( Seven minute read)

While the dignity of the human person is recognised  to be “the foundation of all the other principles the implications of recognizing and respecting it in our social relations, especially in relation to the changing and contingent conditions of the material environment in which we now live is eroding at a alarmingly pace.

Although the advancement of digital technologies may offer many possibilities for promoting human dignity, it also increasingly tends toward the creation of a world in which exploitation, exclusion, and violence grow, extending even to the point of harming the dignity of the human person.

This includes “fake news and slander”; incitement of violence and cyberbullying; an environment of “loneliness, manipulation, [and] exploitation”; “the risk of addiction”; and the “gradual loss of contact with concrete reality, blocking the development of authentic interpersonal relationships.

Social media and the digital information ecosystem generally have altered the daily realities of our lives and our communities, of societal dynamics and political authority, of identity and self. 

We are in an era where the meaning and value of what it is to be human is being questioned and threatened in absolutely unprecedented ways, and the understandings of dignity gained in a radically different time are not by themselves sufficient to ground an adequate response. 

Take moral dignity, or social dignity which are existential dignitaries they can be gained or lost, subjectively felt or not, realized or damaged by the ways in which we exercise our own freedom or by the conditions of life imposed upon us.

Ontological dignity which is concerned with what is true or real.

It is indelible and remains valid beyond any circumstances in which the person may find themselves.

Crucially, our understanding of human dignity is not developed only within the mind as an idea but through our experience more broadly, by being enacted, by the practices of “doing” dignity and observing human reality.

Today, in the emerging digital age, this includes observing and reflecting on human dignity in careful, attentive engagement with the ways in which we can see human beings either flourishing or being oppressed and degraded by the new technologies that pervade their lives.

There is no shortage today of situations in which the encounter between human beings and technology is palpably, visibly, not conducive to their wellbeing.,

Take the two current wars, Russia/Ukraine and the Israel/USA/ IRAN.

In international law aggression  is generally understood as when a country either starts a war against another country or engages in actions that drive another country to go to war.

It is grounded in the idea that attacking another country goes against the peace and security and victim states’ own sovereignty and right to self-determination.

We only have one life to live and it is not possible to bury oneself in the shallow grave of technology.

So what can we do?

If we want a world of living, not just a world of existences, we must collectively declare war on all financial instruments that are more concern with unsustainable growth, or make them contribute to a world sustainable fund

A perpetual fund to safeguard our values and not inequality.

This could be achieved by placing a 0.001% commission on all financial transactions such as Sovereignty wealth funds, Hedge Funds, Foreign Exchange transactions over a million, on all stocks exchange transactions over a million, on all lottery wins over half a million, on all total roads/ bridges/ tunnels, on all sports events attractions with an attendance of 50.000, on all advertising, on all profits seeking algorithms.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

Contact: bobdillon33@gmail.com

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