Morlock Elloi on Thu, 8 Feb 2018 19:17:44 +0100 (CET)


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


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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