> "Suppose buyers cannot distinguish between a high-quality car (a "peach") and a "lemon". Then they are only willing to pay a fixed price for a car that averages the value of a "peach" and "lemon" together (pavg). But sellers know whether they hold a peach or a lemon. Given the fixed price at which buyers will buy, sellers will sell only when they hold "lemons" (since plemon < pavg) and they will leave the market when they hold "peaches" (since ppeach > pavg). Eventually, as enough sellers of "peaches" leave the market, the average willingness-to-pay of buyers will decrease (since the average quality of cars on the market decreased), leading to even more sellers of high-quality cars to leave the market through a positive feedback loop."

Anyway you just specified an implied though not supported downside, while ignoring my point that cheating has some minor upsides. Demonstrating that cheating is a dead loss for society is not enough you need to demonstrate it has absolutely zero redeeming qualities allowing for such simple syllogistic reasoning to apply

A major NYC blackout resulted in a bunch of looting. That looting is supposed to have resulted in a bunch of new musicians getting their hands on good equipment. Those scofflaw musicians invented new musical genres that revolutionized the artform. Sounds a lot like reducing the friction inside a rigid system.

Basically, while we might prefer to have people raise integrity to the highest priority, life is complicated and it's sometimes hard to say a wrong thing is 100% wrong.