Cheating is only cheating yourself.

[+sbell111]

If I, as a bird-watcher, fib in my journal that I saw some rare bird that I didn’t actually see, then why in the heck should it bother those who fill their bird-watching diaries with more orthodox and accurate entries? I'm only cheating myself, so if I don't mind being cheated by myself, then how is it "wrong?"

If you say you saw a bird and you didn't, you are a liar. I don't care if it only affects you or affect 57.9% of the population. If you lie, you are a liar. <--- period

If you see a plane and say 'That's a beautiful bird, should I call you a liar, or are you just using an alternative definition of 'bird'.

So I guess I can define "truth" how I want? That right there is moral relativism... I don't subscribe to that, but you are more than welcome to do that if you wish. Arguing with a moral relativist is like arguing with yourself... What's the point?

If the very thing that you are accusing someone of is not defined, how can you accuse? That's not 'moral relativism', it's common sense.

 

For instance, crimes are (typically) very well defined in Code. Since they are well defined, it can be determined when they have been broken.

So right and wrong is determined by law? Or is law determined by right and wrong? If law determines what is right and wrong, society would be in a pickle... Oh wait, it is! It's not a crime to cheat on my spouse, so I guess that makes it right? It's not a crime to swear at my kids and call them names, so I suppose that must be right also? If right and wrong is determined by common sense, then where does common sense come from? Law?

 

Round and round we go

Who said that right and wrong is determined by law? I merely took the position that if we are going to accuse people of cheating, we first need to define what cheating is.

 

Lately, we have had way to many threads about preceived cheating that turned out to be nothing.

[+sbell111]

I do not understand the moral objection however, and I therefore cannot agree with it.

 

Have you ever heard the expression "How we do anything is how we do everything?"

Never. Please explain. It reminds me of 'We do it this way because we do it this way', which is something that I drive out of every workforce that I'm responsible for.

No... it means that if you lie to me about one thing, why would I have any reason to believe that you tell me the truth about anything else? ("You" in the generic sense, not you personally.)

 

It's the reason that we try to teach children to be fair and honest when they're young -- because we want them to grow up being fair and honest adults.

I completely agree with you that if someone were caught lying about having found a cache when they had not that the rest of their finds would be suspect. I disagree that someone who peeked at the answer to a crossword is going to necessarily lie about anything.

[+the hermit crabs]

I do not understand the moral objection however, and I therefore cannot agree with it.

 

Have you ever heard the expression "How we do anything is how we do everything?"

Never. Please explain. It reminds me of 'We do it this way because we do it this way', which is something that I drive out of every workforce that I'm responsible for.

No... it means that if you lie to me about one thing, why would I have any reason to believe that you tell me the truth about anything else? ("You" in the generic sense, not you personally.)

 

It's the reason that we try to teach children to be fair and honest when they're young -- because we want them to grow up being fair and honest adults.

I completely agree with you that if someone were caught lying about having found a cache when they had not that the rest of their finds would be suspect. I disagree that someone who peeked at the answer to a crossword is going to necessarily lie about anything.

It's the public.private thing again. The the answer-peeker's spouse comes along and asks "Did you solve the puzzle?"

 

Someone who says "There was one I couldn't get, and I couldn't stand the idea of an empty block, so I looked that one up. The whole thing is filled in now!" is different from someone who says "Yes, I solved it!". I'd guess that the second type of person is likely to lie about other things too.

[+infiniteMPG]

I completely agree with you that if someone were caught lying about having found a cache when they had not that the rest of their finds would be suspect. I disagree that someone who peeked at the answer to a crossword is going to necessarily lie about anything.

ACK!!! I thought this topic died with the last mega-thread. Guess you can't keep a good (bad?) topic down.... hehehehe

 

I think if you want to nail some people on this, you put some very obvious instruction to do something in the container (not a requirement for the find, just something funny).... like I have a full sized difficult cache and inside is instructions to do something right when you find it. If I ever debated if someone actually found it I could just drop them a note to congratulate them and then subliminally ask what they did when they found it. If they answer that they did what the instructions say I'd know pretty much they were there. If they skirt the question then I have reason to check but knowing the task to do so, I would only do it when I was out there.

 

But all in all, cheaters in geocaching are just cheating themselves and should be pitied.... that is after they're tarred and feathered, drawn and quartered, boiled and skinned, and then tossed on a fire ant mount to clean their bones to be ground up and molded into fake rocks to be used for camo containers

[+ThePetersTrio]

Just a general statement and not directed at any particular poster but I wish adults would spend as much time worrying about and perfecting their own behavior than they do worrying about and perfecting someone else's behavior.

 

Unless of course we are talking about a crime or something. As far as I can tell, these types of offenses don't fit into such a category.

 

Life is short. Cache more/stress less.

[+the hermit crabs]

Just a general statement and not directed at any particular poster but I wish adults would spend as much time worrying about and perfecting their own behavior than they do worrying about and perfecting someone else's behavior.

 

Unless of course we are talking about a crime or something. As far as I can tell, these types of offenses don't fit into such a category.

 

Life is short. Cache more/stress less.

It's sleeting here. Don't feel like caching in sleet.

 

And, you might be interested to know that there's a Greasemonkey script that has an "ignore forum topic" option. Just click the offending thread, and you never have to see adults squabbling about a stupid topic again. (Of course I am kicking myself for not having clicked it on this one a long time ago.)

[+KBI]

I know nothing about knitting bees, but if the rest of the knitters weren't affected by the one person's alternative knitting practices, why should I get all buggy about it?

Apparently you should force yourself to get buggy about it for your own good, and the good of the rest of us, because:

 

Individual moral degradation ... will lead to societal - moral degradation.

Gotta watch those knitters. If we don't keep the clamp-down on their wild "creative knitting," it could be curtains for all of civilization.

Typical liberal Moral nonsense.

If you goal is to convince me to agree with you, then I can promise you that name-calling such as this is going to have almost zero effect toward that goal.

 

Cheating is cheating (you said it yourself a few posts back).

I didn’t say that. You must have been reading in a hurry. If you read something like that in my post it might have been where I quoted someone else saying it – someone which whom I was disagreeing. Might have been Briansnat.

 

Who cares if it ultimately leads to the downfall of civilization or not? What kind of argument is that?

I didn’t make that argument. Jester did. Have you been reading in a hurry again?

 

Why does the level of cheating matter so much to you? You like everything to be 1000 shades of gray, because it suits your moral relativistic worldview. They may not be cheating you, but they are cheating themselves, thus, it's still cheating.

 

Cheating is cheating is cheating is cheating... Dishonesty is dishonesty is dishonesty is dishonesty...

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but morality is not nearly as absolute as you describe. Morals are relative, and they depend, among other things, on one’s cultural background and one’s life experience.

 

Right and wrong are not fixed. Morality is a human construct, not a law of physics.

 

Consider the extremes: At various times in history, past and present, certain things have been considered “wrong” by the vast majority: to allow women to drive, to allow blacks to vote, to allow Jews to own land. None of those things are currently considered wrong here in the USA, but there are still places where, for example, women are not allowed to drive cars because it’s considered “wrong,” not only in the opinion of whoever makes the rules there, but also in the majority opinion of the citizenry who support them.

 

They would use the same argument to defend their rule that you just used to defend your statements: “Wrong is wrong, and morality is absolute.”

 

Instead of falling back on this empty “cheating is cheating is cheating” argument, why not try convincing me with something less dogmatic and more logic-based?

 

In order for cheating to occur there must be a victim. If there is no victim, then there is no crime. When a cacher posts a benign bogus log, where is the victim?

 

If you can show me where someone has been victimized in a moral sense (and not for practical reasons – see my previous post on that) then I will have no choice but to agree with your point of view.

 

If the store clerk gave you 1 cent too much change back, would you keep it?

If the store clerk gave you 1 dollar too much change back, would you keep it?

What about $100?

What about $1000?

 

1 cent is too much, it should be given back, because its theft regardless of the amount.

What about zero cents? In order to make your analogy relevant, that’s exactly how much it would have to be – zero cents – because that’s exactly how much “moral currency” it costs you and me whenever some other cacher lies about a cache find.

 

Failing to return ANY amount of erroneous change to a cashier constitutes a real, tangible, and financial loss to the business. If some silly cacher, on the other hand, logs a bogus find, exactly how much real, tangible, and financial loss does it cost you? Zero cents, that’s how much. Whenever someone posts a bogus find, you have not been conned, tricked or swindled out of anything – therefore how can you say you’ve been “cheated?” Sorry, but your analogy is irrelevant.

[+Kit Fox]

(ReadyOrNot @ Mar 28 2008, 01:44 PM)

Why does the level of cheating matter so much to you? You like everything to be 1000 shades of gray, because it suits your moral relativistic worldview. They may not be cheating you, but they are cheating themselves, thus, it's still cheating.

 

Cheating is cheating is cheating is cheating... Dishonesty is dishonesty is dishonesty is dishonesty...

 

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but morality is not nearly as absolute as you describe. Morals are relative, and they depend, among other things, on one’s cultural background and one’s life experience.

 

Right and wrong are not fixed. Morality is a human construct, not a law of physics.

 

 

No offense but this is a typical "liberal wishy washy response." Whenever this type of topic is brought up in the forum, you or your cohorts "beats around the bush." Bringing up the slavery, atrocities against Jews, and women's lib garbage is akin to having no rational reply to the topic at hand. Please enlighten me as to how cachers who frown upon questionable logging practices, are somehow trying to deny civil liberties to women, blacks, and or Jews?

[+KBI]

Hypothetically then, if the cache is eventually brought to the attention of TPTB and it doesn't get archived, would you then be okay with all the bogus logs? I'm just trying to nail down why this troubles you.

Cheating.

Can you be a little more vague?

 

The word "cheating" doesn't really answer my yes-or-no question, and it doesn't answer my second question because it doesn't explain why the bogus logs trouble you so much.

1. The potential to confuse other geocachers and cause them to waste their time and money.

 

2. The potential to affect geocachers in other ways (delayed maintenance visits, archived virtuals)

No disagreement here ... in fact, those points are irrelevant to this thread. Please see this post.

 

3. I don't feel that cheating is something that should be condoned, whether or not it directly affects me.

 

In the grand scheme of things are phony found it logs something that should be taken seriously? Of course not, but I don't feel that they're something that should be condoned either. Wrong is wrong, whether it's someone cheating a widow out of her life savings, or someone fudging his find counts. It's a simply a matter of degree.

Maybe you and I are closer on this that I realized.

 

I don’t post bogus logs, and neither do I encourage bogus logs. To say I “don’t condone” them, as you put it, might be a little strong, but that’s hair-splitting; the point is that neither you nor I are in favor of promoting the practice. On that much we agree.

 

My question is why you seem to let it bother you so much. Bogus logs are weird, silly, and pathetic, but other than making that observation I just can’t seem to work up any moral outrage over them. If that’s what a few people like to do, then what the hell. I don’t see each bogus log as encouraging more bogus logs, for example – I prefer to give each cacher the benefit of the doubt when it comes to making their own judgment calls, and I see no reason to preach to them in some attempt to protect them from themselves, or from some fictitious bogeyman.

 

There ARE inaccurate cache logs, whether you call it cheating or not, that are benign. If “all cheating is bad,” as you argue, then the behavior we’re debating here must not qualify as cheating – because it’s not always bad.

 

Being that this is a geocaching forum, that is the degree that I'm concerned with here. If you want to discuss a nation cheating on the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, we'll do that in another form.

If a country cheats on a legal nuclear non-proliferation treaty, then there is a clear victim. Nuclear weapons constitute a dangerous threat, and an agreement between countries not to point them at each other has very real consequences.

 

Who is the victim when JoJo Confuso logs a cache he didn’t find? Does that false log pose some threat of danger you, me, or someone else?

[+KBI]

If I, as a bird-watcher, fib in my journal that I saw some rare bird that I didn’t actually see, then why in the heck should it bother those who fill their bird-watching diaries with more orthodox and accurate entries? I'm only cheating myself, so if I don't mind being cheated by myself, then how is it "wrong?"

If you say you saw a bird and you didn't, you are a liar. I don't care if it only affects you or affect 57.9% of the population. If you lie, you are a liar. <--- period

 

If you lie about finding a cache, then you are a liar. <--- period

 

Either it is truth or it is not. This is only black and white, not 1,000,000,000 shades of gray.

SpongeBob SquarePants has a round butt.

 

There.

 

I just stated a lie.

 

I am a liar. <--- period

 

If a lie is a lie is a lie is a lie, then does my erroneous statement just now not make me a bad person? I have just proven myself to be a liar. <--- period

 

According to your argument, that lie about SpongeBob is the moral equivalent of me lying on my taxes or cheating a business out of money. As you say, there are no shades of gray in this stuff.

 

Wrong is wrong – right? Have I got it now?

[+KBI]

There are two primary anti-bogus arguments that get used whenever this subject comes up. I believe they constitute two entirely different points:

 

(1) Bogus find logs are bad because they can sometimes cause practical problems.

I agree with this argument 100%. It is one of Briansnat’s favorite points, it is the argument in post about the wall-size-crossword puzzle, and it is a very valid point. Yes, bogus find logs can, in some cases, cause practical problems.

 

Why is it that some people insist on repeating this argument over and over, even though nobody ever contradicts or disagrees with it? I have never seen anyone even suggest that bogus logs never cause practical problems, yet this defense continues to be presented as if it were a raging debate. All it does is serve to confuse the issue.

I told the crossword puzzle story because you mentioned that when you cheated on a crossword puzzle, it harmed no one. Which was true -- only because it was private. Geocaching logs are not private. I was trying to point out to you that the example you brought up was pointless and irrelevant, specifically because of the public/private difference.

 

(2) Bogus find logs are bad because bogus find logs constitute cheating, and in all cases cheating is just plain wrong.

This line of argument consists of two separate premises, neither of which I can agree with:

 

(a) Bogus find logs are bad because bogus find logs constitute cheating.

Geocaching is not a competition; therefore cheating on the score cannot exist ... because there is no score. A find count is not a game score. Claiming a “point” you shouldn't have claimed based on someone else’s “point-scoring” standard takes nothing away from the other players. Barring the practical argument above, a bogus cache log no more harmful to other cachers than a bird-watcher’s bogus private diary entry is to other bird watchers. Those who do not choose to be upset by the odd yet benign behavior of others are not harmed. They are therefore not victims, and there is therefore no “cheating.”

 

( In all cases cheating is just plain wrong.

“Wrong” here depends on one’s chosen personal standards and one’s own chosen point of view. Even when it has been shown that no person is harmed by the so-called cheating, others in this forum have continued to insist that they feel wronged by it. If I, as a bird-watcher, fib in my journal that I saw some rare bird that I didn’t actually see, then why in the heck should it bother those who fill their bird-watching diaries with more orthodox and accurate entries? I'm only cheating myself, so if I don't mind being cheated by myself, then how is it "wrong?"

Like the crossword puzzle, this harms no one since the journal you mention is private. If, on the other hand, the lying bird-watcher announces his fake bird-spottings to the world, that can have a significant impact on others.

 

What was that rare woodpecker that was seen down south a few years ago? Hundreds of bird enthusiasts hopped on planes and flew hundreds or thousands of miles for the chance to catch a glimpse of it. If the person who had seen it had made the whole thing up just to bolster his self-esteem, don't you think that the rest of the bird-watching world might get a bit upset?

I don't disagree with anything you said in this post.

 

I believe you missed the point.

[+KBI]

I do not understand the moral objection however, and I therefore cannot agree with it.

Have you ever heard the expression "How we do anything is how we do everything?"

Are you telling me that you can't think for yourself, and that you take every judgment that applies in any situation and apply it to every other situation?

 

Are you implying that others, or that I, can’t tell the difference between a benign bogus cache log and something that is truly harmful to others?

 

Sorry, but I prefer to have a little more respect for other people's intelligence and common sense than that.

[+KBI]

I do not understand the moral objection however, and I therefore cannot agree with it.

 

Have you ever heard the expression "How we do anything is how we do everything?"

Never. Please explain. It reminds me of 'We do it this way because we do it this way', which is something that I drive out of every workforce that I'm responsible for.

No... it means that if you lie to me about one thing, why would I have any reason to believe that you tell me the truth about anything else? ("You" in the generic sense, not you personally.)

 

It's the reason that we try to teach children to be fair and honest when they're young -- because we want them to grow up being fair and honest adults.

If your point is to observe that a bogus log harms the credibility of the cacher who posts the log, then I agree with you.

 

That point, however, is not in dispute, and does not seem to be relevant to the topic.

 

The question here seems to be whether, in a moral sense, a bogus log harms other people – not whether it harms the reputation of the liar himself.

[+the hermit crabs]

If your point is to observe that a bogus log harms the credibility of the cacher who posts the log, then I agree with you.

 

That point, however, is not in dispute, and does not seem to be relevant to the topic.p

That point is the topic. Re-read the title and the original post.

 

The question here seems to be whether, in a moral sense, a bogus log harms other people – not whether it harms the reputation of the liar himself.

That is only "the question" now because whenever the topic of bizarre logging habits is brought up, it is immediately twisted into "What harm does it do to anyone else?" The actual topic is pushed to the wayside, and suddenly "What's it to you?" is the only valid thing to discuss?

[+KBI]

Please enlighten me as to how cachers who frown upon questionable logging practices, are somehow trying to deny civil liberties to women, blacks, and or Jews?

I never claimed that cachers who frown upon questionable logging practices are trying to deny civil liberties to women, blacks, and/or Jews.

 

If that claim is what you got out of my post, then you misunderstood my post.

[+KBI]

If your point is to observe that a bogus log harms the credibility of the cacher who posts the log, then I agree with you.

 

That point, however, is not in dispute, and does not seem to be relevant to the topic.

That point is the topic. Re-read the title and the original post.

That’s not what I got out of it. If I’m wrong, then hopefully the original poster will clarify.

 

The question here seems to be whether, in a moral sense, a bogus log harms other people – not whether it harms the reputation of the liar himself.

That is only "the question" now because whenever the topic of bizarre logging habits is brought up, it is immediately twisted into "What harm does it do to anyone else?" The actual topic is pushed to the wayside, and suddenly "What's it to you?" is the only valid thing to discuss?

Cacher A: People sometimes lie in their logs, and this upsets me. It’s wrong.

 

Cacher B: Why? Who does it hurt? How is it wrong?

 

Cacher A: You’re twisting the question, and pushing the topic to the wayside.

 

If you believe the actual topic has been pushed aside, then you are welcome to clearly restate what you believe the actual topic to be, in order to facilitate useful discussion.

 

I happen to believe that asking "What harm does it do to anyone else?" is a very valid and relevant question, but I am open to all thoughts on the matter. If you want to either address the question, or show that it is irrelevant, I would be very interestred to hear what you have to say.

[+ReadyOrNot]

SpongeBob SquarePants has a round butt.

 

There.

 

I just stated a lie.

 

I am a liar. <--- period

 

If a lie is a lie is a lie is a lie, then does my erroneous statement just now not make me a bad person? I have just proven myself to be a liar. <--- period

 

According to your argument, that lie about SpongeBob is the moral equivalent of me lying on my taxes or cheating a business out of money. As you say, there are no shades of gray in this stuff.

 

Wrong is wrong – right? Have I got it now?

 

Who said that lying about spongebob having a round butt is equivalent to lying under oath in a courtroom? I didn't say that all lies are equivalent. BUT - When you lie, that makes you a liar. <--- period

[+ReadyOrNot]

I happen to believe that asking "What harm does it do to anyone else?" is a very valid and relevant question, but I am open to all thoughts on the matter. If you want to either address the question, or show that it is irrelevant, I would be very interestred to hear what you have to say.

 

Ok, I'll address the question, AGAIN.

 

It may not harm anyone. It may only harm you. It may harm a lot of people. SO WHAT? If it's not true, it's a lie and that's dishonest and dishonesty is viewed as a negative trait by most human beings.

[+sbell111]

Why does the level of cheating matter so much to you? You like everything to be 1000 shades of gray, because it suits your moral relativistic worldview. They may not be cheating you, but they are cheating themselves, thus, it's still cheating.

 

Cheating is cheating is cheating is cheating... Dishonesty is dishonesty is dishonesty is dishonesty...

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but morality is not nearly as absolute as you describe. Morals are relative, and they depend, among other things, on one’s cultural background and one’s life experience.

 

Right and wrong are not fixed. Morality is a human construct, not a law of physics.

No offense but this is a typical "liberal wishy washy response." Whenever this type of topic is brought up in the forum, you or your cohorts "beats around the bush." Bringing up the slavery, atrocities against Jews, and women's lib garbage is akin to having no rational reply to the topic at hand. Please enlighten me as to how cachers who frown upon questionable logging practices, are somehow trying to deny civil liberties to women, blacks, and or Jews?

It's strange that you clung onto that verbiage but let this pearl slide right by:

Who cares if it ultimately leads to the downfall of civilization or not? What kind of argument is that?

[+KBI]

I happen to believe that asking "What harm does it do to anyone else?" is a very valid and relevant question, but I am open to all thoughts on the matter. If you want to either address the question, or show that it is irrelevant, I would be very interestred to hear what you have to say.

Ok, I'll address the question, AGAIN.

 

It may not harm anyone. It may only harm you. It may harm a lot of people. SO WHAT? If it's not true, it's a lie and that's dishonest and dishonesty is viewed as a negative trait by most human beings.

Translation: Just because a lie is harmless doesn't mean it's not harmless.

[+KBI]

I didn't say that all lies are equivalent.

Let me know when you make up your mind. I've got better things to do than debate against a randomly fluid position.

[+ReadyOrNot]

I didn't say that all lies are equivalent.

Let me know when you make up your mind. I've got better things to do than debate against a randomly fluid position.

 

I think the "wishy washy" fluid position is fairly obvious..... and it's not mine.

[+the hermit crabs]

Cacher A: People sometimes lie in their logs, and this upsets me. It’s wrong.

 

Cacher B: Why? Who does it hurt? How is it wrong?

 

Cacher A: You’re twisting the question, and pushing the topic to the wayside.

 

If you believe the actual topic has been pushed aside, then you are welcome to clearly restate what you believe the actual topic to be, in order to facilitate useful discussion.

 

I happen to believe that asking "What harm does it do to anyone else?" is a very valid and relevant question, but I am open to all thoughts on the matter. If you want to either address the question, or show that it is irrelevant, I would be very interestred to hear what you have to say.

If "Cacher A" is supposed to be the OP, then the first "Cacher A" quote above did not occur in this thread.

 

The original poster said nothing about being upset. Nothing about right and wrong.

 

I don't care that they do, but I just feel sorry for them. They cheated themselves out of actually achieving a find.

She doesn't care. She is not "upset" by it. She is only sorry for them that they are missing the experience of the actual find.

 

Honestly, its amusing to me in a way since I'm clearly not this clever and it took me 5+ years to notice how some (not all) people get such high numbers in short amounts of time.

She is amused but iy. not upset. She is not obsessed about other people's numbers, since she didn't even notice them for five years. Simply making one remark about the oddity of the behavior deoesn't make her obsessed or angry about it -- it was just an observation.

 

Now on the otherhand, if that's standard procedure in other parts of the country & ok with everyone, then I want to move there to increase my numbers! LOL Its pretty much frowned upon where I live.

She is laughing at this absurd practice.

[+ReadyOrNot]

I happen to believe that asking "What harm does it do to anyone else?" is a very valid and relevant question, but I am open to all thoughts on the matter. If you want to either address the question, or show that it is irrelevant, I would be very interestred to hear what you have to say.

Ok, I'll address the question, AGAIN.

 

It may not harm anyone. It may only harm you. It may harm a lot of people. SO WHAT? If it's not true, it's a lie and that's dishonest and dishonesty is viewed as a negative trait by most human beings.

Translation: Just because a lie is harmless doesn't mean it's not harmless.

 

Where did you get this notion that lying is ok? I'm glad my kids aren't being taught that. Good luck with that

[+KBI]

I didn't say that all lies are equivalent.

Let me know when you make up your mind. I've got better things to do than debate against a randomly fluid position.

I think the "wishy washy" fluid position is fairly obvious..... and it's not mine.

I must respectfully disagree.

 

On the one hand we have this recent statement:

 

I didn't say that all lies are equivalent.

…while on the other hand we have all these statements:

 

If you say you saw a bird and you didn't, you are a liar. I don't care if it only affects you or affect 57.9% of the population. If you lie, you are a liar. <--- period

 

If you lie about finding a cache, then you are a liar. <--- period

 

Either it is truth or it is not. This is only black and white, not 1,000,000,000 shades of gray.

Why does the level of cheating matter so much to you? You like everything to be 1000 shades of gray, because it suits your moral relativistic worldview. Cheating is cheating. They may not be cheating you, but they are cheating themselves, thus, it's still cheating.

It's cheating, regardless of who it affects, how many are affected or whether anyone gets hurt..

 

Is that absolute enough for you?

Cheating is cheating is cheating is cheating... Dishonesty is dishonesty is dishonesty is dishonesty...

 

So is morality absolute, or isn’t it? Are all lies bad, or aren't they? Please let me know when you decide.

[+KBI]

Where did you get this notion that lying is ok? I'm glad my kids aren't being taught that. Good luck with that

Where did you get this notion that I made the claim that "lying is ok?" Please quote the post where I made that claim. Good luck with that

[+ReadyOrNot]

Where did you get this notion that lying is ok? I'm glad my kids aren't being taught that. Good luck with that

Where did you get this notion that I made the claim that "lying is ok?" Please quote the post where I made that claim. Good luck with that

 

Ok.. Is a "harmless" (in your opinion) lie morally right? Just a simple yes or no will suffice.

[+KBI]

Cacher A: People sometimes lie in their logs, and this upsets me. It’s wrong.

 

Cacher B: Why? Who does it hurt? How is it wrong?

 

Cacher A: You’re twisting the question, and pushing the topic to the wayside.

 

If you believe the actual topic has been pushed aside, then you are welcome to clearly restate what you believe the actual topic to be, in order to facilitate useful discussion.

 

I happen to believe that asking "What harm does it do to anyone else?" is a very valid and relevant question, but I am open to all thoughts on the matter. If you want to either address the question, or show that it is irrelevant, I would be very interested to hear what you have to say.

If "Cacher A" is supposed to be the OP, then the first "Cacher A" quote above did not occur in this thread.

 

The original poster said nothing about being upset. Nothing about right and wrong.

Cacher A is not the OP. Cacher A is an amalgam of all the subsequent cachers who have expressed offense, indignation and outrage over the practice of bogus logging.

 

If I am mistaken for my conclusion that you are in that category, then I apologize. Your challenging response to my post may have led be to draw an erroneous conclusion.

 

You claimed I was pushing the 'actual topic' aside, and said my question was irrelevant. I asked you to state what you believe the actual topic to be, and to explain why asking the question “What does it hurt?” is irrelevant. Are you still planning to respond to my post?

[+KBI]

Where did you get this notion that lying is ok? I'm glad my kids aren't being taught that. Good luck with that

Where did you get this notion that I made the claim that "lying is ok?" Please quote the post where I made that claim. Good luck with that

Ok.. Is a "harmless" (in your opinion) lie morally right? Just a simple yes or no will suffice.

I cannot answer with a simple yes or no to a question that contains an incorrect premise.

 

I do not promote bogus logging, but neither do I believe that it is always harmful. I don't do it myself, but it doesn't necessarily bother me when others do it. In my view it isn’t necessarily "wrong." That doesn’t automatically make it "right;" it just means it's benign.

 

That's the best answer I can give to what I *think* you were trying to ask.

[+sbell111]

Where did you get this notion that lying is ok? I'm glad my kids aren't being taught that. Good luck with that

Where did you get this notion that I made the claim that "lying is ok?" Please quote the post where I made that claim. Good luck with that

 

Ok.. Is a "harmless" (in your opinion) lie morally right? Just a simple yes or no will suffice.

Many would argue that sometimes telling a lie is right and telling the truth is wrong.

[4wheelin_fool]

I always tell the truth, even when I'm lying.

[+TeamGumbo]

I'm beginning to think I ain't pure enough for this geocaching thing...

[+tozainamboku]

Where did you get this notion that lying is ok? I'm glad my kids aren't being taught that. Good luck with that

I thought we demonstrated in the last thread that lying is sometimes not just OK but the right thing to do. The example was given of Christians in nazi Germany who lied about the Jews they were hiding to save their lives.

 

Lying about finding geocaches of course does not constitute saving Jewish lives or any other case where it would be justified to lie. In the previous thread an argument was made that there are good lies, bad lies, and benign lies. This is not a relativistic concept. There are in fact good lies, bad lies, and benign lies.

 

I can see a argument being mad that lying about geocaching finds is a bad lie. Lying per se is not evil, however misrepresenting something in order to gain an advantage or influence how someone else views you is wrong. (The 10 commandments do not say "Thou shalt no lie", they say "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor" I.e., it is wrong to lie to influence how someone judges you against someone else). So you could make an argument that lying about your geocaching finds is meant to influence how others view you.

 

I personally find it silly to judge anyone based on the number of geocache finds they say they have. The main reason for this is that I know some people will only claim a find under very specific conditions, i.e. they found the cache by themselves and signed the log. Other's will claim a find under different conditions- they were with a group, they didn't sign the log because the cache was frozen, or the cache owner told them it was ok to log a find. Still others do not log every cache they find. They only use the found it log if they have something they want to record about that cache. So if someone is lying about their geocaching finds it only affects me if I use information in their log to decide whether I am going to look for that cache or not. But I cannot stop people who wish to make judgments about people based on the number geocaching found it logs they have. For these people, is should be clear that those who lie about finding geocachers are doing something wrong.

[Neos2]

I know nothing about knitting bees, but if the rest of the knitters weren't affected by the one person's alternative knitting practices, why should I get all buggy about it?

Apparently you should force yourself to get buggy about it for your own good, and the good of the rest of us, because:

 

Individual moral degradation ... will lead to societal - moral degradation.

Gotta watch those knitters. If we don't keep the clamp-down on their wild "creative knitting," it could be curtains for all of civilization.

Nah, it's not the knitters, it's my mother. I already told you guys she cheats at solitaire. It's all her fault the world is getting barmy.

[Neos2]

Where did you get this notion that lying is ok? I'm glad my kids aren't being taught that. Good luck with that

Where did you get this notion that I made the claim that "lying is ok?" Please quote the post where I made that claim. Good luck with that

 

Ok.. Is a "harmless" (in your opinion) lie morally right? Just a simple yes or no will suffice.

How nice it must be to be satisfied with simple black or white, when the rest of us all deal with the shades of gray.

 

Yes, sometimes a harmless lie is morally right. Sometimes it's the ethical thing to do as well.

 

When I tell my friend that the dress she has on "is a beautiful color" that looks great on her in response to her question "Do I look OK in this dress?" when she is already at the party and can't do anything about it anyway is a good thing to do. Sure, the dress may make her look terrible, but telling her that at that point is only going to make her feel worse, and then she'll be self-conscious, and that will make her look even worse. Tell her the color is terrific on her and she throws back her shoulders and strides into the room as regal as a queen--carrying off the hideous dress with a flair and style that lets it work.

 

When my 2nd great-grandparents told the slave hunters that there were "no escaped slaves on their property" and watched them walk away--knowing the people who were being hunted had just left their property a few minutes before with their eldest son, headed for my 2nd great-grandaunts house in the next county, it was the right thing to do.

 

When I told my parents I was sorry I had argued with my sister, even though I was really only sorry I had gotten in trouble for it, it was the right thing to say. Something about saying I was remorseful eventually made it sink into my head that perhaps I ought to regret arguing with my sister and diffused the situation without increasing the conflict between the members of my family.

 

Moral codes that are ridigly inflexible in the face of complex ethical situations are dangerous.

[+sejtam]

shouldn't caches have a secret code in addition to the waypoint ref, which will only be revealed inside the cache and needs to be entered for a found log? That code could be generated by the owner (and regularly changed if necessary) with overlap allowed for a maybe 2 days after the code was changed in the actual cache.

Obviously, the code should never be mentioned in log messages itself, so the submit script should maybe replace it (and its encrypted equiv) in submitted logmessages.

[+briansnat]

shouldn't caches have a secret code in addition to the waypoint ref, which will only be revealed inside the cache and needs to be entered for a found log?

 

There is nothing keeping a cache owner from doing that. There is also nothing keeping dishonest geocachers from sharing those codes amongst each other.

[+KBI]

I cannot stop people who wish to make judgments about people based on the number geocaching found it logs they have. For these people, is should be clear that those who lie about finding geocaches are doing something wrong.

Well said.

 

Bogus find logs are strange, silly and sad, but they are only "wrong" in the minds of those who choose a certain judgmental point of view.

 

The key word in your statement there is "wish."

 

Those who wish, and who subsequently choose, therefore, to judge another cacher’s worth by measuring his find count are the ones who are imposing their own arbitrary morals on these hapless cachers (who likely don’t care in the slightest what their judgers think of them). The "wrongness" therefore comes from those doing the (optional and unnecessary) judging, not from those logging the "offensive" smilies.

 

Those of us who do NOT wish, on the other hand, to judge our fellow cachers’ worth based on their find count will therefore have no logical reason to feel such indignation. My logging standards, in other words, are my own. I have neither the right, the duty, the need, nor the desire to impose my arbitrarily chosen cache-logging standards on others.

 

A universal standardization and agreement regarding such rules would only be required if Geocaching were a competition. It is not. Here’s hoping it stays that way. Competition wouldn’t make sense anyway – it is self-evident and intuitive (to me, anyway) that each cache find is unique even without bogus finds in the mix, and it is therefore meaningless to try to compare two people’s find counts as if the were scores.

 

Other people’s smilies can only offend me if I choose to let them offend me. Sorry, but there are too many real problems in the world to worry about. I’m not interested in fabricating new ones.

[+Kit Fox]

How nice it must be to be satisfied with simple black or white, when the rest of us all deal with the shades of gray.

 

Yes, sometimes a harmless lie is morally right. Sometimes it's the ethical thing to do as well.

 

When I tell my friend that the dress she has on "is a beautiful color" that looks great on her in response to her question "Do I look OK in this dress?" when she is already at the party and can't do anything about it anyway is a good thing to do. Sure, the dress may make her look terrible, but telling her that at that point is only going to make her feel worse, and then she'll be self-conscious, and that will make her look even worse. Tell her the color is terrific on her and she throws back her shoulders and strides into the room as regal as a queen--carrying off the hideous dress with a flair and style that lets it work.

 

This is a typical response to an unconfortable question. Lying is the easy way out. You're afraid to be honest with your friend, so you degrade yourself into lying to give them false confidence. Now your friend is walking around in a goofy dress, but she thinks she looks good because you gave her your "honest opinion." How does this relate to not finding a cache, then lying about it?

 

When my 2nd great-grandparents told the slave hunters that there were "no escaped slaves on their property" and watched them walk away--knowing the people who were being hunted had just left their property a few minutes before with their eldest son, headed for my 2nd great-grandaunts house in the next county, it was the right thing to do.

 

Gotta bring up slavery again, to defend cheating. How does this relate to not finding a cache, then lying about it?

 

When I told my parents I was sorry I had argued with my sister, even though I was really only sorry I had gotten in trouble for it, it was the right thing to say. Something about saying I was remorseful eventually made it sink into my head that perhaps I ought to regret arguing with my sister and diffused the situation without increasing the conflict between the members of my family.

 

Moral codes that are ridigly inflexible in the face of complex ethical situations are dangerous.

 

How does this relate to not finding a cache, then lying about it?

 

Yet another example of lying to protect ones interests. Half truths are exactly the same as whole lies.

[+KBI]

shouldn't caches have a secret code in addition to the waypoint ref, which will only be revealed inside the cache and needs to be entered for a found log? That code could be generated by the owner (and regularly changed if necessary) with overlap allowed for a maybe 2 days after the code was changed in the actual cache.

Obviously, the code should never be mentioned in log messages itself, so the submit script should maybe replace it (and its encrypted equiv) in submitted logmessages.

This hobby is based on the honor system. It wouldn't work without it. Most of us worry about our own honor and leave others to worry about theirs. As in other facets of life, the honor system doesn’t work all the time, but it works almost all the time ... enough that it’s rarely a problem.

 

A few cache owners have tried various extra-security measures in their attempts to prevent bogus online find logs, but, as Briansnat pointed out, there are usually ways for dishonest people to defeat them.

 

Some of us cache owners simply reconcile the paper log in the cache with the online log from time to time in an effort to weed out any questionable smilies – which is actually encouraged in the guidelines – but others of us are generally happy to rely on the venerable old honor system, and the fact that some bogus logs just don’t matter.

 

I have performed log audits on occasion. I have never found bogus logs on any of my cache pages, but if I did I would happily (and politely) delete them. Bogus logs on other peoples’ cache pages, however, don’t really bother me. I figure that’s strictly the business of the cache owner and the logger – and nobody else.

[+KBI]

No offense but this is a typical "liberal wishy washy response." Whenever this type of topic is brought up in the forum, you or your cohorts "beats around the bush." Bringing up the slavery, atrocities against Jews, and women's lib garbage is akin to having no rational reply to the topic at hand.

This is a typical response to an unconfortable question. Lying is the easy way out. You're afraid to be honest with your friend, so you degrade yourself into lying to give them false confidence.

I might choose not to lie to my friend, but somehow I think I would feel no such discomfort if I were lying to a slave hunter or a Jew killer. Tell me, which is more important to you, Kit Fox: your uncompromising honesty, or an oppressed person’s life? What if you had to choose between the two?

 

If you hesitate on this question, at least I'll know who's house NOT to hide in when they start coming after the rednecks.

 

How does this relate to not finding a cache, then lying about it?

The point is this: to claim that "all lies are always immoral," as some people in this thread continue to do, is misleading and untrue. There are bad lies, there are good lies, and there are benign lies.

 

Some bogus logs cause problems, and are therefore bad lies. Other bogus logs cause no problems, and are therefore benign lies. (I have never seen a bogus log that was actually beneficial, but I suppose that’s even possible as well.)

 

The statement "all lies are bad" is incorrect.

Edited March 29, 2008 by KBI

[+Kit Fox]

I might choose not to lie to my friend, but somehow I think I would feel no such discomfort if I were lying to a slave hunter or a Jew killer. Tell me, which is more important to you, Kit Fox: your uncompromising honesty, or an oppressed person’s life? What if you had to choose between the two?

 

If you hesitate on this question, at least I'll know who's house NOT to hide in when they start coming after the rednecks.

 

 

I would consider my home a safehouse for house trained rednecks, considering I carry a few (not all) redneck traits. You keep confusing dishonesty when it comes to protecting someone's life, with lying on a cache log. The two are completely different. Nobody is forcing someone (under the fear of death, or enslavement, or of torture) to lie in their "found it" logs.) Cachers who cheat do it for their own personal reasons. Geocheaters have nothing to do with the evil historical past (slavery, extermination of an ethnicities, etc).

 

What no one is able to garner from my posts is that I think its wrong to cheat at this hobby, and then display your dishonesty on public cache pages. I have no issue with someone lying to a slave hunter, or to a Nazi hunting Jews, because defending an innocent person (even if you have to lie to someone evil) is morally right. Geocheating is not defending a life. I read an enjoyed Anne Frank's Diaries, and I agree with what Oskar Schindler did.

 

How does this relate to not finding a cache, then lying about it?

 

The point is this: to claim that "all lies are always immoral," as some people in this thread continue to do, is misleading and untrue. There are bad lies, there are good lies, and there are benign lies.

 

Some bogus logs cause problems, and are therefore bad lies. Other bogus logs cause no problems, and are therefore benign lies. (I have never seen a bogus log that was actually beneficial, but I suppose that’s even possible as well.)

 

The statement "all lies are bad" is incorrect.

 

Your confusing me with other posters, I never claimed all lies are always immoral.

Edited March 29, 2008 by Kit Fox

[+Too Tall John]

I've been trying to be good & stay out of this topic, but I pop in today and this is one of the first things I read:

If you can show me where someone has been victimized in a moral sense (and not for practical reasons – see my previous post on that) then I will have no choice but to agree with your point of view.

Here's what you have to say about "practical reasons":

(1) Bogus find logs are bad because they can sometimes cause practical problems.

I agree with this argument 100%. It is one of Briansnat’s favorite points, it is the argument in post about the wall-size-crossword puzzle, and it is a very valid point. Yes, bogus find logs can, in some cases, cause practical problems.

If, by logging a false log you cause "practical" problems for either the owner or another cacher, I'm guessing that means that some amount of time and effort were expended unnecessarily because of the log. Be that time and effort a couple hour's drive to the cache, or a couple minutes wasted at the computer, that is time lost unnecessarily due to the deliberate actions of others.

My free time is literally worth $100 per hour to me. (NO, I don't get paid a c-note per hour.) That is just what it is worth to ME.

If, like Snoogans, you claim your free time is worth $100 an hour to you, then the false poster essentially stole anywhere from $2 to $200 from you.

 

Even if you don't put a monetary value on your time, it is still time you won't get back.

 

Sounds moral to me.

[+KBI]

You keep confusing dishonesty when it comes to protecting someone's life, with lying on a cache log. The two are completely different.

Not according to this:

 

Cheating is cheating is cheating is cheating... Dishonesty is dishonesty is dishonesty is dishonesty...

That was the sort of thing I was responding to when you responded to my response.

 

 

What no one is able to garner from my posts is that I think its wrong to cheat at this hobby, and then display your dishonesty on public cache pages.

Neither of us believes it is actually a good thing to lie on a cache page. Please do not imply that I have ever claimed that it is a good thing to lie on a cache page.

 

Our difference is this: You apparently believe all cache page lies are wrong. I, on the other hand, believe some cache page lies are wrong, but that other cache page lies are merely benign.

 

See the difference?

 

If you believe that it is ALWAYS wrong to cheat at this hobby, and then display your dishonesty on public cache pages, then you are attempting to impose morality in some places where morals don’t really matter. Just because some goofy cacher’s bogus log is WRONG! in your opinion doesn’t mean I necessarily share your opinion.

 

 

Your confusing me with other posters, I never claimed all lies are always immoral.

No, I am not confusing you with other posters. I never said you made that claim. Here is what I said:

 

The point is this: to claim that "all lies are always immoral," as some people in this thread continue to do, is misleading and untrue.

If you do not agree with that claim, then I was not disagreeing with you.

 

On the other hand, I don't really see any difference between your claim that all cache page lies are wrong and the claim that all cache page lies are immoral. If you can explain to me the difference between the way you’re using the word wrong and the way you’re using the word immoral in the context of your statements, the clarification would be helpful.

[+KoosKoos]

I've been trying to be good & stay out of this topic, but I pop in today and this is one of the first things I read:

If you can show me where someone has been victimized in a moral sense (and not for practical reasons – see my previous post on that) then I will have no choice but to agree with your point of view.

Here's what you have to say about "practical reasons":

(1) Bogus find logs are bad because they can sometimes cause practical problems.

I agree with this argument 100%. It is one of Briansnat’s favorite points, it is the argument in post about the wall-size-crossword puzzle, and it is a very valid point. Yes, bogus find logs can, in some cases, cause practical problems.

If, by logging a false log you cause "practical" problems for either the owner or another cacher, I'm guessing that means that some amount of time and effort were expended unnecessarily because of the log. Be that time and effort a couple hour's drive to the cache, or a couple minutes wasted at the computer, that is time lost unnecessarily due to the deliberate actions of others.

My free time is literally worth $100 per hour to me. (NO, I don't get paid a c-note per hour.) That is just what it is worth to ME.

If, like Snoogans, you claim your free time is worth $100 an hour to you, then the false poster essentially stole anywhere from $2 to $200 from you.

 

Even if you don't put a monetary value on your time, it is still time you won't get back.

 

Sounds moral to me.

 

I agree that the misleading log could cause you to waste gas money heading for a cache that wasn't there, but I'd argue that if your free time is so precious that NOT finding a box in the woods will make you feel it's wasted, then maybe you shouldn't be geocaching in the first place.

 

I've gone on plenty of searches and not found the cache...be it muggled, my lack of ability, bad coords, etc., etc. I still placed a high value on my time out enjoying the activity. Being able to claim a smiley is just a little bonus and not how I value my free time.

Edited March 29, 2008 by KoosKoos

[+the hermit crabs]

In order for cheating to occur there must be a victim. If there is no victim, then there is no crime. When a cacher posts a benign bogus log, where is the victim?

 

If you can show me where someone has been victimized in a moral sense (and not for practical reasons – see my previous post on that) then I will have no choice but to agree with your point of view.

Say you have a son in grade school. Along the wall in a corridor of the school is a large bulletin board, with a big sign that says "Smalltown Middle School Readers!", followed by a list of students' names and how many books they've read this year.

 

Every Friday, students hand in to their homeroom teachers a list of books they have completed that week, and the book-counts on the bulletin board are updated.

 

There are no prizes for reading the most. There is also punishment for not reading anything at all. Just the names and numbers on the wall. The school just wants to encourage an activity that they think is worthwhile, and they found that by posting the numbers, more kids were interested in it. (And of course there is some unofficial competition among some students, as there is with just about anything.)

 

Your son likes to read, but not every waking moment. Every week he goes to the library and takes out some that look good, leafs through them, and maybe reads one completely if he finds it interesting.

 

One Friday you happen to notice that his book list for the week contains six titles. "You read all these?" you ask, pleased that he is doing so much extra-curricular work on his own. "No, I only really read one of them. But I took three others out of the library and had them at home all week, so I'm counting them. And for one of them I watched the movie of it last night. And for the last one, my friend read it and told me about it. So I'm counting those, too."

 

His total for the year on the bulletin board is 112 and counting. He has actually read eleven.

 

There is no victim here. His book count in no way affects anyone else's count. His deceptions don't take away the the enjoyment that other kids have gotten out of the books they have read. Since there are no prizes, he is not taking one away from someone else with his "benign" lies.

 

Would this bother you at all? Would you feel a twinge of embarrassment every time you walked down the school hallway and saw his name and false book count up on the wall? Would you feel a little uncomfortable at the next parent-teacher's meeting when his teacher says something about Junior's impressive reading habits?

 

If you truly would not be bothered at all by your son's "bogus logs" for books he did not read, then I'm afraid there is nothing that anyone can say in this thread that will make any impression on you at all.

 

But if his lies about reading books he didn't read would bother you, then maybe you can possibly see why they might also bother other people. And mayeb you could begin to understand why similar actions, like bogus cache logs, might bother other people too.

[+KBI]

I've been trying to be good & stay out of this topic, but I pop in today and this is one of the first things I read:

If you can show me where someone has been victimized in a moral sense (and not for practical reasons – see my previous post on that) then I will have no choice but to agree with your point of view.

Here's what you have to say about "practical reasons":

(1) Bogus find logs are bad because they can sometimes cause practical problems.

I agree with this argument 100%. It is one of Briansnat’s favorite points, it is the argument in post about the wall-size-crossword puzzle, and it is a very valid point. Yes, bogus find logs can, in some cases, cause practical problems.

If, by logging a false log you cause "practical" problems for either the owner or another cacher, I'm guessing that means that some amount of time and effort were expended unnecessarily because of the log. Be that time and effort a couple hour's drive to the cache, or a couple minutes wasted at the computer, that is time lost unnecessarily due to the deliberate actions of others.

My free time is literally worth $100 per hour to me. (NO, I don't get paid a c-note per hour.) That is just what it is worth to ME.

If, like Snoogans, you claim your free time is worth $100 an hour to you, then the false poster essentially stole anywhere from $2 to $200 from you.

 

Even if you don't put a monetary value on your time, it is still time you won't get back.

 

Sounds moral to me.

You totally missed the point.

 

You and I have been over this before. Don’t you remember?

 

It’s very simple: Some bogus logs cause practical problems like the ones you describe. Some do not.

 

If a bogus cache log causes NOBODY to be robbed of their $100/hour time, or time at any price, or to be harmed in any other involuntary way, then there is no problem. (Voluntarily choosing to be outraged anyway is of course a very different matter.)

 

If there is no victim, there is no crime. Nobody has convinced me that EVERY cache page lie harms someone – therefore some bogus logs are benign.

[+KBI]

In order for cheating to occur there must be a victim. If there is no victim, then there is no crime. When a cacher posts a benign bogus log, where is the victim?

 

If you can show me where someone has been victimized in a moral sense (and not for practical reasons – see my previous post on that) then I will have no choice but to agree with your point of view.

Say you have a son in grade school ...

 

<snipped for brevity>

 

If you truly would not be bothered at all by your son's "bogus logs" for books he did not read, then I'm afraid there is nothing that anyone can say in this thread that will make any impression on you at all.

Are you implying that I encourage others to lie about their accomplishments? If so, then you haven't been reading my posts. Promoting dishonesty has never been my position.

 

The bulletin board book list you describe would be an excellent opportunity to teach a child about the effects of dishonesty. So would bogus Geocache logs. Just yesterday, in fact, I used a similar opportunity to discuss with my eight-year-old son the effect dishonesty has on a person’s reputation and his believability.

 

I have repeatedly stated that I do not make bogus cache find claims, and neither do I encourage others to do so. Whenever a cacher posts a bogus cache find, I’m sure you would agree that it puts ALL their find logs into question. The real question is: Does it matter? Until this hobby is converted into an organized competition with official rules regarding proper scoring, I say: no. Until then, if the occasional weirdo gets his jollies posting fictitious yet harmless finds on some cache page where the owner is asleep at the switch, I just don’t care.

 

If you can find a post where I have truly encouraged others to lie about their accomplishments, please quote it.

 

I have never encouraged lying. My only point is that some bogus logs are nothing but completely harmless curiosities, and that allowing oneself to work up any level of outrage, annoyance, discomfort, or indignation over the truly benign ones is a voluntary – and totally pointless – choice.

 

No matter how many times I post that point of view, however, people still choose to hear what they want to hear instead of what I actually say.

 

I say: Some bogus logs are harmless.

 

People hear that and conclude: KBI is promoting lies!

 

You can lead a horse to water ...

[+Too Tall John]

It’s very simple: Some bogus logs cause practical problems like the ones you describe. Some do not.

 

If a bogus cache log causes NOBODY to be robbed of their $100/hour time, or time at any price, or to be harmed in any other involuntary way, then there is no problem.

All bogus logs have the potential of causing problems for someone. Just because one might happen not to doesn't mean it's ok.

 

Let's say I park in a handicapped parking spot (I do not qualify). I come out as my car is getting ticketed. The officer says he was watching the spot, and nobody came along trying to park there, but he is ticketing me anyways. Am I in the right to argue against because it happens that my parking there didn't happen to inconvenience anyone? No.

(Voluntarily choosing to be outraged anyway is of course a very different matter.)

...which is why I didn't complain that you are wasting OUR time. Again.

[+KBI]

It’s very simple: Some bogus logs cause practical problems like the ones you describe. Some do not.

 

If a bogus cache log causes NOBODY to be robbed of their $100/hour time, or time at any price, or to be harmed in any other involuntary way, then there is no problem.

All bogus logs have the potential of causing problems for someone.

I disagree.

 

... unless you’re going to get silly about it, in which case I must point out that all legitimate find logs have the potential of causing problems for someone as well.

 

(Voluntarily choosing to be outraged anyway is of course a very different matter.)

...which is why I didn't complain that you are wasting OUR time. Again.

If reading my posts is a waste of your time, then whose time are you wasting when you quote them and respond to them?