What are you views on cheating?

[TheCotMan]

When I was younger, I did not care about cheaters, and would sometimes help them with quick answers to their questions. Then, I became less interested and decided it did not matter to me, but I would not help them. If they got caught, fine, but I wasn't going to be the one who turned them in. Now, I still won't turn them in, but am very much against helping them in any way.

What caused me to change my mind? After working in the real world and encountering people that had degrees but what seemed like crap for abilities to work the major that is their degree, I see some of the effects-- these are the people who screw up on jobs and make more work for others.

What are you views on cheating? I am not looking for agreement. I am looking for your opinion and why you have it.

[Second]

When I was younger, I did not care about cheaters, and would sometimes help them with quick answers to their questions. Then, I became less interested and decided it did not matter to me, but I would not help them. If they got caught, fine, but I wasn't going to be the one who turned them in. Now, I still won't turn them in, but am very much against helping them in any way.

What caused me to change my mind? After working in the real world and encountering people that had degrees but what seemed like crap for abilities to work the major that is their degree, I see some of the effects-- these are the people who screw up on jobs and make more work for others.

What are you views on cheating? I am not looking for agreement. I am looking for your opinion and why you have it.

Cheating can be applied to many different situations. Cheating on tests in school, cheating on a spouse/significant other, cheating at a board game, etc. Cheating is something we have probably all done, whether we think it is right or not. Sometimes we have a breakdown in self-control and give in. But since you asked for personal views, I'll give you mine. My take on cheating stems from my religious beliefs. Although I know the Politics/Religion forum was closed for a reason, I don't think I can fairly answer this question without pointing to them as the source. Being a Christian, the Bible clearly outlines how I should deal with cheating. Being an intelligent man, I'll assume you know the Christian viewpoint on cheating.

</ReligiousView>

[Ridirich]

I am against cheating as in my line of work it causes deaths.

What do you call an EMT who scored 72 on their exam? An EMT. I mean, think about it, would you want someone to work on you who could not care for you?

I am also part of an anti-cheating community for a popular 3rd person shooter. I believe that takes the fun out of the game for everyone else.

[rot_link]

Originally Posted by Second
The Bible clearly outlines how I should deal with cheating

Fundamentally, I agree with Second on that. But in question of cheating on a test, or in a game, or any form of cheating, I think that cheating stems from a deeper character flaw of laziness. I deplore laziness more than cheating. When I was in the schools, this was always the case with the cheaters: to lazy to study the material.

Cheating is a form of fraud, and, as pointed out by Ridirich, sometimes the fraudulent actions of others can cause the death of others. Depending on the situation, I would turn in a cheater. For example, when I was training for my lifeguard certification, if I had discovered someone was cheating on the exam, I think it would be my responsibility to declare them, for the future safety of others.

[renderman]

All depends on the situation

If it's expressly forbidden, then, yeah, cheating sucks.

If it's finding a new and creative way to get something done, that's not nessecarily cheating (i.e. Shmoo rule and the Wigle rule in the WD contest)

I do believe in fair play. If your actions cause the detriment of others, then it sucks. If it's just a more creative way of getting to your goal and no-one gets hurt, That's fine by me.

[Second]

All depends on the situation

If it's expressly forbidden, then, yeah, cheating sucks.

If it's finding a new and creative way to get something done, that's not nessecarily cheating (i.e. Shmoo rule and the Wigle rule in the WD contest)

I do believe in fair play. If your actions cause the detriment of others, then it sucks. If it's just a more creative way of getting to your goal and no-one gets hurt, That's fine by me.

But doesn't "cheating" imply that it is breaking the rules? Merriam-Webster defines the intransitive verb form as "to violate rules dishonestly". I would think that cheating is always "expressly forbidden".

[noid]

I think ultimately cheating is wrong. However, I also see a difference between cheating and simply doing something that hasnt been defined as 'not allowed'. A lot of hacks fall into the latter catagory. If no one said you couldnt root the server from the console during the CTF game, it was just implied, then its not cheating when you do it. However in situations where you know you arent supposed to be doing it then its an ethical thing.

Here's a recent example. My little brother just had a friend busted for cheating during his high school finals. He had written up a bunch of cheat sheets as text files and loaded them on his iPod. Now, if the teacher had said 'you can bring notes with you for the exam' I would have lauded his solution as being clever. The arguement could be made 'well, you never said I couldn't write the entire chapter from the book as a text file and load it onto my iPod, you just had an assumption that we'd bring in a handful of notes on a 3x5 card'. But in this case, notes were forbidden, the kid knew this, and did it anyways. That in my mind is willful cheating, and when he got busted he got everything he had comming to him.

For the most part, when you cheat you are only hurting yourself. Wether its copying off a classmates paper or cheating at CounterStrike. You are depriving yourself of the chance to learn or improve your skill. However, as Riddich pointed out there are situations where cheating my hurt more than yourself. I wouldnt want to be operated on by an emergency room surgeon who cheated on his final exams or driven on a bus by a driver that cheated on his driving test.

Its a slippery slope full of a lot of gray area, my advice would be to avoid it all together and just be an honest person. Life is a lot easier to live when you do what you know is right rather than doing things that may be wrong.

[rot_link]

Originally Posted by renderman
All depends on the situation

If it's expressly forbidden, then, yeah, cheating sucks.

If it's finding a new and creative way to get something done, that's not nessecarily cheating (i.e. Shmoo rule and the Wigle rule in the WD contest)
.

I considered this very question. What immediately came to mind was the Kobayashi Maru and how Cpt. Kirk cheated on the test, and was commended for it. That is true that there may arise certian situations where 'cheating' is 'ok'...but I don't think they are very many. In general, (by the way, I don't really like the idea of 'situational ethics' but it seems that I'm forced to arrive at that conclusion) if 'cheating' (playing by different rules) is permitted by the game/fellow perticipants, then is it really 'cheating'?

[hackajar]

I am against cheating as in my line of work it causes deaths.

What do you call an EMT who scored 72 on their exam? An EMT. I mean, think about it, would you want someone to work on you who could not care for you?

I am also part of an anti-cheating community for a popular 3rd person shooter. I believe that takes the fun out of the game for everyone else.

Word of the wise: Do not nmap a GE heart monitor (yes they can be IP enabled).

[hackajar]

What about the cheating/hacking paradigm? When do you cross the line of hacking-as in NOT cracking-to cheating-as in cracking.

Take the scavenger hunt for example. This contest implies "improvising", but what's the line from "creative hacking/improvising" to "outright cracker/cheater".

Dark tunnel, this thought process leads. Ponder on this more, I will.

[astcell]

It is very easy to determine the differences between cheating and creativity. If you cheat you owe me a beer, if you are creative then I owe you a beer.

A cheater is incapable of satisfaction from an accomplishment, either due to immaturity or mental issues. I am sure most of us would rather not accomplish a task than to accomplish it by cheating.

As an example, let's say you want to cheat at a video game to win. Well after playing for a good deal of time you may want to zip to the end to see what the rest of the game is like, so you install some sort of immunity program then you can see the rest of the game. After a bit the game is boring for you because cheating makes it easy. You jjst cheated yourself out of the game price.

Now maybe you want to cheat (hack) your video game hardware. You take apart the compenents, add a mod or two, and now you have a new system. Cheating? No, because you played within the rules of electronics, physics and mother nature. No animals were harmed. You cannot cheat against hardware. A cheat against hardware would be like saying, "Okay, all my resisters are now pots and I can adjust them." You cannot say it, you have to DO it. Ain't happening any other way.

Now if we get a cheater in a game, the guy declares himself a winner, everyone needs to ignore him and keep playing. Fools like that soon tire because they do not get the attention they crave, and they are too lazy or dumb to work at something to be good at it.

In a way I feel sorry for cheaters.

[Second]

Its a slippery slope full of a lot of gray area, my advice would be to avoid it all together and just be an honest person. Life is a lot easier to live when you do what you know is right rather than doing things that may be wrong.

Agreed.

Hmm....I couldn't just write "agreed", so I added this.

[robman]

Now, do not take this as me liking cheating. I have the opposite view. But - I would like to bring a philisophical idea to the table.

About ethics- what if cheating now would help someone later?

Scenario-

Bob is an extremely smart student. He does not get good grades.

Jane studies well. She does not always comphrehend everything, but rather memerizes the answers.

Bob and Jane are working to become scientists. Bob cheats off of Jane, and in turn goes on to become a great and noble scientist. Bob would have failed if he did not cheat. Jane would have become a less than mediocre scientist.

Now, I know this is a radical idea, but I'm sure this has happened before. The problem is we don't ever know whether or not someone is really the better choice from things like tests.

Tests do, however, offer a very good representation of one's capabilities. Therefore, cheating on a test would be wrong because it lessens one's ability, and does not give full credit to another's. It still makes you think about the geniuses of today, and what they might have done in the past.

(All eyes on me)

[noid]

Bob is an extremely smart student. He does not get good grades.

Jane studies well. She does not always comphrehend everything, but rather memerizes the answers.

Bob and Jane are working to become scientists. Bob cheats off of Jane, and in turn goes on to become a great and noble scientist. Bob would have failed if he did not cheat. Jane would have become a less than mediocre scientist.

I think this would go back to Rot Link's idea that cheating is laziness. If Bob is a smart person but is getting bad grades, this means Bob isn't applying himself and thusly doesnt deserve to reap the benefits, as he is putting nothing into it. I wouldnt want to be operated on by the doctor that slacked through med school, but is at the same time a really smart guy. If he cant be bothered to apply his smarts and realize his goal, and resorts to cheating, what other shortcut might he take when working on me?

[TheCotMan]

Wow. This is so cool. I only considered cheating in education, but cheating is much broader than just education. :-)

Being an intelligent man, I'll assume you know the Christian viewpoint on cheating.

You realize this is baiting, yes?
To try to direct this to productive response, intelligence is not something that measures breadth of knowledge, but the ability to use the tools (knowledge) available to solve problems. Wisdom, is the recollection and "appropriate" application of information to a desired outcome or avoid undesired outcomes. I think a better sentence fragment than, "intelligent man," would have been, "person open to new experiences and the learning of many things." (Much less baiting here.)
Baiting in the avoided topics of Poli[removed] or Reli[removed], is a quick way to cause dissention in our ranks.

You do bring up other good points about cheating not just being in education though. :-)

Now, I know this is a radical idea, but I'm sure this has happened before.

Sure. There are cases in history where it may have happened in some way. Edison and the first electronic Light source. Watson and Crick and their model of DNA as a double helix, but based this on (?stolen?) information researched by Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins who used xray diffraction to try to get "pictures" of DNA in order to design a model. Jobs and Wosniak with their tour of Xerox PARC Labs and the Mouse and GUI for computers. Pheonix BIOS Dirty Room/Clean room "copy" of IBM's BIOS.

History tends to remember those that made the [big] announcement first.

As for duplicity of cheating as being something ok in certain spaces, but not in others, let me offer an example:
Are there cases where it is good for a medical doctor to cheat death?

With the above as an example, are there other ways to cheat that are acceptable? (Assuming the above is one of them.)