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https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/02/john-perry-barlow-internet-pioneer-1947-2018
With a broken heart I have to announce that EFF's founder, visionary, and our ongoing inspiration, John Perry Barlow, passed away quietly in his sleep this morning. We will miss Barlow and his wisdom for decades to come, and he will always be an integral part of EFF.
It is no exaggeration to say that major parts of the Internet we all know and love today exist and thrive because of Barlow’s vision and leadership. He always saw the Internet as a fundamental place of freedom, where voices long silenced can find an audience and people can connect with others regardless of physical distance.
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: "I knew it’s also true that a good way to invent the future is to predict it. So I predicted Utopia, hoping to give Liberty a running start before the laws of Moore and Metcalfe delivered up what Ed Snowden now correctly calls 'turn-key totalitarianism.'”
Barlow’s lasting legacy is that he devoted his life to making the Internet into “a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth . . . a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.”
In the days and weeks to come, we will be talking and writing more about what an extraordinary role Barlow played for the Internet and the world. And as always, we will continue the work to fulfill his dream.
https://w2.eff.org/Misc/Publications/John_Perry_Barlow/HTML/barlows_lyrics.html
Cassidy
With Bob Weir, Recorded on Ace (Warner Brothers, 1972)
Cora, Wyoming, February, 1972I have seen where the wolf has slept by the silver stream.
I can tell by the mark he left you were in his dream.
Ah, child of countless trees.
Ah, child of boundless seas.
What you are, what you're meant to be
Speaks his name, though you were born to me,
Born to me,
Cassidy...Lost now on the country miles in his Cadillac.
I can tell by the way you smile he's rolling back.
Come wash the nighttime clean,
Come grow this scorched ground green,
Blow the horn, tap the tambourine
Close the gap of the dark years in between
You and me,
Cassidy...Quick beats in an icy heart.
Catch-colt draws a coffin cart.
There he goes now, here she starts:
Hear her cry.
Flight of the seabirds, scattered like lost words
Wheel to the storm and fly.Faring thee well now.
Let your life proceed by its own design.
Nothing to tell now.
Let the words be yours, I'm done with mine.
'nuff said.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday February 08 2018, @02:23PM (17 children)
I'm more a Mexicali Blues fan but, yeah, the world is a bit poorer now.
(I know. Me being a Dead fan? I dig making fun of hippies but it's all in fun. Most of them were pretty decent people back in the day and they had some damned fine music. The specific implementations we can argue about but I can get along with anyone who fundamentally believes in liberty and equality.)
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday February 08 2018, @03:53PM (10 children)
A stoner can't make too much fun of hippies.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday February 08 2018, @06:28PM (7 children)
Man, I ain't been a stoner since a little bit before I enlisted at 17. Or was it 18? I've slept since then. That particular variety of stupid, as opposed to the alcohol induced kind, just lost its attraction for me. I never did care for the smell or potential jail time either.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 08 2018, @08:31PM
What a fun personal anecdote!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 09 2018, @01:41AM (5 children)
You're living in the wrong state, dude.
...and don't be surprised if a bunch more states pass laws real soon legalizing weed, just to spit some Beech Nut in the eye of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III.
lost its attraction for me
I've slept since [I stopped using dope]
Weed gives you insomnia??
Your physiology sounds weird. See #6, above.
...and if Sessions, et al. ever pull the sticks out of their butts, it's a pretty sure bet that the millenia of use of cannabis medicinally will be corroborated by above-board studies and that list will look like just a footnote.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday February 09 2018, @03:37AM (3 children)
"I've slept since then." == "Time has passed and I don't remember for sure."
Unfortunately you left out one rather major effect. It makes you fucking stupid. No, I don't just mean while you're stoned. That's pretty much the desired effect. I mean prolonged, regular use will cost you a goodly chunk of your IQ points permanently. I've witnessed this happening multiple times with my own eyes.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 09 2018, @06:49AM (2 children)
I've witnessed this happening
Just imagine how much the stoner Nobel Prize winners would have accomplished if they hadn't done dope!
Smart Stoners [thirdmonk.net]
Francis Crick - Nobel laureate
Richard Feynman - Nobel laureate
Kary Mullis - Nobel laureate
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday February 09 2018, @11:36AM (1 child)
Al Gore also got one. Of course he invented the Internet, so I guess that's okay.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 09 2018, @01:52PM
...for peace.
That would be the thing that O'Bomber got (before he's done anything--except defeat Dubya).
Kissinger got one after he'd had millions of people murdered.
That was the day that irony died.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Friday February 09 2018, @10:12PM
Sativas have never helped me sleep, and indicas only made me sleepy during the comedown, and it was shitty unrestful sleep. Plus, using anything as a sleep aid is a sure path to psychological dependency. Use weed because it makes you feel good, don't try to justify your habit with bs.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday February 08 2018, @10:51PM (1 child)
Richard Stallman smells like feet.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 09 2018, @01:42AM
Sucks to be you, the hippie girls smelled nothing like dirty feet (MUCH better smelling).
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 08 2018, @04:13PM (1 child)
Here's one of Barlow's TED talks, in the middle he briefly tells the story of the start of EFF --
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYpB1NzCO6g [youtube.com]
It's good that he was there in the right place, with the right friends...and that he said Yes to the challenge.
I have a feeling that a lot of people would have said No if they were presented with a similar set of circumstances.
Not surprising that you (TMB) like the "cowboy" Dead tunes...
Personally, I go more for the "farming" songs,
https://w2.eff.org/Misc/Publications/John_Perry_Barlow/HTML/barlows_lyrics.html#grow [eff.org]
In the 70s, hitch-hiking was a viable means of student transport (I was broke) and this was a favorite,
https://w2.eff.org/Misc/Publications/John_Perry_Barlow/HTML/barlows_lyrics.html#wind [eff.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday February 08 2018, @06:21PM
Oh I dig on nearly all of their stuff. It just happens that Mexicali Blues was on the first Dead cassette I ever owned, so, nostalgia.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Thursday February 08 2018, @04:26PM (1 child)
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday February 08 2018, @06:18PM
Well, I do think that I've almost got enough life experience and wisdom now to do being a teenager as it should be done. The problem is, no 14 year old girls do. They'd get on my last nerve before I could get their clothes off and if I did manage they'd be shit in bed. That's why I've been chasing chicks in their thirties since I was old enough to drive.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Thursday February 08 2018, @04:42PM (1 child)
I would expect no less of you, always Throwing Stones...
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Thursday February 08 2018, @06:09PM
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams