In our society success = money. As children we are taught to pursue success, so actions that bring success within our grasp are honed from childhood on and cheating is one of those actions. I’ve often focused on the prevalence of cheating in schools, how it’s rationalized and where it leads.
That rationalization is succinctly explained by a kid attending a premier high school.
“It’s like, ‘I’ll keep my integrity and fail this test’ — no. No one wants to fail a test,” he said, explaining how he and others persuaded themselves to cheat. “You could study for two hours and get an 80, or you could take a risk and get a 90.”
In short, they wanted success, which meant getting into the “right” school; of course, getting into the right school rarely spells the end of cheating.
Over and over again, students told us that they admired good work and wanted to be good workers. But they also told us they wanted — ardently — to be successful. They feared that their peers were cutting corners and that if they themselves behaved ethically, they would be bested. And so, they told us in effect, “Let us cut corners now and one day, when we have achieved fame and fortune, we’ll be good workers and set a good example.”
Of course, the drive for success doesn’t end with school; if anything it increases. But many people have a naïve belief that cheating is found more often in business and politics, while the world of science is one of higher integrity—would it were actually true.
In the new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, two scientists and a medical communications consultant analyzed 2,047 retracted papers in the biomedical and life sciences. They found that misconduct was the reason for three-quarters of the retractions for which they could determine the cause.
“For 30 years I’ve sacrificed to get to this point.” But his exit strategy, according to federal prosecutors, included his participation in a multimillion-dollar international scheme that involved the lieutenant colonel in charge of the United States Army’s Special Forces operations in Afghanistan and a Boston-based defense contractor.
Cheating is rife in the world of sports and that includes fishing—and I don’t mean the stories about one that got away.
Those who run, monitor and compete in tournaments said that cheating scandals have tarnished the wholesome image of fishing and ruined the final rankings in many competitions, as people handed trophies, cash and other prizes were later found to have cheated.
Cheating often involves taking advantage, whether of circumstances or people—or both. Just look what can happen to people whose circumstances force them to rent a computer instead of buying one.
DesignerWare, a Pennsylvania-based software maker, to create a program that secretly captured “webcam pictures of children, partially undressed individuals, and intimate activities at home.” This included people who while engaging in sexual activities in their homes were being recorded on their rental computers. (…) In a news release issued by the F.T.C., Jon Leibowitz, the agency’s chairman, said the software had also captured consumers’ private e-mails, bank account information and medical records. In some instances the software was able to capture Social Security numbers, medical records and doctor’s names. Most disturbing, the webcam captured pictures of children.
The world is certainly changing and not necessarily for the better. Not just banks, those constant whipping boys and deservedly so, but tech and the general population.
Google has increasingly found itself in the regulatory crosshairs as privacy advocates decry how it handles users’ personal information as it looks to maintain its dominance in search, which still makes up the bulk of its revenue.
Right up there on the privacy evil yardstick is Facebook, not in the US, where privacy is a joke, but in Germany where it’s law. Facebook claims that it is outside Germany’s jurisdiction, because only marketing is done in its German offices, while engineering is done in Ireland. Not everyone agrees.
In March, in response to the dispute, the European Union’s top advisory panel on privacy, the Article 29 Working Party, released an opinion that the collection of biometric data without the explicit consent of users was illegal.
For 20 years Craigslist has been held up as an example of doing good by doing well, but don’t kid yourself. It’s just another hypocritical bully that cons its users into thinking it’s one of the good guys.
This isn’t the first time Craigslist has claimed such violations. The Internet is littered with digital carcasses that once built on top of the listings site. Their pixelated tombstones are inscribed with one-liners that Craigslist killed access without any notice, or they were sent a cease-and-desist letter by Perkins Coie, a top corporate law firm that frequently represents Craigslist.
And now a word from the more personal side.
Cheating and using performance-enhancing drugs is nothing new in sports, but the blatant hypocrisy of Melky Cabrera took it to new heights. After he was named MVP in the All-Star game he said, “I think the one person that has the most influence on me is the Lord. He is the one that embraced me in terms of playing better.” I wonder if the Lord told him to embrace testosterone—he was suspended for 50 games—but he apologized, which these days makes it all OK.
What is your reaction to a coach who talked more than trash to one of his own players and excused his actions by saying sexual harassment was acceptable because it is part of the sport’s culture?
Over six days of competition, though, her team’s coach, Aris Bakhtanians, interrogated her on camera about her bra size, said “take off your shirt” and focused the team’s webcam on her chest, feet and legs. He leaned in over her shoulder and smelled her.
Of course, there is the easy accessibility of Twitter where people can revile their past employer or, from the comfort of their armchair, sit in judgment of those whose feats are so far beyond them 140 characters at a time.
He is a cryptographer, blogger and iconoclast in the world of computer security, and his latest subject of inquiry is trust: how it is cultivated, destroyed and tweaked in the digital age.
Cheating is not a new topic here at MAPping Company Success.
Cheating has been and is currently an acceptable solution for addressing difficult situations by 95% of students, so what makes anyone think that the solution will change when that 95% is working/running our companies, media, governments and religious institutions in years to come?
In fact, we don’t have to wait years.
Consider Jonah Lehrer, author of “Imagine: How Creativity Works,” who, at the ripe old age of 31, blew up a potentially brilliant and lucrative career with that same 95% mentality.
Lehrer plagiarized content for his articles and invented quotes from Bob Dylan for his book.
He’s been fired from The New Yorker and his publisher has recalled Imagine, which has sold 200,000 copies since March.
Based on his apology, it’s hard to tell if Lehrer actually believes he really did something wrong or is apologizing because he got caught.
“The lies are over now; I understand the gravity of my position. I want to apologize to everyone I have let down, especially my editors and readers. I will do my best to correct the record and ensure that my misquotations and mistakes are fixed. I have resigned my position as staff writer at The New Yorker.”
Consider the first sentence; if you take it as stated it means that he didn’t see his actions as being very serious when he did them.
And, of course, he said he was sorry, which makes it all OK.
According to Todd Gitlin, a professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia, Lehrer combined a popular science niche and winning personality to become a 21st-century media star.
“Conjure me up a guy who talks science winningly, who shows you that everything is transparent, and does it in a self-help-y spirit. In our age, a guy who looks cute and wonky is better positioned to get away with this than others.”
And for all those who shake their heads and bemoan this fall from grace I would remind you that Lehrer’s cheating shouldn’t come as a surprise—after all, he is one of the 95%.
Tomorrow is T day (if you aren’t prepared I hope you have filed your extension), so it seemed like a good time to look at who pays what.
No new books meant President Obama’s income is down nearly a million, but he still paid 20%.
President Obama and his wife, Michelle, reported adjusted gross income of $789,674 in 2011 and paid just over 20 percent of it to the federal government in taxes.
He paid 13.9 percent in taxes on income of $21.7 million for 2010 and about the same rate for the not fully completed 2011 returns.
The current tax code is 5,296 pages long vs. 27 when it was written. The majority of the additional 5,969 pages are descriptions and explanations of how to legally cheat on your taxes.
If economists ran the tax system, there would be virtually no exemptions or loopholes. Instead, businesses, rich people, Congressmen and attorneys spend a shockingly large amount of time lobbying for tax breaks or exploiting the ones that exist.
As is often the case with his activities, just beneath the surface was a shrewd use of the United States tax code.
Just in case you are wondering, here’s some intel on what catches the eye of those who pay in the 15% tax bracket.
Neiman Marcus sold out of pewter-color Ferraris (luggage set matching the interior included) at $395,000 each within 50 minutes of making 10 of them available through its “fantasy” holiday catalog late last month.
But in the great scheme of US taxation, Romney’s 14% is still significantly higher than many of our large corporations pay, especially those in the so-called “Dirty Thirty.”
In January, the two organizations identified 30 corporations whose cumulative profit was $164 billion from 2008 to 2011. These corporations didn’t just avoid paying taxes — they actually collected $10.6 billion in tax rebates, according to the groups. They were dubbed the “Dirty Thirty.”
Cheating was in the spotlight in a recent NY Times Room for Debate, which includes opinions from a professor, author, recent grad and high school teacher, along with reader comments on each.
The opinion that drew the most comments was from Mark Bauerlein, professor of English at Emory University and the author of The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future. He pinpoints two causes, 1) pressure to achieve has made cheating a “survival skill” and 2) they don’t know it’s cheating because concepts such as plagiarism and attribution are foreign to them as a result of Web 2.0 and social media’s interactive nature, mashups, file sharing, etc.
I didn’t read all the comments, but #2 from George Canada was especially interesting.
I doubt that anything has changed. At Berkeley in the academic year 1952-53 my teaching assistant in an American History course said “Mr C—-, if you don’t start bringing cheat notes to the exams, you’ll get a B in this course.” I looked as astonished as I was, I suppose, since he went on to say something like “don’t you know that everyone else is bring in notes and cheat sheets?” I didn’t know and I didn’t act and I did get a B in that course. In a psychology course I apparently got the highest or very high mark: the professor said “you must have brought in the perfect cheat sheets.”
Perhaps what we are seeing today is the cumulative effect of cheaters raising cheaters, so that the act itself is becoming more pervasive, more blatant, more socially acceptable, technology-enabled and therefore much easier.
Perhaps it really is no big deal, as we keep being told by those who do it; perhaps it has always been pervasive, as George Canada’s experience leads us to believe.
Perhaps I’m behind the times and test scores are more important than learning; perhaps cheating is a necessary skill in today’s world.
The Hart Research Associates poll showed that top executives are even more disliked than politicians. … The vast majority of potential jurors see corporate CEOs as greedy and willing to break the law.” —LA Times, 11/10/09
It’s a sad day when business leaders are lower on the trust pole than politicians. Actually, I didn’t think any group could be rated lower than politicians.
The saddest part is that the great majority of men and women running small, medium and even large companies don’t lie, cheat or steal; they aren’t particularly greedy and they don’t break the law.
The problem is that many of those who do fit the profile, and there are plenty, run high profile companies in the same or related industry—think financial services and autos to name two glaring examples.
I think part of what’s going on is the spread of the lemming mentality.
You see it a lot in the venture world. During the internet boom no matter how good your business plan if it wasn’t .com you could pretty much forget getting funded. These days the magic markets are green/clean tech, healthcare and mobile anything. In other words, if one jumps off a cliff all the rest will follow.
I have a friend who says that the more expensive the suit the lower his initial trust level; I might agree except that I’m sure that the folks wearing them are aware of the prejudice. Therefore, I have to believe that they are either arrogant enough to believe we are all dumb/disinterested/ignorant not to notice or they just don’t give a damn.
The real question in all this is what are we going to do about it?
Are we going to wring our collective hands, tar all business with the same brush, lament the mentality that drives our distrust and then let it all sink back into the muck when the economy turns around—out of sight, out of mind?
Or are we going to get active, demand better accountability, force business leaders to toe an ethical line and avoid our normal memory loss?
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
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In our society success = money. As children we are taught to pursue success, so actions that bring success within our grasp are honed from childhood on and cheating is one of those actions. I’ve often focused on the prevalence of cheating in schools, how it’s rationalized and where it leads.
Cheating is 
Cheating was in the spotlight in a recent NY Times 
The Hart Research Associates poll showed that top executives are even more disliked than politicians. … The vast majority of potential jurors see corporate CEOs as greedy and willing to break the law.” —
