The hypocrisy of cyberlibertarianism

I think this article touches upon something quite apparent in this modern age.

Talking to people with different opinions is considered tantamount to joining them. It is much better to point the finger of blame rather than suggest a way forward. The best way to criticise someone's argument is to take their words, explain what they really meant by that in a way that supports your argument, making the counterargument ridiculously easy.

What I don't understand is that how people have come to believe that arguing for the things that corporate interests fought for represents standing against those interests.

The thing that has it in a nutshell was this line

>The cumbersome copyright/patent process. Cumbersome to whom, exactly? This is always the move. The thing your industry would prefer not to deal with is reframed as an obsolete burden. Your refusal to do it is rebranded as innovation.

Cumbersome to everyone without a battery of lawyers. Copyright law has only become more powerful, and the patent process has become more a game of who can spend the most in court on this meritless claim. Disney didn't spend all those lobbying dollars extending copyright out of concern for the welfare of the people. They did it because they wanted to buy and own ideas and keep them for themselves for as long as possible.

I am all for robust well enforced regulation to help and protect people. I thing laws should be in the interest of society and the welfare of everyone more than it should for individuals. I don't think anyone advocating for personal freedoms is necessarily arguing against the interests of the group. There are people out there suggesting ways to correct the system through many many boring but required changes, some of them quite little, some of them large, one of the large ones is getting money out of politics.

I wonder if John Perry Barlow advocated for electoral reform to reign in lobbying? Because it didn't happen, and quite frankly arguing about the world that came to pass without that happening isn't going to represent anyone's plans for the future no matter

So what do we want to build? How should the better world be. Don't frame it as Not that!. Do you want the Revolution and Reign of Terror or the Declaration of Independence and a Constitution?

You can fight to build something better, don't confuse fighting to tear down as the same thing because you are angry and fighting about it makes you feel good about that.

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

Excellent text and Winner's "Cyberlibertarian Myths And The Prospects For Community" is a milestone.

Further reading:

1) Barbrook, Richard, and Andy Cameron. ‘The Californian Ideology’. Science as Culture 6, no. 1 (1996): 44–72.

2) Harvey, David. Spaces of Neoliberalization: Towards a Theory of Uneven Geographical Development. Franz Steiner Verlag, 2005.

3) Turner, Fred. From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism. University of Chicago Press, 2006.

4) Mirowski, Philip. Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown. Verso, 2013.

5) Brown, Wendy. In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West. The Wellek Library Lectures. Columbia University Press, 2019.

6) Greer, Tanner. ‘The Silicon Valley Canon: On the Paıdeía of the American Tech Elite’. The Scholar’s Stage, 21 August 2024. https://scholars-stage.org/the-silicon-valley-canon-on-the-p....

7) Stevens, Marthe, Steven R. Kraaijeveld, and Tamar Sharon. ‘Sphere Transgressions: Reflecting on the Risks of Big Tech Expansionism’. Information, Communication & Society 27, no. 15 (2024): 2587–99. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2024.2353782.

8) Lewis, Becca. ‘“Headed for Technofascism”: The Rightwing Roots of Silicon Valley’. Technology. The Guardian (London), 29 January 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ng-interactive/2025/j....

9) Bria, Francesca, and José Bautista. ‘The Authoritarian Stack’. Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) Future of Work, 8 November 2025. https://www.authoritarian-stack.info/.

10) Durand, Cédric, Morozov, Evgeny, and Watkins, Susan. ‘How Big Tech Became Part of the State’. Jacobin, 24 November 2025.

11) Spiers, Elizabeth. ‘The Anti-Intellectualism of Silicon Valley Elites’. Elizabeth Spiers, 1 April 2026. https://www.elizabethspiers.com/the-anti-intellectualism-of-....

Democracy seems to you like a meaningless buzzword because it's won so thoroughly. You're evaluating whether average citizens have independent influence, because the question of whether they have influence at all is completely uninteresting; who cares whether the majority can band together and vote a guy out of office if the "powers that be" control his replacement? But most guys for most of history did not agree that anyone should be allowed to vote them out of office!

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