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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

#231

Post by your-nanny »

eecsninja wrote: post #164
local_yokel wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is cheating only an issue in academia? It shows a lack of ethics and a lack of knowledge on the part of the student, and these are things that are quite important to being able to do a good job in the real world. You say "the current system is stupid", "academia is an artificial world", and "past projects and word of mouth" are what matters. Past projects and word of mouth are both systems that are ripe for manip…

I agree about the lack of ethics, but that's something to be screened by future employers or school admissions. I don't disagree with schools having penalties for cheating. But on the moral severity scale, it's really an infraction rather than a felony. Would you call jaywalkers bad people? If you want to see why I have such a disdain for academia, here's my story: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16726402

I wouldn't hire you. Attitudes matter. Trust matters. No way would I hire you, given the views you express.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#232

Post by baddox »

joshvm wrote: post #209
baddox wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ov…

Aren't those the artificial high stakes we're talking about? I'm asking what inherently high-stakes situation that is preparing you for.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#233

Post by matz1 »

komali2 wrote: post #128
matz1 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Morality is relative anyway.

Yes but it's meaningless to devolve into that rabbit hole here because Western court of public opinion has already decided it is morally wrong. This is reflected in writing in the rules of very nearly every academic institution across the planet.

If I'm the essay writer, how is your morality forcing me to stop doing it ? Unless it become law, and actually enforced, your morality is meaningless.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#234

Post by lifeformed »

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…

Cheating is a form of dishonesty and selfishness, and breaks the social contract we rely on for a well functioning society. Some people can get away with it, and honest people bear the burden of the cost of damage. If dishonesty becomes an acceptable strategy for navigating society, it becomes the only effective strategy.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#235

Post by figgis »

eecsninja wrote: post #164
local_yokel wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is cheating only an issue in academia? It shows a lack of ethics and a lack of knowledge on the part of the student, and these are things that are quite important to being able to do a good job in the real world. You say "the current system is stupid", "academia is an artificial world", and "past projects and word of mouth" are what matters. Past projects and word of mouth are both systems that are ripe for manip…

I agree about the lack of ethics, but that's something to be screened by future employers or school admissions. I don't disagree with schools having penalties for cheating. But on the moral severity scale, it's really an infraction rather than a felony. Would you call jaywalkers bad people? If you want to see why I have such a disdain for academia, here's my story: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16726402

You cheating to acquire a degree that says you have learned x information devalues that degree for everyone else that has it. That is nothing like crossing the street where you aren't supposed too.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#236

Post by always_good »

baddox wrote: post #232
joshvm wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ov…

Aren't those the artificial high stakes we're talking about? I'm asking what inherently high-stakes situation that is preparing you for.

Well, how about getting blackballed professionally?

After all, surely the main upside of acing university is to get into a high-stakes position.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#237

Post by openasocket »

ttoinou wrote: post #223
openasocket wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thin…

It would hold or not hold depending on the specifics, what "helping" mean in that case. I could take an extreme case and ask you if the engineers designing the computer that "helped" them cheat are also morally responsible ? And I don't care about the consequences for the cheater, as long as it doesn't fallback on someone innocent or who did not voluntarily agreed to be part of the scheme

> It would hold or not hold depending on the specifics, what "helping" mean in that case. I could take an extreme case and ask you if the engineers designing the computer that "helped" them cheat are also morally responsible ?

The case we are talking about is the OP, who knowingly helped people cheat. Students asked him to write their essays for them and he did so. This isn't like making a computer that someone could potentially later use to do something immoral, the OP knew in advance what would happen.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#238

Post by Buldak »

joshvm wrote: post #209
baddox wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ov…

I had a classmate like this. My high school has a graduation requirement where each senior delivers a speech to the student body on a topic of their choice. At the time of his speech, it was spring and my classmate had been accepted to Princeton on a tennis scholarship--all he had to do was sit back and coast into the Ivy League. Despite this, he plagiarized his speech. The administration found out and notified Princeton, which rescinded his acceptance. (He ended up attending the local state university.)

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#239

Post by darkkindness »

figgis wrote: post #235
eecsninja wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree about the lack of ethics, but that's something to be screened by future employers or school admissions. I don't disagree with schools having penalties for cheating. But on the moral severity scale, it's really an infraction rather than a felony. Would you call jaywalkers bad people? If you want to see why I have such a disdain for academia, here's my story: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16726402

You cheating to acquire a degree that says you have learned x information devalues that degree for everyone else that has it. That is nothing like crossing the street where you aren't supposed too.

> "2. We only think it is a moral issue because it's been drilled into us since we were kids, and that we think it is not fair to those who don't cheat and devalues the value of their degree."

Perhaps GP's point was that since degrees don't actually correlate with 'you have learned x information', degrees don't inherently have value in the first place?

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#240

Post by PakG1 »

your-nanny wrote: post #213
tcfunk wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You want people to learn when the stakes are low. I totally agree with this. However, I'm not sure that students in middle/high school realize that the stakes are, in fact, low. The teachers and programs emphasize exactly the opposite. "Oh this is going on your permanent record", whatever that is. "If you screw this up there's no way you'll be ready for university-level classes." On and on, and what a load of bull…

I think that they think the stakes are in fact higher than they are is the point.

This is a good point. I had thought that my high school grades were extremely high stakes, even though they weren't. Of course, now I know how silly I was. If the stakes weren't so high, I wonder if I would have been more tempted to cheat to get more free time. I think not, but no way to know for sure because can't run that experiment anymore.

On the other hand, in countries with huge populations like China and India, it seems that cheating is rampant because the stakes are so high? Can't recall what happens in India, but in China, the university you're allowed to choose is limited based on your final gaokao (high school examination) score. That in turn also determines what you're allowed to study, and that in turn determines what kind of jobs you can get when you graduate.

Pressure exists because it all comes down to a single score. But on the other hand, because of the scale of the population, I imagine it becomes an issue of efficiency. If it didn't come down to a single score, can't imagine the monstrosity that would be the admissions process for all the top universities. For example, I hear about Canadian universities that now say they don't prioritize GPA; they'll consider extra-curricular activities and so on too. Good luck with that if your admission applications explode a hundredfold.

So like someone else commented in this thread, the many become suspected instead. One department at my alma mater decided that GRE scores were not reflective of quality of students coming from China for masters degrees. So they threw GRE out the window and decided to only look at students that came from top ten universities in China when it came to Chinese student applications.

As with most things, the issue is multi-faceted and complicated.

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