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> It's nothing there that can learn a fundamental idea like "cheating is wrong".

We have not in fact attempted to teach this.

When a child repeatedly learns that cheating is rewarded and at best inconsistently punished, the child will also cheat and feel no guilt.

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I don't think that's true. About children, I mean. Either because we have some innate moral compass, or more likely because we pick up on cultural ideas beyond our immediate parenting - kids will often have strong moral compasses, despite shitty upbringings, and also have weak ones despite theoretically good ones.

Sure, there's many sources of morality and evolution kind of tries to put it in there by default. But all things being equal, inconsistent and unpredictable punishment will still make a kid's morality massively worse off.

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