Linus Torvalds: Get vaccinated. Stop believing the anti-vax lies • Hacker News Board

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

#131

Post by flowerlad » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 1:19 AM UTC

ivraatiems wrote: post #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.

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

He must be doing something right, because 30 years after its first release Linux isn't just thriving, it is dominating the world.

And on the side he also managed to release another little something which we now know as git.

There is no personal invective in his message. He only attacked the message, not the messenger.

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

#132

Post by lamontcg » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 1:19 AM UTC

eoo wrote: post #87

I understand how mRNA works. I've got a background in both Chem and CompSci and I read https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/reverse-engineering-source... But I wouldn't use it for the same reason I don't use Bluetooth headsets -- tech is just way too new, and of for some reason there are long term unexpected side effects, we won't know until a decade or two goes by. PS: I'm vaccinated with the viral vector AstraZeneca o…

> we won't know until a decade or two goes by.

that's exactly the bullshit that he's calling out.

the mRNA is gone in days, all that remains is the immune response.

we have hundreds of year of experience at understanding the kinds of autoimmune side effects that can happen after a viral infection or a vaccine. they either surface in under 90 days or they don't.

5 years from now we're not going to have a sudden outbreak of side effects.

if it did it would upset the entire discipline of rheumatology.

once 3 months go by after your vaccination anything that happens to you after that has nothing to do with the vaccination.

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

#133

Post by imgabe » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 1:20 AM UTC

Negitivefrags wrote: post #99

apatheticonion wrote: post #32

I'm genuinely shocked at how many of my colleagues are in the anti-vaxx club. Literally half of my team have said they will not get the vaccine when it's available to them. One citing a podcast which talked about how the vaccine causes programmed cell death and the other because "it's all a bit suspicious". Great guys, intelligent and generally good to be around. I didn't know how to react when I found out.

I wish people wouldn’t conflate not wanting to take this particular vaccine at this particular time with being “anti-vax”. I am vaccinated. I vaccinate my kids and have done so as recently as a few months ago. I believe in vaccines. But I’m not ready for this one yet. When it has gone through the same FDA approval process as would be used for any vaccine I will be first in line. I don’t see why people are so offended…

Which particular steps of the FDA approval process are you waiting for and what information will they provide that will convince you the vaccine is safe?

Why are these parts of the normal FDA process more convincing than the fact that millions of real people have already taken the vaccine with high efficacy and minimal side effects?

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

#134

Post by wtallis » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 1:20 AM UTC

nvoid wrote: post #16

V__ wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> Infectious disease control 101: Lock up the infected people but leave the healthy alone.

Maybe try getting some real education on infectious diseases. Incubation periods during which you can be contagious, and the generally non-zero latency between becoming symptomatic and highly contagious and getting positive test results back and getting into isolation mean your proposed strategy is stupid.

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

#135

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 1:20 AM UTC

landemva wrote: post #90

grecy wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree 100% and it's quite scary. We've moved past the "information age" where facts and science and raw data are used to drive decisions, and we're in some kind of "selfish wants" age. I don't know if it's a problem with democracy though - we've known for a long time now if you let regular folk vote on it a huge number would vote for absolutely zero tax and society would fall apart because of it, but they'd go down…

Individual people have rights, which come from God (higher power). Groups and "society" are not able to have rights, as "groups" are an artificial construct.

[deleted]

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

#136

Post by shrubble » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 1:21 AM UTC

My personal view is that vax vs anti-vax views are shaped by the person's relationship with 'Authority' in the past.

If someone felt that they were mis-treated in the past by the government or by say a university bureaucracy, they are more likely to be anti-vax; because appealing to authority has no meaning or relevance to the way they process and assign weights to the information that they rrceive.

Of course more positive views of 'Authority' will lead to a different, more pro-vax position.

Curious if this matches with what others are seeing.

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

#137

Post by tziki » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 1:21 AM UTC

borplk wrote: post #118

apatheticonion wrote: post #32

I'm genuinely shocked at how many of my colleagues are in the anti-vaxx club. Literally half of my team have said they will not get the vaccine when it's available to them. One citing a podcast which talked about how the vaccine causes programmed cell death and the other because "it's all a bit suspicious". Great guys, intelligent and generally good to be around. I didn't know how to react when I found out.

There are legitimate concerns about the safety of the vaccines. This condescending and belittling attitude towards anyone who expresses any concern about the vaccine safety does not help either. It's the propaganda of the big pharma mafia that tickles your narcissism so you get a kick out of feeling like superior for being 'one of the good guys' who is not against the vaccines. On the one hand you have know-it-all an…

You can apply all your logic to any major conspiracy theory. Did we land on the moon? It shouldn't be so controversial if we actually did. You say 9/11 was an inside job? Pfft, drop the self-righteous attitude.

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

#138

Post by greesil » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 1:21 AM UTC

textgel wrote: post #88

zuminator wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vaccinated people with asymptomatic infections have a lower viral load and are less likely to transmit the virus to others. https://www.nebraskamed.com/COVID/can-i-still-spread-covid-1...

So still very much transmissible.

Yes, but less so.

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

#139

Post by gonehome » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 1:21 AM UTC

young_unixer wrote: post #83

apatheticonion wrote: post #32

I'm genuinely shocked at how many of my colleagues are in the anti-vaxx club. Literally half of my team have said they will not get the vaccine when it's available to them. One citing a podcast which talked about how the vaccine causes programmed cell death and the other because "it's all a bit suspicious". Great guys, intelligent and generally good to be around. I didn't know how to react when I found out.

What's your definition of anti-vaxx? To me, anti-vaxx means someone who is positively against vaccines, as in "vaccines give people X, so people shouldn't get vaccines", where X is some undesirable condition, autism, thrombosis, etc. Being skeptic, but not against vaccines is not anti-vaxx. If someone says "I don't know if vaccines are safe", I don't think that's an anti-vaxx stance. In fact, if you don't know about…

> "If someone says "I don't know if vaccines are safe", I don't think that's an anti-vaxx stance."

Eh - after hundreds of millions of doses I think it's functionally equivalent most of the time. It's not a huge surprise to me - I've worked with otherwise intelligent people and then find out they're deeply religious or even creationist.

Sure strictly speaking "I don't know if vaccines are safe" is different - but in practice there's not some deep level of analysis going on, people that don't like vaccines are just falling into cognitive bias and using motivated reasoning to dress it up.

People are wildly inconsistent and many people believe insane things. Critical thinking and accuracy are not the strength of most of general humanity. Even those in favor of the vaccines didn't arrive there from reading about them for the most part - they just picked a tribe.

Thankfully there's a small percentage of humanity that's pretty good at accuracy and they're working to save the rest of us.

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

#140

Post by wombatpm » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 1:22 AM UTC

ghoward wrote: post #112

dangrossman wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It did go through the same FDA approval process as any vaccine. Full scale clinical trials then FDA review of the results. Getting an EUA means it skipped the normal months-long wait for the FDA to review it, not that it wasn't fully tested. We also now have more safety data on these vaccines than most vaccines ever get, thanks to over 2 billion doses administered worldwide, starting over 6 months ago. There is no re…

Not GP. No, an EUA is not the same thing as the normal FDA approval process. And even if it was, I personally would want more results about long-term effects before I got it.

We’ll know those effects when we truly understand the long-term effects of COVID. Right now we know the short term effects. Having had two relatives my age pass, and being the father of a type 1 diabetic child, I’ll take the vaccine thank you very much.