“Influential internet rights pioneer John Perry Barlow has died, aged 70,” BBC News reports. “Mr Barlow was a co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) that campaigns on digital rights issues and was a director of the organisation for many years. He was an advocate of free speech and wrote about the net’s potential for making society more representative.”
“Mr Barlow also spent years writing lyrics for the Grateful Dead rock group and also ran a cattle ranch,” BBC News reports. “Bob Weir, one of the band’s founding members, tweeted that Mr Barlow would ‘live on in the songs we wrote.'”
This life is fleeting, as we all know – the Muse we serve is not. John had a way of taking life’s most difficult things and framing them as challenges, therefore adventures. He was to be admired for that, even emulated. He’ll live on in the songs we wrote… pic.twitter.com/E29drq80du
— Bobby Weir (@BobWeir) February 8, 2018
“Cindy Cohn, director of the EFF, announced Mr Barlow’s death saying that he died quietly in his sleep on 7 February,” BBC News reports. “Mr Barlow had been ill for several years but few details were given about his medical problems.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: R.I.P., Mr. Barlow.
Barlow was sometimes held up as a straw man for a kind of naive techno-utopianism that believed that the Internet could solve all of humanity’s problems without causing any more. As someone who spent the past 27 years working with him at EFF, I can say that nothing could be further from the truth. Barlow knew that new technology could create and empower evil as much as it could create and empower good. He made a conscious decision to focus on the latter. — Cindy Cohn
The EFF’s article announcing Barlow’s death is here.
Pioneer, now there is a nice word, and the world can certainly appreciate the freedom potential that the internet provides today. Both sides of the coin operate simultaneously, as with any technology. I’m sure Mr. Barlow knew that along his fine way. Rest with peace.
Though not nukes since it’s all on one side, the bad side. Big money that commissioned them refuses to decommission the bad or obsolete ones. Fukushima, Daiichi reinforced that and before, Chernobyl, and before that 3 Mile Island, and before that Hiroshima & Nagasaki that killed innocent civilians. I am afraid that Japan will one day wake up from that suppressed nightmare and seek revenge against the US. With nukes, the potential is all bad in my opinion.
… the hell are you babbling about now Dinglerberry?
As for artist, I’m sure it involves finger painting with your own feces.
Right, because who needs carbon-free energy? Who needs affordable energy for everybody? Who needs jobs and economic activity? Who needs the lights at night? Just use electricity in the day time, when solar electricity is available. How do all these people fail to understand that being a dingbat will solve all environmenal problems? DINGBAT FOR PRESIDENT!
No intelligent person needs “carbon free energy”. But plenty of idiots do.
The nukes saved hundreds of thousands of American soldiers lives in WWII. The Japs were warned time and time again, but Iwo Jima and Okinawa was their response, and in those conflicts the Japs lost 18,844 and 110,000 respectively while US teenagers and young men who never asked to be int he war and were as every bit ‘innocent’ as the smallest baby in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 6,800 and 14,000 dead. The invasion of the Tokyo Plain was expected to see as many as 1,000,000 American casualties.
Buddy, the Japs had it coming, they are responsible, and its time you back America and our innocent soldiers who never asked to be in that fight instead of siding with the enemy.
Writing songs for the Dead may have put his efforts more directly in front of more people, and the association will make him effectively immortal in rock circles, but his co-founding of the EFF will likely make a larger and more impactful dent in the universe if those still working at preserving rights and privacy in the net age don’t get utterly quashed.
I just missed meeting him my last time in SF – he was just getting too ill to circulate so an event got scrapped, but knew friends who admired him greatly and he will be missed by many.
RIP John
Sun went down in honey.
Moon came up in wine.
Stars were spinnin’ dizzy,
Lord, the band kept us so busy
We forgot about the time.
John Dungler, Fartist
Mao Ze Dengler, Communist
Dit was egter duidelik dat talle mense oor die hele wêreld verdeeld was oor hoe om te reageer en te voel oor die woorde op hierdie klere. Kort nadat die advertensie die rondtes op sosiale media begin doen het, het die EFF met geweld gedreig. Ten spyte van die feit dat meeste mense nie saam gestem het oor of die advertensie rassisties was of nie het die rooi-keppie party besluit om aksie te neem. Soos dit net die EFF en hul verontwaardigheidsprobleme behaag het lede van die party besluit dat die beste wyse om skynbare rassisme te beveg is om met kriminele dade te reageer. Op 13 Januarie 2018 het die lede ‘n aantal H&M takke gaan verwoes en plunder wat gelei het dat die winkelgroep al hul takke in Suid-Afrika tydelik te sluit. Alhoewel meeste mense gemengde gevoelens oor H&M se advertensies het, behoort niemand van ons gemengde gevoelens oor die EFF se optrede te hê nie. Dit bly skrikwekkend dat vir ‘n groot deel van die Suid-Afrikaanse bevolking word woorde op klere meer afkeurenswaardig geag as skade wat aan privaateiendom gerig word. Gedurende die onwettig optrede het ons egter een van die mees ironiese oomblikke van die hele situasie gesien. In ‘n foto geneem van die onwettig optrede by die Menlynpark-inkopiesentrum word die lede van die EFF gewys waar hulle plakkate in betoging ophou wat vra dat H&M gesluit moet word. In dieselfde foto, net onder die plakkate verskyn ‘n lid van die EFF met ‘n party-hemp wat lees: “Ons laaste hoop vir werksgeleenthede en dienslewering. ” Hierdie hemp word met trots gedra terwyl die betogers besig is om mede Suid-Afrikaners se werkgewer se deure toe te maak. Mens wonder egter of enige van die betogers hierdie ironie besef. Op geen punt is hierdie gedrag deur die lede van die EFF veroordeel nie. Inteendeel dit word geprys deur die EFF se leiers. Wat egter vir alle Suid-Afrikaners duidelik is na die afgelope twee weke se gebeure is dat die EFF se optrede vir al meer Suid-Afrikaners onaanvaarbaar word. Suid-Afrikaners besef dat as die EFF verskeie klerewinkels kan gaan ontwrig en skade gaan verrig, raak dit nie moeilik om te sien hoe die EFF op ander wyses hulself nie gaan steur aan alle Suid-Afrikaners se regte nie. Hopelik dien hierdie as bewys vir mede landsburgers dat die EFF se kortsigtigheid nie net beperk is tot die hemde wat hul dra en die plakkate wat hul maak nie. Nuuskommentaar: 18 Januarie Die onopgevoedes sal nie altyd wen nie .