6 ms·

Educating and testing are separate issues. If you are testing to see what to teach next, and the student cheats, well they just cheated themselves out of learn

Educating and testing are separate issues. If you are testing to see what to teach next, and the student cheats, well they just cheated themselves out of learning what you were going to teach if they failed the test.

chongli 6y ago
In isolation, maybe. But in reality students are competing for limited educational resources. Cheating can mean the difference between admission and rejection to courses, majors, scholarships, and matriculation at top schools. It’s no different from cheating in sports. Yeah, the sports cheater is probably damaging their body and potentially harming their natural potential. At the same time, cheating may let them make the team and even the big leagues. That can change a person’s entire career, just as cheating to get into Harvard can.
- searchableguy 6y ago
  <incoherent rant> Everytime, I end up with the same conclusion. Overpopulation and imbalanced distribution of resources is the root cause for everything wrong with this world. I keep doubting myself. The problem shouldn't be that visible. People don't seem to blame overpopulation... maybe it's not a problem but everytime, it is the problem. Look at education systems of smaller countries. They are way better than what you get as the number of people in your country increases despite bigger spending. Stopping overpopulation shouldn't be hard. We haven't tried anything. How can people be so sure? Why not disincentivise having kids by making it too expensive? Maybe use a tax cut equivalent to someone's wealth so rich people are as much affected as poor people (albeit a bit less in the grand scheme). Free birth control for everyone - poor people in less developed countries are responsible for most kids. Force longer education period so fertility rate goes down by the time people settle down. There are so many ways you can push the average marriage age faster than it is happening naturally now. Why not do it for less developed countries? Isn't it better if there is less suffering collectively in this world? How about paying people to not have kids and adopt? What's the problem with it? Taxes are used for so many other useless things. </incoherent rant> I am okay with downvotes but please provide a reason. I really want to know. Maybe my thoughts are unhealthy.
  - de_watcher 6y ago
    You'll have the same shit but on a smaller scale.
    - searchableguy 6y ago
      See - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23170398 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23170398 Please explain more.
  - brigandish 6y ago
    There will always be scarcity. That doesn't make all kinds of scarcity the same, morally or in other ways, nor does it mean there will be the same objects of scarcity, nor scope, nor distribution of scarcity at differing population levels. Still, it will always be a "problem" but that also makes it an opportunity. Lack of opportunity or access to the things needed to even take an opportunity are worse than scarcity (in itself).
  - mellow2020 6y ago
    To me the problem is only injustice and distribution of resources, not how much or little we have in absolute terms. And if we must make up a measure as to who gets to have kids, maybe make it empathy, not wealth, which is a much worse indicator of the quality of a person than even physical strength would be.
    - searchableguy 6y ago
      How does someone measure empathy at institutional level? Every other metric I can think of will be hard to convince and implement. It can also be pretty subjective.
      - mellow2020 6y ago
        I didn't say it's easily doable, I say while making up arbitrary factors, at least attempt to make it a good one. If you pick poverty as the criterion, convincing anyone isn't even a question, the coercion is a given, so there's no need to suddenly shift the goal posts for empathy, of all things. > It can also be pretty subjective. The comment I replied to literally mentions "everything wrong in the world" in the opening, it couldn't get more vague and subjective than that, but empathy is the problem? Overpopulation is subjective, misdistribution is subjective, quality of education is subjective (you may say knowing things and being able to use them well is "better", but that's subjective, too), even human extinction being a problem is subjective. As anything else relating to human ambitions and what we consider a good life.
- crankylinuxuser 6y ago
  Do you honestly think there's education when a uni teaches cattle class of 200 people for calculus 101, and intends to flunk 80% of them? This could easily be a set of videos recorded from a real lecture. Problems could be assigned from problem sets (plug n chug from schematics). What someone would pay for is 1 on 1 time from a professional. And there's NO reason to fail someone, as in retake and pay a pound of flesh again. If you don't get it, go to a different degree that doesn't require it.

chongli 6y ago

In isolation, maybe. But in reality students are competing for limited educational resources. Cheating can mean the difference between admission and rejection to courses, majors, scholarships, and matriculation at top schools. It’s no different from cheating in sports. Yeah, the sports cheater is probably damaging their body and potentially harming their natural potential. At the same time, cheating may let them make the team and even the big leagues. That can change a person’s entire career, just as cheating to get into Harvard can.

searchableguy 6y ago
<incoherent rant> Everytime, I end up with the same conclusion. Overpopulation and imbalanced distribution of resources is the root cause for everything wrong with this world. I keep doubting myself. The problem shouldn't be that visible. People don't seem to blame overpopulation... maybe it's not a problem but everytime, it is the problem. Look at education systems of smaller countries. They are way better than what you get as the number of people in your country increases despite bigger spending. Stopping overpopulation shouldn't be hard. We haven't tried anything. How can people be so sure? Why not disincentivise having kids by making it too expensive? Maybe use a tax cut equivalent to someone's wealth so rich people are as much affected as poor people (albeit a bit less in the grand scheme). Free birth control for everyone - poor people in less developed countries are responsible for most kids. Force longer education period so fertility rate goes down by the time people settle down. There are so many ways you can push the average marriage age faster than it is happening naturally now. Why not do it for less developed countries? Isn't it better if there is less suffering collectively in this world? How about paying people to not have kids and adopt? What's the problem with it? Taxes are used for so many other useless things. </incoherent rant> I am okay with downvotes but please provide a reason. I really want to know. Maybe my thoughts are unhealthy.
- de_watcher 6y ago
  You'll have the same shit but on a smaller scale.
  - searchableguy 6y ago
    See - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23170398 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23170398 Please explain more.
- brigandish 6y ago
  There will always be scarcity. That doesn't make all kinds of scarcity the same, morally or in other ways, nor does it mean there will be the same objects of scarcity, nor scope, nor distribution of scarcity at differing population levels. Still, it will always be a "problem" but that also makes it an opportunity. Lack of opportunity or access to the things needed to even take an opportunity are worse than scarcity (in itself).
- mellow2020 6y ago
  To me the problem is only injustice and distribution of resources, not how much or little we have in absolute terms. And if we must make up a measure as to who gets to have kids, maybe make it empathy, not wealth, which is a much worse indicator of the quality of a person than even physical strength would be.
  - searchableguy 6y ago
    How does someone measure empathy at institutional level? Every other metric I can think of will be hard to convince and implement. It can also be pretty subjective.
    - mellow2020 6y ago
      I didn't say it's easily doable, I say while making up arbitrary factors, at least attempt to make it a good one. If you pick poverty as the criterion, convincing anyone isn't even a question, the coercion is a given, so there's no need to suddenly shift the goal posts for empathy, of all things. > It can also be pretty subjective. The comment I replied to literally mentions "everything wrong in the world" in the opening, it couldn't get more vague and subjective than that, but empathy is the problem? Overpopulation is subjective, misdistribution is subjective, quality of education is subjective (you may say knowing things and being able to use them well is "better", but that's subjective, too), even human extinction being a problem is subjective. As anything else relating to human ambitions and what we consider a good life.
crankylinuxuser 6y ago
Do you honestly think there's education when a uni teaches cattle class of 200 people for calculus 101, and intends to flunk 80% of them? This could easily be a set of videos recorded from a real lecture. Problems could be assigned from problem sets (plug n chug from schematics). What someone would pay for is 1 on 1 time from a professional. And there's NO reason to fail someone, as in retake and pay a pound of flesh again. If you don't get it, go to a different degree that doesn't require it.