Stowe Boyd

Here in the United States we have been debating how many of the 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, up against some 100 Al Qaeda operatives and maybe 25,000 Taliban, should be withdrawn, when perhaps we should have been focused on another set of numbers: Cellphone penetration in Afghanistan was at 30 percent in 2009, is now at 50 percent and will be at 70 percent before long, so how do we ensure this dramatic trend empowers in positive rather than negative ways? Texting can be good counterterrorism.

(Oh, and let’s make a call to the Afghan president on one of those mobile phones that goes like this: “Mr Karzai, listen up dude, we’re going to cut the number of troops fast enough so you get the message we’re not bankrolling your fork-tongued ruses any longer.”)

Karzai too will pass. What won’t is that technology and international relations are becoming interchangeable topics. There are many more networks in our future than treaties.

I don’t think the world’s leaders have begun to grasp the implications of unstoppable connectivity. Some people are calling this the Age of Behavior: What I do affects what you do, more directly than ever before.

- Roger Cohen, Positive Disruption

I can’t find a citation of “The Age Of Behavior” anywhere, so Cohen must have heard it in private conversation. However, it sounds like he just means connectivity. I am pushing for the full vision of a liquid world: mobile, social, connected and webbed.

(via underpaidgenius)