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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

#201

Post by basementcat »

cmplxconjugate wrote: post #197
basementcat wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When visiting a university in China, I saw a prominently displayed list of students who were caught cheating in the most recent term. I haven't yet seen such lists in American universities.

My partner is finishing their masters in China currently (native Chinese). The levels of cheating that go on within her course alone are mind boggling: 1. Girls asking their would-be boyfriends to complete their essays and attend modules. 2. Purchasing completed essays from Taobao. 3. Copy pasting others work from Baidu with only name alterations. 4. Paying exam setters for exam questions. Of course this is anecdotal…

I've observed all of these in the USA. I suspect this sort of thing transcends cultural and international borders.

Possibly amusing anecdote: I know a smart* technical colleague who wrote at least 2 PhD dissertations for former romantic partners. As in "best dissertation award" + famous people on committee + etc , etc. The former romantic partners went on to have distinguished careers in management.

* Depending on your point of view.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#202

Post by jacquesm »

cmplxconjugate wrote: post #197
basementcat wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When visiting a university in China, I saw a prominently displayed list of students who were caught cheating in the most recent term. I haven't yet seen such lists in American universities.

My partner is finishing their masters in China currently (native Chinese). The levels of cheating that go on within her course alone are mind boggling: 1. Girls asking their would-be boyfriends to complete their essays and attend modules. 2. Purchasing completed essays from Taobao. 3. Copy pasting others work from Baidu with only name alterations. 4. Paying exam setters for exam questions. Of course this is anecdotal…

That's the exact same thing that happened to the cycling sport.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#203

Post by openasocket »

ttoinou wrote: post #149
openasocket wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I'm not sure what cheating means here, it is about lying to professors. Helping someone do something immoral is also immoral. Depends on the circumstances

Cheating means to use dishonesty to receive something you do not deserve. Like stealing the answer key to a test and just copying the answers blindly instead of learning the material. Having someone else write as essay you were assigned is a clear example of cheating. It is also an example of lying to professors, but cheating is a more clear term. This isn't like telling a professor you like their shirt when you think it is ugly, this is fraud. If you are caught cheating in college the penalty is at least failing the class and can often lead to being expelled from the school. People caught cheating in law school can be rejected from the Bar (meaning they can't practice law) even if they pass their exams. This is a very serious thing, and I don't want to conflate it with a simple lie.

Can you explain under what circumstances you don't think my reasoning that "Helping someone do something immoral is also immoral" would not hold? And how those circumstances apply to this case?

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#204

Post by zwayhowder »

majormajor wrote: post #39

A bit of chatter here about "it eventually catches up to people anyway" that I think misses the point. You want people to learn when the stakes are low. This is better for them, and it's better for all of us. School should gradually go from low stakes to higher stakes, not be a low-stakes zone the whole time that then tosses people into the real world. Otherwise you're presented with terrible choices like expelling a…

I had a fellow masters student in tears during a group project once because she had already failed our first assessment. Apparently in her 4 year undergraduate degree in Nepal she had never once had to cite sources. All work was from proscribed textbooks only. Imagine her shock when starting a masters in Australia and having to do Harvard referencing for everything.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#205

Post by saalweachter »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #184
eecsninja wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Academic cheating is NOT morally wrong in a general sense. We only think it is because it's drilled into us from a young age by the educational system. But there's really no equivalent of "cheating" in real world industries where it's the results that matter. e.g. nobody cares if you took wrote the software yourself or got it from someone else's library, as long as the software product works. If cheating happens, it…

Misrepresenting your ability is morally wrong and can cause actual harm - personal, economic, or other forms of harm. You cheat on your test and become a lawyer, I may end up in jail because of your cheating. ... Or, you become a teacher, and my education is harmed. ... Or, an activity worker, and I fall off a climbing wall. ... Or, a scientist, and I waste time and resources repeating an experiment because you didn'…

Or you copy copyrighted or patented works into your knowledge-worker output, creating liabilities for your employer which can destroy it.

Or if you generalized cheating from "copying answers" to "producing answers that look right to your employers", you get a whole range of dishonest behavior you can get away with for years (careers?) while causing serious harm to individuals, companies and communities. Using unsafe materials which superficially pass inspection, outright faking studies so that it looks like your drugs work, fingering a likely suspect in a criminal investigation and lying on the stand to get them convicted.

I'm not a fan of slippery slope arguments, but there is sometimes a logical appeal.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#207

Post by heartles »

baldfat wrote: post #134
eecsninja wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Academic cheating is NOT morally wrong in a general sense. We only think it is because it's drilled into us from a young age by the educational system. But there's really no equivalent of "cheating" in real world industries where it's the results that matter. e.g. nobody cares if you took wrote the software yourself or got it from someone else's library, as long as the software product works. If cheating happens, it…

> But there's really no equivalent of "cheating" in real world industries where it's the results that matter. e.g. nobody cares if you took wrote the software yourself or got it from someone else's library, as long as the software product works. Real Equivalent cheating: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-21043693 The software developer, in his 40s, is thought to have spent his workdays surfing the web, watching cat…

Ha, that story reminds me of an old Onion video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYaZ57Bn4pQ

Same concept taken to its extremes.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#208

Post by Retric »

tylerhou wrote: post #148
Retric wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prove it. "Cheating" seems to have huge downsides, on the other hand it reduces friction inside of a rigid system. That is a net positive that stealing a TV from best buy simply does not have.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons > "Suppose buyers cannot distinguish between a high-quality car (a "peach") and a "lemon". Then they are only willing to pay a fixed price for a car that averages the value of a "peach" and "lemon" together (pavg). But sellers know whether they hold a peach or a lemon. Given the fixed price at which buyers will buy, sellers will sell only when they hold "lemons" (si…

As to your specific argument reducing the implied value of a degree without impacting it's actual value is a net gain to society. Credentials independent of skill forces people to jump through extra hoops. This ends up as a huge drain on society.

Anyway you just specified an implied though not supported downside, while ignoring my point that cheating has some minor upsides. Demonstrating that cheating is a dead loss for society is not enough you need to demonstrate it has absolutely zero redeeming qualities allowing for such simple syllogistic reasoning to apply

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#209

Post by joshvm »

baddox wrote: post #138
majormajor wrote: post #39

A bit of chatter here about "it eventually catches up to people anyway" that I think misses the point. You want people to learn when the stakes are low. This is better for them, and it's better for all of us. School should gradually go from low stakes to higher stakes, not be a low-stakes zone the whole time that then tosses people into the real world. Otherwise you're presented with terrible choices like expelling a…

When are the stakes low vs. high when it comes to academic plagiarism? I would think that the stakes are always quite low, at least until you get to post-graduate academic work where plagiarism can have legal or serious ethical (e.g. medical research) problems. You seem to be claiming that at some point the stakes become "truly" high, and thus we ought to artificially punish plagiarism so that people learn that there…

A recent TIFU (Today I Fucked Up) on Reddit, depending if you believe it - I'm inclined not to, described such a situation:

https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/8g33nv/tifu_by_plagia...

They were allegedly expelled for plagiarising a 500 word essay.

> She sent me to the dean with the recommendation that I be expelled. Now the dean told me I can't graduate. I spent 4 years working on an engineering degree. I have over $100,000 in loans, and I can't be hired without my degree. My life literally vanished in the matter of 20 minutes.

The irony is they could have literally scrawled anything on the paper and flunked, but passed the year.

Whether or not this story is true, universities certainly have grounds to expel you immediately if you're caught cheating. And if you've spent $100k on a degree that you need because of professional accreditation... those are quite high stakes.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#210

Post by eecsninja »

analog31 wrote: post #189
eecsninja wrote: post #130

I'm really disappointed by the downvotes that sithadmin, misterbowfinger, and I have been receiving in this thread. Let me restate the argument, not in favor of cheating but why it's not the moral issue that everyone makes it out to be: 1. Cheating is only an issue in the artificial world of academia, where it goes against how the system is supposed to work. 2. We only think it is a moral issue because it's been dril…

In my view, cheating extends beyond academia when you claim to have an education that you didn't receive. It does devalue the degree, and it does impose costs on those who don't cheat, by making it harder for them to establish their own credentials. I don't know a clear distinction between "accomplish and explain" and "write answers" for academic study. Employers are using other methods, such as personality tests, co…

> I don't know a clear distinction between "accomplish and explain" and "write answers" for academic study.

In my undergraduate education, the most valuable class I had was a set of embedded systems classes. No tests, no homework, just have to build a project incrementally over the course of the quarter, and then provide schematics and documention at the end.

> Employers are using other methods, such as personality tests, coding interviews, work-for-free exercises, requiring "experience" for entry level jobs, and so forth.

> Employers could abolish that system overnight by simply eliminating the degree requirement. They could reduce their labor costs, because a person with no college debt might be willing to start out at a lower salary and be more loyal to their initial employer.

Exactly! Thank you for pointing this out, especially in a world of skyrocketing tuition costs.

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