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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 re

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, and most either flunked out, or barely graduated and ended up worse off than our other classmates in terms of job/grad school prospects.

shifter 8y ago
That shifts the "cost" to employers... and you profited from it. Does that make it theft? :-)
- sithadmin 8y ago
  I don't really feel sympathy for employers that don't adequately screen candidates. And who knows: maybe the cheaters are completely capable of meeting the requirements of whatever job they end up in.
  - ambicapter 8y ago
    inb4 the next HN article decrying hilarious overwrought interviewing practices...
- soperj 8y ago
  This is a cost they should be bearing.
badlucklottery 8y ago
>or barely graduated and ended up worse off than our other classmates in terms of job/grad school prospects. And also devalues the degree their peers actually worked for, even if only a little. I've been in a lot of interviews where I'm wondering, "How the hell did this person graduate from ${school}?" and the obvious answer is "a non-zero amount of cheating". I don't think you should beat yourself up over it but I also think but it's also important not to rationalize it away either.
- sithadmin 8y ago
  Personally, I don't really see meaningful value in degrees anyway, so I don't really buy that line of argumentation. My only reason for pursuing graduate studies was to pass the barrier to entry for an academic position, but I gave up on that and went into consulting.
  - badlucklottery 8y ago
    >I don't really see meaningful value in degrees anyway Do you see how that's a rationalization strategy? Maybe you honestly don't but discounting the value of the degree to zero makes your actions victimless. But, if the value is non-zero, damage has been done.
    - ttoinou 8y ago
      He acted morally right to me. Lowering value of shitty diplomas you can cheat easily is useful to society, and brings future competition to this industry
      - openasocket 8y ago
        Is stealing from stores that don't have good security also useful to society, by bringing future competition to the industry? And if so, does that make stealing moral?
        ttoinou 8y ago
        My second sentence was not a justification to the first one, just one of the intended consequences on society of what he did. How did his action compares to stealing ?
        openasocket 8y ago
        I thought your second sentence was meant to be a justification of the first. So what is your justification for why what he did is morally right?
pitt1980 8y ago
"ended up worse off than our other classmates in terms of job/grad school prospects" you sure about that? Just because the jobs they wound up in didn't impress you, doesn't mean that they didn't beat out other honest competitors on the margin for those jobs
- sithadmin 8y ago
  You're not wrong. I can only speak for their outcomes relative to my peers at the university I attended.
nfoz 8y ago
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. I think there are a lot of legitimate concerns about the idea of class grading and hiring metrics etc., but "I might as well profit from others' dishonesty" is maybe not the right way to respond to that.
- candiodari 8y ago
  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.
  - nfoz 8y ago
    But see, I don't think that's "the other hand". It seems unrelated, at best, to the moral question of whether you should profit from helping other people to cheat. Maybe the schools should put more effort into catching and punishing cheaters. But they shouldn't have to -- if the students were being honest. The easier and cheaper it is to cheat, the more tempted the students will be. You can lubricate that market by providing the cheating-materials, maybe even by marketing them. Cheating numbers will go up, thus increasing the cost to detect and catch and appropriately deal with cheaters. The last bit is probably the expensive part. And the more the schools crack down on easily-detectible cheating, the more sophisticated it will get. Sure that means increasing the cost of cheating, but that's an arms race that can only be won by a culture that values honesty. You reinforce that culture by not selling cheating-materials.
    - 8y ago
logfromblammo 8y ago
That makes sense. It is probably in the interests of someone with a Master degree to devalue all Bachelor degrees. But it is also perfectly understandable that those with Bachelor degrees who actually earned them would be super pissed at you for helping a bunch of useless idiots achieve exactly the same institutional recognition, but without the same level of actual mastery, thereby ensuring that they would all have to pass a stupid bozo filter in every job interview for the rest of their lives. Please try to regret what you have done, just a little bit.
carapace 8y ago
> I don't regret it at all. I don't believe you. I think you do regret it and that's why you're spending so much time here today talking to people about it.
Paul-ish 8y ago
Rather than abstaining from or attempting to reform an institution you find flawed, you exploit it for personal gain. If you ever come to find that exploits in your code are used for someone else's personal gain I hope you can be equally equanimous.

shifter 8y ago

That shifts the "cost" to employers... and you profited from it. Does that make it theft? :-)

sithadmin 8y ago
I don't really feel sympathy for employers that don't adequately screen candidates. And who knows: maybe the cheaters are completely capable of meeting the requirements of whatever job they end up in.
- ambicapter 8y ago
  inb4 the next HN article decrying hilarious overwrought interviewing practices...
soperj 8y ago
This is a cost they should be bearing.

badlucklottery 8y ago

>or barely graduated and ended up worse off than our other classmates in terms of job/grad school prospects. And also devalues the degree their peers actually worked for, even if only a little. I've been in a lot of interviews where I'm wondering, "How the hell did this person graduate from ${school}?" and the obvious answer is "a non-zero amount of cheating". I don't think you should beat yourself up over it but I also think but it's also important not to rationalize it away either.

sithadmin 8y ago
Personally, I don't really see meaningful value in degrees anyway, so I don't really buy that line of argumentation. My only reason for pursuing graduate studies was to pass the barrier to entry for an academic position, but I gave up on that and went into consulting.
- badlucklottery 8y ago
  >I don't really see meaningful value in degrees anyway Do you see how that's a rationalization strategy? Maybe you honestly don't but discounting the value of the degree to zero makes your actions victimless. But, if the value is non-zero, damage has been done.
  - ttoinou 8y ago
    He acted morally right to me. Lowering value of shitty diplomas you can cheat easily is useful to society, and brings future competition to this industry
    - openasocket 8y ago
      Is stealing from stores that don't have good security also useful to society, by bringing future competition to the industry? And if so, does that make stealing moral?
      - ttoinou 8y ago
        My second sentence was not a justification to the first one, just one of the intended consequences on society of what he did. How did his action compares to stealing ?
        openasocket 8y ago
        I thought your second sentence was meant to be a justification of the first. So what is your justification for why what he did is morally right?

pitt1980 8y ago

"ended up worse off than our other classmates in terms of job/grad school prospects" you sure about that? Just because the jobs they wound up in didn't impress you, doesn't mean that they didn't beat out other honest competitors on the margin for those jobs

sithadmin 8y ago
You're not wrong. I can only speak for their outcomes relative to my peers at the university I attended.

nfoz 8y ago

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. I think there are a lot of legitimate concerns about the idea of class grading and hiring metrics etc., but "I might as well profit from others' dishonesty" is maybe not the right way to respond to that.

candiodari 8y ago
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.
- nfoz 8y ago
  But see, I don't think that's "the other hand". It seems unrelated, at best, to the moral question of whether you should profit from helping other people to cheat. Maybe the schools should put more effort into catching and punishing cheaters. But they shouldn't have to -- if the students were being honest. The easier and cheaper it is to cheat, the more tempted the students will be. You can lubricate that market by providing the cheating-materials, maybe even by marketing them. Cheating numbers will go up, thus increasing the cost to detect and catch and appropriately deal with cheaters. The last bit is probably the expensive part. And the more the schools crack down on easily-detectible cheating, the more sophisticated it will get. Sure that means increasing the cost of cheating, but that's an arms race that can only be won by a culture that values honesty. You reinforce that culture by not selling cheating-materials.
  - 8y ago

logfromblammo 8y ago

That makes sense. It is probably in the interests of someone with a Master degree to devalue all Bachelor degrees. But it is also perfectly understandable that those with Bachelor degrees who actually earned them would be super pissed at you for helping a bunch of useless idiots achieve exactly the same institutional recognition, but without the same level of actual mastery, thereby ensuring that they would all have to pass a stupid bozo filter in every job interview for the rest of their lives. Please try to regret what you have done, just a little bit.

carapace 8y ago

> I don't regret it at all. I don't believe you. I think you do regret it and that's why you're spending so much time here today talking to people about it.

Paul-ish 8y ago

Rather than abstaining from or attempting to reform an institution you find flawed, you exploit it for personal gain. If you ever come to find that exploits in your code are used for someone else's personal gain I hope you can be equally equanimous.