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Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

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Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#531

Post by wizzwizz4 »

moralestapia wrote: post #249
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And there's evidence of it happening in plenty of other contexts, No, there isn't; “mRNA chromosomes” aren't a thing. The comment you replied to made as much sense as “the server rack isn't duplicated on the hard drive”; there's no evidence of it happening, because no possible real-world event corresponds to those words.

What? But I just put some references here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27466738 Those are peer-reviewed published papers ... and you chose to ignore them? Laughable.

Those references don't say what you think they say. What is an mRNA chromosome, then?

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#532

Post by kaba0 »

tekknik wrote: post #519
kaba0 wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per your own link, the earliest use of this technique is ~1920, so bringing up the Magna Carta is not too generous. And it is naive to state that the only difference is everyone having a printing press — there are emergent qualities and we have only begun to discover what this new way of communication means on a global scale.

Well I didn’t bring up the Magna Carta. And you’re wrong again, there’s even a story in the Bible about the tower of babel. Same exact thing. When humans, all humans, can communicate easily and quickly it’s dangerous.

How is tower of Babel relevant? It’s about why do we speak different languages. How is anything done in the previous tens of thousands of years similar to ordering a bunch of bots to say what I want? When could an arbitrary algorithm decide what is seen by whom, completely opaque to almost everyone? Yeah sure the Church censored some shit. But that’s not at all similar to youtube/facebook’s algorithm and it’s dishonest to say so.

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#533

Post by kaba0 »

tekknik wrote: post #526
kaba0 wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Risk reward ratio is not a decision, it’s an objective measure. It’s a different question what and how can be forced on people, but the issue is clear: healthy people should get vaccinated.

Why don’t we just let the healthy people decide for themselves? Do you know everybody’s medical condition? Are you a physician or nurse in any way? You’re just regurgitating Fauci’s ramblings without regard to individuals concerns demanding they get the vaccine. How many people do you think you’ve convinced to get the vaccine?

> Do you know everybody’s medical condition?

Does a layperson know about how his/her condition is relevant to vaccination? No. They will ask a doctor about that - who will give them an answer whether they can or can’t get the vaccine. And I’m not even living in the US, I’m just not crazy and know that it is the only way to protect ourselves and our community.

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#534

Post by ta988 »

derekp7 wrote: post #352
avz wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] lots of people see what looks like the "story changing", and distrust anything coming out of their government, [...]. Changing and updating our beliefs as evidence comes in is a fundamental ability that underlies numerous activities from scientific research to debugging software to driving on a congested road network. Why is it a problem for public health officials to update and change policy as we learn more…

The problem is that the a large chunk of the population aren't scientist so they don't understand the principles of the scientific method. And they aren't software developers, they don't have the mindset for it. And have you seen the way many people drive? There is a reason why the term "defensive driving" was coined.

I know scientists and software developpers that believe all kind of weird stories (I even knew one that believed in perpetual motion).

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#535

Post by ta988 »

swader999 wrote: post #235
blfr wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's ridiculous. We don't expect people to get flu vaccines before extending medical care. We don't even expect basic sexual hygiene and extend extremely expensive HIV treatments to people who have tempted fate much, much more seriously than skipping a vaccince.

It's a concerning precedent. These rights to travel, to enter a store and so on were never restricted before but now they may be. What about me, should I risk shot number two now that I've seen a flame heme show up on a routine retina scan just yesterday and am reading that this is one of the things they are seeing increase from the AZ vaccine? Will I be limited in travel and employment if I don't?

Ask for an exemption to get Pfizer then.

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#536

Post by ta988 »

gccsvv wrote: post #212
stavros wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What about the giant portion of overweight Americans? Should we forcibly restrict their calorie intake?

No, we should attack the companies that sell junk food.

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#537

Post by mandmandam »

kaba0 wrote: post #369
mandmandam wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all vaccines are the same, so pro science and anti vaxx are not always opposed. I am pro science, but science doesn't claim that all vaccines are safe. And let's not forget that pharma co's have tried very hard to make vaccines mandatory, to the point of bribing academics and officials, forming unaccountable PR groups, and in the not so distant past they've done truly horrific and inhuman things. After the lab-le…

> I am pro science, but science doesn't claim that all vaccines are safe Indeed. But science does claim that Pfizer, Moderna, etc COVID-vaccines are safe and you are un-scientific if you claim otherwise. They went through proper trials, and were accepted independently* by many countries. * not completely independently I’m sure, but my point is that even if you don’t trust your country at all, several other ones decid…

If science believes they are proven safe so hard, then why did governments have to grant full legal indemnity to the pharma cos to get them?

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#538

Post by stjohnswarts »

dvt wrote: post #26
weatherlight wrote: post #5

I cant +1 this enough. Thank you, Linus for standing up to the wealth of misinformation out there and holding his ground.

> Thank you, Linus for standing up to the wealth of misinformation out there and holding his ground. Being a pompous ass might feel good, especially when you think you are (or you actually are) smarter than your opponent, but it won't sway anyone. In fact, it does quite the opposite. If you're seriously trying to convince someone they're wrong, you need to be kind, be patient, and have a calm, productive discussion -…

No he is shaming a person who needs shaming, they think they can project their BS without getting fact checked. It doesn't work like that, you are gonna have to have a thick skin if you want STEM people to listen to your anti-vax crap if that's the way you lean, that's life. Being an idiot isn't a protected group.

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#539

Post by stjohnswarts »

tekknik wrote: post #448
outworlder wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linus is not in the wrong here. You have an anti-vax spouting BS on the Linux Kernel dev list of all places. It's absolutely not the right venue for that. He could have just expelled the idiot from the list. He chose not to do that. Some people will listen to (perceived) authority. Linus has a large following. It's fair to say that a non-zero number of individuals may be persuaded by his strong stance. I doubt the pe…

> They are actively trying to spread even more misinformation. This should be contained just like we contain viruses. It's not really up for debate. Don't like a particular vaccine? Try to get another one if you can. Here we are again with the force and control. Shutting down “misinformation” means you must be able to define what “misinformation” is. We’ve made mistakes on this many times historically and we still ha…

I think you're making a mistake in assuming the Linux kernel maillist is a free speech, anything goes, zone it isn't.

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#540

Post by XorNot »

refulgentis wrote: post #185
harry8 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have anything on the Astra-Zenaca vaccine and how well it works against the do called "South-African" variant. There was a story that they'd stopped a trial because the results were so bad. Do we have any harder data?

Yes, Astra-Zeneca has been shown to be repeatedly poor against variants, a big story in the UK right now is whether the increase in cases and sense of being behind the US is due to gov't overly committing to a shoddy vaccine, or if it's variants burning through unvaccinated populations. The picture isn't nearly as rosey as OP makes it sound, unfortunately: sort of a gish gallop about knowing the rate at which we can…

Astra-Zeneca is not an mRNA vaccine.

The mRNA vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) have both shown excellent (though in some cases reduced) efficacy against all strains [1], and the protein regions they target have not shown substantial alteration against antibody binding affinity (fun fact: this is "easy" to test - you give people the vaccine, isolate the antibodies in their blood, then test them against COVID in a petridish - so monitoring and change discovery is quick because you're not dependent on finding infected patients). The linked paper is notable, because while efficacy is effected, in tests the antibodies still ultimately inactivate the entire viral sample: no survivors means no natural selection criteria.

Given the widespread of COVID-19, the emergence of strains which do not successfully alter targetable regions for vaccines means that those regions are not easy (read: lead to reduction in fitness) to change. Similarly, the spike protein displays suboptimal binding to ACE receptors (tested by producing modified ACE receptors which have better binding) but there's been little field emergence towards a superior binding motif in any of the faster spreading strains [2], which implies again an evolutionary blockade or dead-end to improvements in that dimension.

Finally, antibody studies have found that in people who have had COVID, long term antibody production sets up in the bone marrow - this was recent research, but thats important because the basis of long term immunity is the development of immunological complexes which keep some antibody circulating. This is a hallmark of most long-lived immunities, and is for example one of the desired (though difficult to induce) end states of a potential mRNA HIV vaccine. [1]

Taken together (and again: you can also just go read what epidemiologists and microbiologists are publishing, plenty is out there) - the consensus opinion at the moment is that COVID-19 immunity is long-lived based on established science from decades of previous experience with vaccinating against viral diseases.

[1] https://asm.org/Articles/2021/February/SARS-CoV-2-Variants-v...

[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-70812-6

[3] https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/lasting...

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