A Legacy of Exposing the Trends of War with Dr. Roberto Gonzalez

One of the reasons I wanted to write the book about the cell phone network, the title is Connected, How a Mexican Village Built Its Own Cell Phone Network.

To me, it was important because at the time that I was writing it, about 2018 to 2020, all around me, and this has been going on for a long time, but my university, San Jose State University, is in the heart of Silicon Valley.

It's in downtown San Jose.

which is literally blocks away from the Adobe headquarters.

It's a short train ride away from the Googleplex, where the Google headquarters are.

Facebook is a little bit further of a drive, but it's in the same general area.

And many tech firms that are everyday recognizable words are situated in this place.

a lot of our students go and work for the industry and not just engineering and computer science students, but also social science students and business students and all the rest, because it's such a huge force.

And one of the things that that has emerged over time is this idea that Silicon Valley is the center of innovation and that anything new and interesting in technological terms is going to come out of the tech industry and Silicon Valley in particular.

And to me, the Oaxaca story was an important one to tell because it pushes back against that narrative and makes us ask fundamental questions about innovation and who's innovating and how.

And when we talk about advanced digital technologies, what are the different forms of innovation that can be used to make the most of these technologies.

So the story I was trying to tell was one that's related to the story that I think a lot of science and technology studies people are trying to tell.

And that's a story about innovation in other parts of the world, outside of Silicon Valley, outside of the United States, maybe in Kenya, maybe in Oaxaca, Mexico, maybe in Western Australia among Aboriginal peoples.

All of these communities, all of these different regions and countries are developing their own technologies, first of all.

But secondly, they're also adopting technologies from other places, including Silicon Valley, but using them in a way that benefits them, that benefits them locally.

And those are stories that unfortunately are not often told here in the United States.

And as an anthropologist interested in science and technology.

that was an important part of this piece to really push back against that silicon valley narrative and it's it's a really powerful force here i think it is throughout the country but especially here in northern california for decades now the industry has been lionized there's been this kind of sense of almost a magical aura around the industry and not a whole lot of critical thought about innovation or intelligence or just these really these fundamental concepts that so many people take for granted but that in my opinion are really problematic

is a necessary narrative and i'm glad that you're telling these stories and i'm grateful to learn these stories because i do think in my mind and in a lot of our minds silicon valley is this massive exporter of the technology and in a lot of ways, the decision makers.

And that directly connects to kind of what I want to talk about next to your book, War Virtually, and the way that those decisions are impacting our military and our militarization and vice versa.

I loved reading this book and it was an incredible summation of what you call kind of the hidden history of the ties between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon, between the U.S. war in Vietnam and now Our community is very familiar with the military-industrial complex, but you write a lot about the ways that these two places are interacting.

Can you give us a brief overview of the ways the companies in Silicon Valley are contracted to contribute to virtual warfare? And who are the players developing those military technologies today?