Or, what about challenging your property tax assessment EVERY year? Most people don’t do that, for whatever reason, but if you do, your assessed value will stay lower over time, in that occasionally they’ll drop whatever their proposed increase is by some amount. It’s not unfair, it’s not unethical, but it’s also taking advantage of the way the system is structured, and possibly of the fact that you can set aside the time each year to challenge it.
Well, of course you are perfectly legally within your rights to stiff your server for any reason or for no reason at all, but in practical terms, if you do it more than a couple of times at the same place, you will find yourself getting the Cold Shoulder (at the very least, thinking about the thread about waitstaff “seasoning” the food of offensive customers) with extreme prejudice from the crew.
Sure, but 90% of the time I eat out in a “tips expected” environment, it’s somewhere I don’t expect to return to (I’m travelling or whatever). There’s no negative consequences for me. But I would still consider it unethical behavior.
As a teacher, I find students who want to “game the system” to be terrible, and teachers that engage with them to be even worse, who focus on being “hard to game” even worse. I am talking about kids who put enormous effort into finding the least amount of work they can do to get the grade they want, with no respect for the actual point of the class–learning anything. I have resorted to basically inflating the hell out of everyone’s grades, so that there’s really no point. This horrifies some of my colleagues, but I have data for days showing that my kids learn way more than most.
Shouldn’t that hinge on whether a given law’s spirit is worthy of respect? Because, to the exact extent that a given spirit deserves scorn, then it seems to me that gaming it by the letter becomes increasingly defensible.
So long as you are in fact eligible for benefits you receive…you’re good.
I find it interesting that different sports have different cultures. Professional golfers are expected to call penalties on themselves. While in stock car racing, as the opening sentence in this recent AP article notes, the ethos is "The credo in NASCAR has always been “If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’”.
I know the assholes in favor of the ‘spirit of the law’ type well too. Like the little asshole who agrees to play a game by the rules, but whines that you’re not playing within some undefined ‘spirit of the game’ when you follow the rules and beat him. People tend to define the ‘spirit of the law’ or ‘spirit of the rules’ in really weird ways that have no real evidence to back them.
Most systems for benefits need to be gamed. For example, last time I lost a job, I went on unemployment, and was required to show that I filled out three different job applications to three different places per week. I went and filled out applications and sent them in to keep my benefits going, even though I knew that applications were unlikely to ever be seen by a person, and actually found the job by working with two different contracting companies, neither of whom had an application process. Was there something actually wrong with me gaming the system by wasting time filling out applications that weren’t going to go anywhere? Some people would say that the ‘spirit of the law’ is that I should make only real job applications, and that filling out an online app that I knew wasn’t going to get an answer was going against the spirit of the law. But I would say that the spirit of the law is that you get UI benefits if you’re actively looking for work, and I was, I just also played the game of giving them an easily verified metric to check off on their list.
Yeah, often benefits- including disability and unemployment- are designed around some standard situation, not taking into account the variety of reality.
I had to outright fake job applications when on unemployment benefits- had to apply for 3 jobs every week. Guess how many job adverts come out the week between Christmas and New Year…? Even the advisers were trying to subtly point me in the direction of inventing applications for the week, because they weren’t allowed any discretion, even if they knew damn well no-one advertises that week.
As another example, I know a few people with lifelong conditions that aren’t constant; they flare up and die down. When it’s bad, they can’t work at all, sometimes can’t even get out bed, most of the time they’re limited but could do some work, with occasional assistance, and sometimes they’d be fully capable of full time work. But it’s not predictable, and they can switch from fine to bedridden pretty much overnight.
Problem is, the system is not set up to deal with that. They qualify for help when it’s bad, which takes time to qualify for, but if they start working more than a few hours, that automatically cancels the assistance, because if they can do that many hours, they don’t need help, right? So, when a few weeks later, they crash down to being stuck in bed they get no help and incidentally are in a terrible state to try and re-apply.
I don’t see it as gaming the system for them to then put a cap on their own hours to avoid cancelling their benefits. The ‘spirit’ of the benefit is that it’s supposed to be for those unable to support themselves through working, due to disability, the fact that some disabilities don’t neatly fit into a category is a fault of the system, not of the individual stuck dealing with them. The lack of a ‘pause button’ for those with conditions like that is not their fault.
I disagree with you from an ethics standpoint. I’m not advocating that those who are precisely, legally using the system be punished, but that maybe the system should be changed.
Case in point: I work for one of the few remaining employers who provide both a pension and a generously matched 401K. We are all SS eligible as well. A few years ago as part of a RIF, the company allowed people to volunteer for layoffs, assuming (correctly) that many were on the cusp of retirement anyway. This offer included six months of additional pay as severance.
One of my coworkers took the offer and was retiring to an income well into the six figures. He also decided that since he’d been officially laid off, he would apply for unemployment as well, since he’d been “paying into the system and deserved to get some back”.
AFAIK, this is technically legal. But I think a 401K millionaire with a large pension and SS is being an asshole for collecting this money. It isn’t there for him. Disclaimer: I have no idea if he successfully collected. I had little interest in maintaining contact.
It’s a difficult call sometimes. I used to participate in a football pool. I noticed that I always lost, and in fact I usually lost badly. One week I made my picks, but selected the opposite teams. I won. I mentioned how I made my selections to the pool organizer, and he was livid, accusing me of cheating the system.
That one in particular is difficult - but it’s only difficult because 1) nursing home care is so expensive that virtually no one can afford it and 2) so many people give away their assets that it has almost become the norm , so that you are actually harming yourself by not doing it. It would really be more honest if we covered everyone’s nursing home care without the pretense of people giving away their assets, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
Think of a different but similar situation - the parent who is supposed to pay child support but deliberately works at a job that pays much less than they could earn. Now it's not illegal to earn less than you could, but I'm pretty sure if someone voluntarily leaves a six figure job to work at McDonald's , the judge isn't going to lower the support amount. And I certainly don't think it's ethical for that person to deliberately earn less for the *purpose *of paying less child support.
In some instances, this sort of choice impresses me as reflecting personality - or character. It is not unusual to see folk who are financially well off aggressively pursuing benefits that are more necessary to folk less well off. One one hand, who doesn’t pick up what is essentially “free money.” At another extreme, tho, each of us may question how far we would go in certain situations.
You are in a car accident, and insurance covers your medicals and other incidentals. Do you act as tho you had hit the lottery, and file a civil suit for additional damages - “pain and suffering,” etc.? (No - I’m not suggesting pain and suffering is not real - merely painting extremes w/ a broad brush.)
Since my initial remark was made in the comment of seeking benefits based on mental impairment, I found it curious that the following was included in the Wiki def of GtS:
No - not everyone w/ mental/emotional illness, and not necessarily entirely voluntary/intentional, but not unheard of either IMO.
I have an aunt who hurt her back and then was on government disability for years. She had worked for the federal government before. She always made sure that she made less than whatever the limit was. She could easily have gotten another job but then she would’ve lost her disability.,
That’s gaming the system, and it’s wrong.
That’s more what I’d call “honest” gaming the system. Nobody’s doing anything even close to outside the spirit of the law or rule, but they’re taking maximum advantage of it. I think about my dad and this- for a year or two, the grit off the asphalt shingles on our roof had been shedding, and the shingles were clearly the issue- they were 25 year shingles that had been in place for about 14 years. But since the pro-rated amount for the shingles was about $300-400, it wasn’t enough to pay for a new roof, so my dad was letting it ride and saving cash until it got bad enough to replace.
A year or three pass, and a hailstorm occurs, bad enough to where my Dad filed a homeowner’s insurance claim (and dozens of others in our area). They pay for a new roof, since hail damage is a common sort of thing they pay for.
Meanwhile, Dad digs out his photos of little drifts of grit that washed off the roof the year before, and files for the warranty claim for the shingles.
In the end, Dad got a new roof, AND pocketed about $300-400 bucks for the defective shingles.
I view it as a public service to take full advantage of all loopholes in systems that are created.
It is not my fault, and it is not unethical, to observe a flaw in a system and then to use it to benefit myself. In fact, I proceed with the assumption that the person creating the rule has specifically created a loophole to benefit themselves or their acquaintances (this is why people lobby governments!)
If the person or people who created the system failed to realize the ways in which the system could be used or abused, that is their problem – and taking advantage of it should eventually convince them to change the rules to be equitable and fair.
This is a good example of what I mean. How is someone who was actually laid off from a job collecting unemployment ‘gaming the system’ - what is the actual thing in the system that they are doing that is wrong? I don’t care if you think he has ‘enough’ money, I think that making arbitrary judgements about who has ‘enough’ money is a problem on your part. The idea that you will claim someone is ‘gaming the system’ if they are legitimately entitled to the benefits of the system and follow all of the rules don’t follow an additional restriction on the system that you made up in your head means that the phrase ‘gaming the system’ has no real meaning.
Was he applying for jobs? If he was fake-looking for work, then I agree that he was in the wrong. But if he was actually looking for another job, then he qualifies on that front. Did he report his pension income and severance? If he lied about that, then I agree he was in the wrong (and is pretty likely to get caught). But if he waited for the severance to run out (it normally counts as income) and was looking for another job, it sounds like he was fully meeting all of the qualifications to draw UI, and I fail to see what form of ‘gaming the system’ he did.
To me there is some measure of intent between good and bad gaming. Let’s say that at work I play certain aspects of production to give myself time off task to help other; I would call that good. Let’s say I do the same things to beat a co-worker I don’t like out of some bonus; that borders more on bad. In other words, to me, its not so much the action as what is in my heart that makes the difference.
Unless we’re gaming the government; in that case its all good. 
I have an auto racing background and people gaming the system have been legendary. Particularly in the early NASCAR days. But it is a fine line between gaming and plain old cheating (also legendary). Here is an example of gaming.
Back in the 1970s one builder started putting the rear wing of a Can-Am car on mounts that attached directly to the rear hubs. This had the advantage of putting all the aerodynamic downforce right on the tires. When mounted on the rear chassis as normally done a large wing requires very heavy rear spring rates to keep the car from bottoming out at full speed. But that makes the car too stiff at low speeds so wings had to be conservative.
The hub mounted wing was quite effective but after a wing failed from all the shock generated by the tires and the debris made another car crash - they were banned. Enter the gaming: One enterprising builder put his rear sway bar (attached to the rear hubs as normal) way up in the air. And he made it in an aerodynamic shape so it was effectively a rear wing at the same time. I can’t remember if it was allowed to race but of course they amended the rules immediately to clarify things. Nice try.
Dennis
One of my brothers-in-law is retired military and retired from the post office. He also gets some kind of disability for PTSD, although throughout his military service he was an intelligence analyst. He’s said that he considers finding more ways to get money from the government his current job. I think he’d con himself into a liver transplant if he thought he was getting it for free.
People who get on disability and deliberately set out to make money under the table to continue receiving a government check/SNAP/housing when they could be supporting themselves are beneath contempt. I don’t have a problem with someone who is truly disabled being supported, but most people could work, even if they have to be retrained in a different job. Don’t expect me to support you when you should be supporting yourself.
StG
A classic example of “gaming the system” was card-counting, in which diligent people with good memories could consistently win over time in Las Vegas (and similar gambling venues). I have no problem with the ethics of that at all, though the casinos obviously hated it because it cost them money (so they banned suspected card-counters).