Do reputation dynamics really lead to good behaviour?

Just writing what started out as a long post on the direction of media and has become a series that I’ll start posting in the next few days.  In the mean time, one thought that doesn’t fit there but that kept popping up when I was writing is about another trend I wonder about with regards to where it’ll go…

I noticed this article in New Scientist about how the Internet will push some sort of “reputation” economics which will push people towards being nicer, better citizens of the planets, and ultimately saving the world - all because they’ll want to avoid the stigma of not being those things.

I see something different happening.



I think the flaw in the New Scientist article isn’t with the entire line of thinking, it’s with the apparent inability of the author, or those making the argument he’s recounting, to recognize they are basing their case on the explicit assumption that those reputation dynamics will be baised towards positions they favour.

My concern is that reputation systems, if they take hold in the way described, descend into participants being cowed into agreeing with the bullies.  Mob rule.  They only work for the better if the established norm was good behaviour, surely.  However, in the specific case of saving the planet, in Texas being anti-environmental is a strong position and comes with a positive reputation dynamic.  Being a tree-hugging hippy is far worse.

I worry that social networks are leading us down this sort of “reputation dynamics” path.  I look at people going through the same stuff we all did in their teens and twenties but doing so in such public ways their poor choices will follow them around for a long time to come.  The fear is that the Internet and social networks turn everyone’s existence to that of living in a small town, where everyone remembers every mistake you ever made and “reputation” takes on far less positive touchy feeling connotations.  It’s a fear of the powerful inertia of the mediocre.

Now this could lead to people changing - first individually and eventually society as a whole - to being honest and open.  All of us learning to accept the wonderful diversity that makes up life’s rich pageant.
I don’t really know which way it’ll go.  I don’t think anyone does - or rather I think anyone who tells me that they do know how this will evolve is over-matching on patterns at best, and talking out of their rear at worst.  Plus I think it’s going to take quite a while to work it’s way out - a lot of these things are so new that there’s not yet been a critical mass of experience with people during multiple different phases in their lives, while those lives have been so publicly on show.

As Baudrillard warned we are not really living our lives anymore, we are acting out in sort of simulacrum thereof.  We merely simulate real life, parody it, self-limiting our own agency (yeah, I know kinda recursive right? That’s me not Baudrillard).  We try to play out a life we think is what our audience expects of us.  Of course to do this we are forced to rely on our non-existent ability to read their minds and predict their thoughts, emotions and actions.  But that’s what we do when we act out of the desire to “protect” our reputations.  We have to assume we can predict how others will think or feel as a result of their interpretations of our actions and their guess at our intentions.

Still, it would be nice if people realised that now they have a paper trail and they cannot keep running away from the consequences of their actions, and that led to an overall improvement in decision making and thinking about their impact on others and on society as a whole.  Remember - gossip and reputations may be drawbacks of small towns, but it’s awfully nice when everyone says hello and smiles at every opportunity :-)