It's pretty simple. There are few incentives for integrity and few disincentives for lack thereof. This shows up in all kind of contexts - from business leaders, to social media "influencers", to athletes, to politicians.

I'm not sure why anyone would expect "the average Joe" to maintain some semblance of integrity when very few successful individuals do the same. The overall message is pretty clear - if you want to succeed, you will need to cheat.

People that don’t cheat much think that cheating is easy. Often times I see cheaters put in almost the same amount of effort as non cheaters the cheaters just get a higher probability of success.

But the long term success for cheating is actually much lower, those who actually learned things will do better in the long term even if they have a lower probability of short term success

Many humans seem to be incredibly short sighted

I disagree, I don’t believe Trump and Elon musk are ethical and they are very successful in terms of power and money.

That said, Falcon 9 actually flies and is a very reliable rocket; SpaceX does not seem to be "cheating" in the classical sense of the word, but making money due to genuine innovative capability.

The success of those two are bad for the country long term, the idea that being super rich is success is also bad

> the long term success for cheating is actually much lower, those who actually learned things will do better in the long term even if they have a lower probability of short term success

I want to believe this, but I'm not sure it's always true. Timing of opportunities matters a lot. Someone who is not as skilled in programming probably cheated their way into a FAANG job during the height of the pandemic and made absolute bank, perhaps being able to sock away $200k-$300k since then. That money could then be invested and start compounding, leading to a materially different outcome from someone else who played it by the rules and was better.

The long-term for the cheater might be to simply find a less demanding job and continue riding the prestige hike they got when they snuck into the FAANG job.

The cheaters learn to cheat better that can be a better or equivalent level skill. Human lifetime are sort and human opportunity windows are even shorter. Not cheating put you at the mercy of variance as many now dead great people died in poverty

How about working to fix the system and make it more equitable rather than cheating or excusing cheating

When resources are perceived scarce, it tends to incentivize worse behavior.