Comment by xg15 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by xg15 | Hacker News Reader

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> it's not a victimless change, it degrades a shared resource (the credibility of the school).

Do you think the students in that poll had really thought about the credibility of their university when voting? Also, how realistic is it that one professor giving everyone an A in a single course would damage the credibility of the entire university?

> and in particular one that is much more affluent than the people who need government subsidies the most.The government handing out money is not a free action!

If that were the case, the people protesting student Lian forgiveness should be at tge forefront of demanding increased coverage for Medicare and better social security systems in general - and should demand higher taxes for the classes of people that are even more affluent than the students. The opposite seems to be the case though: The people who oppose student loan forgiveness also oppose other social security laws and demand lower taxes even for rich people.

> Do you think the students in that poll had really thought about the credibility of their university when voting?

That's fair, and I'm not sure of course. I guess a more interesting question would be what if there was another option based on what I described. I do know that this is a conversation that we explicitly had in my department many times. It's was an open secret that cheating was rampant, and a degree from that CS department isn't very prestigious. Those two things aren't unrelated.

To your point about a single class giving all A's not damaging it, you're right of course. My point is that this is a classic tragedy of the commons. One plane flight, extra datacenter etc. isn't moving the needle on climate change, but all put together it does.

> If that were the case, the people protesting student Lian forgiveness should be at tge forefront of demanding increased coverage for Medicare and better social security systems in general

I agree, but my response is simple: I don't think either major party in the US has a principled stance on economic issues. There is wild fluctuation in behavior on an issue-to-issue basis. The fact that most students/political parties/people in the universe don't have a coherent set of princples shouldn't stop us from trying to have them!

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