6 ms·

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 avail

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.

lvs 5y ago
Well, I'm afraid I have to disagree that I'm not at all shocked about this level of ignorance brewing within the tech community. These people are very susceptible to snake oil health claims about things like nutrition, "nootropics" and the faux medicine of infinite dilution. So why wouldn't they also be susceptible to misinformation about real biotechnology?
- COGlory 5y ago
  Computer scientists are phenomenal at understanding human-created systems. They are remarkably worse at understanding non-human created systems, from what I can tell (as a structural biologist). "Tech" (whatever that nebulous word means - basically the people lampooned in 'Silicon Valley) are perhaps one of the most gullible groups of people ever, maybe because they are so focused on a combination disruption (thinking outside the box) and marketing.
  - sidlls 5y ago
    They're phenomenal at understanding a narrow slice of human-created systems at that (those pertaining to computing, typically).
  - neilk 5y ago
    Computer scientists are good at understanding computers. Sometimes. That's pretty much it. Even if you grant that computer scientists are more intelligent than the norm, I find that doesn't help very much. Often, I encounter some computer nerd who has constructed a crystalline tower of logic that's resting on a rickety foundation of evidence and experience.
    - throwaway2048 5y ago
      The more intelligent you are the more susceptible to confirmation bias you are, because you are better at digging up justifications.
  - imoverclocked 5y ago
    Interestingly, creativity and lying are highly correlated [1] On the other hand, we don't know what long-term side-effects the mRNA vaccines have (besides a much lower death-rate and potential herd-immunity... which is why I got vaccinated) and there are definitely articles [2] which point out that it's not always benign to humans. [1] https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/dishonesty-and-creativity-two-sides-of-the-same-coin.html https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/dishonest... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27463732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27463732
- sellyme 5y ago
  > and the faux medicine of infinite dilution You and I are clearly hanging out in very different tech communities if you're finding people who believe in homeopathy.
fuckyah 5y ago
The vaxx protects you from a severe outcome, not from getting or transmitting it. Half the country won’t get vaxxed. For the vaxxed it shouldn’t make a difference if someone else is not vaxxed. So I suggest you start working on your tolerance.
46756e 5y ago
No matter how much education anyone has, humans are still humans. We all make more decisions based on gut and what we want the truth to be than through logic.
vacjrj 5y ago
99.97% survival rate for our demographic. When we can sue should we suffer an adverse reaction, then the cost-benefit analysis may even out. Right now, it’s all but downside.
- gilbetron 5y ago
  Because you can still transmit it, this isn't hard, just read a little.
- 63 5y ago
  As always though, it's not about you, it's about the people around you and the people around them. If we all acted selfishly all the time we'd all die.
  - COGlory 5y ago
    How many documented cases of mass, true altruism are there, out of curiosity? I'm in agreeance that people should get the vaccine, but I'm under no illusion that for a normal (selfish) person, the cost-benefit is a little wonky.
    - riedel 5y ago
      Any kind of donation. But getting a 70% for a single thing is hard if it not the absolute social norm. Probably only churches achieve this. But it works for other vaxxines too. but it might take another 10 years given the doubts a new vaxxine might raise. We need people that we trust telling us that this is safe and that they expect this from us to get the cost benefit to work for the 70% . So all please all high karma HN posters: call for people to get vaxxed and put reports of risks in a statistical context...
    - vacjrj 5y ago
      Again, I’ll be altruistic once I have recourse. Why must I waive my legal rights?
      - 5y ago
heresie-dabord 5y ago
> Great guys, intelligent and generally good to be around. "Great" and "intelligent" only to the extent that you have actually tested their civic maturity and intelligence, you mean. Democracy is in trouble because education has become a narrowing of the understanding, not an expansion of reason and civic principles. Meanwhile, the pandemic of ignorance is a lucrative resource for ludicrous discourse.
betwixthewires 5y ago
Maybe the fact that they break the stereotype tells you more about the flaws in your worldview than theirs. They're smart and great people, maybe they're on to something, or at the very least, their decision on this particular issue isn't really that big of a deal. I remember when anti-vax meant multi level marketing, crystal healing yuppies or home schooling ruby ridge bible thumpers refusing to get their kids the MMR shot. The definition has significantly relaxed, to the point where just saying "yeah I'm not really worried about this one, I don't think I want to do it" is anti-vax. Lots of people would like to continue making their own medical decisions using their own risk assessment.
swiley 5y ago
I think part of it was the way companies like Apple Google and Facebook have been handling communication online lately. A lot of people are starting to feel like they have to dig if they want to actually hear what experts are saying.
- brown9-2 5y ago
  What experts are being hidden?
young_unixer 5y ago
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 biology or virology, the "I don't know if vaccines are safe" is a totally reasonable stance to have, and not getting a vaccine is also a reasonable decision if you're not sure about the safety. I personally don't know if COVID vaccines are safe, and I still got it, but I understand that I'm taking a risk by getting the vaccine without understanding it, because I figured the risk of not taking it is higher, but my estimation was relatively uninformed.
- danans 5y ago
  > In fact, if you don't know about biology or virology, the "I don't know if vaccines are safe" is a totally reasonable stance to have Then they should also avoid all medications, since similarly to vaccines they probably don't have a deep enough understanding of biochemistry and pharmaceuticals. In the end, trust in medical interventions is based on trust in the institutions that produce them, the individuals that administer them, and to some degree the public statistics around their efficacy, because it's not really possible to know exactly what the outcome will be in your individual case.
  - dorgo 5y ago
    > Then they should also avoid all medications oh, but they do avoid medications. At least I do and am lucky to be able to. ( I'll make an exception for this vacine though ) > trust Trust is a desparate last resort measure. Avoid it if you can.
- fossuser 5y ago
  > "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.
nomel 5y ago
Related, this link is immediately below this one, on my feed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27463732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27463732 I think it's a little unfair to label everyone "anti-vaxx" who are weary of the emergency approved, no long term testing, first time ever, mRNA vaccines. For those people, encourage them to look into the more conventional Johnson and Johnson vaccine. Even then, I wouldn't consider them anti-vaxx until full FDA approval has completed, at least for the J&J vaccine.
- mpyne 5y ago
  The COVID mRNA vaccines have been in testing for more than a calendar year (first studies began, shots-in-arms, in March 2020), and this is not the first mRNA vaccine (the first is for Zika, which is still in development because its study is still waiting to accumulate the data to show its effectiveness). At some point I can only treat people who still give these lame -- and untrue -- justifications for why they like vaccines, "just not this one", as anti-vax.
  - nomel 5y ago
    > for more than a calendar year > which is still in development Correct. There have been no long term studies, no MRNA vaccines have been fully approved, and the COVID vaccine is the first MRNA vaccine to be given to the general population.
Negitivefrags 5y ago
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 by this view. I literally get seen as a crazy person simply for wanting to wait until the same standards have been applied.
- vacjrj 5y ago
  The propaganda machine has been lambasting anyone showing skepticism. It’s the lab leak theory all over again.
- dangrossman 5y ago
  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 real basis in science/risk for your stance.
  - ghoward 5y ago
    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.
    - wombatpm 5y ago
      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.
    - 5y ago
borplk 5y ago
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 anti-vaxxers. And just as bad are the people who are know-it-all pro-vaxxers. Both groups have a toxic attitude and mindset of "I know the absolute truth without any doubt and the other group just needs to be educated". The first thing anyone with an unbiased critical-thinking mindset should notice is the fact that if vaccine safety was such an obvious no-brainer, and given that vaccines are meant to benefit the recipient, it would not take this much effort and force to get people to accept it. It would not remain a controversial issue for this long. Any topic that is so clear-cut and obvious will not remain controversial for this long. The average person has no special interest or benefit in being "anti-vaccine". If the pro-vaccine folks were so convincing it wouldn't need this much force and effort to convince the other group to take the life-saving drug. Pro-vaccine people need to drop the self-righteous attitude and treat the opposing group as equals. Instead all they do is belittle and mock them.
- tziki 5y ago
  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.
  - borplk 5y ago
    Again you have to ask yourself why are you having such a hard time convincing people to take a so-obviously-safe harmless, and life-saving drug? And if the only answer you arrive at is "well because those people are stupid .. misinformation ... disinformation ... and they need to be educated" you need to stop and re-evaluate yourself and leave just a tiny bit of room for the possibility that you may be wrong instead of taking a "I'm absolutely right without any doubt" stance.
    - 5y ago
thedrbrian 5y ago
Depends how old they are if it’s even worth having Here’s a table of deaths from the last 14 months https://i.imgur.com/zi17EGC.jpg https://i.imgur.com/zi17EGC.jpg And then there’s the immunity through exposure https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.07.21256823v3 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.07.21256823v... https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.01.21258176v2 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.01.21258176v... Hell even in this thread someone has tried the won’t someone think of the children outrage by talking about spread to a grandchild. Well that chart up there shows youngsters in the uk have nothing to fear.
- wombatpm 5y ago
  We do not know the long term effects of mild COVID in children at this time. Hell we don’t know the long term effects of COVID in adults.

lvs 5y ago

Well, I'm afraid I have to disagree that I'm not at all shocked about this level of ignorance brewing within the tech community. These people are very susceptible to snake oil health claims about things like nutrition, "nootropics" and the faux medicine of infinite dilution. So why wouldn't they also be susceptible to misinformation about real biotechnology?

COGlory 5y ago
Computer scientists are phenomenal at understanding human-created systems. They are remarkably worse at understanding non-human created systems, from what I can tell (as a structural biologist). "Tech" (whatever that nebulous word means - basically the people lampooned in 'Silicon Valley) are perhaps one of the most gullible groups of people ever, maybe because they are so focused on a combination disruption (thinking outside the box) and marketing.
- sidlls 5y ago
  They're phenomenal at understanding a narrow slice of human-created systems at that (those pertaining to computing, typically).
- neilk 5y ago
  Computer scientists are good at understanding computers. Sometimes. That's pretty much it. Even if you grant that computer scientists are more intelligent than the norm, I find that doesn't help very much. Often, I encounter some computer nerd who has constructed a crystalline tower of logic that's resting on a rickety foundation of evidence and experience.
  - throwaway2048 5y ago
    The more intelligent you are the more susceptible to confirmation bias you are, because you are better at digging up justifications.
- imoverclocked 5y ago
  Interestingly, creativity and lying are highly correlated [1] On the other hand, we don't know what long-term side-effects the mRNA vaccines have (besides a much lower death-rate and potential herd-immunity... which is why I got vaccinated) and there are definitely articles [2] which point out that it's not always benign to humans. [1] https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/dishonesty-and-creativity-two-sides-of-the-same-coin.html https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/dishonest... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27463732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27463732
sellyme 5y ago
> and the faux medicine of infinite dilution You and I are clearly hanging out in very different tech communities if you're finding people who believe in homeopathy.

fuckyah 5y ago

The vaxx protects you from a severe outcome, not from getting or transmitting it. Half the country won’t get vaxxed. For the vaxxed it shouldn’t make a difference if someone else is not vaxxed. So I suggest you start working on your tolerance.

46756e 5y ago

No matter how much education anyone has, humans are still humans. We all make more decisions based on gut and what we want the truth to be than through logic.

vacjrj 5y ago

99.97% survival rate for our demographic. When we can sue should we suffer an adverse reaction, then the cost-benefit analysis may even out. Right now, it’s all but downside.

gilbetron 5y ago
Because you can still transmit it, this isn't hard, just read a little.
63 5y ago
As always though, it's not about you, it's about the people around you and the people around them. If we all acted selfishly all the time we'd all die.
- COGlory 5y ago
  How many documented cases of mass, true altruism are there, out of curiosity? I'm in agreeance that people should get the vaccine, but I'm under no illusion that for a normal (selfish) person, the cost-benefit is a little wonky.
  - riedel 5y ago
    Any kind of donation. But getting a 70% for a single thing is hard if it not the absolute social norm. Probably only churches achieve this. But it works for other vaxxines too. but it might take another 10 years given the doubts a new vaxxine might raise. We need people that we trust telling us that this is safe and that they expect this from us to get the cost benefit to work for the 70% . So all please all high karma HN posters: call for people to get vaxxed and put reports of risks in a statistical context...
  - vacjrj 5y ago
    Again, I’ll be altruistic once I have recourse. Why must I waive my legal rights?
    - 5y ago

heresie-dabord 5y ago

> Great guys, intelligent and generally good to be around. "Great" and "intelligent" only to the extent that you have actually tested their civic maturity and intelligence, you mean. Democracy is in trouble because education has become a narrowing of the understanding, not an expansion of reason and civic principles. Meanwhile, the pandemic of ignorance is a lucrative resource for ludicrous discourse.

betwixthewires 5y ago

Maybe the fact that they break the stereotype tells you more about the flaws in your worldview than theirs. They're smart and great people, maybe they're on to something, or at the very least, their decision on this particular issue isn't really that big of a deal. I remember when anti-vax meant multi level marketing, crystal healing yuppies or home schooling ruby ridge bible thumpers refusing to get their kids the MMR shot. The definition has significantly relaxed, to the point where just saying "yeah I'm not really worried about this one, I don't think I want to do it" is anti-vax. Lots of people would like to continue making their own medical decisions using their own risk assessment.

swiley 5y ago

I think part of it was the way companies like Apple Google and Facebook have been handling communication online lately. A lot of people are starting to feel like they have to dig if they want to actually hear what experts are saying.

brown9-2 5y ago
What experts are being hidden?

young_unixer 5y ago

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 biology or virology, the "I don't know if vaccines are safe" is a totally reasonable stance to have, and not getting a vaccine is also a reasonable decision if you're not sure about the safety. I personally don't know if COVID vaccines are safe, and I still got it, but I understand that I'm taking a risk by getting the vaccine without understanding it, because I figured the risk of not taking it is higher, but my estimation was relatively uninformed.

danans 5y ago
> In fact, if you don't know about biology or virology, the "I don't know if vaccines are safe" is a totally reasonable stance to have Then they should also avoid all medications, since similarly to vaccines they probably don't have a deep enough understanding of biochemistry and pharmaceuticals. In the end, trust in medical interventions is based on trust in the institutions that produce them, the individuals that administer them, and to some degree the public statistics around their efficacy, because it's not really possible to know exactly what the outcome will be in your individual case.
- dorgo 5y ago
  > Then they should also avoid all medications oh, but they do avoid medications. At least I do and am lucky to be able to. ( I'll make an exception for this vacine though ) > trust Trust is a desparate last resort measure. Avoid it if you can.
fossuser 5y ago
> "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.

nomel 5y ago

Related, this link is immediately below this one, on my feed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27463732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27463732 I think it's a little unfair to label everyone "anti-vaxx" who are weary of the emergency approved, no long term testing, first time ever, mRNA vaccines. For those people, encourage them to look into the more conventional Johnson and Johnson vaccine. Even then, I wouldn't consider them anti-vaxx until full FDA approval has completed, at least for the J&J vaccine.

mpyne 5y ago
The COVID mRNA vaccines have been in testing for more than a calendar year (first studies began, shots-in-arms, in March 2020), and this is not the first mRNA vaccine (the first is for Zika, which is still in development because its study is still waiting to accumulate the data to show its effectiveness). At some point I can only treat people who still give these lame -- and untrue -- justifications for why they like vaccines, "just not this one", as anti-vax.
- nomel 5y ago
  > for more than a calendar year > which is still in development Correct. There have been no long term studies, no MRNA vaccines have been fully approved, and the COVID vaccine is the first MRNA vaccine to be given to the general population.

Negitivefrags 5y ago

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 by this view. I literally get seen as a crazy person simply for wanting to wait until the same standards have been applied.

vacjrj 5y ago
The propaganda machine has been lambasting anyone showing skepticism. It’s the lab leak theory all over again.
dangrossman 5y ago
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 real basis in science/risk for your stance.
- ghoward 5y ago
  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.
  - wombatpm 5y ago
    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.
  - 5y ago

borplk 5y ago

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 anti-vaxxers. And just as bad are the people who are know-it-all pro-vaxxers. Both groups have a toxic attitude and mindset of "I know the absolute truth without any doubt and the other group just needs to be educated". The first thing anyone with an unbiased critical-thinking mindset should notice is the fact that if vaccine safety was such an obvious no-brainer, and given that vaccines are meant to benefit the recipient, it would not take this much effort and force to get people to accept it. It would not remain a controversial issue for this long. Any topic that is so clear-cut and obvious will not remain controversial for this long. The average person has no special interest or benefit in being "anti-vaccine". If the pro-vaccine folks were so convincing it wouldn't need this much force and effort to convince the other group to take the life-saving drug. Pro-vaccine people need to drop the self-righteous attitude and treat the opposing group as equals. Instead all they do is belittle and mock them.

tziki 5y ago
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.
- borplk 5y ago
  Again you have to ask yourself why are you having such a hard time convincing people to take a so-obviously-safe harmless, and life-saving drug? And if the only answer you arrive at is "well because those people are stupid .. misinformation ... disinformation ... and they need to be educated" you need to stop and re-evaluate yourself and leave just a tiny bit of room for the possibility that you may be wrong instead of taking a "I'm absolutely right without any doubt" stance.
  - 5y ago

thedrbrian 5y ago

Depends how old they are if it’s even worth having Here’s a table of deaths from the last 14 months https://i.imgur.com/zi17EGC.jpg https://i.imgur.com/zi17EGC.jpg And then there’s the immunity through exposure https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.07.21256823v3 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.07.21256823v... https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.01.21258176v2 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.01.21258176v... Hell even in this thread someone has tried the won’t someone think of the children outrage by talking about spread to a grandchild. Well that chart up there shows youngsters in the uk have nothing to fear.

wombatpm 5y ago
We do not know the long term effects of mild COVID in children at this time. Hell we don’t know the long term effects of COVID in adults.