Schmidt and Cohen are at their most shallow in their discussion of the radicalization of youth (which was Cohen’s bailiwick at the State Department before he discovered the glorified world of futurology). “Reaching disaffected youth through their mobile phones is the best possible goal we can have,” they announce, in the arrogant voice of technocrats, of corporate moguls who conflate the interests of their business with the interests of the world. Mobile phones! And who is “we”? Google? The United States?
The counter-radicalization strategy that Schmidt and Cohen proceed to articulate reads like a parody from
The Onion. Apparently, the proper way to tame all those Yemeni kids angry about the drone strikes is to distract them with—ready?—cute cats on YouTube and Angry Birds on their phones. “The most potent antiradicalization strategy will focus on the new virtual space, providing young people with content-rich alternatives and distractions that keep them from pursuing extremism as a last resort,” write Cohen and Schmidt. For—since the technology industry
" produces video games, social networks, and mobile phones—it has perhaps the best understanding of how to distract young people of any sector, and kids are the very demographic being recruited by terror groups. The companies may not understand the nuances of radicalization or the differences between specific populations in key theaters like Yemen, Iraq, and Somalia, but they do understand young people and the toys they like to play with. Only when we have their attention can we hope to win their hearts and minds."
Note the substitution of terms here: “we” are no longer interested in creating a “sea of newly informed listeners” and providing the Yemeni kids with “facts.” Instead, “we” are trying to distract them with the kinds of trivia that Silicon Valley knows how to produce all too well. Unfortunately, Cohen and Schmidt do not discuss the story of Josh Begley, the NYU student who last year built an app that tracked American drone strikes and submitted it to Apple—only to see his app rejected. This little anecdote says more about the role of Silicon Valley in American foreign policy than all the futurology between the covers of this ridiculous book.
When someone writes a sentence that begins “if the causes of radicalization are similar everywhere,” you know that their understanding of politics is at best rudimentary. Do Cohen and Schmidt really believe that all these young people are alienated because they are simply misinformed? That their grievances can be cured with statistics? That “we” can just change this by finding the digital equivalent of “dropping propaganda flyers from an airplane”? That if we can just get those young people to talk to each other, they will figure it all out? “Outsiders don’t have to develop the content; they just need to create the space,” Schmidt and Cohen smugly remark. “Wire up the city, give people basic tools and they’ll do most of the work themselves.” Now it’s clear: the voice of the “we” is actually the voice of venture capital.
Originally Posted by Bill Moore
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