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Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

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141–150 of 649 posts

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#141

The way I like to think about it (not sure how accurate this is) is that mRNA is like a letter sent by your DNA. mRNA vaccines forge your DNA's handwriting and write a letter that looks like it came from your DNA, but didn't.

And COVID is a printing press for scam letters.

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#142

This is good. Now states are combating such hesitancy by drawing lottery for vaccinated folks. Like, having this magic, absolutely mind boggling potion that prevents serious illness and death *isn't* already the lottery win of our lifetime?? People in India and elsewhere are dying because of lack of vaccines and here we have educated, first world countries struggle to get their citizens vaccinated. Unfortunately sham…

Same with the push for vaccine passports. Really gets my fur up and question why the need for heavy hands.

It's already been the case that various countries require certain vaccines to enter, or other health clearances. These kinds of standards and even more exceptional for animals, and ultra protective for plants. Why is this any different? Why wouldn't you want someone protected from bringing a (newly) preventable disease into your country?

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#143
I read this headline and immediately asked myself, why don't you create an account and ask these people WTF do we care what Linus thinks about that? Then I read his post. It is actually a well reasoned response to another post on LKML. Now I created an account to say I agree with Linus, understand why post is popular, but I think the headline is a bit "click-baity". Although it did make me create an account.

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#144
post #15

Absolutely agree with everything Linus says here. But I'm almost equally concerned that there's an awful lot of people on the pro-science bandwagon who don't actually support science, but simply don't tolerate dissent or questioning, and that's unscientific and potentially harmful too. I scanned most of the Pfizer trial and was wondering why we expected the immunity after the vaccine to last longer than natural immun…

> and was wondering why we expected the immunity after the vaccine to last longer than natural immunity.

In the case of Pfizer and Astra Zeneca, the simple answer is that it is the second dose which presents a second challenge to the immune system which is designed to stimulate the longer protection, I'm quite surprised that none of your medical friends said that.

That leaves the question of how the single-dose jabs fair, and the honest answer is, I don't know.

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#145

This is good. Now states are combating such hesitancy by drawing lottery for vaccinated folks. Like, having this magic, absolutely mind boggling potion that prevents serious illness and death *isn't* already the lottery win of our lifetime?? People in India and elsewhere are dying because of lack of vaccines and here we have educated, first world countries struggle to get their citizens vaccinated. Unfortunately sham…

Same with the push for vaccine passports. Really gets my fur up and question why the need for heavy hands.

Because people who are in the ICU because they refuse to get vaccinated are costing the taxpayer a shitload of money. I'd be all for "you can stay unvaccinated if you like, but you won't get an ICU bed if you get severe COVID", but that's a heavier hand than a passport.

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#146
post #15

Absolutely agree with everything Linus says here. But I'm almost equally concerned that there's an awful lot of people on the pro-science bandwagon who don't actually support science, but simply don't tolerate dissent or questioning, and that's unscientific and potentially harmful too. I scanned most of the Pfizer trial and was wondering why we expected the immunity after the vaccine to last longer than natural immun…

I get what you're saying, but the logical conclusion of all this is that no one can know anything at all unless they're an expert in that specific thing. But that's why we have experts in the first place - so that we can determine what is most likely to be true without necessarily needing to deeply understand it first hand. So sure, perhaps there's some small chance that the vaccines don't work the way they're supposed to or the earth is flat. But "expert consensus is X" is a pretty good heuristic for "X is correct." And while I'm not defending random trolls on Facebook, this does happen to be a pretty sensitive subject right now because there is a pretty significant proportion of the population who won't get the vaccine precisely because they don't believe in expertise.

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#147
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just happen to know a lot of anesthesiologists and they went to all of med school - I didn't. They were easy to ask and know more than me. The first nurse, again, more medical education than me to begin with, was very interested in the science beyond his work and was obviously briefed on the situation at work as it changed. I just figured it might have been more common knowledge than it turned out to be. My point i…

It's a little bit like asking a random software engineer on the street on how GPU drivers work internally: they're unlikely to have an actual informed opinion.

Its actually a perfect example. But for the opposit argument. A random software engineer has a much deeper understanding about the inner workings of GPU then the average non-software engineer. So its a perfect analogy for asking a nurse about a health related topic. He probably doesn't know much about the immune system but he definetly knows more then the average population.

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#148
post #4

But Linus is not a doctor or biologist, so no expertise to speak of. And the infection rate dropped to almost zero last summer as well, no vaccine in sight at the time.

He's not a doctor, but considered as a God by a certain crowd, which allow his to spread the Gospel.

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#149
post #58
post #15

Absolutely agree with everything Linus says here. But I'm almost equally concerned that there's an awful lot of people on the pro-science bandwagon who don't actually support science, but simply don't tolerate dissent or questioning, and that's unscientific and potentially harmful too. I scanned most of the Pfizer trial and was wondering why we expected the immunity after the vaccine to last longer than natural immun…

If you read Linus's post then it seems that no mRNA sequence (not necessarily a vaccine) can ever do harm when injected into the body, but I doubt that is the case. I hope someone who is knowledgeable about the subject can explain whether that is true or not.

I only got that he was arguing it won't make permanent changes to our genome, which was the claim he was replying to, and he's correct. The spike protein is damaging to cells when present at all, but still very apparently much less dangerous when exposed via vaccine than an actual infection. And, as you know, cells die and get replaced all the time. I think people who are aware of it sometimes gloss over how the spike protein does some damage simply because they don't want to stoke unreasonable fears.

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#150

mRNA doesn't change your genetic sequence in any way. It is the exact same intermediate - and temporary - kind of material that your cells generate internally all the time as part of your normal cell processes The m in mRNA stands for messenger. I'm failing to find anything I consider to be a succinct explanation in layman's terms (other than the one in the piece under discussion: all that the mRNA vaccines do is to…

>The m in mRNA stands for messenger.

Whoops, you got it backwards. Nature does not really care whatever names we give to things. Come on, you can do better than that :)

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