This is interesting because there is a cheating epidemic going on in higher education and I'm continuously wondering what happens if it isn't resolved. Students cheating with impunity breeds more students cheating, into a spiral until all students cheat and the credentials becomes meaningless.
The credentials enable trust at scale.
You're pointing at people leaning on reputations for trust. What happens when the most reputable institutional credentials no longer represent the quality they once did?
Also high schools. demographics of Thomas Jefferson High School (one of the best in the country) vs. Fairfax county.
I spent decades foolishly believing people didn’t cheat because I grew up around a bunch of Christians. Now, cheating is pervasive. Game theory in action
Interesting. When I was at university there were a few foreign contingents known for cheating academically. It was unexpected and strange ...yet, despite that, some of the students were smart yet cheated in areas they were weak in. But also didn't seem to mind sharing assignments in any area among themselves. I guess they assumed they'd learn much of what they needed in the real-world on the job.
It's sad to learn this attitude has begun to permeate our own students. People want to take short-cuts and skip the work necessary to get to the goal and miss out on the learning aspect. Maybe they expect "A.I" to do the thinking for them --but then what will they have to offer a prospective emplyer?
> but I do not think the problem is capitalism itself as much as institutions and structures that force short-term rewards.
Capitalism, at least its currently flavor, seems to increasingly favor short term rewards.
Nothing is planned and built for the long term. Companies have no interest in selling you a product that lasts forever. Planned obsolescence and things built to fail are commonplace. In fact they would rather not sell you products, but that you rent them instead.
Governments operate on short term election cycles. Corporations operate in quarterly reports. If something makes sense for the long term but is bad on the short term, it is scraped.
The credentials enable trust at scale.
You're pointing at people leaning on reputations for trust. What happens when the most reputable institutional credentials no longer represent the quality they once did?
Just one more unsettling thing to think about