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One woman's stolen identity exposed a system of exam fraud

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Re: One woman's stolen identity exposed a system of exam fraud

#161

Post by wolco »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #155
wolco wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Western democracy is really being torn at the seams with Trump and Brexit" Really, torn at the seams? Brexit is going fine and now with covid it might work out better in the longrun. America likes strong leaders. Trump isn't creating a new divide he is navigating the existing fault lines. More importantly: China forcing birth control on Uighurs to suppress population: (source AP) Are you aware of this? What is your,…

> More importantly: > China forcing birth control on Uighurs to suppress population: (source AP) > Are you aware of this? What is your,opinion on those events? It's the same thing they do to the Chinese, which frankly seems worse to me.

Why would that be worse. The Han chinese are keeping the government in power. Without their support this government would fall. They as a group have a vote. But a general policy with fines is not what we are talking about.

Millions of Uighurs are forced into camps. They force them to take pills so they cannot have kids. Then they mass migrate han chinese into the region. One day soon they can say the majority are han chinese.

Europe will start putting pressure on China when they realize building this direct road to London China is building is the reason for the suffering they will impose punishment. Meanwhile the US has started creating a different supplies chains excluding China. When grow slows what will happen in China? Will the people revolt? Going to be an interesting 10 years.

Re: One woman's stolen identity exposed a system of exam fraud

#162

Post by thaumasiotes »

wolco wrote: post #161
thaumasiotes wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> More importantly: > China forcing birth control on Uighurs to suppress population: (source AP) > Are you aware of this? What is your,opinion on those events? It's the same thing they do to the Chinese, which frankly seems worse to me.

Why would that be worse. The Han chinese are keeping the government in power. Without their support this government would fall. They as a group have a vote. But a general policy with fines is not what we are talking about. Millions of Uighurs are forced into camps. They force them to take pills so they cannot have kids. Then they mass migrate han chinese into the region. One day soon they can say the majority are han…

> But a general policy with fines is not what we are talking about.

Forced sterilization applies to the Han too.

Re: One woman's stolen identity exposed a system of exam fraud

#163

Post by bmn__ »

nouveaux wrote: post #127
thewarrior wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is not a democracy. However the notion that Chinese culture is okay with despotism and tyranny is again a limited one. The Mandate of Heaven is what gives a ruler in China the right to rule. This is not an inherent and automatic right like the divine right of kings. If a ruler is unable to deliver prosperity and justice it’s completely justified for the ruler to be overthrown. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mand…

As a Chinese person, I totally understand that Chinese culture is not ok with tyranny. China's rise to riches can only be done with the efficiencies of a dictatorship. In order to understand China, you must understand China's poverty and shame from foreign rule. With China's new digital surveillance system, it will be pretty hard to overthrow any dictator. China's control on news and media will ensure loyalty from a…

> China's rise to riches can only be done with the efficiencies of a dictatorship.

You probably have heard that propaganda piece so often that you think it's true.

A part of China is rich despite the dictatorship murdering 70 million of its people; miraculously, that democide set back the country only by twenty years. If one wants to blame anything for making people rich, its the effects of unfettered turbo capitalism as practiced after Deng.

Re: One woman's stolen identity exposed a system of exam fraud

#164

Post by gowld »

thewarrior wrote: post #104
thaumasiotes wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chinese universities do have this concept -- certain students are marked VIP, so that professors will know. But the concept of granting admission based on such status, as opposed to extending special treatment to an admitted student, is very much muted. There are ways of getting in to a university without passing the gaokao threshold that would ordinarily be required. But those generally involve receiving a point boo…

China as a civilization takes the notion of a merit based on examinations very seriously. They pioneered this system hundreds of years before anywhere else in the world. Cheating may exist but in terms of valuing meritocracy China has it as deeply ingrained as the west.

Cheating is also deeply ingrained in the culture, though. Much like it is in the US entrepreneurial culture (not just VC backed companies and fortune 500s, but mom and pop businesses).

Old history is one thing, but the whole country being run as a corporation for the past 70 years is another.

Re: One woman's stolen identity exposed a system of exam fraud

#165

Post by gowld »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #82
andreilys wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep I’m sure that their universities have no concept of letting in children of a major donor or political figure with influence.

Chinese universities do have this concept -- certain students are marked VIP, so that professors will know. But the concept of granting admission based on such status, as opposed to extending special treatment to an admitted student, is very much muted. There are ways of getting in to a university without passing the gaokao threshold that would ordinarily be required. But those generally involve receiving a point boo…

The OP is about middle class people stealing credentials, which creates a specific victim.

Hiring people to take a test for you is another popular way to cheat the system, and there is no single victim who can complain.

Re: One woman's stolen identity exposed a system of exam fraud

#166

Post by kbenson »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #121
kbenson wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I view the legacy stuff as a but more nuanced. Universities want to admit people that really want to go there, and that will increase their prestige later through some combination of espousing the benefits of that school, becoming famous, or becoming successful. It's not hard to see how the legacy systems tick a few of these boxes automatically, making those candidates seem slightly better than others (if nothing els…

More nuanced nepotism is...nepotism. You're basically saying that whether or not your parents went to some school should positively influence as much as one-fifth of the consideration of whether you could go to a school or not. That is, if you scored this in a rubric, some kid whose parents went to Harvard would score 20 and I would score 0. That is wrong on a fundamental level. It's a bit like anti-affirmative actio…

> That is, if you scored this in a rubric, some kid whose parents went to Harvard would score 20 and I would score 0. That is wrong on a fundamental level.

Is it? Why?

I think it depends on the amount of government funding they get. For a completely private university, is it wrong? I think it's wrong for a university that gets a majority of its funding from the state to act this way, but for universities that have giant billion dollar endowments? Sure, let them manage at least some of the admissions somewhat as they would as if private.

> It's a bit like anti-affirmative action.

It's exactly like affirmative action, except to benefit the university. I think being able to apply this on some small percentage of the students, maybe five percent, is acceptable.

It's going to happen, why not account for it and control it rather than make everyone involved act like it isn't happening and then we just have a vague sense that it happens but little info and control over it?

Re: One woman's stolen identity exposed a system of exam fraud

#168

Post by TMWNN »

strikelaserclaw wrote: post #79
andreilys wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep I’m sure that their universities have no concept of letting in children of a major donor or political figure with influence.

I'm sure Donald trump and George bush got in on merit!

Trump transferred to Wharton after two years at Fordham. Fred Trump was a NYC real estate developer with no connection to either school; successful in his world of outerborough residential developments, sure, but an utter nonentity outside it.

George W. Bush was a longtime legacy at Yale, yes, but he performed about as well as Kerry did at Yale and Gore did at Harvard. With no family connections to Harvard he applied to HBS without telling his father, who had by then served as a one-term Texas congressman and UN ambassador, and was serving as the head of the Republican National Committee. To show how little "pull" the Bush name had despite all that, Bush was turned down by the University of Texas law school before getting in at HBS.

Re: One woman's stolen identity exposed a system of exam fraud

#169

Post by Balgair »

enitihas wrote: post #154
Balgair wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

India has similar systems as well. One 'neat' tweak that the Indians take is the publication of the scores. You find out how you did because your name and score are printed in the newspaper, along with everyone else's. So all the gossipy aunties and your folk's friends know your score and you know the scores of everyone else in school. The social pressure to do well is insane . Your score reflects on your family, not…

Publications of scores doesn't happen any more, atleast for the exams similar to the gaokao, which would be the JEE. It happened only for localised exams AFAIK, where almost all applicants were local, and the pool was small enough to be printed on a newspaper. In the pre internet era, it might have been necessary though, since it wouldn't have been possible to mail all scores and expect perfect delivery in the rural…

Thank you for the update!

Re: One woman's stolen identity exposed a system of exam fraud

#170

Post by NineStarPoint »

DevKoala wrote: post #84
topspin wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has evolved a similar rigging for our privileged. We supply various obscure sports accolades that can be purchased for the children of wealthy families to obtain admission to our leading universities. Unfortunately our schemes have also been exposed and a number of people are being prosecuted. So for the moment one must resort to investing in rather costly facility construction or similar expansion projects wh…

IMHO the situation of the USA is worlds apart from what I experienced as a kid in South America. The systemic corruption is normalized in Latin America. I remember when my dad bought a car that looked nice and we considered trading it because transit cops would stop us every now and then to get a tip from us. If we didn't agree to tip, we could potentially be arrested and paying your way out of the commissary was mor…

100% the US is better than the more corrupt countries in the world, even if it does seem we tend to have more problems than the other first world countries. But on nepotism, I wonder if it’s not just that we are somewhat more against nepotism, and more that there’s wealth of opportunity here such that parents can help their children in potentially dubious ways while still leaving plenty of positions and money to go around for everyone else. There’s always a bit of a back and forth pull between culture creating a countries conditions and conditions creating a countries culture after all.
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