Two Posers For You (page 3)

Midget-Sasquatch

1. Happy, since I'm fairly experienced with not being so and you end up being like the writer of Ecclesiastes. ;)

God, I want more for my child. :)

2. Don't cheat. The satisfaction should come from knowing that whatever you've achieved you've fully earned.

So what if its not as much as you think you could gain otherwise. How long will you have it anyways if you're really not up to all the challenges presented at that level? Most people won't kick you when you're down if they know you're always trying your honest best. If people know you're a cheat they won't think twice on letting you crash and burn.

ohiocowboy

1. Happy

2. Cheat. I hate saying this, but we are no longer living in the Donna Reed Show or Leave it to Beaver. Society has changed, and moral values have changed along with the times. As long as it didn't directly hurt another, I would say go for it, in this circumstance.

cognizant dissident

Minimus:

My frame of reference also doesn't recognize Farkel's authority to make rules about the threads he starts. So, I'll "run along" when I damn well feel like it!

Violia

I would advise my child to try and be successful b/c he can can be both successful and happy. They are not mutally exculsive. Success will bring many ways to find happiness. Being happy is nice, but it does not feed your children or put a roof over your head.

!! Cheat. some opportunties will never come you way if they are once missed. Cheating to get into a good university is not acceptable to me. You have not commited murder. Even Captain Kirk changed the rules . Sometimes you have to change the rules.

Violia

I can't edit my post so I meant, yes cheat to get into a good university. I find it acceptable.

Farkel

The comments on this thread mirror almost precisely those of a survey done using the same questions I posed, but given those questions to an older and a newer generation of people.

The majority of the older generation believed that having their children be happy is more important than having them be successful. The younger generation believed the opposite.

The majority of the older generation believed that cheating on a college entrance exam is morally wrong regardless of the benefits. The younger generation believed the opposite.

This is a trend that many social scientists have tracked since the 1950s where each successively younger generation becomes more and more relativistic, and where morals and ethics become relative to the benefits to be gained by choices and actions.

Increasingly, what used to be considered right/wrong, moral/immoral choices are now made with a "that depends upon what's in it for me" qualifier.

We can all figure out where the end of this slippery slope COULD lead because we've all seen it on a very small scale in such acts as people murdering innocent people in cold blood because they felt they were somehow not showing enough respect, and for them, getting respect was more important than the lives they took.

"Murdering someone in cold blood is morally wrong, unless I don't get the respect I deserve." Or, is cold-blooded murder always morally wrong?

"Cheating is morally wrong, unless I can get a good college education by cheating." Or, is cheating always morally wrong?

Are there morals and ethics which exists which are immutable, while maybe others are not? If so, why have any morals and ethics at all, since they are relative to a person's selfish interests?

If the person who cheated on that college test got admitted, but at the cost of another student who honestly took the test and was qualified to be admitted, but who was bumped by the test cheater because of a limit on the number of student enrollments, is that acceptable morally and ethically? As a parent, you may feel great that your kid made it to a dream college, but how do you feel about the parents and the kid who didn't make it because your kid cheated? Screw them? Tough shit?

All decisions have consequences.

I'm not judging here. Just observing.

Farkel

aSphereisnotaCircle

I think some of you posters are missing a few of the finer points.

Farkel said that if you cheat you will be very successful, and if you don't you will be much less successful.

So the idea of "cheaters never win" does not apply here, in this case the cheater is very well rewarded.

Soo if you cheat on one test and then become wildly successful, apparently you are qualified for the job, it was just one little test that stood in your way.

This is not a perfect world and worthy people are only occasionally wildly successful, the rest is just good luck.

aSphereisnotaCircle

If the person who cheated on that college test got admitted, but at the cost of another student who honestly took the test and was qualified to be admitted, but who was bumped by the test cheater because of a limit on the number of student enrollments, is that acceptable morally and ethically? As a parent, you may feel great that your kid made it to a dream college, but how do you feel about the parents and the kid who didn't make it because your kid cheated? Screw them? Tough shit?

OK but what if my kid was 10 times smarter and more talented then your kid.

And was brilliant in the real world but did very poorly under testing situations.

Does that mean your kid deserves the opportunity more then my kid?

Testing is far from perfect and there are no level playing fields.

Brother Apostate

Here are two ethical posers:

I believe you meant "posits".

I. Would you rather your children grow up to be successful or happy? Explain your answer.

Happiness is success. Do I really need to explain?

II. If you knew your child could cheat on a test and in doing so, get admitted to a prestigious University which would advance the child much further in life, would you prefer the child to:

First- " advance" means absolutely nothing.

1) Cheat, get the education and be much further ahead in life, or (this presupposes way too many things, for example: cheating will merely abet the intelligent whilst exposing the ignorant over time. )

2) Not cheat, get a far lesser education and miss out on the opportunities which would be available in choice #1. (if the subject in question is ignorant, they willl be exposed; if they are intelligent, they most likely will get away with it.l)

Explain your answer. (Do I really need to explain?

These were generationally directed questions, and you might be surprised at the divergence in answers from parents who are only separated by two generations. (I would not be surprised at all, experience comes with age.)

What say you?

Farkel

brother apostate,

::Here are two ethical posers:

:I believe you meant "posits".

I meant exactly what I wrote: a "poser" is a question. A posit is an assertion.

aSphere...,

::Farkel said that if you cheat you will be very successful , and if you don't you will be much less successful .

:So the idea of "cheaters never win" does not apply here, in this case the cheater is very well rewarded.

Here you first misrepresented what I wrote, and secondly, you make a sophistry from that misrepresentation.

:Soo if you cheat on one test and then become wildly successful, apparently you are qualified for the job, it was just one little test that stood in your way.

Thirdly, you rationalized cheating, saying it was "just one little test." By the same token, one can rationalize murder by saying, it was "just one little human."

Any any rate, I see your point: you operate from the same viewpoint as the younger generation I discussed in my reply about the survey taken in a post above. That rationale is simply, "if I can find a reason to justify it, then it becomes ok in my book."

:"This is not a perfect world and worthy people are only occasionally wildly successful, the rest is just good luck.

That of course, had nothing to do with the moral dilemmas I presented.

Farkel

Two Posers For You

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