I always thought Russell's paradox was basically just a formulation of the Liar's paradox in the language of set theory at the time, and that this was no secret. Its significance was not that it shed light on fundamental questions of philosophy, but rather that it poked a hole in what was supposed to be a foundation to all of mathematics.

The author claims this is not the liars paradox but the barbers paradox. These are different paradoxes.

Sure, with enough manipulation you can bring this down to the liars paradox, but that is the case for every paradox.

I read it again. The author does say that it strikes her as a version of the barber's paradox, but also says that most critics invoke the liar's paradox. I don't think she's shown clearly which it's closer to, but your point is taken.

Martin Gardner points out that there is some ambiguity as to whether the traveler's statement is taken as a statement of intent, or a prediction of future events. In the former case, there is no paradox: the judges are not obligated to realize the intent, so they can set the traveler free without creating a contradiction. Cervantes is unavoidably vague about how travelers' statements are verified.

> Sure, with enough manipulation you can bring this down to the liars paradox, but that is the case for every paradox.

As @nwjtkjn said, I'm pretty sure the Barber's paradox was literally just Russel's conscious and direct attempt to reframe the Liar's paradox in the context of set theory.

I would be willing to wager that Russel himself would have accepted the idea that his Barber's paradox was basically just the Liar's paradox. It's not as if these are two random unrelated paradoxes here.