Paul Uppal and Captain Kirk

In several Star Trek episodes and films, trainee James T. Kirk's solution to Starfleet Academy's Kobayashi Maru test is spoken of with alternately, admiration and disdain. Here's the version from the recent film:



The point of the Kobayashi Maru test is that it's unwinnable. A captain who tries to win misses the point that it's a test of character in an impossible situation: facing death is the real test. James Kirk cheats: he reprogrammes the simulation to make winning possible. Here's Kirk's explanation from The Wrath of Khan.



Which brings me to Paul Uppal MP and Equal Marriage. When he was lobbied last week, he expressed a view that he opposed it: firstly for legal reasons and subsequently on the grounds of religious freedom. Personally, my feeling is that he reckons the Daily Mail voters on the western fringe of The Dark Place plus the Sikh vote will get him re-elected if he panders to their prejudices enough. I also think he's wrong: Sikhs, like everybody else, vote according to a range of personal concerns and can't be treated as a block. They won't vote for him just because he too is Sikh.

The other impulse pulling Paul Uppal was his craven loyalty to David Cameron. As I said yesterday, he voted for student fees, NHS dismemberment, EMA withdrawal, multiple wars, benefit cuts for disabled children and any number of vicious and retrograde laws. He is a man for whom the mirage of advancement means much.

So there he was, last night: his own personal Kobayashi Maru. Vote against equal marriage and lose his 100% record of unthinking loyalty but appease the bigots who elected him. Or vote for equal marriage despite his own views and alienate said bigots, making re-election even less likely? Luckily (and I should have seen this coming given his record thus far), Paul did a Kirk. Rather than face the test, he bottled it and abstained. In one of the most symbolic votes in years, one which firmly divides the political class between humane progressives and reactionaries, Uppal took the coward's way out.

Will it help him? I don't think so. He presumably calculates that Cameron's revenge will be focussed on those who voted against the Bill rather than those who quietly ducked the challenge, while the anti-equality voters will similarly give him a free pass. Wrong. The Conservative leadership will despise him as an unprincipled coward while the bigots will take the view that the Tories enacted equal marriage and won't make any distinction between abstainers and supporters when it comes to putting an X in the box.

Uppal won't go on to save the universe and breed with multiple glamorous aliens. He's destined for humiliating defeat and a life of bitter contempt for the voters. He faced the unwinnable situation and cheated in the most spineless fashion possible.

I know Captain Kirk. And you, Mr Uppal, are no Captain Kirk.

Shamelessly stolen

Here's video of a presentation about a magnificent piece of research. Students were asked to cheat - individually or collectively - on a cybersecurity exam. They all succeeded, in ingenious ways - you'll laugh yourself silly with this one. Even better, they called the paper 'Embracing the Kobayashi Maru' - massive bonus points for a Star Trek reference.



You can read an early version of their paper here - the final version is in a paywalled journal, even though (as US military employees), American taxpayers have already paid.

Of course it's still rightwing nonsense - despite the US releasing Stuxnet, it's only 'our adversaries' who cheat. OK then… But the research is still valid.

Would you cheat?

The usual cautions apply to this: it's a survey, and it's in the Daily Telegraph (thanks to Adam for sending it to me).

However, this article claims that a Manchester University study shows that half of students are willing to cheat - primarily through plagiarism and buying essays from the internet. Supposedly the paid-for essay sector is worth £200 million.

I think I'm pretty good at catching cheats, because I'm good at spotting language that doesn't come naturally to, say, a first-year undergraduate. There's been a rash of plagiarism this year - one student's essay claimed that she was an expert at 'intersectional theory', which is a) not relevant to the subject and b) news to me. Then again, I obviously don't know what I've missed when marking.

The problem is that students are paying a lot of money to get a qualification. In a consumer capitalist situation, the educational values are forgotten in pursuit of a certificate. The goal isn't learning, it's winning, and too many students are willing to use any means necessary.

The Manchester study questioned 90 second and third year students at three universities. It found they would be prepared to pay more than £300 for essays gaining a first class mark, £217 for a 2:1 and £164 for a 2:2 piece of work. Longer dissertations can cost up to £2,500. Some offer a cash back guarantee if the student is not awarded a certain degree classification.

"What is quite striking is that it appears that students did not see this form of behaviour as unethical," said Mr Rigby. "There was very little stigma attached to it. One student told me how he was working in the library next to someone who openly got out his credit card and paid for an essay off the internet.

"One could argue that in the modern university, the student is treated as, and increasingly identifies as, a consumer demanding 'value for money'. Perhaps subcontracting some of the work is seen as just an other rational choice by many informed consumers on campus."

Let's be clear: university work isn't the Kobayashi Maru test - it's possible to succeed, but the grade isn't the important bit, it's the intellectual growth. If you cheat, you cheat yourself and your colleagues. Have I ever cheated? No - I felt bad enough when an unseen poetry criticism essay was on a poem I'd read before. Also, my undergraduate education was much more personalised. We hand-wrote essays and gave them to a tutor whom we saw in very small groups, and discussed the face-to-face. I guess the analogy is with shoplifting or tax evasion: you wouldn't con a little old lady but you might not feel so bad ripping off a massive multinational. I wouldn't have tried to deceive the teachers I knew well and respected, but The Hegemon can feel like an impersonal machine. (That's not an excuse, by the way, it's an institutional failure).

Still, when I get sacked, I can make a living writing essays for you.