Linus 1, Anti-Vaxxers 0
There are issues on which I agree with Linus Torvalds, issues on which I have a different opinion than his, and issues I couldn’t care less about. Here’s one instance though when Linus made my day.
I don’t care that Linus Torvalds is sometimes a jerk. I don’t understand his choice for GNOME3 and Fedora (his long-time hate for Debian might have played a role here). I tend to agree with him that C++ solved all the wrong problems the wrong way, and that C is still a perfectly fine language. And I definitely disagree with his choice of becoming an American citizen, starting with choosing America over Europe; of course, it all depends on one’s values, preferences and tastes, but I remember some people getting angry when hearing the news:
Yeah, congratulations Linus on becoming a citizen of a brainwashed (and brainwashing) nation, which is being blindly led (and leading) us to the third world war.
The fact of him willfully pledging allegiance to the by far most oppressive state on this planet (compared to most US citizens he actually has a choice) is a matter of non-trivial moral and symbolic significance — by crossing that border, he lends implicit support to the state in general, and invariably to the history of its recent decisions and developments. … However, from my observations Linus does not seem like a political person. Which makes it a saddening paradox.
This being said, this guy is anything but dumb. The same cannot be said of Enrico Weigelt (metux), a Querdenker in the modern meaning of the term, something that can be seen from his Facebook account, where he associates the vaccines with Bill Gates. Well, at least I learned a Latin expression from this German nincompoop:
Unfortunately, this individual is also a contributor to the Linux kernel, and on June 10 he posted this comment on the Linux kernel mailing list:
And I know a lot of people who will never take part in this generic
human experiment that basically creates a new humanoid race (people
who generate and exhaust the toxic spike proteine, whose gene sequence
doesn't look quote natural). I'm one of them, as my whole family.
…
Pandemic ? Did anybody look at the actual scientific data instead of
just watching corporate tv ? #faucigate
To which Linus brilliantly answered as follows:
Please keep your insane and technically incorrect anti-vax comments to yourself.
You don't know what you are talking about, you don't know what mRNA
is, and you're spreading idiotic lies. Maybe you do so unwittingly,
because of bad education. Maybe you do so because you've talked to
"experts" or watched youtube videos by charlatans that don't know what
they are talking about.
But dammit, regardless of where you have gotten your mis-information
from, any Linux kernel discussion list isn't going to have your
idiotic drivel pass uncontested from me.
Vaccines have saved the lives of literally tens of millions of people.
Just for your edification in case you are actually willing to be
educated: 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, and all that the mRNA vaccines do is to add a dose
their own specialized sequence that then makes your normal cell
machinery generate that spike protein so that your body learns how to
recognize it.
The half-life of mRNA is a few hours. Any injected mRNA will be all
gone from your body in a day or two. It doesn't change anything
long-term, except for that natural "your body now knows how to
recognize and fight off a new foreign protein" (which then tends to
fade over time too, but lasts a lot longer than a few days). And yes,
while your body learns to fight off that foreign material, you may
feel like shit for a while. That's normal, and it's your natural
response to your cells spending resources on learning how to deal with
the new threat.
And of the vaccines, the mRNA ones are the most modern, and the most
targeted - exactly because they do *not* need to have any of the other
genetic material that you traditionally have in a vaccine (ie no need
for basically the whole - if weakened - bacterial or virus genetic
material). So the mRNA vaccines actually have *less* of that foreign
material in them than traditional vaccines do. And a *lot* less than
the very real and actual COVID-19 virus that is spreading in your
neighborhood.
Honestly, anybody who has told you differently, and who has told you
that it changes your genetic material, is simply uneducated. You need
to stop believing the anti-vax lies, and you need to start protecting
your family and the people around you. Get vaccinated.
I think you are in Germany, and COVID-19 numbers are going down. It's
spreading a lot less these days, largely because people around you
have started getting the vaccine - about half having gotten their
first dose around you, and about a quarter being fully vaccinated. If
you and your family are more protected these days, it's because of all
those other people who made the right choice, but it's worth noting
that as you see the disease numbers go down in your neighborhood,
those diminishing numbers are going to predominantly be about people
like you and your family.
So don't feel all warm and fuzzy about the fact that covid cases have
dropped a lot around you. Yes, all those vaccinated people around you
will protect you too, but if there is another wave, possibly due to a
more transmissible version - you and your family will be at _much_
higher risk than those vaccinated people because of your ignorance and
mis-information.
Get vaccinated. Stop believing the anti-vax lies.
And if you insist on believing in the crazy conspiracy theories, at
least SHUT THE HELL UP about it on Linux kernel discussion lists.
Linus
No further comments, Your Honor.
LATE EDIT: I forgot something (I must have l’esprit de l’escalier). What Linus wrote reminded me the attitude of so many people, even of some of those who claim to “trust the science” (but not the Big Pharma): they want everyone else to do whatever is needed for the pandemic to disappear–everyone else but them. It’s for others to get vaccinated. It’s for others to observe all the restrictions. They only want to reap the results and to benefit of the improved situation. Meanwhile, they can even pretend there’s no pandemic at all.
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