03-28-2003, 03:54 PM
Yep, the same issues that have plagued humanity since any type of rules were invented. People cheat, lie, steal, and break the rules. People will do anything to survive.
I've seen a few studies that attempt to correlate such maladaptive behavior to the human survival instinct. The basic idea being that since we have evolved beyond the do anything to get food, stay alive and reproduce stage, that our desires for basic subsitance get rerouted to other areas where the sheer ruthlessness that was sometimes needed to just stay alive are let out.
The bottom line is that as long as there are any arenas in which people compete with each other on any level, be it games, jobs, sports, etc, there will be cheating. Lots of peopel want to be the best and they don't care how they get their. If they are on the top of the pile at the end of the day, it makes them feel good. Its the same old same old, and most discussions like this pretty much flow the same way, usually branching into philosophy, ethics, history, and psychology with plenty of anecdotal evidence and usually some good hard science as well. Not that it isn't interesting to debate, I'm just in a mood of "why discuss philosophy if you can't create any practical applications from it, but I still have to throw my voice into the arena anyway." I have rarely seen a cheating discussion that came up with any practical good unfortunately.
I've seen a few studies that attempt to correlate such maladaptive behavior to the human survival instinct. The basic idea being that since we have evolved beyond the do anything to get food, stay alive and reproduce stage, that our desires for basic subsitance get rerouted to other areas where the sheer ruthlessness that was sometimes needed to just stay alive are let out.
The bottom line is that as long as there are any arenas in which people compete with each other on any level, be it games, jobs, sports, etc, there will be cheating. Lots of peopel want to be the best and they don't care how they get their. If they are on the top of the pile at the end of the day, it makes them feel good. Its the same old same old, and most discussions like this pretty much flow the same way, usually branching into philosophy, ethics, history, and psychology with plenty of anecdotal evidence and usually some good hard science as well. Not that it isn't interesting to debate, I'm just in a mood of "why discuss philosophy if you can't create any practical applications from it, but I still have to throw my voice into the arena anyway." I have rarely seen a cheating discussion that came up with any practical good unfortunately.
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It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.