Poll: Were/Are you a cheater?

#1

Post by kyro » Sat, May 30, 2009, 7:10 AM UTC

We had a conversation today in #startups about cheating in school in general and whether cheating in school correlates strongly with workers who would not address bugs and not test code properly because of laziness.

I thought it'd be interesting to ask if any of you cheated throughout your schooling. I put two sets of questions to ask about what your opinion on cheating is and if you did cheat.

Re: Poll: Were/Are you a cheater?

#2

Post by zimbabwe » Sat, May 30, 2009, 7:19 AM UTC

I guess I'm the first person to say that yes, I did cheat, and no, I don't feel guilty.

What matters is getting the right answer. If you stop before you get the right answer, then you're responsible for that. If you take a shortcut to get the right answer, then it's not a bad thing until you get to a situation where you refuse to do what it takes to get the right answer.

Given a choice between wasting my time on meaningless schoolwork and cheating and keeping the time to myself, I'll take cheating, and if I went back I'd cheat again.

Re: Poll: Were/Are you a cheater?

#3

Post by [deleted] » Sat, May 30, 2009, 7:28 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Poll: Were/Are you a cheater?

#4

Post by hollerith » Sat, May 30, 2009, 7:33 AM UTC

zimbabwe wrote: post #2

I guess I'm the first person to say that yes, I did cheat, and no, I don't feel guilty. What matters is getting the right answer. If you stop before you get the right answer, then you're responsible for that. If you take a shortcut to get the right answer, then it's not a bad thing until you get to a situation where you refuse to do what it takes to get the right answer. Given a choice between wasting my time on mean…

"What matters is getting the right answer."

Oh, so it was your principled commitment to "what matters" that caused you to cheat, eh?

Re: Poll: Were/Are you a cheater?

#5

Post by zaidf » Sat, May 30, 2009, 7:33 AM UTC

I did until high school. Then I realized it's too much effort for something I care too little about(my grade).

I'm curious why you'd think cheating would correlate with laziness. I think you underestimate the work involved in cheating.

I've passed on cheating on multiple occasions in middle and high school years purely out of laziness. It would usually involve some laborious homework assignment. A friend would have done it. He would loan me the notebook. And it would just sit in my bag without me ever spending time to copy it.

In middle school we had to take an Accelerated Reader test on the computer each week. I was not prepared one day. So I went to two of the three computers and deleted the shortcut to the program. With only one computer operating, my turn to take the exam never came:) They'd to call the IT people from downtown to fix the shortcuts on the two computers. Silly middle school days:)

Now days I am almost guilty of being too honest. ie. I will skip an assignment because I thought it was a waste of time, tell the professor exactly what I thought and receive biased grading for rest of the semester. (At the end of the semester, though, the professors respect you a whole lot more.)

Re: Poll: Were/Are you a cheater?

#6

Post by ZitchDog » Sat, May 30, 2009, 7:36 AM UTC

I cheated a lot in high school, a couple times in college. I don't feel guilty, but now I know the only person I cheated was myself.

Re: Poll: Were/Are you a cheater?

#7

Post by kyro » Sat, May 30, 2009, 7:36 AM UTC

zaidf wrote: post #5

I did until high school. Then I realized it's too much effort for something I care too little about(my grade). I'm curious why you'd think cheating would correlate with laziness. I think you underestimate the work involved in cheating. I've passed on cheating on multiple occasions in middle and high school years purely out of laziness. It would usually involve some laborious homework assignment. A friend would have d…

I don't think that, others in #startups do. Interestingly, those who were significantly older were making the connection between cheaters and lazy workers who would cheat out of their work.

Re: Poll: Were/Are you a cheater?

#8

Post by zimbabwe » Sat, May 30, 2009, 7:37 AM UTC

hollerith wrote: post #4

zimbabwe wrote: post #2

I guess I'm the first person to say that yes, I did cheat, and no, I don't feel guilty. What matters is getting the right answer. If you stop before you get the right answer, then you're responsible for that. If you take a shortcut to get the right answer, then it's not a bad thing until you get to a situation where you refuse to do what it takes to get the right answer. Given a choice between wasting my time on mean…

"What matters is getting the right answer." Oh, so it was your principled commitment to "what matters" that caused you to cheat, eh?

That's a bullshit way of phrasing it. Let's stick to how I said it.

What matters is that you end up with the right thing. If you can easily get the right thing by copying somebody else, then do that. That doesn't excuse your not learning how to do it on your own, but there's no nobility to finding out the answer yourself, beyond what personal satisfaction it brings you.

I code using other people's languages and other people's plug-ins. I take visual ideas from other people's graphic designs. Then I bend them to fit my own purposes. When somebody else has solved part of the problem I want to fix, there is no honor in my repeating their work.

Re: Poll: Were/Are you a cheater?

#9

Post by stavrianos » Sat, May 30, 2009, 7:40 AM UTC

Never cared enough about marks to cheat. Still don't.

From a moral perspective, cheating is bad in that it devalues the marks earned by students who didn't. This is only true if you believe that the marks are worth anything to begin with. That, and it's downright rude.

Re: Poll: Were/Are you a cheater?

#10

Post by evilneanderthal » Sat, May 30, 2009, 7:42 AM UTC

zimbabwe wrote: post #2

I guess I'm the first person to say that yes, I did cheat, and no, I don't feel guilty. What matters is getting the right answer. If you stop before you get the right answer, then you're responsible for that. If you take a shortcut to get the right answer, then it's not a bad thing until you get to a situation where you refuse to do what it takes to get the right answer. Given a choice between wasting my time on mean…

Someone might argue that part of schoolwork is proving that you can do boring routine work. In this respect you only have the long-term incentive of graduating and there is no immediate reward.