[mst]

If you write with sufficiently strong terms that you sound like you're blindly evangelising rather than rationally advocating, the average HN reader is going to go "eep" and adjust their prior expectation of your being right -way- down.

This effect is, I'm afraid, largely independent of whether you're -actually- right or not - so assuming your goals include "maximise the number of readers of your comment who go on to do some research about the technique", adjusting the language you use to try and put across that they should go and research it is probably a good idea.

Disclaimer: The above in no way indicates a judgement as to whether the technique in question is sufficiently awesome to deserve the language you used.

[marshallp]

I think you're making that mistake a lot of people in medicine make and what separates them from the tech industry. They're huge pessimists because they don't grok things like physics or computing and are trained/selected for their ability to pass tests out of a textbook. If you put your geekdom "crawl entire web/robot car/computers on every desk" hat on you'll realize you can run circles around the current medical industry.

edit: I get you're trying to give advice. If I make the claims less exciting no-one will bother. If too exciting, they think unfeasible. Getting the balance right seems hard.

[derleth]

> If you put your geekdom "crawl entire web/robot car/computers on every desk" hat on you'll realize you can run circles around the current medical industry.

Then why hasn't anyone done precisely this?