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Ethics is not something that gets decided by the Dean and laid down in a code of academic ethics. The University is just a part of society and it has it's own p

by yholio 8y ago

Ethics is not something that gets decided by the Dean and laid down in a code of academic ethics. The University is just a part of society and it has it's own perverse and quite unethical practices; for example, the tendency to grab one's money and time and not provide any substantial education in return. Furthermore, the university might be perfectly aware that it provides crap services and that fraud is rampant, yet enforce it's own rules selectively just to the point where fraud is hidden away and not damaging to it's reputation. So while I agree with you in the abstract, I believe it's hard for people in the western system to relate and make moral judgements about the experiences of a student in post-communist Eastern Europe, where the rules were often gray. Fellow students were cheating on a grand scale, and up to that point, I had the same principled attitude towards cheating as yourself. Part of the reasons for creating "the system" was my revolt towards what I saw around me - the tacit acceptance that those with good cheating skills, which I lacked and did not develop early in my academic career, should be allowed to cheat their way to a degree, while I was supposed to memorize garbage. Sure, my "rebellion" was unethical and compounded the social problem around me. But what could I realistically do, could I have changed anything? At least I saved me from myself, because otherwise I would have dropped-out. In the grand scheme of things, impeccable ethics is often a luxury and could have the exact opposite effect, letting only those with no ethics whatsoever to graduate.

brianpgordon 8y ago
If you sign a code of ethics swearing you won't cheat and you do anyway, that's unethical. Even without an actual signature, the social contract is implicit. The fact that the university exploits athletes and postdocs is unrelated. You can break out the "I did what I had to do to survive" argument but then you're just conceding the point that you abandoned ethics out of necessity or simple mercenary desire for a better position. I don't think it's a huge deal and wouldn't personally let it negatively affect a hiring decision provided you made the right noises about how it was dumb in retrospect and you were young, etc, but your comment here is pretty much the opposite of that. Who could possibly employ someone with your attitude? Even a gas station wouldn't want to hire a cashier who steals money from the register when they can get away with it just because the petroleum industry is destroying the environment, or whatever.
- yholio 8y ago
  As I anticipated, it's hard to relate to somebody living in a profoundly corrupt society. My gripe with the university was not that it was exploiting postdocs or killing the environment; rather, that it failed to setup and enforce a system of rules where my extant academic ethics mattered. The social contract includes not just what's written or implied, it's also what people do in practice, what is acceptable. If cheating is acceptable and required to get a tech job, then I can do that, in fact I can do it better than most. That says very little about my profound sense of ethics. To counter your analogy: what if you are indicted of a crime you did not commit in North Korea? You surely accepted their rules when entering the country, but would you trust their judicial system to do the right thing? Would you bribe your way out if you were given the chance? Would you ask your country to put diplomatic pressure on your behalf, a clearly unethical advantage no Korean has? Would you consider escaping from prison if wrongfully convicted? In a narrow definition of ethics as "whatever the current rules are" (typical, I would say, for somebody living their whole life in a state with strong rule of law), the only ethical behavior is to subject yourself to whatever abuse NK decides for you.
  - brianpgordon 8y ago
    That's throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It's true that law and ethics aren't always aligned, especially in authoritarian regimes. But basic things like integrity are essential for any human society. Also, I'm not convinced that growing up in the former Soviet bloc necessarily means that honesty isn't the best policy. If everyone around you is corrupt, being the one dependable person around is a differentiator. Maybe I'm being naive, but it seems like that reputation could have some real world value to you. By the way, it doesn't matter what your classmates are doing. Comparing myself to the average was horribly destructive to my college education. It turns out, everyone around me putting in average amounts of studying and getting average grades ended up getting average jobs with average pay! The one or two people in class that always aced everything, about whom I thought "well I don't have to be as good as them" - those were the ones who ended up having a real shot at grad school or dat $100k Facebook new-grad signing bonus. It's just like when you move from high school to college and suddenly you're not the smartest person in the universe anymore. Your cheating classmates are bozos - stomp them with harder work and keep moving up. Don't sink to their level.
dennis_jeeves 8y ago
Hey Yholio, don't even bother to explain to the nuts here, who are questioning your 'ethics'. They do not have a nuanced view of ethics. For them the rules, as laid out by the authorities (in your case the university) is the template of what is 'ethical', they are incapable of thinking beyond that. The frightening thing is that they unfortunately represents the vast majority of people.
- yesenadam 8y ago
  Wow. How that comment hasn't been flagged yet I have no idea. People who don't agree with you are 'nuts', yet you have a nuanced view of ethics? That's the most condescending, deluded thing I've heard in years. "For them.." blah blah.. you don't know us; in my case at least, your assumptions couldn't be more wrong, but what do you know or care; you've decided who the in- and out- groups are here.
  - dennis_jeeves 8y ago
    >How that comment hasn't been flagged yet I have no idea. Because it appears not many people agree with you. Most likely they agree with me. Food for thought?
  - dang 8y ago
    Personal attacks will get you banned here, regardless of how bad another comment is. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't post like this again.
    - yesenadam 8y ago
      Oh.. I just noticed this. I'm not sure why you are complaining about my comment but not the one I was replying to! At least I think you were talking to me. I'm not sure what in what I said was personal attack. At least, it seems you were implying something I said was a personal attack. I strongly criticized his view, words, assumptions, decisions. I'm kind of amazed to be threatened with banning about that. [reviews guidelines] Ah maybe "please reply to the argument instead of calling names" - I guess you mean "That's the most condescending, deluded thing I've heard in years." That seems to me a fact. From memory, I don't think there was an argument, just a string of false assumptions presented as fact. (Can't read his comment now) Or maybe it's a "shallow dismissal"? Not sure. What particularly about my comment deserved being threatened with banning? I have noticed that the worse the comment, the harder it is to reply to decently/politely/etc; maybe it was impossible for me to reply to this one, or say what I thought without arguably breaking the guidelines, so OK, point taken, better not to reply in such cases. "Someone is wrong on the internet!" is real. I really did try to stay on-point, not hard enough apparently. I mean, I really do think it was the most condescending, deluded thing I'd read in years, definitely while on here. (I guess you've read much worse!) Again, not sure if that's the part you're objecting to. Apologies if you've read 10,000 replies just like this one. Kind of surprised (and depressed) I'm the problem here though. ps I only saw your comment by chance, it's pages back in my comment history. Is there a way of getting alerts for replies on here?
yesenadam 8y ago
Thanks for explaining further, that's a finer reply than I deserved. Well, I didn't know where that was, or the wider story. What do I know, I've never been in that situation. Good luck, I hope to read your book one day. :-)

by yholio 8y ago

brianpgordon 8y ago

If you sign a code of ethics swearing you won't cheat and you do anyway, that's unethical. Even without an actual signature, the social contract is implicit. The fact that the university exploits athletes and postdocs is unrelated. You can break out the "I did what I had to do to survive" argument but then you're just conceding the point that you abandoned ethics out of necessity or simple mercenary desire for a better position. I don't think it's a huge deal and wouldn't personally let it negatively affect a hiring decision provided you made the right noises about how it was dumb in retrospect and you were young, etc, but your comment here is pretty much the opposite of that. Who could possibly employ someone with your attitude? Even a gas station wouldn't want to hire a cashier who steals money from the register when they can get away with it just because the petroleum industry is destroying the environment, or whatever.

yholio 8y ago
As I anticipated, it's hard to relate to somebody living in a profoundly corrupt society. My gripe with the university was not that it was exploiting postdocs or killing the environment; rather, that it failed to setup and enforce a system of rules where my extant academic ethics mattered. The social contract includes not just what's written or implied, it's also what people do in practice, what is acceptable. If cheating is acceptable and required to get a tech job, then I can do that, in fact I can do it better than most. That says very little about my profound sense of ethics. To counter your analogy: what if you are indicted of a crime you did not commit in North Korea? You surely accepted their rules when entering the country, but would you trust their judicial system to do the right thing? Would you bribe your way out if you were given the chance? Would you ask your country to put diplomatic pressure on your behalf, a clearly unethical advantage no Korean has? Would you consider escaping from prison if wrongfully convicted? In a narrow definition of ethics as "whatever the current rules are" (typical, I would say, for somebody living their whole life in a state with strong rule of law), the only ethical behavior is to subject yourself to whatever abuse NK decides for you.
- brianpgordon 8y ago
  That's throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It's true that law and ethics aren't always aligned, especially in authoritarian regimes. But basic things like integrity are essential for any human society. Also, I'm not convinced that growing up in the former Soviet bloc necessarily means that honesty isn't the best policy. If everyone around you is corrupt, being the one dependable person around is a differentiator. Maybe I'm being naive, but it seems like that reputation could have some real world value to you. By the way, it doesn't matter what your classmates are doing. Comparing myself to the average was horribly destructive to my college education. It turns out, everyone around me putting in average amounts of studying and getting average grades ended up getting average jobs with average pay! The one or two people in class that always aced everything, about whom I thought "well I don't have to be as good as them" - those were the ones who ended up having a real shot at grad school or dat $100k Facebook new-grad signing bonus. It's just like when you move from high school to college and suddenly you're not the smartest person in the universe anymore. Your cheating classmates are bozos - stomp them with harder work and keep moving up. Don't sink to their level.

dennis_jeeves 8y ago

Hey Yholio, don't even bother to explain to the nuts here, who are questioning your 'ethics'. They do not have a nuanced view of ethics. For them the rules, as laid out by the authorities (in your case the university) is the template of what is 'ethical', they are incapable of thinking beyond that. The frightening thing is that they unfortunately represents the vast majority of people.

yesenadam 8y ago
Wow. How that comment hasn't been flagged yet I have no idea. People who don't agree with you are 'nuts', yet you have a nuanced view of ethics? That's the most condescending, deluded thing I've heard in years. "For them.." blah blah.. you don't know us; in my case at least, your assumptions couldn't be more wrong, but what do you know or care; you've decided who the in- and out- groups are here.
- dennis_jeeves 8y ago
  >How that comment hasn't been flagged yet I have no idea. Because it appears not many people agree with you. Most likely they agree with me. Food for thought?
- dang 8y ago
  Personal attacks will get you banned here, regardless of how bad another comment is. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't post like this again.
  - yesenadam 8y ago
    Oh.. I just noticed this. I'm not sure why you are complaining about my comment but not the one I was replying to! At least I think you were talking to me. I'm not sure what in what I said was personal attack. At least, it seems you were implying something I said was a personal attack. I strongly criticized his view, words, assumptions, decisions. I'm kind of amazed to be threatened with banning about that. [reviews guidelines] Ah maybe "please reply to the argument instead of calling names" - I guess you mean "That's the most condescending, deluded thing I've heard in years." That seems to me a fact. From memory, I don't think there was an argument, just a string of false assumptions presented as fact. (Can't read his comment now) Or maybe it's a "shallow dismissal"? Not sure. What particularly about my comment deserved being threatened with banning? I have noticed that the worse the comment, the harder it is to reply to decently/politely/etc; maybe it was impossible for me to reply to this one, or say what I thought without arguably breaking the guidelines, so OK, point taken, better not to reply in such cases. "Someone is wrong on the internet!" is real. I really did try to stay on-point, not hard enough apparently. I mean, I really do think it was the most condescending, deluded thing I'd read in years, definitely while on here. (I guess you've read much worse!) Again, not sure if that's the part you're objecting to. Apologies if you've read 10,000 replies just like this one. Kind of surprised (and depressed) I'm the problem here though. ps I only saw your comment by chance, it's pages back in my comment history. Is there a way of getting alerts for replies on here?

yesenadam 8y ago

Thanks for explaining further, that's a finer reply than I deserved. Well, I didn't know where that was, or the wider story. What do I know, I've never been in that situation. Good luck, I hope to read your book one day. :-)