Julian Assange Says Google's Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen Are "Witch Doctors" 253
An anonymous reader writes "The Times publishes Assange's takedown of Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen. From the article: 'New Digital Age is a startlingly clear and provocative blueprint for technocratic imperialism, from two of its leading witch doctors, Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen, who construct a new idiom for United States global power in the 21st century. This idiom reflects the ever closer union between the State Department and Silicon Valley, as personified by Mr. Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, and Mr. Cohen, a former adviser to Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton who is now director of Google Ideas.'"
Re:Not using google anymore. (Score:5, Interesting)
For what it's worth, Schmidt has virtually disappeared inside Google (I work there). Once Larry took over Eric's influence - never actually high at the best of times - appears to have dropped to somewhere near absolute zero. He rarely appears in internal events anymore and doesn't seem to have any impact on priorities or staffing decisions. He was always something of a caretaker leader even in the years he was CEO ... the real drive and product direction was always coming from back seat driving by L&S.
Assange's article makes him sound like he's been locked up in that embassy for too long, to be honest. Schmidt and Cohen may well have an unhealthily close relationship with the US Government, but as neither of them are in charge any more it makes little difference. The idea that "Google is trying to position itself as America's geopolitical visionary" is silly. I can't imagine anything that must interest Page less than geopolitics.
Re:who cares (Score:5, Interesting)
NO, sorry, you should RTFA. He's quite a lot more, and a lot different from that. Just for starters;
"The book proselytizes the role of technology in reshaping the world’s people and nations into likenesses of the world’s dominant superpower, whether they want to be reshaped or not. "
It's an interesting read. Wish I had read the book myself first. Assange's knee-jerk reaction is to presume the worst, and hidden, motives for anything related to American interests and motives. In this way he's like Chomsky, and the problem with this is, he's liable to be right at least every so often (e.g. broken clocks being right twice a day). That is annoying. But it makes every individual argument less convincing as there's no evidence it's actually a nuanced or considered position.
Also, I don't believe the word 'banal' means what he thinks it does.
Re:who cares (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:who cares (Score:3, Interesting)
Let me cap my argument by reminding that Assange's whole enterprise (Wikileaks) depends absolutely on the kinds of technology produced by Google and similar companies. Before the internet, Julian Assange would be some guy somewhere Xeroxing small runs of a paranoid zine. It's very likely that without Google and its peers, no one would know about Julian Assange or Wikileaks.
Re:who cares (Score:5, Interesting)