John Perry Barlow Quotes

The Internet is the most liberating tool for humanity ever invented, and also the best for surveillance. It's not one or the other. It's both.

- John Perry Barlow

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.

- John Perry Barlow

The Internet may well disempower the nation state, but at the same time, it also strengthens certain specific state functions - like surveillance. As a political entity, it doesn't empower the nation sate. It creates the availability of much more data than the digestive system of the nation state could possibly assimilate.

- John Perry Barlow

The Internet treats censorship as a malfunction and routes around it.

- John Perry Barlow

They seem to have forgotten that, and are back saying the only purpose of P2P networks is for illegal trading of owned goods. We claim part of the reason for P2P is for legal trading of what ought to be in public domain. And what is in public domain in many cases.

- John Perry Barlow

The government targets 'Anonymous' for the same reason it targets al-Qaida - because they're the enemy.

- John Perry Barlow

Everyone seems to be playing well within the boundaries of his usual rule set. I have yet to hear anyone say something that seemed likely to mitigate the idiocy of this age.

- John Perry Barlow

I think the 'counterculture' believes that there are ways to manage being the world's most powerful country that involve creation of consensus - ruling by virtuous example rather than by force of arms.

- John Perry Barlow

But groundless hope, like unconditional love, is the only kind worth having.

- John Perry Barlow

If you have the 'Total Information Awareness' project working, it might be relatively easy to find everyone who had bought more than a ton of fertilizer and 500 gallons of diesel in the last year, which would be a great way of spotting potential Tim McVeighs - but it would also spot half the farmers and ranchers in America.

- John Perry Barlow

I don't think that the movie industry is any more ready than any other part of the information industries to adapt itself to the information age. But it's going to go there one way or the other.

- John Perry Barlow

The Internet amplifies power in all respects. It can grossly exaggerate the power of the individual.

- John Perry Barlow

If all ideas have to be bought, then you have an intellectually regressive system that will assure you have a highly knowledgeable elite and an ignorant mass.

- John Perry Barlow

I think that humor is part of what saves us from despair.

- John Perry Barlow

The 'Total Information Awareness' project is truly diabolical - mostly because of the legal changes which have made it possible in the first place. As a consequence of the Patriot Act, government now has access to all sorts of private and commercial databases that were previously off limits.

- John Perry Barlow

The one thing that I know government is good for is countervailing against monopoly. It's not great at that either, but it's the only force I know that is fairly reliable.

- John Perry Barlow

So I'm just waiting until one party or the other actually gets a moral compass and a backbone.

- John Perry Barlow

Most libertarians are worried about government but not worried about business. I think we need to be worrying about business in exactly the same way we are worrying about government.

- John Perry Barlow

It didn't matter what we did or where we did it as long as we were together. We knew we'd found what most people either pursue in years of futile search or dismiss as a fantasy at the outset: the missing half of ourselves. The real thing.

- John Perry Barlow

In Cyberspace, the First Amendment is a local ordinance.

- John Perry Barlow

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.

- John Perry Barlow

There are a lot of kids out there copying and distributing movies - not because they care about seeing the movies or sharing them with their friends, but because they want to stick it to the movie business.

- John Perry Barlow

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.

- John Perry Barlow

I had always thought that the idea of love at first sight was one of those things invented by lady novelists from the South with three names.

- John Perry Barlow

Relying on the government to protect your privacy is like asking a peeping tom to install your window blinds.

- John Perry Barlow

But generally speaking, I felt to engage in the political process was to sully oneself to such a degree that whatever came out wasn't worth the trouble put in.

- John Perry Barlow

I don't know that I believe in the supernatural, but I do believe in miracles, and our time together was filled with the events of magical unlikelihood.

- John Perry Barlow

Google, Amazon, Apple. Any number of cloud providers and computer service providers who can increasingly limit your access to your own information, control all your processing, take away your data if they want to, and observe everything you do; in a way, that does give them some leverage over your own life.

- John Perry Barlow

Royalties are not how most writers or musicians make their living. Musicians by and large make a living with a relationship with an audience that is economically harnessed through performance and ticket sales.

- John Perry Barlow

Musicians by and large make a living with a relationship with an audience that is economically harnessed through performance and ticket sales.

- John Perry Barlow

I personally think intellectual property is an oxymoron. Physical objects have a completely different natural economy than intellectual goods. It's a tricky thing to try to own something that remains in your possession even after you give it to many others.

- John Perry Barlow

I personally think intellectual property is an oxymoron. Physical objects have a completely different natural economy than intellectual goods.

- John Perry Barlow

Any powerful technology has sauce for the goose and the gander... It's just an extension of humanity.

- John Perry Barlow

It's widely assumed that you can't compete with free, and that seems like a reasonable thing to think. But this has not been my experience.

- John Perry Barlow

I mean I look forward to the day when I can be Republican again.

- John Perry Barlow

The entertainment industry is as it always has been. It's a rough bunch of people and a rough industry.

- John Perry Barlow

Most scientific revelations happened after the pursuit of knowledge quit being secret and hermetic.

- John Perry Barlow

I'm still strongly opposed to antismoking laws, strongly opposed to any law that regulates personal behavior.

- John Perry Barlow

The stratosphere is my church.

- John Perry Barlow