Say goodbye to the information age: it’s all about reputation now

Gloria Origgi an Italian philosopher and tenured senior researcher at CNRS discusses the paradigm shift in our relationship to knowledge.

• From the ‘information age’, we are moving towards the ‘reputation age’.

• Information will have value only if it is already filtered, evaluated and commented upon by others.

• We are reliant on what are the inevitably biased judgments of other people, most of whom we do not know.

• Be competent at reconstructing the reputational path of the piece of information in question.

• Evaluate the intentions of those who circulated it.

• Figure out the agendas of those authorities that leant it credibility.

Question to ask when accepting or rejecting new information

• Where does it come from?
• Does the source have a good reputation?
• Who are the authorities who believe it?
• What are my reasons for deferring to these authorities?