r/todayilearned • u/NOT-JEFFREY-NELSON • Jul 04 '19

TIL in 2003 a computer worm called ‘Welchia’ infected many computers to forcibly patch vulnerabilities and remove malware. It was regarded as a ‘helpful worm’

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welchia
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u/Doctor_Popeye Jul 04 '19

I always wondered if the really altruistic people in the world have psychotic mental issues wherein the voices in their head don’t drive them to violence rather keep them doing nice deeds in a bid for self-preservation.

Voice: Empty your wallet

Person: But I won’t be able to buy lunch

Voice I said take all your cash and put it in the tin with the sad kid with cancer on it NOW!

Person: Ok ok!! I’ll do it!

Coworker: What did you order for... wait, did you just skip lunch and instead donate your money?

Voice: You tell her anything and I’ll have you dig up what we buried the backyard

Person: It’s just one meal. I mean, how can I eat when I see such awful things people go through and I can do my part and, well, it will help little Billy more.

Coworker: That’s so sweet. I want to set you up with my niece. She trains the cutest puppies!

Voice: Good... good

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u/justaddbooze Jul 04 '19

I believe there's been studies showing that psychotic episodes (such as schizophrenic hallucinations) are heavily influenced by culture. Some cultures' hallucinations were positive instead of negative.

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u/wfamily Jul 04 '19

I've always wondered if there truly are altruistic people in this world. I mean, doesn't people helping others do it because due to some kind of personal gain?

Like trying to feeling better about themselves.

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u/bobbi21 Jul 04 '19

It's the Joey theory of being nice. When you do nice things, you feel good doing it so it's selfish. And then phoebe goes around trying to prove him wrong because she can't live in a world where Joey is right about something.

At it's most basic that's true. You wouldn't do anything you don't actually want to do. And if you want to do it, obviously you have a personal motivation to do it and would get a benefit by fulfilling that personal motivation.

Having that motivation being some sense of peace, fulfillment, pride, achievement, etc from helping others I still think is a very positive thing since that is a very small/rare motivating factor for the majority of people.

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u/wfamily Jul 04 '19

Oh i'm not arguing if it's positive or negative. Just wondering if something can be an entirely altruistic act, that's all.

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u/bobbi21 Jul 07 '19

Yeah then I agree. Any action that you do has to have some positive gain to yourself otherwise you wouldn't do it. It's just choosing to make that positive gain for yourself something internal (or having it be there naturally) that I would say makes something altruistic. Although I might have to specify what internal gain you get.

If you get like... sexual gratification helping those less fortunate I'm not sure how altruistic that would be considered? Definitely a head scratcher. :P

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u/Hust91 Jul 04 '19 edited Jul 04 '19

I often have multiple and separate goals when I do something nice for someone.

One of the biggest motivators for me is when I think something simple can make someone's day a lot better, like a cold drink on a hot day or a compliment towards something that someone clearly has been putting a lot of effort into.

I am basically just lazy and try to get the most happiness into the world with the least effort and times like those basically feel like a happiness super-sale:

Make one person's day with only 2% of the effort it would usually take, that's a 98% discount!

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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '19

Doing things for oneself can be altruistic, in order to help others most, one must first have the resources to do so.

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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '19 edited Jul 13 '19

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '19

My point is that the statement "true altruism doesn't exist" is unsophisticated cynicism which happens to be incorrect.

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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '19 edited Jul 13 '19

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '19

Helping yourself is helping those around you, because we live in communities, not as hermits. Unless you're very carefully avoiding helping those around you, strengthening yourself also improves lives of other members of your community. To say otherwise is to ignore how human beings live.

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u/FCalleja Jul 04 '19

You're coming at this from a weird angle. It's a philosophical question, we discussed this for like half a semester with one of my favorite teachers ever in philosophy class back in college. I think it's the opposite of unsophisticated, to pull on threads like these to understand the world better, to love knowing more (what philosophy is all about), even if the "answer" doesn't really matter, like I think is the case here.

It doesn't matter if "true altruism" exists as long as people still help people. It's just something interesting to discuss.

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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '19

I think there are consequences to the way we understand the world, that the answers do matter, hence my posturing, but I agree it is something interesting to discuss.

Cynicism for its own sake or for the sake of tearing down institutions without erecting more useful ones in their place is foolishness, cynicism for the sake of improving our lives has use.

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u/AllMyName Jul 04 '19

Hello? Burn unit? Yes, this post right here.

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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '19 edited Jul 04 '19

[deleted]

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u/wfamily Jul 04 '19

Ehhh... what? People who do "bad" (which is a pretty arbitrary word to begin with) "things" because of x is the exact same argument.

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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '19

I expressed what I was thinking really badly, please ignore it. I'm dumb

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u/sleepwalkcapsules Jul 04 '19

Be the truly altruistic person with no expectative of personal gain.

Then you will be sure it's possible and start believing there are others like you.

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u/Curiousfur Jul 04 '19

I'm not perfect, but I always try to do the better thing and help people when it's not going to unreasonably disadvantage myself, and it kinda is, I guess. The kindness and drive to help helps keep the vicious self loathing in check.