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YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

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Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#61

Post by JumpCrisscross »

baldfat wrote: post #2

As a former University Librarian and Residents Director A) Cheating happens more then it doesn't. In a Philosophy Class which had a dozen seniors all cheated in Spring Semester. Professor flunked them all by giving them an F and told them they were lucky they weren't expelled. President Graduated the students and fired the professor. Then on appeal the President was fired and the Professor rehired with a raise. B) Sh…

> Professor flunked them all by giving them an F and told them they were lucky they weren't expelled

My university flunked cheaters with an X instead of an F, a mark that carried onto their official transcript. By the time kids are in college, I think it's fair to be so final with judgements in respect of integrity.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#62

Post by eanzenberg »

majormajor wrote: post #28
baldfat wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A) Cheating hurts everyone. > is nothing compared to the massive grade inflation one sees at top universities in the US B) Because student at top universities (For the most part) have higher GPA in high school and a higher SAT scores already. Unless your morals require a strict bell curve of 10% F, 10% A, 40% C and 40% B?

Do you want to be able to identify the best of the best? That's the fundamental question here - if that's a useful thing for society, to have credentials that distinguish beyond "did well in high school," then you don't want grade inflation. And if you don't - you could make a solid case that the extreme ends of those skills may not be that useful in general outside of academia - than do Harvard et al need nearly as…

Peer group matters. Being bottom 10% at Harvard is quite different than being bottom 10% at Boston University (no offense).

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#63

Post by sithadmin »

reaperducer wrote: post #52
sithadmin wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone that used to write papers for cheaters: it doesn't bother me much, because higher education is already eating itself alive in the US. The impact of a few students paying others to author papers on their behalf is nothing compared to the massive grade inflation one sees at top universities in the US.

> it doesn't bother me much, because higher education is already eating itself alive in the US. The ship is sinking already, so it's OK if I set fire to it.

Depends on the ship and its contents.

The 'ship' that is the US higher education system doesn't seem to hold much value, imo. Set it ablaze.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#64

Post by ribosometronome »

sithadmin wrote: post #51
wpietri wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, really? By that logic, since you're eventually going to die, probably horribly, then you'll be ok with me coming by and taking out one of your kidneys. Or, as in The Big Lebowski, lopping off a toe. Those are as nothing to a death from a brain tumor, after all.

No, it's really quite different. You take my kidney? That's going to have a direct impact on my quality of life. It'll hurt for a while. I won't be able to drink as much and I'll have to be careful about my diet. I write a paper for someone else to turn in as their own? In a situation where I know more or less nothing about the client? The outcomes are both unknowable and in most cases impossible to tie to my act dir…

Why would someone pay you to write an assignment for them if the outcome of you writing the paper is so unknowable?

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#65

Post by JumpCrisscross »

sithadmin wrote: post #51
wpietri wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, really? By that logic, since you're eventually going to die, probably horribly, then you'll be ok with me coming by and taking out one of your kidneys. Or, as in The Big Lebowski, lopping off a toe. Those are as nothing to a death from a brain tumor, after all.

No, it's really quite different. You take my kidney? That's going to have a direct impact on my quality of life. It'll hurt for a while. I won't be able to drink as much and I'll have to be careful about my diet. I write a paper for someone else to turn in as their own? In a situation where I know more or less nothing about the client? The outcomes are both unknowable and in most cases impossible to tie to my act dir…

> The outcomes are both unknowable and in most cases impossible to tie to my act directly

You breached academic code and, if money was exchanged, potentially the law. Given you wrote the paper and received the money, the act is quite simple to tie to you.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#66

Post by sithadmin »

badlucklottery wrote: post #33
sithadmin wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I don't really see meaningful value in degrees anyway, so I don't really buy that line of argumentation. My only reason for pursuing graduate studies was to pass the barrier to entry for an academic position, but I gave up on that and went into consulting.

>I don't really see meaningful value in degrees anyway Do you see how that's a rationalization strategy? Maybe you honestly don't but discounting the value of the degree to zero makes your actions victimless. But, if the value is non-zero, damage has been done.

Rationalization? No. There's no rationalization going on in my head. I just don't care.

But if people are going to argue about it? Sure, I'll raise a counterpoint.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#67

Post by JumpCrisscross »

sithadmin wrote: post #54
lr4444lr wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're a lesser purveyor of counterfeit goods, but you're still a counterfeiter.

Counterfeit implies a copy of something that has a defined market value. Academic papers don't. What I did is closer to a tailor creating a suit for someone from scratch, rather than someone operating a sweatshop to produce fake suits from some known brand.

> Academic papers don't

Did you get paid for them? If yes, they had a market value. That's the most basic definition of a market--a buyer and seller negotiating and agreeing upon a price for a good or a service. "Market" doesn't mean commodity. Hopefully you weren't writing anyone's economics papers...

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#68

Post by s17n »

jrhurst wrote: post #53
s17n wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like saying "stealing isn't morally wrong - inventory control is retailers' responsibility and therefore it's their job to reduce loss".

I have a feeling that people who make misterbowlfingers argument would say that your analogy is also valid.

The point is that since similar statements could be constructed about anything ("murder isn't wrong, it's the job of police to prevent me from killing people"), it's a dumb argument, regardless of how you feel about cheating or stealing.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#69

Post by ocdtrekkie »

sithadmin wrote: post #59
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always intriguing to see how people justify grossly unethical behavior to themselves. I don't think the issue is your disservice to higher education in general or grade systems as a whole, but to your customers, who never receive the education they were meant to, and that they paid for.

Many of my customers could barely compose a cogent e-mail. In most cases I was left wondering how they could possibly be admitted at whatever school they were at. Sure, my assessment of my customers was limited to a few back-and-forth e-mail exchanges, but I was usually left with the impression that they were enrolled at a school they didn't 'deserve' to be at. Further, you're just completely discounting the agency o…

I presume they ended up enrolled in that school because there was always a way that money got them out of learning the hard lesson of failure. Case in point that they could pay someone to write papers for them.

Failure is arguably an important part of the process of learning.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#70

Post by sithadmin »

jrhurst wrote: post #53
s17n wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like saying "stealing isn't morally wrong - inventory control is retailers' responsibility and therefore it's their job to reduce loss".

I have a feeling that people who make misterbowlfingers argument would say that your analogy is also valid.

It is a valid analogy, because it confronts reality: there are a huge number of persons with economic incentives to commit immoral or illegal acts, and the state doesn't have the capability to intervene in a majority of cases.

I mean, hell, look at SOX. Look at the various anti-money laundering requirements that banks are subject to. The de jure approach here in the world today is to force the corporation to police its own staff and customers.

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