Damn, another one of the good guys gone. RIP
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/02/john-perry-barlow-internet-pioneer-1947-2018
Quote
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.
Shit, awful news.
Will be rocking some :syf: tonight in his honor.
Wow, I had no idea he was involved in the EFF.
The lyrics to Cassidy are among my favorite of all time.
So sad. :cry: RIP
My boss and I were just talking about his lyrics yesterday after he asked me if Eric Clapton wrote 'Let It Grow' and I responded with "Nope, That was John Perry Barlow. Unless you meant the Clapton song, then yes."
He was quite a wordsmith and will be missed.
QuoteFare thee well now, let your life proceed by it's own design.
Nothing to tell now, let the words be yours, I'm done with mine.
RIP
Quote from: VDB on February 07, 2018, 07:01:24 PM
Wow, I had no idea he was involved in the EFF.
The lyrics to Cassidy are among my favorite of all time.
Quote from: Buffalo Budd on February 07, 2018, 09:01:48 PM
QuoteFare thee well now, let your life proceed by it's own design.
Nothing to tell now, let the words be yours, I'm done with mine.
RIP
This sucks. Happy to say that I got to meet him. He was both larger than life and just another guy.
RIP :cry:
:syf:
Sad news indeed
To paraphrase something I wrote of him yesterday: Barlow was a poet who told tales of giants and of real men while living a life that proved him to be both.
His passing will be felt for some time in the internets but his fingerprints will remain as well.
Winter rain, now tell me why, summers fade, and roses die.
The answer came; the wind and rain.
Golden hills, now veiled in grey, summer leaves have blown away
Now what remains? The wind and rain...... :syf:
:syf: :syf: :syf:
<3
Quote from: VDB on February 07, 2018, 07:01:24 PM
The lyrics to Cassidy are among my favorite of all time.
Flight of the seabirds
Scattered like lost words,
Wield to the storm and fly.
RIP :syf: