Uh, did I say that, or were you intuiting? Not exactly a learner's approach :D
> Plagiarizing some work doesn't really hurt the work, it hurts you.
Except when it benefits you? This is the subjective perception I was talking about. That their mindset differs does not instantly make them wrong, especially when you can throw a dime out the window and hit an educated professional who falls short of the best (heaven forbid the "perfect") ethical standard.
Ethics is, and should be, hard. If you put words into my mouth, is your position ethical? This stuff requires the ability to stick around, listen, learn, and stay in the game, moreso if you plan to claim the high ground.
The concept of competence as you describe it is also very much a vague, subjective concern out of which you've just attempted to carve a covert competence contract. This leaves your blind spot unguarded because you are unknowingly making the discussion focus on you and your own competence level.
And this is a big part of why "hyper ethical" subjective ethics people struggle--they assume their view is right and don't ask questions of others.
This doesn't have to do with me either -- the market will determine whether any one person is valuable enough to employ (or promote). My only claims are that being able to write makes one more valuable, and that plagiarizing assignments at school fails to teach one to write.
If students don't bother to do the work, they won't develop any competence in the discipline.
It would be like sending someone for Scala training, only to have them skip all of the work, buy the answers to the quiz, get the accreditation.
University is about much more than 'skill acquisition' but there is a lot of that. Cheating is almost universally pointless.
Except that it clearly isn’t. There are all kinds of people in positions of power who are clearly incompetent in many of the skills we would want them to be expert in.
Often cheating enabled them to pass the gatekeepers and attain their position.
Sure, that example absolutely works. One reason why you wouldn't cheat is that you know that a specific outcome you want requires something of you that you must learn. I found it striking just how rare this was, though. We can fault students for not having made up their minds, but I found that many of them are just really open to new directions, and this can help to enable part of the plagiarism equation, but it's also something of a gift...
Anyway, talking to my students I discovered that the discipline is really often completely up in the air. So while the rhetorical / imaginary student's path for the purposes of argument might be be "study math -> work in applied math," quite often it's "study phil -> work in I don't know what" or similar.
The students who plagiarize with this mindset are really quite something. It's nuanced--they're smart about it, leaving no final question on which points against them can rest. For example, the student submits a first prospective paper in which they quote-paste for pages on end and then plagiarize not by direct-copy, but by reading and then re-hashing someone else's conclusion from a book or another paper, and they get a C+. Well, if a B- is all they need in the class, they are good to go. Then they take a reactive / tactical stance and only change this approach in the future if they absolutely have to.
This pattern happens over and over. If you attempt to pin the student down on qualitative issues, they have a number of tools to use here. You have to be ready for extreme negotiation. They _may not be able_ to learn about quality, ethics, etc. Shocking sometimes but it's a struggle for many. One of the most common negotiation techniques is, "I just...I don't understand. I'm really not that smart" and then they start crying or leave the room in a rage. This can instantly shut down a professor with average or greater levels of sympathy. The student converted the negotiating professor's original value proposition into a risky interpersonal issue. If further negotiations occur, they will find ways to illustrate why things are unfair to them. What is the prof going to do about that? Do they even have time for it at all?
Then you can go back to students who are in the "study math -> work in applied math" group. You look outside of the math classes and you can see the same pattern. They know wasted effort when they see it, or think they do. And again--some, not all. Savvy employers also weed out some of these people but then other employers hire them because they desire tactical cleverness in their organization, and they recognize it when they see it. Maybe it's how they got the boss job in the first place.
> And this is a big part of why "hyper ethical" subjective ethics people struggle--they assume their view is right and don't ask questions of others.
That is itself quite the assumption.
What is it with this everywhere on HN these days where people assume every response someone makes is a refutation? It's a conversation, dude. People will take it places. Sometimes people will build on ideas you mention. Other times people will take an incident and draw their own conclusions. Other times people will draw on a similar incident or talk about a related concept.
I'll accept my off-topic downvotes since that is fair but this is so frustrating.
I just re-read what you wrote. If you're saying your response was not a refutation, given that you wrote "is not best characterized as," I think it's pretty clear as to why that could be misunderstood, to say the least. It seems clear to me that you were replying in direct disagreement and also projecting words I never said right into your reasoning. And further, it now seems as if you're claiming that I'm being assumptive. This is just compounding, not helping.
I think specifics are important here because it's unfortunately common for people to attempt to sweep pesky details under their subjective-ethical rug in the name of [hand wave]. Since this is an ethics discussion some due concern to communicating ethically seems reasonable to expect. If that's frustrating, maybe you can at least see the frustration on both sides.
