So you quoted a point I made about how the game lets us do all sorts of things we can't do in real life, then counter by saying that 4-off is the only one we have a "choice" in.
Thereby taking the position that unreal things that we can choose not to use become unethical when we chose to use them.
You chose to reset after a crash. We choose to reset. We choose to use the E-brake on cars that don't have them. (I just learned where it was Saturday night) We choose to fly our cars ten feet in the air because the computer allows it and it makes us faster.
We have many choices when deciding which unreal things we want to use in the game.
Your assertion that 4 off is unethical because it's the only unreal advantage allowed by the game that people could choose to forgo simply isn't accurate.
The "civil agreement" I expect from other competitors is simple: Don't alter your own software, and run your own runs.
Other than that, I expect the software to decide what's legal and what isn't. And I'm far more comfortable with imperfect, but consistent, software than I am with inconsistent humans.
I hope the software doesn't allow mowing, bouncing, or teleportation in round 3.
First, you're dead wrong and that's the whole point I and other's have been trying to find some sort of way of getting you to understand that your hyperbolic straw man argument is completely off-base.
Everything you mention above are intrinsic characteristics of the simulated environment. They are not conscious choices made by the user. The entire point of a simulator is to suspend the reality of danger, death, and damage. We approximate what it would be like to drive cars we could never afford without all the mess of cleaning blood out of your interior when something goes wrong. A simulator gives us a low-cost way to participate in something we all love and I certainly would rather be doing for real if I wasn't born poor.
So at a starting point of even turning on the game we all agree as a body to a social contract in which we suspend portions of reality. This includes car damage, fear, injury, real-world physics, etc... Now the ethical choices begin to come into play.
While you're driving around the track you cut a corner and notice the penalty system flags your time as invalid.
You hit a wall and the penalty system flags your lap as invalid, in the last sector it also flags your next lap as invalid.
So we're all aware that there IS a penalty system.
You discover the penalty system isn't perfect and allows you to cut some corners and hit some walls as long as you "do it right".
This is a clear exploit in the penalty system. You are now presented with an ethical choice. You can abide by the intentions of the penalty system, or you can exploit flaws in the penalty system to try to gain an advantage.
That choice is where your value system does not agree with mine. According to my value system the penalty system (race steward, official, referee, police officer, etc...) not "seeing" you breaking the rules it is trying to enforce still counts as a violation. And when that violation of the rules becomes intentional you've begun to engage in unethical behavior.
Killing a hooker and dumping her body in a ravine does not stop being murder if you get away with it. Just like bumping a wall or cutting the track is still a violation of the rules even if the penalty system doesn't catch you.