Live data from Hacker News

Linus Torvalds: Get vaccinated. Stop believing the anti-vax lies

lkml.org

11–20 of 269 posts

Re: Linus Torvalds: Get vaccinated. Stop believing the anti-vax lies

#11

Unpopular opinion: watching people struggle and fail or just plain refuse to engage with covid (wear a mask, socially distance, get a vaccine) has really shaken my faith in democracy. I was worried after Trumps election in 2016. But it's not a one-off phenomenon. People just behave randomly, they don't calculate risk, they don't care about facts, they're not even able to be self interested as far as I can tell. Just…

>Edit: I've never had a comment sink so fast. Cest la vie. I'm sort of glad other people think human civilisation is working. Maybe my depression just has me jaded.

HN moderation has failed to prevent the platform from being politicized and split up into rightthink and wrongthink, predominantly by allowing political and emotional shitposts that are behind a thin veil of "tech" related topics backed by HN's nebulous "Guidelines." It's just a mirror image of society itself so if things have devolved here for you, I assure you, things out there are much worse than they appear to be. Such is the price of diversity. You're never going to get to the bottom of an agreement on anything, and for every thing you think is going to improve things, others will say how it will make it worse. Good luck.

Re: Linus Torvalds: Get vaccinated. Stop believing the anti-vax lies

#12
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want people to be able to calculate risk for themselves rather than have GOVT decide what risks people can and can't take. If one doesn't deem it risky to themselves, perhaps because they are in their 20s and the average age of covid mortality is 80, then it is up to them and it is their personal freedom to choose what to/not do. If you are 90 and have 5 more years left to live, then my all means, stay indoors. Or…

Your conflating your right to risk yourself (declining a vaccine) with your right to risk others (refusing a mask mandate). Those are very different things. "Do what you want to yourself, but leave the rest of us out of it" is the definition of freedom. That said, any actual calculation of the risks should send people flocking to be vaccinated. But you do you. Just please don't vote.

My bad, I'm not talking about vaccines here. More replying to this general comment about people that don't comply with governmental decree. Leaving out the fact that GOVT was saying at the start of the pandemic that masks do little to protect you or others and they made a u-turn on that, the real way to let people keep their freedom is to let people decide the risks they want to take. If you are old, fat or otherwise ill, don't go outside if you think you might die? I sounds harsh but don't impinge on my freedom to not have to wear a mask because you can't go for a jog once in a while.

Re: Linus Torvalds: Get vaccinated. Stop believing the anti-vax lies

#13
post #4

Unpopular opinion: watching people struggle and fail or just plain refuse to engage with covid (wear a mask, socially distance, get a vaccine) has really shaken my faith in democracy. I was worried after Trumps election in 2016. But it's not a one-off phenomenon. People just behave randomly, they don't calculate risk, they don't care about facts, they're not even able to be self interested as far as I can tell. Just…

I want people to be able to calculate risk for themselves rather than have GOVT decide what risks people can and can't take. If one doesn't deem it risky to themselves, perhaps because they are in their 20s and the average age of covid mortality is 80, then it is up to them and it is their personal freedom to choose what to/not do. If you are 90 and have 5 more years left to live, then my all means, stay indoors. Or…

Do you wear a seatbelt in the car?

Re: Linus Torvalds: Get vaccinated. Stop believing the anti-vax lies

#14
post #4

Unpopular opinion: watching people struggle and fail or just plain refuse to engage with covid (wear a mask, socially distance, get a vaccine) has really shaken my faith in democracy. I was worried after Trumps election in 2016. But it's not a one-off phenomenon. People just behave randomly, they don't calculate risk, they don't care about facts, they're not even able to be self interested as far as I can tell. Just…

I want people to be able to calculate risk for themselves rather than have GOVT decide what risks people can and can't take. If one doesn't deem it risky to themselves, perhaps because they are in their 20s and the average age of covid mortality is 80, then it is up to them and it is their personal freedom to choose what to/not do. If you are 90 and have 5 more years left to live, then my all means, stay indoors. Or…

> If one doesn't deem it risky to themselves

If one's actions were only risky to themselves, then I would agree with you. However, that is not the case with a pandemic.

> Forcing/mandating mask wearing in democratic countries does more damage to democracy.

Frankly, politicizing mask wearing, fake news, lies and proud ignorance does more damage to democracy than anything else. If everyone would have worn masks from the beginning, we would be in a very different place right now.

Re: Linus Torvalds: Get vaccinated. Stop believing the anti-vax lies

#15
post #11

Unpopular opinion: watching people struggle and fail or just plain refuse to engage with covid (wear a mask, socially distance, get a vaccine) has really shaken my faith in democracy. I was worried after Trumps election in 2016. But it's not a one-off phenomenon. People just behave randomly, they don't calculate risk, they don't care about facts, they're not even able to be self interested as far as I can tell. Just…

>Edit: I've never had a comment sink so fast. Cest la vie. I'm sort of glad other people think human civilisation is working. Maybe my depression just has me jaded. HN moderation has failed to prevent the platform from being politicized and split up into rightthink and wrongthink, predominantly by allowing political and emotional shitposts that are behind a thin veil of "tech" related topics backed by HN's nebulous "…

Tl;dr a reminder that you are on the internet

Re: Linus Torvalds: Get vaccinated. Stop believing the anti-vax lies

#16
post #14
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want people to be able to calculate risk for themselves rather than have GOVT decide what risks people can and can't take. If one doesn't deem it risky to themselves, perhaps because they are in their 20s and the average age of covid mortality is 80, then it is up to them and it is their personal freedom to choose what to/not do. If you are 90 and have 5 more years left to live, then my all means, stay indoors. Or…

> If one doesn't deem it risky to themselves If one's actions were only risky to themselves, then I would agree with you. However, that is not the case with a pandemic. > Forcing/mandating mask wearing in democratic countries does more damage to democracy. Frankly, politicizing mask wearing, fake news, lies and proud ignorance does more damage to democracy than anything else. If everyone would have worn masks from th…

I agree with your second comment but not so much the first. Infectious disease control 101: Lock up the infected people but leave the healthy alone. Or else you may have a dwindling economy due to excessive spending, people too scared to work and a rapidly inflating currency... I may sound like an armchair epidemiologist but given that there are so many proclaimed 'experts' out there, the bar can't be thaaat high?

Re: Linus Torvalds: Get vaccinated. Stop believing the anti-vax lies

#17
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want people to be able to calculate risk for themselves rather than have GOVT decide what risks people can and can't take. If one doesn't deem it risky to themselves, perhaps because they are in their 20s and the average age of covid mortality is 80, then it is up to them and it is their personal freedom to choose what to/not do. If you are 90 and have 5 more years left to live, then my all means, stay indoors. Or…

Do you wear a seatbelt in the car?

Yes but no because it is the law. It should be law that car companies provide a seat-belt but not that I wear one. Your one sentence straw-man wont suffice here. Again, it's all about personal risk. I could go climb a cliff face with a rope or I could do it without. I don't need GOVT to tell me not to do the latter.

Re: Linus Torvalds: Get vaccinated. Stop believing the anti-vax lies

#18
Story time:

My daughters day care has 2 fulltime employees and a part timer. The fulltime staff are vaxxed, the part-time person isn't, despite having been eligible for a loooooong time.

Well, guess who got an asymptomatic covid infection, and then went on to spread it to her entire family, including her infant granddaughter. Luckily, the person who infected her got tested and let her know in time for her to not infect all our children.

Get vaccinated. Some people are allergic or may have real medical exemptions. Everyone else who passes on the opportunity are shortsighted and selfish.

Re: Linus Torvalds: Get vaccinated. Stop believing the anti-vax lies

#20
I still don't like how rude Linus is. I'll never like how rude Linus is.

But his explanation of mRNA is nicely done. Hope somebody reading it learns something and realizes they've been lied to. Maybe even gets vaccinated. That'd be worth a mean email or two.

Post reply on HN