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I guess I'm the first person to say that yes, I did cheat, and no, I don't feel guilty. What matters is getting the right answer. If you stop before you get th

I guess I'm the first person to say that yes, I did cheat, and no, I don't feel guilty. What matters is getting the right answer. If you stop before you get the right answer, then you're responsible for that. If you take a shortcut to get the right answer, then it's not a bad thing until you get to a situation where you refuse to do what it takes to get the right answer. Given a choice between wasting my time on meaningless schoolwork and cheating and keeping the time to myself, I'll take cheating, and if I went back I'd cheat again.

hollerith 17y ago
"What matters is getting the right answer." Oh, so it was your principled commitment to "what matters" that caused you to cheat, eh?
- zimbabwe 17y ago
  That's a bullshit way of phrasing it. Let's stick to how I said it. What matters is that you end up with the right thing. If you can easily get the right thing by copying somebody else, then do that. That doesn't excuse your not learning how to do it on your own, but there's no nobility to finding out the answer yourself, beyond what personal satisfaction it brings you. I code using other people's languages and other people's plug-ins. I take visual ideas from other people's graphic designs. Then I bend them to fit my own purposes. When somebody else has solved part of the problem I want to fix, there is no honor in my repeating their work.
  - ryanwaggoner 17y ago
    There's no honor in taking someone else's hard work and passing it off as your own. Looking at someone else's website for visual inspiration is a far cry from copying someone else's paper or having a friend do your math homework. Please tell me you see the difference.
    - Locke1689 17y ago
      "Cheating" does not necessarily mean taking someone else's work. I have cheated before by taking my own work (usually equations and the like) into exams in which I was not supposed to have them. This is technically "cheating," but what it really came down to was that I didn't want to spend hours memorizing information I would only use on one test and then immediately forget.
      - stcredzero 17y ago
        If you don't like the way a teacher or a school runs things, then don't cheat. Vote with your feet. Requiring students to memorize has as much to do with the logistics of testing as it does with learning. If you think the school is being lazy and making it easier for them to test at the expense of substantive (non-rote) learning, then why go there? Even if this is high school, there are still choices. There are people who have gotten into the Ivies with a GED. If you are the right kind of person, you will do substantive work, be recognized and succeed. You can add the drop out, get a GED and do volunteer work step to this plan: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2009/1/24/11657/1141 http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2009/1/24/11657/1141 If most people voted with their feet, then schools would get a lot better, fast. Instead, people cheat, which enables the schools to keep up their appearances. You're just as guilty of propagating the paper-reality of testing over actual learning.
        asciilifeform 17y ago
        > If most people voted with their feet, then schools would get a lot better You might as well campaign for a general strike. "Vote with your feet" is the age-old leper's bell of market fundamentalists, who deny the reality of tough collective-action problems. I wish there were some way to confiscate your diploma and force you to live the life of an average high school dropout. But of course, you surely believe that you are exceptional, destined from birth to live out a rags-to-riches tale no matter what. I would like to see just how far your GED and volunteer work would get you. > you will do substantive work, be recognized and succeed What reason is there to believe this? As far as American middle-class society is concerned, someone without a high-school diploma is a non-person.
  - hollerith 17y ago
    What you wrote is mostly just rationalization, in my humble opinion.
evilneanderthal 17y ago
Someone might argue that part of schoolwork is proving that you can do boring routine work. In this respect you only have the long-term incentive of graduating and there is no immediate reward.
- zimbabwe 17y ago
  So far I have never found an instance in life where doing boring routine work was at all something I wanted to do. The boring routine work I do have to do I constantly try and figure out ways around.
  - ryanwaggoner 17y ago
    Apparently even when those ways around it require you to lie and steal the work of others. What won't you do to avoid boring routine work? And isn't this the very definition of laziness? Being willing to cross ethical boundaries to avoid unpleasant work?
    - zimbabwe 17y ago
      When did I say I wasn't lazy? I see the sort of laziness that strives to avoid tedium and boredom as a virtue.
ryanwaggoner 17y ago
Why bother going to school if this is how you view it? I think the problem with cheating is that it's fundamentally dishonest. It's not that you're using someone else's work to accomplish something, as we all do this every day in our jobs, it's that you're lying and presenting that work as your own.
- ciupicri 17y ago
  Not all the subjects at school suck so much, so you don't have to cheat at everything. And even if you cheat, it doesn't necessarily mean you must cheat 100%, e.g. at all questions and you could still learn something. I don't like people who cheat a lot, at that point going to school is becoming useless indeed, but when you don't have enough freedom to choose your subjects or they are taught just to be taught, a bit of cheating eliminates a lot of headaches.
- PieSquared 17y ago
  Why bother going to school? Because some of us are legally obliged to, and not doing so would be breaking the law. It's dishonest, yes, but when you're in a situation where your two choices are spending time learning something on your own versus not copying a busywork homework assignment from a friend... the first stops seeming so unethical.
  - falien 17y ago
    You may be legally required to be present, but that doesn't mean you have to do anything. I have no particular problem with copying busywork, but claiming you're required to do any such work is a cop out. (Also it is shockingly easy in the US to get out of the legal requirement of attending school, even of one's own volition when they've reached high school age.)
    - PieSquared 17y ago
      You can do nothing, but if you're the type that wants an education (i.e. a decent university with math, physics, bio, cs, or etc courses available), you have to comply with the demands of the system.

hollerith 17y ago

"What matters is getting the right answer." Oh, so it was your principled commitment to "what matters" that caused you to cheat, eh?

zimbabwe 17y ago
That's a bullshit way of phrasing it. Let's stick to how I said it. What matters is that you end up with the right thing. If you can easily get the right thing by copying somebody else, then do that. That doesn't excuse your not learning how to do it on your own, but there's no nobility to finding out the answer yourself, beyond what personal satisfaction it brings you. I code using other people's languages and other people's plug-ins. I take visual ideas from other people's graphic designs. Then I bend them to fit my own purposes. When somebody else has solved part of the problem I want to fix, there is no honor in my repeating their work.
- ryanwaggoner 17y ago
  There's no honor in taking someone else's hard work and passing it off as your own. Looking at someone else's website for visual inspiration is a far cry from copying someone else's paper or having a friend do your math homework. Please tell me you see the difference.
  - Locke1689 17y ago
    "Cheating" does not necessarily mean taking someone else's work. I have cheated before by taking my own work (usually equations and the like) into exams in which I was not supposed to have them. This is technically "cheating," but what it really came down to was that I didn't want to spend hours memorizing information I would only use on one test and then immediately forget.
    - stcredzero 17y ago
      If you don't like the way a teacher or a school runs things, then don't cheat. Vote with your feet. Requiring students to memorize has as much to do with the logistics of testing as it does with learning. If you think the school is being lazy and making it easier for them to test at the expense of substantive (non-rote) learning, then why go there? Even if this is high school, there are still choices. There are people who have gotten into the Ivies with a GED. If you are the right kind of person, you will do substantive work, be recognized and succeed. You can add the drop out, get a GED and do volunteer work step to this plan: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2009/1/24/11657/1141 http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2009/1/24/11657/1141 If most people voted with their feet, then schools would get a lot better, fast. Instead, people cheat, which enables the schools to keep up their appearances. You're just as guilty of propagating the paper-reality of testing over actual learning.
      - asciilifeform 17y ago
        > If most people voted with their feet, then schools would get a lot better You might as well campaign for a general strike. "Vote with your feet" is the age-old leper's bell of market fundamentalists, who deny the reality of tough collective-action problems. I wish there were some way to confiscate your diploma and force you to live the life of an average high school dropout. But of course, you surely believe that you are exceptional, destined from birth to live out a rags-to-riches tale no matter what. I would like to see just how far your GED and volunteer work would get you. > you will do substantive work, be recognized and succeed What reason is there to believe this? As far as American middle-class society is concerned, someone without a high-school diploma is a non-person.
- hollerith 17y ago
  What you wrote is mostly just rationalization, in my humble opinion.

evilneanderthal 17y ago

Someone might argue that part of schoolwork is proving that you can do boring routine work. In this respect you only have the long-term incentive of graduating and there is no immediate reward.

zimbabwe 17y ago
So far I have never found an instance in life where doing boring routine work was at all something I wanted to do. The boring routine work I do have to do I constantly try and figure out ways around.
- ryanwaggoner 17y ago
  Apparently even when those ways around it require you to lie and steal the work of others. What won't you do to avoid boring routine work? And isn't this the very definition of laziness? Being willing to cross ethical boundaries to avoid unpleasant work?
  - zimbabwe 17y ago
    When did I say I wasn't lazy? I see the sort of laziness that strives to avoid tedium and boredom as a virtue.

ryanwaggoner 17y ago

Why bother going to school if this is how you view it? I think the problem with cheating is that it's fundamentally dishonest. It's not that you're using someone else's work to accomplish something, as we all do this every day in our jobs, it's that you're lying and presenting that work as your own.

ciupicri 17y ago
Not all the subjects at school suck so much, so you don't have to cheat at everything. And even if you cheat, it doesn't necessarily mean you must cheat 100%, e.g. at all questions and you could still learn something. I don't like people who cheat a lot, at that point going to school is becoming useless indeed, but when you don't have enough freedom to choose your subjects or they are taught just to be taught, a bit of cheating eliminates a lot of headaches.
PieSquared 17y ago
Why bother going to school? Because some of us are legally obliged to, and not doing so would be breaking the law. It's dishonest, yes, but when you're in a situation where your two choices are spending time learning something on your own versus not copying a busywork homework assignment from a friend... the first stops seeming so unethical.
- falien 17y ago
  You may be legally required to be present, but that doesn't mean you have to do anything. I have no particular problem with copying busywork, but claiming you're required to do any such work is a cop out. (Also it is shockingly easy in the US to get out of the legal requirement of attending school, even of one's own volition when they've reached high school age.)
  - PieSquared 17y ago
    You can do nothing, but if you're the type that wants an education (i.e. a decent university with math, physics, bio, cs, or etc courses available), you have to comply with the demands of the system.