Here is an interesting read
YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating
171–180 of 354 posts
Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think the two are comparable. Cheating on a test doesn't "take" anything of intrinsic value from another person, stealing does. Cheating hurts no one. You can argue that cheating puts you ahead of students that work in good faith, systemically, though it's still a bit different. Stealing has implied intent of taking something away from someone, cheating doesn't. You're just trying to get better grades.
Cheating can take from others. Merit scholarships are given based on class rank. If the #11 student cheats to get to #10, then they took scholarship money that someone else actually earned. This is a very real problem in my school district. Additionally, if you cheated to get good grades and got into a good university because of them, then you probably took the seat of someone that didn't cheat and was not accepted b…
Yes, precisely!!!!
The system is. broken. to. begin. with. And not just with cheating, with a number of different factors.
What incentive, as a student, do I have to NOT cheat if I won't get caught?
Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating
#173I'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…
do you really not understand that railing against the system is not the same thing as advocating cheating, as you seem to be doing?
and really? cheating is only an issue in artificial constructs like academia? so if i design a building and crib the stress analysis from another building, it's ok because that's not an artifical situation?
it seems academia really did fail you, as your argument just falls apart prima facie. the learned person would reflect on the wealth of the feedback that you're getting here rather than assuming that you've unsheathed some gloden nugget of truth that the rest of us silly fools can't glean.
aversion to cheating is embedded in the social systems of all sorts of living creatures. might you want to read up on that and update your arguments, or is that too academic and artificial (as compared to typing into an emphemeral textbox)?
Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
Statistics don't enter into it. Whether something is morally wrong or right is intrinsic to the act itself, not based on what other people are doing. If everyone in the world starts stealing from stores, that doesn't mean it is OK for you to start stealing as well.
Morality isn't anymore intrinsic than the concept of good and evil. My mother thinks the Catholic faith is inherently evil, but Catholics will fight to the death for their belief that it is inherently good. Who's right? Probably neither of these people-- the question is irrelevant and not useful. Morality isn't determined by any absolute truth. Morality is only useful when the majority agree with it and the outcome o…
I just want to offer some terms from ethics that match your perspectives. You or anyone else can read up on them if you’d like.
> Morality is only useful when the majority agree with it...
This sounds a lot like a moral relativist stance. I hear it’s not a very popular stance among ethicists, so I don’t have any recommendations off the top of my head for philosophers to study. Basically moral relativism just means that morality is defined by the standards of a culture.
> Morality is only useful when ... the outcome of that belief helps the group in context.
This sounds similar to what a utilitarian would believe. They focus more on the result of an action and the sum total happiness it creates and they judge higher sum total happiness to be of higher morality. John Stuart Mill is probably the biggest proponent of utilitarianism.
Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. Homework and exams have two purposes: 1. Help the student learn (by applying theory in homework and encouraging internalization for exams), and 2. Verifying that students have learned the material Cheating destroys both of those. A student can copy a solution to a general relativity problem, but that doesn't mean they understand it, and likewise they can obtain the exam before they take it and memorize th…
And why do we care in a real-world sense whether this student has cheated in general relativity? If that person goes to a physics lab, he would be found out eventually. In a real-world sense, cheating hurts nobody except the person doing it, if even that.
That's not true at all. One example (there are more): Say a student cheats at Foo University and then gets a job at a physics lab. They clearly don't know the material that they purportedly got good grades studying.
Now say, for the sake of the argument, that this happens a few more times. As a hiring manager at the lab I'm going to be less likely to seriously consider candidates from Foo University (because all of the 4.0 graduates I've hired from there don't know anything). Others will live need to work harder to overcome this bias because of the action of the cheaters.
It's very myopic (and a very difficult position to seriously hold unless you're rationalizing past behavior) to assume that cheating doesn't hurt anyone.
Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating
#176I'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…
do you really not understand that railing against the system is not the same thing as advocating cheating, as you seem to be doing? and really? cheating is only an issue in artificial constructs like academia? so if i design a building and crib the stress analysis from another building, it's ok because that's not an artifical situation? it seems academia really did fail you, as your argument just falls apart prima fa…
My point is that cheating is at worst a violation of rules/contracts. I'm saying there's a different way of thinking to understand why somethings are wrong -- not just that they are wrong, but the underlying reasons as well.
Every example that has been provided could be counted as wrong by some other existing real world standard. In the case of copying the stress analysis, that is called FRAUD in the real world.
I sound like I'm being pedantic here, but I hope some people out there can understand.
As far as social systems go, the object of aversion is deception and the associated harm. That's bad. I think we mentally conflate that with academic cheating (plagiarism), when it is something different.
Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The outcomes are both unknowable and in most cases impossible to tie to my act directly You breached academic code and, if money was exchanged, potentially the law. Given you wrote the paper and received the money, the act is quite simple to tie to you.
I'm sorry, what academic code? What which binds students at schools that I didn't attend and have no contractual relationship with? Lol, okay. >potentially the law Yeah, show me the law that tells me it's illegal to write something for someone else. Thanks.
Hmm. Seems like there could be an argument for tortious interference here, though establishing damages could be difficult.
Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating
#178I'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 only an issue in the artificial world of academia, where it goes against how the system is supposed to work.
What about other artificial systems with defined rules, like sports? Is doping or other cheating permissible? If so, at all levels, or only professional levels?
> * Academic grades and degrees, to the extent that they affect your life after academia, should be based on what you can accomplish or explain, not how well you can write answers.*
In large part, the current forms of evaluation (closed book, silent, proctored exams) are a result of people cheating in honour-based systems. As cheating continues to be a problem, pressure is increased on institutions and staff to prevent it, which ultimately leads to a worse learning environment for everyone.
Edit: I should point out this isn't a theoretical concern. I personally resent the people who have attempted to 'beat the system' with simple dishonesty and caused me to have to endure uncomfortable and tedious attempts to minimise cheating during my education.
In a similar vein, I feel it was a lot better for just about everyone back when you could take more than a thimbleful of liquid onto an aeroplane.
> Employers should be using other methods to screen prospective employees -- looking at past projects [...]
So having cheated my way through schooling, I should probably drop a few more bucks into getting some jobs-board contractors to knock out a couple of 'passion projects' to throw onto github?
Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating
#179A 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…
Well at least they are testing the ability of people to develop creative solutions to problems, and not just copy paste the defaults from the textbook- oh wait- they dont.
Who cares about plagiarism? Its all just bulemic learning anyway..
Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think the two are comparable. Cheating on a test doesn't "take" anything of intrinsic value from another person, stealing does. Cheating hurts no one. You can argue that cheating puts you ahead of students that work in good faith, systemically, though it's still a bit different. Stealing has implied intent of taking something away from someone, cheating doesn't. You're just trying to get better grades.
Agreed 100%. We only think cheating is only "wrong" because it goes against how the people who set up the educational system intend for it to work, e.g. they are short circuiting the system. It has no counterpart in the real world, and cannot be compared to murder and theft. If it were up to me, I'd make the school system results-only -- i.e. it's about how well you can build a project and explain it, not how well yo…
>I am an Asian American overachiever with two engineering degrees from world-renowned universities. //
.. and as cheating isn't wrong in your personal ethical system you're happy to lose your job to someone who claims to be better qualified than you but is just cheating to get ahead?
I don't know what engineering you do but I don't think society should value engineers as highly who know something is wrong but can't explain it and so don't get it fixed. "Soft" skills matter.