
John Perry Barlow has died - schoen
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/02/john-perry-barlow-internet-pioneer-1947-2018
======
viksit
My JPB Story (from ~1998):

I grew up in New Delhi in the late 90s on a steady diet of 2600, phrack, BBSes
and the EFF/internet. Two of the people I'd read a lot about and was very
inspired by were JPB and Mitch Kapor, as founders of the EFF - and I decided
one day that I'd like to actually reach out and talk to Barlow (I didn't
actually have a goal in mind, now that I think about it).

Figuring that an email would never get a reply, I added him on AIM. To my
utter surprise, he added me back - and after introducing myself as a high
schooler who was a fan of the work he was doing, we communicated over the next
year or so on a wide variety of topics that included open source, free
software and the state of the internet in India at the time. For the next 10
years or so, when AIM was still active, he was one of the very few people
still on my contacts list who would go "online" and "offline" with a regular
cadence -- one of the only reasons I ever even logged into AIM was to (rarely)
say hello :).

Of course, I stopped using the service a long time ago, and lost touch with
him - but his declaration of independence of cyberspace was something that I
leaned on when researching about internet censorship and policies a few years
ago. I never did reach back out to him, and there was no pressing need to
either.

On hearing the news, I'm reminded of how prescient and applicable his words
have been to the issues and challenges that we see in the internet of today -
but also how he personally upheld one beautifully phrased paragraph in
particular, by virtue of his accepting a request from, and interacting with a
random high schooler from half way across the world.

    
    
      Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our commu
      nications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live.
    

RIP.

~~~
Carioca
Your story is such a great nugget of what he stood for, thank you for sharing
it.

------
mattl
JPB on meeting a partner on an evening when he was due to roast Steve Jobs at
a NeXT Expo.

[https://www.thisamericanlife.org/74/transcript#act3](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/74/transcript#act3)

~~~
Cogito
Well, I wasn't prepared for that.

Almost skipped over it, so anyone else trailing through who catches this, go
and read it.

~~~
hoistbypetard
Thanks for adding that. I was set to skip over that too. Holy crap, that was
great. And it might be my new favorite piece of Ira Glass' work.

------
lbotos
My JPB Story:

I’d come to find myself in Portland. In the home of a stranger but there was
no cause for alarm. This place felt like a home. It was real and a part of our
collective universe. I never met my host, not once while I was there. She was
a kindred spirit. Her home was warm and welcoming but I never knew her. On the
last day of my trip, we managed to cross paths in the house, only in sound,
never vision. She entered the shower, and I left to catch a plane to New York
City. Like any other day.

In New York City, I found myself thinking of my time in Portland, feeling
drawn to this woman. She sent me a friend request on Facebook. I immediately
started rifling through pictures to try and see her. To understand what this
feeling was. This draw. This pull. There was a picture with her and her
father. I recognized the name but I didn’t know why. I immediately copied the
name into google and was floored.

He was Cyberspace. A man who’s been with me my whole digital life. A dreamer.
Someone who believes in more. Surreal clarity. A tangle of wires connecting
this whole god damned universe caught us both and brought us together, for
just that moment. I don’t know why the wires thought I was special, why I
needed to know, but I’m happy they did.

I reflected on this moment. This connection that was both possible and
impossible without this man and his daughter. Here’s to you JPB and Anna for
being the conduit for these crazy electrical signals that had something to
say. It was but a moment in passing in our collective universes, but one that
left a mark.

~~~
shams93
Yeah "he was cyberspace" is a really great description.

------
pixelmonkey
Here's a link to his "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace" from
1996, published 22 years ago tomorrow:

[https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence](https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-
independence)

I always loved these bits:

"Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself,
arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications."

And:

"Your increasingly obsolete information industries would perpetuate themselves
by proposing laws, in America and elsewhere, that claim to own speech itself
throughout the world. These laws would declare ideas to be another industrial
product, no more noble than pig iron. In our world, whatever the human mind
may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost. The global
conveyance of thought no longer requires your factories to accomplish."

RIP.

~~~
daveheq
This declaration sounds like an excuse to surf cp

~~~
dang
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? You've
done it a lot and we eventually ban accounts that do that.

The idea here is: if you have a substantive point to make, make it
thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
Alex3917
I've posted this on HN before, but his introduction to Birth of a Psychedelic
Culture is highly worth reading. Among other things he talks about how (after
entirely too much acid) he was planning on becoming America's first suicide
bomber, to protest the Vietnam war, but got caught by his friends at the last
minute:

[http://realitysandwich.com/34204/beginning_birth_psychedelic...](http://realitysandwich.com/34204/beginning_birth_psychedelic_culture/)

Fortunately for the rest of us he ended up co-founding the EFF instead.

~~~
mturmon
You are right. Just a beautiful piece. Full of insight and connections to the
many other stories from that time.

------
alex_young
Barlow's Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace [0] is one of the
quintessential works that made the web the free place it is. What a great
loss.

As a teenager, Barlow's writings inspired me and many others to do things such
as paint our websites black to protest the Communications Decency Act, and
write lots of actual letters which, in aggregate, effected change legally and
socially.

In 2000 at Comdex, I remember Barlow saying that he had no love for the record
companies - as a member of the Grateful Dead he had never received a royalty
statement that didn't say he owed the company money. This was during the
height of the war on MP3s when other artists were claiming they were being
robbed at gunpoint or something.

[0] [https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-
independence](https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence)

------
insaneirish

      The black-throated wind keeps on pouring in.
      And it speaks of a life that passes like dew.
      It's forced me to see that you've done better by me,
      Better by me than I've done by you.
    

[http://artsites.ucsc.edu/GDead/agdl/btwi.html](http://artsites.ucsc.edu/GDead/agdl/btwi.html)

------
AustinG08
I am a huge Grateful Dead fan (I don't call myself a dead head because I was 9
when Jerry died, I never saw them play.) But I always loved John Perry
Barlow's songs. My old band used to cover The Music Never Stopped and Cassidy,
and my all time favorite dead song is Throwing Stones.

I didn't even know he was a big influencer in tech until I saw him appear on
the Colbert Report representing the EFF.

My JPB story is short and relatively meaningless, but back when I first signed
up for twitter I just followed a bunch of famous people and would every now
and then attempt to engage them. The only one that ever replied back to me was
John Perry Barlow, and it made my week. I had interfaced with true greatness.
Rest in peace, John!

------
linkmotif
> In 1996, Barlow was invited to speak about his work in cyberspace to a
> middle school classroom at North Shore Country Day School, which was a
> highly influential event in the early life of student Aaron Swartz, as
> Swartz's father Robert recalls Aaron coming home that day as a changed
> person.[23][24]

—
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Perry_Barlow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Perry_Barlow)

------
jacquesm
That sucks. Adult principles:

[http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2011/Jan-21.html](http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2011/Jan-21.html)

Worth living by.

------
sankyo
I didn't see a link to his lyrics for Grateful Dead songs yet. My favorite is
Cassady. What an inspiration between EFF and the Dead.
[https://w2.eff.org/Misc/Publications/John_Perry_Barlow/HTML/...](https://w2.eff.org/Misc/Publications/John_Perry_Barlow/HTML/barlows_lyrics.html#cassidy)

~~~
mythrwy
My favorite is Let It Grow (from weather report suite).

It's such a beautiful piece of music. Really gets down deep into the nature of
life.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IN6mjNMNytY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IN6mjNMNytY)

[https://play.google.com/music/preview/Tuuldprggcev2wah45v27l...](https://play.google.com/music/preview/Tuuldprggcev2wah45v27lxob4y?lyrics=1&utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=lyrics&pcampaignid=kp-
lyrics)

I listened to this album for years and didn't understand that song until
recently when I went back and listened again.

I don't think the song is about an agricultural town and a women fetching
water as it first appears. I think it's symbolic. The women is dipping into
the river of life and carrying a little part away with her. She is brown like
the earth because in this case she is symbolic of the earth, i.e. the
substrate on which life appears or develops. The drops of water in the reeds
are individual instances of life, eventually they lose their individuality and
return to the ocean. The plowman is sowing the earth. Etc. Etc.

------
staunch
His Principles for Adult Behavior is hard-earned wisdom:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1kgmes/i_am_john_perr...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1kgmes/i_am_john_perry_barlow_cofounder_of_the/cborf31/)

~~~
nkurz
Wow. And succinct enough that I’ll quote them in full:

ADULT PRINCIPLES -John Perry Barlow

1 Be patient. No matter what.

2 Don't badmouth: Assign responsibility, not blame. Say nothing of another you
wouldn't say to him.

3 Never assume the motives of others are, to them, less noble than yours are
to you.

4 Expand your sense of the possible.

5 Don't trouble yourself with matters you truly cannot change.

6 Don't ask more of others than you can deliver yourself.

7 Tolerate ambiguity.

8 Laugh at yourself frequently.

9 Concern yourself with what is right rather than who is right.

10 Try not to forget that, no matter how certain, you might be wrong.

11 Give up blood sports.

12 Remember that your life belongs to others as well. Don't risk it
frivolously.

13 Never lie to anyone for any reason. (Lies of omission are sometimes
exempt.)

14 Learn the needs of those around you and respect them.

15 Avoid the pursuit of happiness. Seek to define your mission and pursue
that.

16 Reduce your use of the first personal pronoun.

17 Praise at least as often as you disparage.

18 Admit your errors freely and quickly.

19 Become less suspicious of joy.

20 Understand humility.

21 Remember that love forgives everything.

22 Foster dignity.

23 Live memorably.

24 Love yourself.

25 Endure.

~~~
jimjimjim
people in power need to be rated against these principles.

~~~
olavk
You need to rate yourself against these principles. This is the whole point.

~~~
jimjimjim
i have rated myself. i think i'm about a c+, need to try harder.

~~~
olavk
Don't ask more of others than you can deliver yourself.

------
paul7986
Never heard of the guy until 2005 where CNET interviewed him about his
interest in skype. Thus me and my friend downloaded Skype and called him. We
chatted for five or ten minutes and he remained on my friends Skype since.
Later found out he was in the Grateful Dead in same shape or form.

~~~
schoen
Barlow once recounted a time that a random person in Vietnam called him on
Skype because she wanted to practice English and he was named "John":

[https://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/26/technology/internet-
calli...](https://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/26/technology/internet-calling-new-
friends-old-problems.html)

You can find the whole thing (which is kind of amazing) at
[https://archive.li/jHN8B](https://archive.li/jHN8B) (search for "The Intimate
Planet").

~~~
jxramos
Very pleasant read, something nostalgic about this old style blog. Made me
think of the days I'd spend chatting and voice messaging folks from MSN and
yahoo chatrooms and all the friends I've made there who I've lost touch with.

------
dmpayton
I never got to meet JPB, but I was lucky enough to attend his keynote at PyCon
2014 in Montreal. It's a great talk, should you have a spare 45 minutes.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGVzb5YXmeo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGVzb5YXmeo)

He is (indirectly) responsible for the existence of a hackerspace in Fresno,
CA. Last year a few of us got together to talk about starting a chapter of the
Electronic Frontier Alliance. That conversation morphed into, "fuck it, let's
just start a hackerspace."

So thanks JPB. Rest well.

~~~
jMyles
That was a great little corner of the universe to occupy. That was the first
talk at the first conference to which Chelsea and I traveled. And also where
my friendship with you began in earnest. Incredible.

------
cromwellian
Such a loss. Who is the thought leader today to push back on the huge
curtailment of online freedoms happening around the world. Even in the HN
crowd, you see people succumbing to nationalism and making arguments to
support their government's right to impose their court decisions on foreign
jurisdictions in cyberspace. The problem isn't just the Great Firewall, it's
stuff like Turkey or Thailand getting YouTube to take down a video criticizing
their leader outside their region. It's European courts ruling their
restrictions have to apply globally.

There's no leader really standing up and affirming the philosophical dream of
the independence of cyberspace, as a place where people can gather freely to
transact in virtual ways however they want. Rather, there's a huge backslide
over the last 20 years.

~~~
ethagnawl
> There's no leader really standing up and affirming the philosophical dream
> of the independence of cyberspace, as a place where people can gather freely
> to transact in virtual ways however they want.

Among others, the 2600 crew are still carrying that torch.

~~~
ethagnawl
To follow up on my last comment: this week's episode of Off The Hook (one of
2600's radio shows) had a nice segment on John Perry Barlow.

------
Ologn
I used to call him from time to time when I was a teenager, back in the early
1990s. He was always very open and neighborly and curious.

There are a number of sub-cultures that exist across the USA - redneck Wyoming
ranchers, deadheads, San Francisco computer gearheads, civil libertarians - he
seemed to belong to all of them. He was an easy person to say of that "he is
one of the members of our community".

I know that him and Sean Parker were friends going way back. Someone told me a
story that on the day Parker met Mark Zuckerberg etc. at the 66 restaurant, as
portrayed in the movie the "Social Network", that Parker was crashing on
Barlow's couch. I don't know if that is true or just part of the legend...

You would see him at various events around New York City when he was in the
city. He often went to Florio's Pizzeria and Cigar Bar, holding court with
people like Jaron Lanier and others.

A friend of mine said "He lived a life many would envy".

------
dopamean
It's weird reading this because I very recently found out that a girl I went
to high school with was his daughter. I had no idea back then (14+ years ago).
This is a sad loss for the community and I'm sure his family as well.

~~~
ad_hominem
One thing that was clear from following him on Twitter was he had a big heart,
and in particular was a doting father to his (I think three) daughters. They
all seemed to be very free spirits.

------
wavefunction
That's truly unfortunate. I've admired his work on behalf of electronic
freedom since the start and have gotten to meet the gentleman once or twice,
as we graduated from the same high-school separated by a few decades.

My condolences to his family and friends, and thanks for sharing him with us.

------
chrisseldo
_Nothing to tell now / let the words be yours / I am done with mine._

A champion of freedom. RIP.

------
tkamat29
Who else knew Barlow as a Grateful Dead lyrisict?

~~~
jacquesm
Funny tidbit: for a short while I thought they were two distinct people, and I
kept telling myself 'wow, what a coincidence that two people have such an
unlikely name'.

------
placebo
I admit my ignorance of not knowing about him previous to reading this. Also
admit a sad feeling of retroactive loss now that I have learned a bit more
about him. Hope he'll be a role model to others that follow.

------
philblanks
What a profoundly interesting man. Here's a bit more for those interested in
his work:

Forbes: Why Spy?

by John Perry Barlow, 10.07.02

[https://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/1007/042_print.html](https://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/1007/042_print.html)

Grateful Dead Lyricist and Burning Man's Co-Founder Talk Tech

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jAyedG67_I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jAyedG67_I)

------
tahoemph999
My Barlow story starts with reading the first issue of the EFFector. Being a
Deadhead I was also aware of John as Bob Weir's song writing partner. Reading
a CACM column by Bob during a set break prompted an email exchange of no real
note but fond memories. Rip a hole in the sky John. And may the rest of us
learn just a little from your life.

------
patrickg_zill
"We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her
beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or
conformity."

It's why I spit (virtually) upon posters who defend Google's actions towards
Damore, and Twitter and YouTube's actions to deplatform people.

------
DonHopkins
John Perry Barlow with an OLPC XO-1 Children's Computer.

[https://imgur.com/a/ogE9y](https://imgur.com/a/ogE9y)

John Perry Barlow and John Gilmore, EFF founders.

[https://imgur.com/a/eqqlz](https://imgur.com/a/eqqlz)

------
indescions_2018
The end of an era. You will be missed, you wonderful old beatific cybernetic
flower child ;) RIP

 _California, a prophet on the burning shore California, I 'll be knocking on
the golden door Like an angel, standing in a shaft of light Rising up to
paradise, I know I'm gonna shine_

------
creeble
First met JPB in '87.

I'm realizing I'm too sad to share any of the many stories.

But it also makes me realize how much of an Internet warrior we've all lost,
and that we need to keep up the hope and the fight. Donate to EFF as memorial,
please.

------
kiliantics
> I see the fact that we have a large working anarchy in the internet. I think
> that inspires people to try practical anarchy as a social form in the
> physical world.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20071009235727/http://www.india-...](https://web.archive.org/web/20071009235727/http://www.india-
today.com/btoday/20001206/interview.html)

------
dcow
JPB was at B-Sides SF a few years ago. He gave the keynote and I remember
watching down over the railing of the DNA lounge 2nd floor balcony. It was
surreal how focused and sincere the space was compared to the normal mode of
operation for the venue.

His Keynote was incredibly relevant. I highly recommend giving it a watch:
[https://youtu.be/1mrmOrUsbGI](https://youtu.be/1mrmOrUsbGI)

------
balnaphone
Favorite quote: "Relying on the government to protect your privacy is like
asking a peeping tom to install your window blinds." \--John Perry Barlow

------
drallison
Barlow was always larger than life, always on, his mind never quiet. They
don't seem to make them that way any more. He'll be missed.

------
dvirsky
This is just so sad. I'm lucky to have met him briefly about a decade ago when
he was consulting the company I worked for. He was just so awesome and smart,
and naturally most meetings we had with him pretty quickly turned into
storytelling time with John. Those were a few of days I'll never forget. RIP.

------
evanb

        This must be heaven --
        Tonight I crossed the line.
        You must be the angel
        I thought I'd never find.
        Was it you I heard singin'
        While I was chasin' dreams?
        Driven by the wind,
        Like the dust that blows around
        And the rain fallin' down...

------
DonHopkins
Crime and Pizzlement: Desperados of the DataSphere

[https://w2.eff.org/Misc/Publications/John_Perry_Barlow/HTML/...](https://w2.eff.org/Misc/Publications/John_Perry_Barlow/HTML/crime_and_puzzlement_1.html)

------
sinak
There's a great collection of Barlow's writing here in EFF's archives:

[https://w2.eff.org/Misc/Publications/John_Perry_Barlow/](https://w2.eff.org/Misc/Publications/John_Perry_Barlow/)

------
melling
Rolling Stone announcement...

[https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/john-perry-
barlow-...](https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/john-perry-barlow-
grateful-dead-lyricist-dead-at-70-w516487)

------
weisser
Lots of thoughts here but I'm at a loss. He seemed in good spirits right until
the end — we should all hope for that.

JPB was a true artist and technologist. His art was inspired by the past and
his policy by the future.

------
tankenmate
A grave loss, the world needs more people like him, not less.

------
multi_tude
JPB did a really great audio walking tour of SF's Knob Hill & Tenderloin. It's
in the Detour iOS app.

------
noahm
Man, this makes me sad beyond words. It's a great loss for all of us, even
those who don't realize it.

------
8bitsrule
"We will spread ourselves across the Planet so that no one can arrest our
thoughts."

Fair warning.

------
lukeh
Amongst other things I remember his columns in NeXTworld (sp?) fondly.

~~~
patrickg_zill
Yes, the magazine for NeXT machine users. NeXT capitalization I think was
later changed to NEXTSTEP the operation system and OPENSTEP the cross-platform
environment.

------
mathattack
RIP - he was a great thinker perhaps 30 years ahead of his time.

------
artur_makly
early thoughts:
[http://memex.org/meme2-03.html](http://memex.org/meme2-03.html)

------
jimjimjim
The world seems a little bit darker.

------
jackaroe78
The music never stopped

------
oska
I don't know exactly what the criteria for putting a black banner line on HN
is, but I was a bit surprised to not see one here today after hearing of this
loss.

------
allworknoplay
If Barlow doesn't deserve the HN black bar, I don't know who does. He fought
for electronic freedoms tirelessly for decades, fending off companies who
wanted to control the Internet or individuals' rights to hack technology they
own.

~~~
acangiano
Agreed. This is a huge loss.

~~~
adfm
+1

------
Dangeranger
A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace

by John Perry Barlow

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I
come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you
of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no
sovereignty where we gather.

We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you
with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I
declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of
the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor
do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear.

Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You
have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not
know us, nor do you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your
borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public
construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself
through our collective actions.

You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you
create the wealth of our marketplaces. You do not know our culture, our
ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order
than could be obtained by any of your impositions.

You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this
claim as an excuse to invade our precincts. Many of these problems don't
exist. Where there are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will
identify them and address them by our means. We are forming our own Social
Contract. This governance will arise according to the conditions of our world,
not yours. Our world is different.

Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself,
arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world
that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live.

We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice
accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth.

We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs,
no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or
conformity.

Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context
do not apply to us. They are all based on matter, and there is no matter here.

Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by
physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and
the commonweal, our governance will emerge. Our identities may be distributed
across many of your jurisdictions. The only law that all our constituent
cultures would generally recognize is the Golden Rule. We hope we will be able
to build our particular solutions on that basis. But we cannot accept the
solutions you are attempting to impose.

In the United States, you have today created a law, the Telecommunications
Reform Act, which repudiates your own Constitution and insults the dreams of
Jefferson, Washington, Mill, Madison, DeToqueville, and Brandeis. These dreams
must now be born anew in us.

You are terrified of your own children, since they are natives in a world
where you will always be immigrants. Because you fear them, you entrust your
bureaucracies with the parental responsibilities you are too cowardly to
confront yourselves. In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of
humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole, the
global conversation of bits. We cannot separate the air that chokes from the
air upon which wings beat.

In China, Germany, France, Russia, Singapore, Italy and the United States, you
are trying to ward off the virus of liberty by erecting guard posts at the
frontiers of Cyberspace. These may keep out the contagion for a small time,
but they will not work in a world that will soon be blanketed in bit-bearing
media.

Your increasingly obsolete information industries would perpetuate themselves
by proposing laws, in America and elsewhere, that claim to own speech itself
throughout the world. These laws would declare ideas to be another industrial
product, no more noble than pig iron. In our world, whatever the human mind
may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost. The global
conveyance of thought no longer requires your factories to accomplish.

These increasingly hostile and colonial measures place us in the same position
as those previous lovers of freedom and self-determination who had to reject
the authorities of distant, uninformed powers. We must declare our virtual
selves immune to your sovereignty, even as we continue to consent to your rule
over our bodies. We will spread ourselves across the Planet so that no one can
arrest our thoughts.

We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane
and fair than the world your governments have made before.

Davos, Switzerland

February 8, 1996

[0] [https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-
independence](https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence)

~~~
irrational
Wow, that's one of the most idealistic statements I've ever read. Too bad we
ended up with the WWW of today instead.

~~~
wavefunction
It was a heady time back then. Lots of optimism and dreams.

Technology has improved in sophistication and accessibility but I agree that
bright spirit has been muted over the years.

