Re: <nettime> John Perry Barlow R.I.P.

[Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi@gmail.com>]

There is definitely something to be said about vacuous fascination with 
celebrities, but it's all about the fascinated ones. Is Deadhead 
songwriter to be blamed for the airheaded followers that neglected their 
civic duties? Hardly.

The phenomenon is neither new nor particularly interesting. HST wrote, 
in FLLV:

"All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy 
Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and 
failure is ours too. What Leary took down with him was the central 
illusion of a whole life-style that he helped create... a generation of 
permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential 
old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that 
somebody... or at least some force - is tending the light at the end of 
the tunnel."

Well, instead of three bucks here we have likes, missives, event 
attendance, hippie attire. At an EFF event few years ago Barlow was 
carried to the stage, in a wheelchair, and the handlers almost lost him 
halfway, he nearly fell out. The scene was surreal. He didn't have much 
to say, but somehow it was essential that he be propped up to the stage. 
I was trying to figure out what was he a symbol for. And then it dawned 
to me - he was embodying the failed dream of the Internet, but in the 
Psycho's Mother Bates way. I was witnessing the horror show,




On 2/8/18, 05:08, Hans Bernhard | UBER Laboratories wrote:
> following the logic of the text below, people like barlow


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