YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#261

Post by eecsninja » Wed, May 02, 2018, 3:17 AM UTC

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'…

These are real-world situations with real consequences on people's time, money, and lives. Honesty and ethics matter here. That's what licensing requirements are for. That's different from the academic system where you only use 10% of what you learn, once you go into the real world.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#262

Post by confounded » Wed, May 02, 2018, 3:26 AM UTC

baddox wrote: post #228

Elidrake24 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the University of Arizona, there was a strict expulsion and forfiture of earned credits policy for plagarism amongst undergrads. I'd say having wasted $20k is pretty high stakes, though I suppose not as high as jail time.

But that's the artificial stakes we're talking about, right? The school chose to make and enforce that rule. What inherently high-stakes situation is that preparing them for?

You can’t cheat without rules; all rules are socially constructed. Does that make them artificial as opposed to inherent?

Or have I missed your point?

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#263

Post by Buge » Wed, May 02, 2018, 3:26 AM UTC

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…

>Shocked that YouTube or any stock traded company would allow these videos to stay up. Morally this is wrong since cheating hurts everyone in education.

Is it Youtube's job to enforce morals? Is it Youtube's job to prevent anything that might hurt education? If it was determined that memes hurt education (by distracting students from studying) should Youtube ban memes?

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#264

Post by eecsninja » Wed, May 02, 2018, 3:29 AM UTC

cirgue wrote: post #217

eecsninja wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not, but companies are capable of assessing prospective employees. For the sake of my future children, that's all that matters to me. Fuck academia.

If you think the only important part of your children’s future is their ability to get hired, then you’re already setting them up for a life of misery and disappointment.

If you think the only important part of your children's education is what happens inside the walls of schools, then you're already setting them up for a life of mediocrity and servitude.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#265

Post by candiodari » Wed, May 02, 2018, 3:41 AM UTC

nfoz wrote: post #31

sithadmin wrote: post #3

I paid my rent and living expenses when pursuing my Masters degree by writing papers for services that helped undergrads cheat on class/term papers. I don't regret it at all. It helped me become a faster, more efficient author, and in my experience, the sort of student that would pay someone else to buy a paper will end up failing out one way or another regardless. I knew people that paid for papers in undergrand, an…

I think that lying is wrong (immoral), even if your assessment of the externalities of it aren't that bad. Here you're not the one lying, you're selling the mechanism of another's dishonesty. It's interesting to think about where that fits, but I can't see it in a favourable light. When you're profiting from it, it makes it hard to fairly assess those externalities. The rationalizing in your post is pretty apparent.…

On the other hand, even a little bit off attention of the professors or assistants would expose every last cheater. Cheaters don't even read the assignments they hand in (I've seen people expelled for handing in a paper where the name of the author on the 2nd page onward was different, seen different people hand in the same paper, ...)

A few questions would trivially expose them.

Clearly universities simply don't check. And frankly, we all know that this isn't an individual oversight, but a policy.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#266

Post by wpietri » Wed, May 02, 2018, 3:43 AM UTC

matz1 wrote: post #112

eponeponepon wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of those points are also true of making a living by (e-)mail fraud, and the first two are true of almost any criminal enterprise.

The difference is essay writing service is not criminal.

It easily could be. There are all sorts of things we criminalize because they correlate with other illegal or harmful things. Conspiracy to commit is an obvious one. Or receiving stolen goods: it's not illegal to buy and sell things, but if you know that you're enabling thieves, you could go to jail too.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#267

Post by sytelus » Wed, May 02, 2018, 3:44 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #119

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…

One community particularly harmed by academic cheating is foreign students, particularly those from China and India. Cheating amongst foreign students, particularly those from India and China, occurs at elevated frequencies [1]. But there is money to be made. Universities earn fat tuitions. And parades of scumbags take exams, write papers and falsify figures for a fee. The result is limited enforcement in the specifi…

I think you are probably talking about wealthy students who gets into Ivy league through $2M+ donations. Vast majority of foreign students are too finance constrained even to survive with basic needs, let alone go shopping for paid cheating.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#268

Post by wpietri » Wed, May 02, 2018, 3:47 AM UTC

matz1 wrote: post #221

mfringel wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everything legal is moral, and not everything moral is legal.

And not everyone morality is the same. Morality is relative.

This is either banal and irrelevant or meaningful and wrong. Obviously, not everybody has the same morality; criminals almost always think they're justified. But if you're saying that because of that morality is somehow meaningless or not worth pursuing, that's ridiculous. Nobody ever says that when they're on the receiving end of something shitty, just when they're doing it.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#269

Post by wpietri » Wed, May 02, 2018, 3:49 AM UTC

dofly wrote: post #48

matz1 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not a shitty job for some of the right people. I can easily think few possible advantage of this job: - flexible time - potential to earn lot of money - sheer enjoyment of writing - improve one writing skills

I think it all depends on incentives. If one goes to school with a sole purpose of learning something(employment, career track being non-issues), I'd imagine, they wouldn't care about the cheaters as they wouldn't be competing with the cheaters for jobs, promotions etc. This reminded me of a Russian pop star from the early 2000s who became a philosophy major at a major Russian university. Presumably, she didn't mind…

I went to school just to learn and I despised the cheaters. They were debasing something I valued, taking up time and attention that could have been given to somebody who gave a shit.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#270

Post by komali2 » Wed, May 02, 2018, 3:52 AM UTC

matz1 wrote: post #233

komali2 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nothing is, but why would you do it if you weren't getting paid for it (because all your customers have been thrown out of school)?