Welcome aboard The Bus!
The Stop
John Perry Barlow (1947-2018) was an American cattle rancher, author, lyricist, digital rights activist and ‘champion of free speech on the Internet.’ Deeply influenced by the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s, his ideas ‘captured the mood of a generation that believed people could reinvent themselves in a new virtual world with no government controls and no national boundaries.’ Barlow understood the Internet as a ‘fundamental place of freedom, where voices long silenced can find an audience’ and people would be able to connect with anyone, regardless of geography or physical distance.1
Born in Sublette County in rural Wyoming, Barlow was the only child of devout Mormons. He spent his childhood on his family’s cattle ranch and his elementary school was a one room school house. At 15 his parents sent him to board at the Fountain Valley School in Colorado Springs, Colorado.2 His roommate (and subsequent lifelong friend) was Bob Weir - who got expelled for smoking pot,3 returned to San Francisco, bumped into Jerry Garcia and ended up co-founding the Grateful Dead. After high school Barlow attended Wesleyan University, graduating in 1969 with an honours degree in comparative religions.
In 1971, Weir talked Barlow into writing lyrics for what became five of the eight tracks on his solo album, Ace (1972). The success of the songs (several of which became staples of Grateful Dead shows) convinced Barlow to continue to write, but his father’s death in 1972 meant he would spend the next 17 years ‘running the ranch with his mother, and writing lyrics while doing manual work’ for the family’s Bar Cross Land and Livestock Company.
In the late 1980s, Barlow became a member of the Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link (or The WELL) and a frequent poster to its online bulletin boards. Referred to by Wired magazine in 1997 as ‘the world’s most influential online community,’ in its earliest days Barlow was involved as it was ‘the main meeting place for Grateful Dead fans’ and through its pages met the digital-rights activists Mitch Kapor and John Gilmore.4 In 1990, Barlow began posting his concerns about a series of U. S. Secret Service raids that - though publicly justified as ‘combat[ting] computer hacking’ - he was convinced violated people’s constitutional rights. Believing the new world of the Internet required a new legal system, Barlow, Kapor and Gilmore founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation to ‘protect the rights and freedoms of individuals in the digital world,’ including issues surrounding ‘music copyright, trademark law, and anonymity relating to cyberspace.’5
Barlow had no training in technology, but was a ‘fast learner and larger-than-life communicator’ able to ‘extract key ideas and convey them to a wide audience.’ He wrote extensively about the Internet and produced several highly influential articles including ‘The Economy of Ideas’ (Wired, 1994)6 and ‘A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace’ (1996).7 In 1997 the lyricist/rancher/cyberlibertarian became a fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University and joined Harvard Law School the following year. He would spend the rest of his life devoted 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.’
The Detour
Today’s Detour is a video from The School of Life, an online series dedicated to teaching about various philosophers and ideas. This one (which clocks in at 8:12, so it’s not too long) is an excellent introduction to Immanuel Kant. Usually seen (and unfairly maligned) as a difficult philosopher, this is a great introduction to Kant’s basic ideas, especially the role of the categorical imperative and its effect on moral decision making. Give it a look!
Immanuel Kant (The School of Life)
The Recommendation
Today’s recommendation is the (early) king of computer/internet films:8 WarGames (1983). Starring Matthew Broderick, Ally Sheedy and Dabney Coleman,9 the plot centres around a young computer hacker who inadvertently accesses a US military supercomputer which just happens to be the one programmed to simulate, predict and execute nuclear war against the Soviet Union. Needless to say, it’s all exciting and rather breathless (and that’s before you consider the dated hardware they’re using), but it’s a great, classic film of the early 1980s.10
WarGames streams on various platforms.
The Sounds
Today’s playlist is a selection of five Barlow-penned tracks performed by the Grateful Dead: ‘Estimated Prophet’ (1977), ‘Looks Like Rain’ (1977), ‘Black-Throated Wind’ (1974), ‘Cassidy’ (1977) and ‘Lost Sailor’ (1981). They’re all great versions of the songs, but ‘Looks Like Rain’ (for the conversation in Garcia’s lead guitar alone) and ‘Black-Throated Wind' are in my top 10 live Dead tracks. Enjoy!
The Thought
Today’s Thought is from John Perry Barlow:
‘If you’re not lost, you’re not much of an explorer.’
If you have a thought on this Thought - or any part of today’s issue - please leave a comment below:
And that’s the end of this stop - I hope you enjoyed the diversion!
Thanks to everyone who subscribes - your interest and support is truly appreciated. If you like The Bus, please SHARE it with a friend or two.
If you haven’t climbed aboard The Bus, please do!
Until the next stop …
I was originally going to just look at the EFF, but the Barlow/Grateful Dead connection was too good to ignore. Sources for today’s Stop include John Perry Barlow Obituary (The Guardian), John Perry Barlow (Britannica), John Perry Barlow (EFF) and John Perry Barlow (Harvard)
You can check it out here: Fountain Valley School.
Weir - an undiagnosed dyslexic - was expelled from nearly every school he attended.
Kapor designed the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet and Gilmore worked for Sun Microsystems.
Barlow is credited with being the first to use the word ‘cyberspace’ (which he took from William Gibson’s science-fiction novel Neuromancer (1984)) to describe the Internet.
In which he argues the very ‘nature of digital information and the Internet [makes] traditional intellectual property and copyright laws obsolete.’
Written ‘one night at the World Economic Forum in Davos … between bouts of drinking and dancing,’ in this ‘sonorous, Jeffersonian’ paper Barlow argues that ‘cyberspace should be freed from outdated notions of property, expression, and identity.’
Sorry, it’s not Tron - but that’s pretty cool, too. And streams on Disney+ if you have a couple of hours to kill.
Who for some reason I always confuse with Gene Hackman. Seriously - the way I conflate the two is almost synaesthetic.
It also predates Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (another great film and arguably Broderick’s best-known (though he’s also quite good in Election (1999)) by three years.