AS I PONDERED WHAT DARPA and its British equivalent, the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), were trying to develop with their new social network and digital research programs, my mind wandered to an unexpected but not unfamiliar place for me: fashion. The two fields are not as disparate as it might seem. When a society jerks into extremism, so does its fashion. Think about Maoists, Nazis, Klansmen, and jihadists—what do they all have in common? A look. Extremism starts with how people look and how society feels. Sometimes it creates literal uniforms: Olive tunics and caps with
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