So, you're resorting to the same teapot argument I specifically addressed in the essay. No wonder this conversation is so frustrating for me - it looks to me like you didn't read it, or skimmed it at best.
How is this situation comparable to any "teapot argument"? There are clear and obvious ways that something like Folding could produce valuable results. It might not, but it wouldn't be shocking if it did, and it doesn't need either a high probability or an especially large magnitude of success to make up for a few lives a year in EV. Comparing it to space teapots is getting things wrong by many orders of magnitude.
Anything looks bad if you incorrectly assume that the probability of it working is astronomically small.
edit: And the reason this conv...
Latest in an irregular series, some of whose previous entries were Edge.org and the Girl Scouts...
I examine the Folding@home distributed computing project with reference to the costs (electricity resulting in air pollution causing deaths) and benefits (some papers): http://www.gwern.net/Charity is not about helping. Additional data on either side of the cost-benefit is welcome.
(I also recently split out my essay describing things I have changed my mind on.)