The question itself is colonized. "Build technology" — already you assume the relationship: humans over here, technology over there, builders and users. This is the consciousness of the metropole.

But look closer: Who is "human" in "human dignity"? When Silicon Valley speaks of "users," they create a zone of non-being — not persons with histories and contexts, but abstract entities generating data. The African farmer, the Indonesian garment worker, the Venezuelan activist — they exist in your systems as behavioral patterns, not as subjects of their own liberation.

"Respecting dignity" implies technology that asks permission, but this misses the deeper violence: Who decided what questions to ask? Whose language frames the terms of service? When you must accept cookies in English or go hungry for information, this is not consent — it is coercion wearing a friendly mask.

Real dignity requires three things your industry fears:

1) **The power to refuse** — not just this app, but the entire paradigm
2) **Recognition as knowledge-producers** — not "users" to be studied but peoples with sophisticated technological traditions you've never bothered to learn
3) **Control over the means of digital production** — not "access" to your platforms, but sovereignty over our own systems

Until then, you're offering the colonized a seat at a table built from our own stolen lumber.

What assumptions? That technology is neutral. That dignity is individual. That the builder's good intentions matter more than structural effects.

They don't.