By Gene Ogorodov
On the Saturday, June 1, 2013 the New York Times published a book review by Julian Assange of The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations, and Business by Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen. Assange correctly denounces this technocratic manifesto as a sketch of an Orwellian dystopia that the American People and the World would be well advised to avoid.
On the Saturday, June 1, 2013 the New York Times published a book review by Julian Assange of The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations, and Business by Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen. Assange correctly denounces this technocratic manifesto as a sketch of an Orwellian dystopia that the American People and the World would be well advised to avoid.
Far from bringing about unimaginable freedoms and more direct communication with government, a world where every scrap of data from every person is stored in some giant cloud sitting in Google's headquarters in Silicon Valley or being run through countless programs at the NSA can only lead one to "imagine Washington-backed Google Glasses strapped onto vacant human faces — forever."
However, Assange, Schmidt, and Cohen ignore the elephant in the room — Washington can only use High Tech magic to spy on its people so long as America has a High Tech industry. The edge that Silicon Valley enjoyed two decades ago is fast slipping into memory.
Strangled by antiquated patent and copyright laws, expensive poor quality American education, lethargic reforms, and a system that overtly favors wealth and power over innovation the American High Tech industry is losing ground to every major competitor in the world. While the Russians, Chinese, and Indians invest in teaching grade school children computer programming and subsidize creative competition, the US turns a blind eye to Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Yahoo stamping out smaller competitors and manipulating the market to keep the latest innovations away from consumers to maximize their profits.
For Schmidt and Cohen to pretend that the US is going to dominate the world through an innovative and technological advantage that it both lacks and has intentionally avoided is beyond optimistic. To describe them as incompetent dipshits would be far too complementary. Their hubristic lack of self reflection it magnificent in its ubiquitousness.
The United States has already lost its advantage in electronic communications. Now, all the country can do is amend its byzantine laws in a last ditch effort to keep pace with the rest of the world. If the US wants to lead the world in some field it must re-examine the possibilities and allocate the resources to develop another sector.
However, I can say with absolute assurance that this country won't. The unjustifiable self aggrandizement that Schmidt and Cohen spatter across every page of their expose on digital tyranny is connatural to every square inch of Washington, D.C. When one looks at American political life today one cannot but see, "The hand that mocked/ And the Heart the fed."
Lighting from one political catastrophe to the next, the power brokers in Washington have convinced themselves that tout est bon dans le couchon. Unfortunately, pigs like geese that lay golden eggs can succumb to stupidity. There are major reforms that need to be implemented if the United States
is going to continue to have its current standing in the world.
[Julian Assange's article on the NY Times can be found here.]
Gene Ogorodov
