Why is cheating bad?

[KingKickass]

Well for one it gives somebody an unfair advantage, BUT the argument that some people already have advantages doesn't hold up to it. Somebody may be born better muscular, intellectual, or otherwise to someone else; but if that someone else had the means to be better than everyone by one little flaw or one little thing they used, it wouldn't show their true skill.

 

[Dire Sloth]

I caught a girl sitting near by texting the answers back and forth with someone else during a religion test, and to boot it was an incredibly easy test. I ratted her out in a heart beat.

 

[Strazdas]

(by cheating I mean not playing by the rules: IE having answers to a test)

Now I will preface this by saying I do not agree that cheating is right, I just want to play devils advocate

So, can anyone tell me why cheating is bad? One of the most common things I hear is that it is not fair to other people. But you know what else isn't fair, that other people were born with more brains, or more muscle. This gives them an innate advantage, and would a cheater not simply be using their gift, cunning, to give themselves an advantage?

From an individualist standpoint, we try to do what is best for ourselves. So for example, If cheating on the LSAT would get you into law school, why should you flip burgers rather than go to law school just because your competition either has more intellect or drive.

Of course, cheating will probably catch up to you at some point, and getting caught is a major deterrent, but how is cheating unfair when life itself is not fair?

good that you clarified what you mean by cheating, because its such a broad term.
Cheating is bad because:
1. It incorrectly evaluates you. You feel well evaluated when in fact you are not knowledgeable. repeated this will lead to you feling overconfident while knowing nothing and yet still being valued high. this will lead to misconceptions about you for you and others, that can lead to a lot of bad situations. real world example: i knew a girl that used to cheat on everything. she eventually got a specialist position in some firm, but couldnt do the job because she didnt knew anything, not even the basic common sense things. that lead to a lot of trouble for her and the company.
2. It is an unfair advantage. while others have to study, you cheat. this leads to your evaluation being high, which may lead to not having to pay for your studies and other bounties that you did not deserve, while depriving people that deserve it.
3. It also bad because it discourages learning, and knowledge is very important, and anything discouraging knowledge is bad. yes, even the trivial knowledge that you think youll never use. i used to despise learning matrix calculations (no not the movie, the mathematical matrices). turns out, my work involves them now. who would have though. had i cheated, id be in a very bad position now.

Life is not fair, but the only way to change the world is to start with yourself. if you cheat, why do you expect others not to cheat you?

Noone is born with more muscle or intelligence (well, technically, more muscle mass and tendency to grow can be born into, but that does not mean squat in our case). it is all am atter of determination. if you want to learn you will. if you dont, dont complain that others want to. For the power of will you can watch the new chinese made Jet Lee movie (its filled with propaganda but the determination message is well shown). Lazyness is something you create yourself, not some fate or god.

Id liek to seperate cheating from consulting with a guy sitting next to you. that is not cheating. here in real life we call that cooperation.

No one actually cheats like that though. No one has multiple choice tests at uni level. Generally 'cheating' involves bringing in notes that you've written, and I don't see an issue with that, seeing as most people write their own notes, or at the very least have to read through the notes in order to copy the answers, and that's learning.

have you ever been to uni? like half the tests there are multiple choices, i should know, i been studying for 5 years.
if you bring the notes that you wrote up and read through carefully - thats is fine. if you bring a photocopied notes from your friend because you couldnt be bothered to get to class that day (out of alzyness, things like illness is understandable) and havent even read them once to see what was there and expect to copy the answers during the test - bad.

 

[Jfluffy]

I would say it would depend on what you're cheating on exactly. I really feel that the education system in it's current state, is flawed and outdated.

Someone cheats on math tests by jotting down the formulas somewhere then he sneaks them in, I would have a time calling that cheating, when it comes to mathematics, isn't it more about the execution of using the formulas rather than remembering the formulas?

But when someone cheats in a way that they don't have to put as much effort into a test, then I would say that is lazy and(depending on the what the test is for exactly) dangerous.

 

[Vegosiux]

Well, the main problem with the education system currently is that it teaches nothing about what it actually means to "learn" something. Memorizing loads of data is useful for trivia, but, uh, yeah that's about it.

Still, cheating is...

Well, it kind of takes away the self-evaluation aspect of any kind of challenge.

 

[Joccaren]

It is bad because it helps no one.

So you cheat and get into Law School. Then what.
Most likely you either fail all your exams there - because you don't know anything - or you cheat and pass. You get out this time.

Now, you've got a job. You become an assistant to a higher ranking lawyer to learn how things work, and for them to see if you're worth keeping. At this point, you're likely screwed. Thanks to your cheating, you are unable to provide any useful advice, and can only listen to what the others say. At this point, you're likely fired because your incompetent. Best case they keep you on as an assistant because you're dedicated enough to be helpful with the administrative side, if not the actual law side. Now you've got a job, but its not where you'd like to be.

This will repeat itself for all professions. No matter what you choose to go into, you're going to end up failing at it because you don't understand what's going on. You will end up flipping burgers anyway, you just wasted your own and other people's time on the way there.

In the short term, it will get you through a test. In the long term, it inhibits your abilities in future tests and trials. This does catch up with you, and you take the fall for it, as well as those you deceived in one way or other.

 

[Moderated]

It depends on what it is.
If it's something that you need to know for your job, like say medical school for a doctor, then it's bad. If, on the other hand, it's something you won't use in your profession, then I see nothing wrong with it.

If it has nothing to do with your profession, then why are you cheating to be perceived as better than you actually are at it?

Captcha: trust me

So you can get into better colleges?

 

[BrassButtons]

That's a very Ayn Rand-y argument to make...

I suppose you could say that,
if it doesn't get you in trouble,
if it doesn't hurt you in the long run,
if you feel it puts you in a better position in life,
if it doesn't hurt your conscience,
there is nothing wrong with cheating.

That would be the idealistic, Ayn Rand answer.

Nope. Cheating is an act of fraud, which violates Rand's ethical code.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

But you know what else isn't fair, that other people were born with more brains, or more muscle. This gives them an innate advantage, and would a cheater not simply be using their gift, cunning, to give themselves an advantage?

Id cry everyday that other people get to be stronger than me by birth. Until i remember those stronger people are the firemen, policemen and soldiers who use that strength to do things in society that i just couldnt no matter how hard i cheated. Im gorram happy that these "Unfair strong people" passed and the weak cheaters failed when they successfully kick down the door to a burning building and save a family instead of failing miserably.

Im fucking VERY happy that the unfairly smart people became the doctors that saved my father from dying of cancer. Im VERY happy life unfairly gave them intelligence that I or others may lack. I applaud that unfairness. Im so happy about it i could cry. If your strength is cunning take a job that benefits society BY being cunning. Thats all you deserve. Othrewise move aside so those born with the advantages, or who earn them, can do the jobs they are best suited for and create a better society.

If youre happy with the unfair smart people being denied jobs expect lower quality of research and doctors. Just sayin. And expect weaker slower firemen. Neither of which i want.

Captcha: I like people

Damn right i do.

 

[runic knight]

lets ignore the whole "it is unfair for the people who actually worked" aspect of cheating. People hammered that home already and it is pretty solid a point.
Even ignoring the social aspect of it, cheating is still wrong. It is an admittance that you are either too dumb, too lazy or too pathetic to actually learn what you need to and have to work around it.

Now, I will add that when it comes to learning, memorization is not as important as understanding relations between things. This is why I personally wouldn't consider it cheating if my doctor didn't know all the names of the various bacteria I might have, but did understand who they would affect me and therefore could determine what was wrong with me (even if he had to consult a medical dictionary to find the exact name of the damn thing first).

The whole point of a test is to TEST what you know. I will grant that how things are tested and what is tested for can be lacking. The system is not perfect, sure. But the idea of cheating is saying that even for the time it would take to pass the test, you couldn't learn it. That, on a personal level, is admitting failure.

 

[Samus Aran but a man]

It's quite obvious. You have to pass exams to prove you know the material. If you need to cheat, you don't know the material, and therefore shouldn't go to law school yet or whatever.

You don't need to be naturally smarter to pass. Just keep your nose to the grindstone and study hard. If you really wanted to get into law school, you would.

 

[runic knight]

Cheating is legitimate as any other form of survival tool.

Sure, you don't have to like it, or people who do it.

But calling it as being inherently bad is ignant.

Life isn't fair. If a person isn't born smart enough (Jee, I wonder why mentally handicapped people exist. It's either circumstance or genetics) or strong enough (genetics, circumstance again) it's funny how people who have the ability to live without the need to cheat always bash on the cheaters. Sure, they might have the ability, but not everyone does. Some just need to cheat to survive. They're not dumb enough to qualify as retarded (and live off government, or other), and they're not strong enough to do good paying physical labour, etc. So instead of having a shit fucking job and life working as a janitor, they do what they can to live happily just like everyone else with their little talents.

Nothing is wrong, nothing is right. You're path, no matter what it is, is meaningless in the end. Make the most of it, fuck the rest.

Ah yes the "Life's not fair" defense. Because pretending you actually know something you don't (this being cheating on a test, forging documents on a resume, etc.) is perfectly justifiable so long as bad things happened to you previously. I mean it must also mean you can break laws to (in some cases, cheating actually is) because, as you said, it is meaninglessly in the end so screw it, lets make even more unfair and try to feebly justify selfish actions.

Honestly, is this all you have? No one is saying people have to live in squalor if they lack natural talents. Motivation, determination, hard work... these things are removed from talent and can more then make up for lack of natural talent a lot of the time. Cheating, blatantly admiting to yourself and everyone else that you don't know the subject or you aren't qualified for the position should kinda tell you that you aren't qualified. No one is entitled to a good job or to not be a janitor, that is the flaw here. You whine about life not being fair yet you base your conclusion on a concept that people are entitled to some degree of fair return. That is incorrect.

 

[renegade7]

Because when you cheat on a test, you claim to have credentials and abilities you don't actually have. In high school, this means that colleges may be making an unsafe investment by accepting you without knowing it, since much of their ranking and therefore how much they can charge is dependent on how many students graduate.

In college and beyond, it means that employers are potentially hiring an unqualified employee. If you're applying for a job as an accountant, and you cheated your way through college, there's no proof that you're qualified for that position. The company risks putting all of its money in the hands of an unscrupulous incompetent.

Finally, you really are setting yourself up to fail in the long run when you cheat because if you have to cheat it means you don't know the material.

Although, if you're in college and it's a general education class that isn't at all necessary for your degree, go nuts if you ask me. I, for instance, am in engineering school and who CARES if I don't know the technical difference between classical and romantic music? I don't cheat personally because I would get in big trouble if I was caught, but sometimes it is extremely tempting.

 

[Samus Aran but a man]

Cheating is legitimate as any other form of survival tool.

Sure, you don't have to like it, or people who do it.

But calling it as being inherently bad is ignant.

Life isn't fair. If a person isn't born smart enough (Jee, I wonder why mentally handicapped people exist. It's either circumstance or genetics) or strong enough (genetics, circumstance again) it's funny how people who have the ability to live without the need to cheat always bash on the cheaters. Sure, they might have the ability, but not everyone does. Some just need to cheat to survive. They're not dumb enough to qualify as retarded (and live off government, or other), and they're not strong enough to do good paying physical labour, etc. So instead of having a shit fucking job and life working as a janitor, they do what they can to live happily just like everyone else with their little talents.

Nothing is wrong, nothing is right. You're path, no matter what it is, is meaningless in the end. Make the most of it, fuck the rest.

This isn't about natural intelligence or natural strength though; it's about understanding and skills. Anyone can become a Doctor or a Lawyer if they try hard enough. Life isn't fair for many reasons, including people becoming doctors and lawyers when they aren't qualified.

 

[DrunkenMonkey]

Your LSAT example falls flat on its butt. You give the alternative of flipping burgers if you fail which can be avoided if you cheat. To sum it up, if you can't pass a simple freaking test that you didn't have the heart, motivation, brains, time, etc. to study for you are simply not cut out for the job in the first place. If you can't do the job right then you shouldn't do it at all.

You know cheating on a high school test is understandable because you don't have enough mental faculties to honestly know what cheating means. When you get to college you learn the almighty corny phrase "when you cheat, you cheat yourself out of your education only" as corny as it sounds, it isn't any less true. What are you more worried about in the end? A high number on a piece of freaking paper, or the fact that you don't have the necessary knowledge behind said number. That importance is sadly up to each individual person to determine.

If you're failing at something that requires cheating as a solution, believe me, most of the time it isn't because life gave you a shitty hand, it's because you somehow screwed up and are looking for an excuse remedy your blunder ala cheating. You probably don't want a doctor that cheated through medical school doing your kids brain surgery as a crude example.

Apologize for the rant in advance, but the LSAT example got under my skin for some reason.

 

[Xanadu84]

You cheat to get into law school. Your incompetence means that a guilty man walks free. That guy goes and kills a girl. Something like that, though not as extreme probably, happens with whatever field you cheat for.

So what if it makes sense for YOU. Your interest alone is very, very rarely in line with any view of morality. Cheating undermines an entire system , making immorality more profitable then merit. When you stop rewarding merit, everything starts to suck, and eventually, it starts sucking for everyone, including the cheaters. In economist terms, cheating may be profitable, but it has huge externalities.

 

[Kellogs Fried Chickn]

I agree that the ability to cheat is of some merit, but have to disprove of the practice as it has lead you down a slope wherein a your ethics and morals become skewed. You may use made up phrases like

individualist standpoint

but I hope readers will understand that your whole post is based around selfishness - the inability or indifference for the interests and others. The excuses you try to make are based off of inherently incorrect presumptions and expectations and dealt with in inappropriate way.

I'm going to soften the abrupt ending with a fun fact.

 

[RJ 17]

Snip

Cheating in real life is bad for the same reason it's bad in a game: any victory you achieve through cheating is completely hollow because you didn't earn it yourself. While in a game, using cheats simply removes any challenge from the game, and without challenge a game loses its purpose. But cheating in life actually has consequences. You cheat to get into law school, you use knowledge that is not your own to pass the entrance exam. Alright, now you're in law school...what now?

Well, you either have to make up for all the knowledge you DIDN'T have to begin with by studying your ass off, or you just keep on cheating your way through. Assuming you don't get caught and kicked the fuck out, you'll end up graduating with a law degree and go on to become a lawyer...what now?

Well you'll either go on to be one of the shittiest lawyers ever since in truth you have no idea what the hell you're doing because your degree was gained via knowledge that you didn't truly know, or you'll just stick with what got you through law school: your "cunning", and try to cheat the system to win your cases. You'll then most likely get caught, disbarred, and end up flipping burgers anyways. Why? Because you didn't get to where you were on your own, you used the talents of other people to get you there. When there's no one left to cheat off of, you're left with nothing but a stupid look on your face because, again, you have no idea what you were doing...where as had you taken the time and effort to actually study for the entrance exam and study your way through law school, you WOULD know what you were doing, and could therefor go on to make a career as a lawyer for yourself.

This applies for pretty much everything. Would you have much confidence in an engineer that cheated his way through school? Or an architect? Or an accountant? Another thing to keep in mind is that cheating inherently implies dishonesty, and most people don't like working with dishonest people.

But beyond all that, you said it yourself in your OP: life isn't fair. If you're not smart enough to get into law school on your own, guess what? You probably shouldn't aspire to be a lawyer. Life isn't fair and it's not meant to be fair. Using cheating as an attempt to balance things out to make it "fair" for you makes it "unfair" for others that DID put the time and effort into studying and such. So why is the "fairness" of your life more important than the "fairness" of the lives of the people you cheat off of? What makes you so important? FUCK YOU YOU DAMN CHEATING BASTARD! Just kidding with that last bit, just kidding, but yeah, there's plenty of reasons why cheating is bad. :3

What's fair in life is doing the best you can with what you've got, not doing the best you can with what the person beside you has.