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John Perry's Open Road

  • INTERVIEWED BY:

    Team BNE

  • INTERVIEW LOCATION:

    Mill Valley, CA

  • AIRED ON:

    Public Television: Season Nine

JOHN PERRY BARLOW

Co-founder
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

“If you think of getting lost as a positive thing, you open yourself up to possibilities you wouldn't have otherwise considered”

INTERESTS:

Non-Profit Organizations Technology

THEMES DISCUSSED:

Community Exploration Fear Opportunity Chance Values Courage Choices Regrets

TAGS:

being lost, computers, dead, dead heads, evolution, family, farming, grateful, India, internet, Joseph Campbell, music, plan, poetry, ranching, songwriter, songwriting, trajectory, travel, writing

BIOGRAPHY:

What do cattle-ranching, internet activism, and the Grateful Dead have in common? Actually, it's not a question of WHAT these themes have in common, but WHO? And the answer is: John Perry Barlow. This free-thinking, philosophizing Renaissance man has traveled down many-a Roads in life, renouncing the conventional route at every turn. His resume consists of farm-managing in Wyoming, writing lyrics for one of the most iconoclastic bands that ever existed, and co-founding the leading nonprofit organization dedicated to digital freedom. But you could say that John’s true occupation has always been “Professional Non-Conformist.” An inveterate libertine, John was one of the first users of the internet back in the 80s, and he immediately recognized the potential it posed for hampering personal freedom of expression. Fearing that this vast digital community would someday be censored and suppressed by government entities, John co-created the Electronic Frontier Foundation to keep free speech online and limit government access to private data. Today, he continues to write, muse about life, and rant on the internet (which he can do freely, thanks to organizations like his own!)

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