Homo Numericus: The coming 'civilization'

As the industrial revolution did in the past, the digital revolution is creating a new economy and a new sensibility, bringing about a radical revaluation of society and its representations. While obsessed with the search for an efficient management of human relations, the new digital capitalism gives rise to an irrational and impulsive Homo numericus prone to an array of addictive behaviours and subjected to intensive forms of surveillance. Far from producing a new agora, social media produce a radicalization of public debate in which hate-filled speech directed against adversaries becomes the norm.

But these outcomes are not inevitable. The digital revolution also offers an exciting path, one that leads to a world in which everyone deserves to be listened to and respected. It explores a new way of living that is historically unprecedented, that of a society based neither on individualism nor on the hierarchical model of earlier civilizations. Are we able to seize the new opportunities opened up by the digital revolution without succumbing to its dark side?