My underlying point isn't about Kurzweil at all. It's that sincerity doesn't excuse being a professional crank. Amateur cranks are bad enough, but professional cranks do benefit from "people's fears and ignorance" at their expense, no matter how sincere and well-intentioned they may be.

But this isn't about cranks. It's not even about Kurzweil! It's about Singularitarians that explicitly aren't Kurzweil, even.

You haven't made any points germane to the conversation here. If you'd like to place some actual points regarding Kurzweil as a crank, or tar all things Singularity with the crank label, or find an actual topic about cranks, your words may be well placed, but until then, your Gricean maxims may need some work.

Here's the conversation as I have understood it:

andreyf (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1629954): Among other things, deems Kurzweil's nutritional theories (and commercial promotion thereof) as questionable.

You (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1631254): Provided evidence of Kurzweil's sincerity and good motives to defend him from andreyf's criticism, as you perceived it.

Me (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1631299): Illustrated (unclearly, I admit) a fallacy in your argument: Kurzweil's sincerity doesn't completely absolve him of being wrong, irrational, or even crackpottish about his nutrition.

I admit that I was unclear. What isn't unclear is how you responded--with repeated personal attacks, accusations of ulterior motives and "agendas", and a militant refusal to make any good faith attempt to understand anything I was trying to express. And now you pretend we weren't discussing an aside about Kurzweil's idiosyncratic nutritional views at all, as if you've forgotten how these comments were nested in the first place. You accuse me of wanting to "tar" Kurzweil, or "all things Singularity" (as if I'm blaspheming your god?) and then name-drop Grice to assure yourself of holding the intellectual high ground? Yeah, I know how these forum games are played as well as anyone. I just wanted you to know that I actually was trying to meaningfully communicate here.

You do make it quite clear you know how to play forum games...

I argued nowhere that Kurzweil is absolved of any putative wrongness, irrationality, or crackpottishness. You inserted a context that wasn't there and didn't do much to relate that context to anything else. In most books, fanatics are the ones that can't tell that not everyone is talking about their favorite topic. You could really use work on your maxim of relation.

My perception was that andreyf was concerned more with Kurzweil's possible crackpottishness than his sincerity. In that respect, you are the one who has failed to apply Grice's maxims (or, in less intellectually pretentious terms, "missed the point"). Continually insulting me doesn't change that.

Shit, sorry. I really tried to phrase it in a way to avoid trolling, but it looks like sometimes it's just in my blood.

I'm sure Kurzweil is a deeply honest and righteous man. I'm just conflicted at how the medical establishment (that is, all the doctors I've talked to), don't seem to advocate nearly the amount of supplements he does, by several orders of magnitude. Is Kurzweil really that far ahead of this character we imagine called "modern medical institutions", or is he just wrong (as Aristotle was about astrology)? It's hard to question whether or not you're wrong when you're making lots of money one way or another.

I wouldn't class your initial comment as a troll, and with a little bit of context, philwelch's commentary could have been pretty useful.

Kurzweil might not be so far ahead of "modern medical institutions", but it's easy to see why he differs from most doctors: he's doing math on a very different scale. Kurzweil's endgame is immortality via Singularity, and that affects his expected utility greatly. He actually gains when he spends two hours and ten dollars to gain one hour of expected lifespan when he has the expectation of eventually going infinite on lifespan via non-nutritional means. Most doctors, and most patients, don't expect the same eventual Singularity that Kurzweil is betting on, and without that expected payout, the supplements very likely seem ineffective in both time and cost efficiency. Most doctors seem hesitant to recommend courses of action that don't introduce significant qualitative (e.g., diabetes vs. no diabetes) or quantitative (orders of magnitude) returns.

(There's also the bit of cognitive dissonance where doctors are fine with heart transplants, but less fine with things that "artificially" extend lifespan or otherwise mess with our "natural" life.)