I've made it a principle to live my life according to certain ideals - one of which is not to play these games/tricks.

I'm doing better than fine.

Have others who cheated done better than me? Sure - some have. Why should I care? I'm a high income earner and I don't need an even wealthier life.

I am not at all an outlier. If you're amongst a crowd that won't value you for not cheating, it's on you to change the crowd you hang out with.

Basic game theory at work right there. You only need a few bad apples to cause the entire system to devolve.

This mentality is defeatist. I rather lose fairly than cheat to win.

Thats true, but I think the blame is more on "American society" and not the kids working through the system.

50 years ago, college was cheaper. From what I understand getting jobs if you had a college degree was much easier. Social media didn't exist and people weren't connected to a universe of commentary 24/7. Kids are dealing with all this stuff, and if requesting a "disability accommodation" is helping them through it, that seems fine?

Reason.com is operated by the kind of people who start the game with generational wealth in their back pocket.

It's true, if you don't go to the eye doctor, you'll be outcompeted by someone wearing glasses.

Depends highly on your field. There are plenty of military personnel and commercial pilots hiding things or avoiding being seen for any kind of treatment, because a diagnosis could lose them their jobs.

Rolling out electronic health records has been a disaster for military recruiting, because such a large portion of kids flat-out lied on the medical screening, and 60+ percent of the population is already disqualified.

Long ago I remember reading society in China was like this. There's SO MANY people that you HAVE TO cheat the system to even maintain pace with your peers, much less get ahead. And cheating is so rampant that it's expected you will do it.

Really sad that mentality seems to be normalizing world-wide.

But, like—isn’t the bleaker thing that that seems so existential of an outcome? The vast majority don’t go to Stanford. The vast majority of those aren’t valedictorian.

And the vast majority of that vast majority’s lives in the US work out, you know, fine—mostly including things like climate-controlled indoor spaces, ample calories, professional medical care, access to some kind of justice system, going their whole life without participating in war…

Can we stop designing society like people won't game the system? I swear every social program or benefit or corporate relief program we roll out is designed to be exploited. In fact they use specific requirements (a doctors note, a set income level, etc.) and not direct oversight/discretion so it is even easier to game because you just need to tick the right box.

I was happy enough getting into the second best uni in my country on my own merit- I know that I could have gotten into the best if I talked about family members and pets passing and personal challenges like all my friends but that doesn't benefit anyone.

True but I don't think that's out of the norm. The upper echelons of American society always consisted of a bunch of fake status games and abuses, a legacy admission is basically a socially accepted form of disability. Or non-ability, I guess.

America never had a rigorous meritocratic national system of education, it's a kind of half developed country in that sense that became democratic before it modernized (that is to say patronage survived) so you have this weird combination of family clans, nepo babies and networks competing with people who are where they are based on their performance.

Pretty sure it was always like this

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