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Comment by cottsak | Hacker News Reader

If you can't see that "helping other people in another class cheat" is violating the honour code then you might benefit from taking the time to do so.

> Failure to realize the consequences of a course of action does not justify it.

https://deans.caltech.edu/documents/24878/Honor_Code_Handboo...

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> If you can't see that "helping other people in another class cheat" is violating the honour code then you might benefit from taking the time to do so.

I did, and I didn't see how. If Alice is helping Bob cheat, Bob is the one taking unfair advantage of others, not Alice. For all you know, Alice could be offering to help everyone cheat.

It's not like I'm saying something outlandish here. There's a reason most places have specific rules prohibiting assisting others with their violation. Even MIT goes out of its way to specifically call out "Facilitating Academic Dishonesty". [1]

[1] https://integrity.mit.edu/handbook/academic-integrity-mit/wh...

Alice is taking a small unfair advantage of every member of the community at once. A community and its practices is a form of commons shared by the members, so it's vulnerable to the tragedy of the commons. If one member acts in a way that deliberately goes against the trust, that's inherently unfair to the rest of the members because it tends to push everything toward a breaking point. If her goal depends on the community's existence or function (which if it doesn't, why is she even around?), then whatever her goal, Alice has gone after it in a way that takes unfair advantage of everyone else's commitment to the system. Even if Alice's action doesn't cause a final breakdown, she's moved things in the wrong direction for her own purposes.

> Alice is taking a small unfair advantage of every member of the community at once.

Interesting take, I like it; thanks! Let me mull over it a bit... it's making me wonder whether the existence of any personal benefits (by Alice) are a necessary component of a violation.

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