Sadly, many disagree with that definition because they do not correctly understand what anarchism stands / aims for. I will not reiterate the earlier discussion about chaos and order. However, anarchism vouches for a stateless society, without violence. It does not vouch for criminality, not for violence.


Actually, they did change some things. If not Barlow itself, then we can talk about John Gilmore, a co-founder of EFF and also a co-founder of Cypherpunks group. I will not enter into details here about what Cypherpunks for this world, as this is a part of another subject. To say the leasr, they dedicated their life for writing software for offering people privacy and anonimity. And they did it for free.

But we can debate about John Gilmore, as he was a colleague of Barlow -- just to let you know that he (Gilmore) and through him EFF as well actually changed something.


So excepting the fact that he ridiculed the entire NSA, he also made them step back and, most important, he managed to offer to people the precious manuscripts of William Friedman.

Should I also mention that soon after launch Steve Wozniak became also a part of EFF?

And, among other remarkable achievements, EFF also changed history after the process of Bernstein v. United States. Bernstein, a young coder back then, was not allowed to publish his code of an ecryption system as cryptography, back then, was forbidden by the law for weapons and munitions. If people would tattoo such code on their skin or if they would wear t-shirts with such code lines printed on their shirts, the shirts (respectively, their bodies) were considered munitions and they were not allowed to fly over US borders. Bernstein sued the State and, being represented by EFF, managed to win the trial.

Of course, there are many other victories achieved by EFF during time, especially when we talk about the collaboration with Cypherpunks, but I think that even only those two examples suffice for proving that they actually did something! And, in part, they did change the system! To say the least, without this trial, maybe even nowadays the export of cryptographic materials would be banned in US.

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Actually (at least, as far as I know), only two electronic private coins were launched before Bitcoin. One was Chaum's Cyberbuck (attention: his company was DigiCash, while the coin was named Cyberbuck) and the other one was e-Gold. All the other proposal which circulated back then (Bit Gold, b-money) were never implemented. They remained just at the stage of proposals...

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This is so true! No matter that his coins did not succeed, his visions, his code, his remarkable writings helped so many coders. This is why he was also named as the father of Cypherpunks.


It is what it is, I guess... He could have been surrounded by incompetents too, which blurred his vision... who knows... It could have been also a complex of all the reasons you stated... However, it's important that he did not give up. He is still active, even at his age and we can only wait to see what magic he will reveal in the future

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I remember how "democratic voting" took course also in Ceausescu era... it was so similar...


I lived, in part, what you wrote above. Although I was very young when Ceausescu was taken down I still remember many things which occurred during his regime. It is difficult to explain in words. Just a small example, all food was rationalized. And, depending of the number of the family members, you were allowed to buy only a (small) quantity of milk, flour, corn flour, oil, sugar or meat each month. Now excepting the fact that what you were allowed to was a very small amount, you also had to do extreme efforts for obtaining the aliments. For example, if a grocery store was opening at 7am, you had to go there since 1-2am to make sure you get a good spot in the queue, thus at 7am when the store would open you would have the chance to obtain your milk or oil or what you needed. If you joined the queue at 6am you had no chance to buy anything as until your place would come to enter the store everything was finished already. During the nights people used to make huge queues at each such store, sometimes even more than 100 people forming a queue...

Meat was even scarcer than anything. And I am not talking about fish, beef or some delicacy. People mostly had the right to buy chicken and pork meat and the chickens from the stores were always so small that they looked like they starved a month before being brought to the stores.

Annually, each citizen was entitled to 60-70 kg of meat and meat derivatives, 8-10 kg of fish and fish derivatives, 210-230 liters of milk or milk derivatives, 260-280 eggs, 16 kg of fats (oil, butter etc.), 170-180 kg of vegetables, 70-90 kg of potatoes, 65-95 kg of fruits, 22-26 kg of sugar. All products were stamped on a paper card or on a sort of register book, for making sure the citizen would not buy more than he was entitled to. The shopping could be made only once per month and only at the grocery shop from the neighborhood. In 1984 the portions were reduced even more: 39 kg of meat, 78 liters of milk, 166 kg of vegetables. The oil and the sugar could be bought also just once per month and only 1 kg of each of them.

Those caught with shenanigans regarding food (buying more, buying from illegal sources etc.) could face 6month - 5 years of jail.


Register for buying bread in Ceausescu era


Register for buying sugar in Ceausescu era


Register for buying cloths (yes, even cloths were rationalized) in Ceausescu era


The huge monthly queues at grocery shop in Ceausescu era (PIINE means BREAD and ALIMENTARA means GROCERY SHOP)