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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

#81

Post by bad_good_guy »

misterbowfinger wrote: post #41

This reminds me of a story from my AI professor in college. Not exactly his words, but it was something like... "You have to do all of your work on your own. But let's say you decided to copy someone else's homework. Well, to make sure you don't just plagiarize it, you're going to start changing variables and function names, and maybe alter the structure of the code altogether. As it turns out, the more you alter the…

I may not have grasped the intended point to be made from your quote, but I don't see how changed variables names or functions or whatever results in the understanding of the logic.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#82

Post by JumpCrisscross »

sithadmin wrote: post #80
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

I'm sorry, but that's a dumb response. There's value in producing a work that passes muster as an acceptable paper to turn in for an assignment. But there isn't a pre-existing reference good that has a defined market value to counterfeit.

> there isn't a pre-existing reference good that has a defined market value to counterfeit

By your rationalization, it's impossible to counterfeit a painting.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#83

Post by sithadmin »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #65
sithadmin wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm sorry, what academic code? What which binds students at schools that I didn't attend and have no contractual relationship with? Lol, okay.

>potentially the law

Yeah, show me the law that tells me it's illegal to write something for someone else. Thanks.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#84

Post by KaoruAoiShiho »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #77

I get the outrage over cheating, and it really bothered me in classes that graded on a curve that the cheaters would really adversely impact the people who didn't. But there is a meta question here, why does a youtube "star" even succumb to the idea of advertising/promoting a cheating product, when doing so might put all of their Youtube revenue at risk? Maybe it is because they get crap Youtube revenue and 'several…

"Several hundred dollars" heh.

These deals are worth at least 5 digits, sometimes 6.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#85

Post by s17n »

sithadmin wrote: post #78
s17n wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, your approach to reasoning is bad. You're trying to apply a construct from formal logic and apply it to situations that defy description in formal logic. You can't reduce aesthetic and emotional responses into syllogism.

Often, the nuances of the real world defy simple syllogistic reasoning. This isn't one of those times.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#86

Post by ChuckMcM »

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #84
ChuckMcM wrote: post #77

I get the outrage over cheating, and it really bothered me in classes that graded on a curve that the cheaters would really adversely impact the people who didn't. But there is a meta question here, why does a youtube "star" even succumb to the idea of advertising/promoting a cheating product, when doing so might put all of their Youtube revenue at risk? Maybe it is because they get crap Youtube revenue and 'several…

"Several hundred dollars" heh. These deals are worth at least 5 digits, sometimes 6.

From the article: *"Channels with tens of thousands of subscribers can be offered hundreds of dollars for each advert."

Where do you get the 10's of thousands of dollars figure from?

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#87

Post by at-fates-hands »

As someone who worked as a grad student in a large Midwestern university, these "paper writing" services have been around since the dawn of time.

As a grad student, it was hilariously easy to spot these for several reasons. One, the writing style is usually inconsistent. You'll have a student writing at about a high school level suddenly start using huge $5 words? Highly unlikely. Or a student who writes almost exclusively on one topic (our school had a ton of ag engineers so anything farm related was a favorite) and then suddenly is interested in the micro-economics of island based economies? Yeah, that's a big rad flag too.

As a University, our golden rule to clamp down on these was to require all local sources, no internet sources, and have the ability to go back and look at other papers the student has turned in for comparison. We'd normally bust students, then give them two or three days to turn in a paper they actually wrote with no penalties.

Most of these situations were just due to being lazy and not caring (I was in the Sociology department) so it wasn't so much about cheating as it was just getting the students to think critically and write better.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#89

Post by openasocket »

ttoinou wrote: post #75
openasocket wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought your second sentence was meant to be a justification of the first. So what is your justification for why what he did is morally right?

The students lied to their professor, he just sold them the text so I don't see any wrong doing on his part. Can you justify why it would be bad to ghostwrite ?

Cheating is immoral. Helping someone do something immoral is also immoral. Therefore, what he is doing is wrong.

Do you disagree with the first sentence or the second?

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#90

Post by JoeAltmaier »

openasocket wrote: post #89
ttoinou wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The students lied to their professor, he just sold them the text so I don't see any wrong doing on his part. Can you justify why it would be bad to ghostwrite ?

Cheating is immoral. Helping someone do something immoral is also immoral. Therefore, what he is doing is wrong. Do you disagree with the first sentence or the second?

There can be shades of everything of course. If a cheater uses a legitimate ghostwriting service, maybe doesn't rise to the level of 'immoral'.

But that might not be the case here?

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