John Perry Barlow
John Perry Barlow
John Perry Barlowis an American poet and essayist, a retired Wyoming cattle rancher, and a cyberlibertarian political activist who has been associated with both the Democratic and Republican parties. He is also a former lyricist for the Grateful Dead and a founding member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Freedom of the Press Foundation. As of 2016, he is a Fellow Emeritus at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, where he has maintained an affiliation since 1998. He...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth3 October 1947
CountryUnited States of America
John Perry Barlow quotes about
I think the 'counterculture' believes that there are ways to manage being the world's most powerful country that involve creation of consensus - ruling by virtuous example rather than by force of arms.
If you have the 'Total Information Awareness' project working, it might be relatively easy to find everyone who had bought more than a ton of fertilizer and 500 gallons of diesel in the last year, which would be a great way of spotting potential Tim McVeighs - but it would also spot half the farmers and ranchers in America.
I don't think that the movie industry is any more ready than any other part of the information industries to adapt itself to the information age. But it's going to go there one way or the other.
So I'm just waiting until one party or the other actually gets a moral compass and a backbone.
I have always felt that no matter how inscrutable its ways and means, the universe is working perfectly and working according to a greater plan than we can know.
The first serious infowar is now engaged. The field of battle is WikiLeaks. You are the troops.
If you're not lost, you're not much of an explorer.
But generally speaking, I felt to engage in the political process was to sully oneself to such a degree that whatever came out wasn't worth the trouble put in.
The one thing that I know government is good for is countervailing against monopoly. It's not great at that either, but it's the only force I know that is fairly reliable
I personally think intellectual property is an oxymoron. Physical objects have a completely different natural economy than intellectual goods. It's a tricky thing to try to own something that remains in your possession even after you give it to many others.
Everyone seems to be playing well within the boundaries of his usual rule set. I have yet to hear anyone say something that seemed likely to mitigate the idiocy of this age.
I mean I look forward to the day when I can be Republican again.
New solutions win by virtue of adoption, and they don't get adopted if they're bad solutions.
Notions of property, value, ownership, and the nature of wealth itself are changing more fundamentally than at any time since the Sumerians first poked cuneiform into wet clay and called it stored grain ... few people are aware of the enormity of this shift and fewer of them are lawyers or public officials.