat of violence to suffice as a means of maintaining control without the state having to resort to actual violence, in most cases.

In one of Stefan's other videos, he calls professional licensure a dog collar that you're forced wear. He calls modern folks 'free-range slaves'. The 'human farms,' as he calls states, are run by 'farmers' who have realized that free-range slaves are more productive than those kept in a more strict captivity. (And it undoubtedly is better for for everyone than the slavery-of-old.) He says that allowing a few slaves escape here and there creates a desired illusion of freedom. One could argue about the accuracy of Stefan's ideas, but I don't find that as useful as simply accepting it as Stefan's own aesthetic/philosophical position, or his worldview, and understanding it or interpreting it as you would for say, any other artist/philosopher. This brings to mind the understanding that the 1% consists mostly of "human farmers" (i.e., kleptocrats and cronies) and other escaped 'slaves'.

It seems that folks who tend to take issue with my comments here (@enoch, @ChaosEngine, @newtboy, @Taint, among others) have taken on the recent swell of anti-"libertarian" rhetoric as their own (particularly the more tabloid-like forms of it).

That's not as important to me as the question of why there seems to be so much media attention given to these ideas of late? I think it may have to do with setting the stage for opposing a possible 2016 presidential run by Rand Paul (who has already been 'branded' as a 'libertarian' by opponents of both parties).* Or it may have to do with how technology (particularly in the Bay Area, where I live, but certainly in other places as well) is increasingly making individuals less reliant on the state, more self-sufficient, and more able to access the information they need to recognize their status as a serf, and/or plan their means of escape from the 'farm'.

*I guess the media cares less about an "ideological war" against "libertarianism" than they do about crafting a practical strategy of electoral politics. Hence their insistence in conflating conservatives, Republicans, libertarians, and even anarchists (which couldn't be more dissimilar at their core).

Such an easy experiment to recreate. I'd like to see how modern folk would react.

This is Penn's essay:

I've stopped swearing. I'm 42 years old and from the time I was 16, I talked like carnies and rockers and truckers and sailors. I tried to talk like all the cool people, using obscenity for every part of speech. It seemed like a ticket into a special group of outsiders. I never used hard obscenity on stage, but I was always trying to slip expletives onto the radio (you do know that the FCC is unconstitutional on every front, right?). But in daily existence, I talked trash.

Several months ago, I went to see Slash's Snakepit at a venue in Vegas. He played his guit-box like a ringin' a bell. I was enjoying the show. After the third selection, when it was time for Slash to welcome us, he said, "Welcome. We're really glad to be back in the USA. We were in South America and those people didn't understand us. It feels good to be home.

But, he didn't use those words. I don't have a tape, and I wasn't taking notes, but the words he said were along the lines of, "Oh # man. How you #ers doing? It is so #ing great to #ing be #ing back in this #ing coun-#ing-try. #, man, #. I mean, #. #, man, #. I mean #. Down there, well, #, they #ing don't #ing speak #ing English, man. #. #, it's so #ing great to #ing be here.

In the previous quote, "#" stands for the favorite root word of all wise-cracking, sophisticated, modern folk (it also drove my spell checker nuts). That magic word can be used for every part of speech (yes, its function can even be Conjunction Junction).

I sat in the balcony wondering if I sounded like that. I started becoming more aware of swearing. I had an epiphany -- I realized no one thought I was talking like a carney. They thought I was talking like a mall kid. Nowadays, who knows how carnies talk? It's like tattoos. They used to mean you were on the bally, in the joint, or on the sea. Now, tattoos and swearing just mean you've been to Tower Records. Even mall T-shirts proclaim the magic word.

I still use all those words, even the "C" one that still has some small amount of integrity and magic. However, I only use them for their literal meaning. If I'm talking about real sex, I don't talk baby talk. You won't catch me "making love," "doing it," or even "screwing." But I don't use obscenity as empty modifiers or even as a sexy synecdoche.

My decision to stop swearing is not a moral position. It's not to be polite. It's not to fit in. Quite the opposite. It makes me say what I mean and that's often not polite. Not swearing takes my rants off auto-pilot. Not swearing makes me think. It gives those words their original magic in their literal meanings. It makes them sexier when I'm talking about sex.

I started stopping swearing with some friends. It's difficult, but it's pretty fun. We say more of what we mean. We've started making it clear whether we're displeased with someone for their morals, their style, their hygiene, or their looks (all valid reasons). We no longer label them all with one compound body part metonym. We've become more precise. There's more information.

When someone is talking nonsense, it's bolder, more aggressive, and less acceptable to say, "No, that's not true," than to shout a friendly, ho-hum, reference to bovine fecal matter. Not swearing is not the right thing to do. It's not the classy thing to do. It makes the truth plainer and that's rarely soci ety's view of polite.

There is a downside. Last night I banged the little toe of my right foot hard on the door jam in the middle of the night. I had nothing to say.