5 ms·

you got a personal, air conditioned office, received unlimited time and could use reference material [...] They sold the Ritalin and got better grades As unfai

you got a personal, air conditioned office, received unlimited time and could use reference material [...] They sold the Ritalin and got better grades As unfair as that seems to the students who took their finals in stadium seating, that's a pretty sweet hack. The system is fucked up, but I can't help but admire your friends deciding to use it to their advantage.

sweetHack 11y ago
> a pretty sweet hack. Yeah, the kind that gets people hopelessly addicted to amphetamines.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
unimpressive 11y ago
>that's a pretty sweet hack. Really? Lying about having serious developmental disorders is a 'sweet hack' now? I mean, the comments below are overstating things but the danger of amphetamine addiction (especially for people who are using the meds off prescription and are more likely to do especially risky behaviors like snort it) is there and selling the Ritalin is a felony and everything about this story is actually pretty terrible.
- icanhackit 11y ago
  > Lying about having serious developmental disorders is a 'sweet hack' now? Your perspective on this will depend on whether you lean towards legalizing substances and taxing them. I personally think the prohibition of drugs does far more damage than consumption, and I consider this scenario to be similar to the easy access to medical marijuana - all it took was filling out a quiz and getting an easy diagnosis. Reselling marijuana is illegal, but it's an everyday occurrence that fills DEMAND. > using the meds off prescription and are more likely to do especially risky behaviors like snort it As long as you support the legality of alcohol, your worry about someone hurting themselves on drugs ignores the everyday harm already done by the most dangerous yet easily acquired behavior-altering substance. As for snorting amphetamines - people have been snorting, smoking, and imbibing things since the early days of humanity. It won't be going away soon and, until it affects you directly, it's none of your business really.
  - unimpressive 11y ago
    >Your perspective on this will depend on whether you lean towards legalizing substances and taxing them. Fairly libertarian, but thanks for your patronizing attitude. Lying to get an unfair advantage over other students isn't positive sum behavior. It's zero sum behavior that leads to things like red queen races (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race) and everybody having to compete for unlimited time related benefits. A competition which then eats up the supply of this resource for the people it exists for: Actually disabled people with ADHD. Your perspective here is akin to saying that in a busy parking lot there's demand for the disabled parking spaces, so people who go out and lie about their ability so they can park in the handicap spot are performing a 'sweet hack' to get around a 'fucked up' system.
    - icanhackit 11y ago
      > A competition which then eats up the supply of this resource for the people it exists for: Actually disabled people with ADHD. If the system is so flimsy that the only thing preventing abuse is a quiz and a doctors certificate, who are the "Actually disabled people with ADHD"? If diagnosis is so easily achieved and the rates of diagnosis around the world fluctuate so greatly, you should ask whether it's a largely inflated phenomenon and we need to reassess what it is and how we deal with it. Similar to depression, we seem to be medicating for slight deviations from what has been deemed normal, which is quite scary. As for the act itself, if they were stealing the answers to a test then I wouldn't say it was a sweet hack, I'd say they were cheating. However if you're willing to provide the benefit of an office, additional time, adequate cooling and access to reference material to a specific group of people, I say take what the system will happily give you or anyone else who goes through similar motions.
      - unimpressive 11y ago
        >If the system is so flimsy that the only thing preventing abuse is a quiz and a doctors certificate, who are the "Actually disabled people with ADHD"? You're right, the biggest lesson to take from that story is perhaps we should give patients a bit more scrutiny before giving them an ADHD diagnosis. This is still not a 'sweet hack', nor is it laudable behavior. > However if you're willing to provide the benefit of an office, additional time, adequate cooling and access to reference material to a specific group of people, I say take what the system will happily give you or anyone else who goes through similar motions. You're right, from a game theory perspective in the long run we should expect 'rational' actors who aren't punished for doing this to do it until we start punishing them for doing it. That is completely orthogonal to the question of whether this is the incentive structure and behavior we actually want. You're basically saying people should push any system as far as they can before the system pushes back. This is what a low-trust society looks like and it's not pretty. One of the major benefits you get living in a 1st world country is the reasonable expectation of good behavior from most people you interact with. Part of maintaining that is social disapproval of people who are cheating off the charity of others.

sweetHack 11y ago

> a pretty sweet hack. Yeah, the kind that gets people hopelessly addicted to amphetamines.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

unimpressive 11y ago

>that's a pretty sweet hack. Really? Lying about having serious developmental disorders is a 'sweet hack' now? I mean, the comments below are overstating things but the danger of amphetamine addiction (especially for people who are using the meds off prescription and are more likely to do especially risky behaviors like snort it) is there and selling the Ritalin is a felony and everything about this story is actually pretty terrible.

icanhackit 11y ago
> Lying about having serious developmental disorders is a 'sweet hack' now? Your perspective on this will depend on whether you lean towards legalizing substances and taxing them. I personally think the prohibition of drugs does far more damage than consumption, and I consider this scenario to be similar to the easy access to medical marijuana - all it took was filling out a quiz and getting an easy diagnosis. Reselling marijuana is illegal, but it's an everyday occurrence that fills DEMAND. > using the meds off prescription and are more likely to do especially risky behaviors like snort it As long as you support the legality of alcohol, your worry about someone hurting themselves on drugs ignores the everyday harm already done by the most dangerous yet easily acquired behavior-altering substance. As for snorting amphetamines - people have been snorting, smoking, and imbibing things since the early days of humanity. It won't be going away soon and, until it affects you directly, it's none of your business really.
- unimpressive 11y ago
  >Your perspective on this will depend on whether you lean towards legalizing substances and taxing them. Fairly libertarian, but thanks for your patronizing attitude. Lying to get an unfair advantage over other students isn't positive sum behavior. It's zero sum behavior that leads to things like red queen races (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race) and everybody having to compete for unlimited time related benefits. A competition which then eats up the supply of this resource for the people it exists for: Actually disabled people with ADHD. Your perspective here is akin to saying that in a busy parking lot there's demand for the disabled parking spaces, so people who go out and lie about their ability so they can park in the handicap spot are performing a 'sweet hack' to get around a 'fucked up' system.
  - icanhackit 11y ago
    > A competition which then eats up the supply of this resource for the people it exists for: Actually disabled people with ADHD. If the system is so flimsy that the only thing preventing abuse is a quiz and a doctors certificate, who are the "Actually disabled people with ADHD"? If diagnosis is so easily achieved and the rates of diagnosis around the world fluctuate so greatly, you should ask whether it's a largely inflated phenomenon and we need to reassess what it is and how we deal with it. Similar to depression, we seem to be medicating for slight deviations from what has been deemed normal, which is quite scary. As for the act itself, if they were stealing the answers to a test then I wouldn't say it was a sweet hack, I'd say they were cheating. However if you're willing to provide the benefit of an office, additional time, adequate cooling and access to reference material to a specific group of people, I say take what the system will happily give you or anyone else who goes through similar motions.
    - unimpressive 11y ago
      >If the system is so flimsy that the only thing preventing abuse is a quiz and a doctors certificate, who are the "Actually disabled people with ADHD"? You're right, the biggest lesson to take from that story is perhaps we should give patients a bit more scrutiny before giving them an ADHD diagnosis. This is still not a 'sweet hack', nor is it laudable behavior. > However if you're willing to provide the benefit of an office, additional time, adequate cooling and access to reference material to a specific group of people, I say take what the system will happily give you or anyone else who goes through similar motions. You're right, from a game theory perspective in the long run we should expect 'rational' actors who aren't punished for doing this to do it until we start punishing them for doing it. That is completely orthogonal to the question of whether this is the incentive structure and behavior we actually want. You're basically saying people should push any system as far as they can before the system pushes back. This is what a low-trust society looks like and it's not pretty. One of the major benefits you get living in a 1st world country is the reasonable expectation of good behavior from most people you interact with. Part of maintaining that is social disapproval of people who are cheating off the charity of others.