While we naturally understand that writing is a good way to share ideas with others, we under-appreciate just how much good writing helps us think about an idea ourselves. Writing is not only a means of communication, it enables us to practice reasoning.

A few thoughts follow below. Let's begin with a few of the more important principles, plus a few miscellanea that don't really belong later in the essay. Some of this is repeated later in the essay.

• The purpose of the site is to help me think well1. This purpose is in opposition to many widely-used norms in online writing. I suspect that the

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Is that so bad? Isn't it common for skills to disappear when technology makes them obsolete? There aren't many blacksmiths left, and it doesn't seem to be a problem.

Yes, it's bad. The reason is something I mentioned earlier: writing is thinking. In fact there's a kind of thinking that can only be done by writing. You can't make this point better

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