“Pretends” near the start of the first paragraph seems a more hostile word than you may actually intend. (I think I recall that you’re not a native anglophone; “pretend” in English almost always implies specifically that the one pretending knows that what they’re pretending is not so. It can also simply mean “claim” but that meaning is old-fashioned and very much not what anyone reading something in present-day English will think it means.)
I have no idea whether this ARPA-H thing will actually do anything interesting, but unless you think that the administration doesn’t really want it to work like DARPA or to be more open to innovation, you should probably use a word other than “pretends”. Even if you do think that, you might prefer to use a different word, in the interests of not being needlessly distracting to those who feel positively about the current US administration; politics is the mindkiller, etc.
I don’t think that’s sufficient justification. (Which is not to say that you don’t have sufficient justification.) If I sincerely say “I am going to climb Mount Everest” and you think I don’t have the skills and resources required to do so, it would not be reasonable for you to say “Gareth pretends that he wants to climb Mount Everest” unless you think I am outright lying about my intentions, rather than just unrealistic.
If the Biden administration wants something that will be able to engage in grand and innovative projects in the realm of health but has wrong ideas about how to get that (e.g., if they aren’t giving ARPA-H enough autonomy, or aren’t giving it enough money, or are encouraging the people running it to focus on areas where there aren’t good opportunities for such projects), it is not accurate in present-day English to say that they “pretend to want” a DARPA-like organization.
On the other hand, if you actually think that they don’t actually want something DARPA-like (maybe you reckon they want something that will let them funnel large sums of money to institutions that make large political donations, or something) then “pretend to want” accurately represents your opinions.
Regardless of whether it accurately represents your opinions, I predict that as long as the text says “pretends to want” a substantial fraction of readers will be distracted from what I take to be the actual question (what is this organization likely to achieve?) by politically-charged emotions, whether positive (“ha, nice to see someone seeing the Biden administration for the bullshitters they are”) or negative (“why is this guy posting a political attack piece on LW under the guise of a question?”). Assuming that your actual goal is to get good answers to that question rather than to make political attacks, less-aggressive language might serve that goal better.
If the Biden administration wants something that will be able to engage in grand and innovative projects in the realm of health but has wrong ideas about how to get that
That sort of depends who you count as the Biden administration. Biden himself wants grand and innovative projects in the realm of health. On the other hand you have the NIH and surrouding players wanting more NIH funding and enough political power to get Biden to chose the structure he chose. When I say “pretends” I’m counting the people with the power to set the structure inside the Biden administration.
by politically-charged emotions, whether positive (“ha, nice to see someone seeing the Biden administration for the bullshitters they are”) or negative (“why is this guy posting a political attack piece on LW under the guise of a question?”).
There are two levels here. One level is caring about US party politics and the other is caring about the infrastructure of intellectual progress and the disfunction of what happens inside the HHS. I find the second much more important. Zvi writes nearly every week strongly worded content that attacks what happens inside the HHS. Being opinionated about the HHS is part of normal LW discourse.
In this particular instance Biden plays more of a role then for the usual HHS issues but just because Biden touches the issue more, I don’t think that’s a reason to use less opinionated wording.
Anyone getting mind-killed by the party politics is not going to be able to think well about the issue of what happens inside the HHS no matter how I word the question.
“Pretends” near the start of the first paragraph seems a more hostile word than you may actually intend. (I think I recall that you’re not a native anglophone; “pretend” in English almost always implies specifically that the one pretending knows that what they’re pretending is not so. It can also simply mean “claim” but that meaning is old-fashioned and very much not what anyone reading something in present-day English will think it means.)
I have no idea whether this ARPA-H thing will actually do anything interesting, but unless you think that the administration doesn’t really want it to work like DARPA or to be more open to innovation, you should probably use a word other than “pretends”. Even if you do think that, you might prefer to use a different word, in the interests of not being needlessly distracting to those who feel positively about the current US administration; politics is the mindkiller, etc.
I use the word because I think that it’s more likely then not that ARPA-H won’t be like DARPA.
I don’t think that’s sufficient justification. (Which is not to say that you don’t have sufficient justification.) If I sincerely say “I am going to climb Mount Everest” and you think I don’t have the skills and resources required to do so, it would not be reasonable for you to say “Gareth pretends that he wants to climb Mount Everest” unless you think I am outright lying about my intentions, rather than just unrealistic.
If the Biden administration wants something that will be able to engage in grand and innovative projects in the realm of health but has wrong ideas about how to get that (e.g., if they aren’t giving ARPA-H enough autonomy, or aren’t giving it enough money, or are encouraging the people running it to focus on areas where there aren’t good opportunities for such projects), it is not accurate in present-day English to say that they “pretend to want” a DARPA-like organization.
On the other hand, if you actually think that they don’t actually want something DARPA-like (maybe you reckon they want something that will let them funnel large sums of money to institutions that make large political donations, or something) then “pretend to want” accurately represents your opinions.
Regardless of whether it accurately represents your opinions, I predict that as long as the text says “pretends to want” a substantial fraction of readers will be distracted from what I take to be the actual question (what is this organization likely to achieve?) by politically-charged emotions, whether positive (“ha, nice to see someone seeing the Biden administration for the bullshitters they are”) or negative (“why is this guy posting a political attack piece on LW under the guise of a question?”). Assuming that your actual goal is to get good answers to that question rather than to make political attacks, less-aggressive language might serve that goal better.
That sort of depends who you count as the Biden administration. Biden himself wants grand and innovative projects in the realm of health. On the other hand you have the NIH and surrouding players wanting more NIH funding and enough political power to get Biden to chose the structure he chose. When I say “pretends” I’m counting the people with the power to set the structure inside the Biden administration.
There are two levels here. One level is caring about US party politics and the other is caring about the infrastructure of intellectual progress and the disfunction of what happens inside the HHS. I find the second much more important. Zvi writes nearly every week strongly worded content that attacks what happens inside the HHS. Being opinionated about the HHS is part of normal LW discourse.
In this particular instance Biden plays more of a role then for the usual HHS issues but just because Biden touches the issue more, I don’t think that’s a reason to use less opinionated wording.
Anyone getting mind-killed by the party politics is not going to be able to think well about the issue of what happens inside the HHS no matter how I word the question.