Surveillance Valley on shortlist for British Army's Book of the Year

Got some nice professional news: just found out that the UK edition of Surveillance Valley is on the shortlist for the British Army Military Book of the Year. Apparently the winner will be announced later this year — sometime in October.

Might be surprising that a book so critical of the counterinsurgency, technocratic mindset that spawned the Internet would be picked by the British Army. But this only confirms my observation that mostly outside America are people (and especially people connected to power) actually willing to look honestly at the origins of the Internet. I think the reason is simple: To most of the world, the Internet is an American creation. It is a foreign technology. And that makes it easier for people to digest the dark truth about where this platform of supposed personal liberation came from.

—Yasha Levine

PS: I’m sure some paranoid asshole somewhere is cursing my name and accusing me of being a commie Russian agent sent here to undermine trust in a democratic technology and to destroy the American way of life. To them I say: “Thank you for the compliment!”