The advent of personal computers and modems, coupled with the immense penetration of the telephone network, threatens the hegemony of the government/corporate paradigm by empowering millions of individuals. That's been technically true for quite some time, but only in the last few years has that particular river of darkness come close enough to my door to cause me concern. I have a hard time with the idea that the particular species of vegetable in my pocket could, if found by the wrong person, land me in jail and lose me my property. It is only now, three dozen years into an unbelievably misery-free existence on Earth, that I have acquired even a glimmer of understanding of the struggles faced by southern blacks, my ancestors in Europe, and countless others throughout history. I suspect 'freedom' has always been for the elites of America, since (for example) the Emancipation Proclamation left enough work undone that a generation of well-heeled and well-educated white people found it necessary to head into the American South a century later to face the axe-handles and fire hoses of sheriffs and governors in an effort to make real what America's laws had only made 'official.' Each new wave of technology has pushed at the boundaries of liberty and tugged at the coattails of authority by enabling more rapid and comprehensive dissemination of information and thereby throwing more light on the workings of government, business, etc. The United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights were created in the era of hand-set type, before the telegraph or the telephone or the broadcast media.

Space may be the final frontier, but there's at least one more earthbound arena for the social-political-economic-technological struggle to take place before we need to worry about Martian mineral rights and the exploitation of Betelgeusian guest workers.

Mitch Kapor & John Barlow Interview by David Gans with Ken Goffman August 5, 1990

Macintosh roms john barlow