Analysis Of The Article 'How Winning Leads To Cheating'

Based on Paul Feldman’s findings, the authors of Freakonomics argue that a person, who is faced with an efficient way to cheat, will not necessarily choose to. The data involved in Feldman’s accidental bagel study proves that not all humans are corrupt. However,

The next case study was on Sumo Wrestling matches in Japan. Sumo wrestling is huge in Japan and the ranking is everything to the sumo wrestlers. Highest ranked wrestlers are treated like royalty while those who don’t rank as high must tend to their superiors and do jobs that are less than desirable. The results of the data in this chapter shows that a wrestler very well might throw a match to help his opponent maintain his current ranking, when throwing the match does not hurt or help his current ranking. There was economic and social incentive for them to cheat. A wrestler would help another out with the promise of being helped out when they needed it. It was proven that the majority of sumo wrestlers do cheat at one point or another.

Corruption in sport is not a new occurrence. However there has been an increasing series of high-profile corruption cases arising all over the world and in many different sports. This has seen an increased vulnerability to the integrity and values of sport. Illegal activities such as match-fixing, use of inside information for betting purposes and improper use of commercialisation of sports betting are many examples that lead to corruption of sport. Many of these legal and illegal activities are affecting the integrity and values on and off the field. If the industry of sports betting continues to grow there is a high chance of corruption increasing throughout sports. Although I strongly believe that betting in sports shouldn’t be totally banned. On

Those with a particularly insensitive moral compass may feel comfortable calling it gaining competitive edge. Traditionalists believe that an athletic competition should respect those who win because of talent, hard work and sweat; they call it cheating. Sports terminology refers to it as doping, with many medical experts labeling it as drug abuse in athletes. Here are two of the biggest doping scandals in sports history.

Bad ethics, he adds, is not a purposeful move by developers (374). Game developers strive for popularity that with it brings monetary success. A common practice, almost universal to successful games, is a reward system. Rewards are most commonly found in real time strategy games and role playing games, that is why Gotterbarn uses them as his primary example. Gottenbarn precisely identifies that success in these games is determined by the number of points earned. He continues the discussion by adding that the issue is not how the points are earned, it is that the points are attributed to the player only (374). In short, rewarding each player individually makes the player become more self centered, only thinking of others as a means to an end goal (374). Some might argue that real sports already have this self-centered mentality, they are wrong. In team sports like soccer the points earned are determined by the teams overall success, however, the points earned in League of Legends, a multiplayer real time strategy game, is not based on the teams performance, but instead on individual performance. Where soccer promotes loyalty and teamwork, League of Legends promotes "thinking solely in terms of benefit to their character when making a decision" (Gotterbarn 374). This affect extends to single player games too, in Gotterbarn's

The Critique Money has such a high value, that someone will cheat the next person out of their hard earned money just to make themselves richer. In “Cheating in a Bottom-line Economy” by David Callahan, he discusses the differences of how people are being cheated out of their money. A manager of a company encourages the workers to do this to meet the economy standards. The purpose of this comes from financial determination over integrity. Callahan gains a lot of his information from businesses such as mechanic buildings, law firms, and medical firms, to prove that people are money driven.

However, there are methods of gaining a competitive edge that go beyond just bettering yourself that are unarguably unfair. In the e-sports community using "hacks" to cheat offer an advantage that no one who uses any method to better themselves as player can compete with. Using a method that prevents other combatants from even having a hope of winning is certainly unethical. Using methods to better yourself at a faster rate is one thing, but using a method of cheating that gives you an edge over someone who has trained for countless hours more than you is another. Another example of clearly unethical cheating would be using methods that cripple your opponent. Essentially removing someone

I believe economists and Christians will think similarly, but stand on components of this equation. Neither can say that cheating is profitable,

“The trouble with a hyper competitive culture like ours is that we not only leave the mechanism intact but we create a network of reinforcement for winning at any cost. Cheating and the like can be said to be over determined — called forth by both the intrinsic structure of competition and the societal attitude toward it. . .” says Alfie Kohn.

In the informational article, entitled “Cheating for Olympic gold”, Markos Kounalakis goes into detail on how cheating has been a common thing to see not only in athletes but in bid committees and sporting institutions as well. First, Kounalakis shows that cheaters will live on in infamy forever even if they cheated years and years back. The writer also describes how some people cheat because they knew if they lost, their county would be disappointed in them. Kounalakis goes on to say that people in Russia were testing their athletes in domestic labs and making up fake results which might just make the Olympic committee take away their chance at playing in the summer games. He also points out that Russia might have wanted the games to distract

Both groups cheat because the incentives are worth it; the profits outweighs the consequences. Teachers help their students cheat because their scores reflect on the teacher, and the better they do the more likely said teacher is to be promoted or given a raise, “If her students do well enough, she might find herself praised, promoted, and even richer,” (Levitt 23). Teachers are willing to change a couple answers on their student’s test in order to get that raise or promotion. However, for the teachers, cheating was not worth it because the school was able to put together an algorithm to determine whether or not the teachers cheated. Sumo wrestlers throw matches in order to help their opponent stay up in the ranks. They do this because they

to believe that people would actually cheat just to win in something. And a lot of human

If the player one had no doubt that player two would chose to cooperate, the game becomes more difficult. Now that the shadow of doubt has been removed from player one’s reasoning, the approach behind player one’s strategy is primarily fueled by motives. If player one’s motive is to secure the maximum points that he or she should choose to defect, if however, player one’s motives hinge on a belief in ethics or morality than he or she would most likely cooperate. Seeing as the purpose of the game is to “maximize his or her payout,” the most prudent strategy for player

Eric, Spector and Frances, (2003) holds that corruption and poverty have the same footsteps in developing nations. The level of poverty are influenced by Corruption in the both public and private sectors. Occasionally, countries experiencing acute poverty are the natural breeding places for corruption. The worse form of corruption include stealing of funds meant for public projects, diversion of public programs and payment of bribes to avoid health and safety laws designed to profit the public (Jakob Sevensson, 2005)

In a recent opinion poll conducted by Transparency International on corruption, one in four people around the world admitted to paying bribes in the last twelve months. The survey also categorized the countries according to the corruption with countries like Canada, Finland, Norway and Japan listed as least corrupt countries and Libya, India, Kenya, Uganda were put on the high end of spectrum. The poll revealed that in countries with high level of corruption, people distrusted politicians, police and judiciary.