site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2850 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 29, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Is there a new cheating epidemic?

  • Some major game titles are now unplayable in the higher rankings because of cheating: CounterStrike, Call of Duty, Tarkov. This occurs to a comical degree

  • High school teachers say most essays are now written with AI

Quoth Betteridge…

I’d like to see real data rather than relying on (years-old) reports from a notoriously punishing game.

I can’t say I understand the conflation of academic and game cheating, either. The dynamic is—or should be?—completely different.

I don’t think it’s possible to find real data about this, because the only way to determine cheating is for a reasonable observer to watch footage (otherwise, the algorithms would quickly catch them). You can’t generalize that across time for obvious reasons, and you can’t trust a cheater to answer a survey for obvious reasons. The next best evidence is to see what high-reputation people in these niches think about the question, and I’d guess most of them across different games would say cheating is out of control.

In CS2, nearly all of the leaderboard: https://youtube.com/watch?v=6GA4AM1Szxc https://youtube.com/watch?v=m8wsCU0NR38

In Trackmania, nearly all of the leaderboard (I think this is the most competitive racing game): https://youtube.com/watch?v=yDUdGvgmKIw

Chess . com : https://youtube.com/watch?v=SG5PMVyCi8U (though here it is significantly easier, almost trivial, to find and ban cheaters)

There are also many in the speedrunning niche.

I can’t say I understand the conflation of academic and game cheating, either

They are similar from a psychological perspective involving honesty and rewards. You want to win in order to gain status and feel a sense of success. Among males, video game success translates into reputational benefits, bragging rights, plus the basic biological pleasure of defeating an opponent in a bout. This is no different from academic success, except perhaps that the rewards of academic success occur on a longer timeframe, making the rewards of cheating a little less salient.

Hmm. It might be possible to get trendlines for something like CS2. But then, I understand valve has a long history of detection vs ban waves. It’d be very hard to measure.

Perhaps survey companies that sell cheats to try and keep skin in the game? I seem to remember seeing a retrospective from, like WoW gold farmers or something. You might be able to measure revenue vs. player base for a common game.

Intuitively, I doubt that video game cheating is worse today than it was in the mid-2000s era of PC CoD hackers and the like. Or the golden age of Minecraft servers, maybe.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats