November 2022  
  
In the science fiction books I read as a kid, reading had often been replaced
by some more efficient way of acquiring knowledge. Mysterious "tapes" would
load it into one's brain like a program being loaded into a computer.  
  
That sort of thing is unlikely to happen anytime soon. Not just because it
would be hard to build a replacement for reading, but because even if one
existed, it would be insufficient. Reading about x doesn't just teach you
about x; it also teaches you how to write. [1]  
  
Would that matter? If we replaced reading, would anyone need to be good at
writing?  
  
The reason it would matter is that writing is not just a way to convey ideas,
but also a way to have them.  
  
A good writer doesn't just think, and then write down what he thought, as a
sort of transcript. A good writer will almost always discover new things in
the process of writing. And there is, as far as I know, no substitute for this
kind of discovery. Talking about your ideas with other people is a good way to
develop them. But even after doing this, you'll find you still discover new
things when you sit down to write. There is a kind of thinking that can only
be done by [_writing_](words.html).  
  
There are of course kinds of thinking that can be done without writing. If you
don't need to go too deeply into a problem, you can solve it without writing.
If you're thinking about how two pieces of machinery should fit together,
writing about it probably won't help much. And when a problem can be described
formally, you can sometimes solve it in your head. But if you need to solve a
complicated, ill-defined problem, it will almost always help to write about
it. Which in turn means that someone who's not good at writing will almost
always be at a disadvantage in solving such problems.  
  
You can't think well without writing well, and you can't write well without
reading well. And I mean that last "well" in both senses. You have to be good
at reading, and read good things. [2]  
  
People who just want information may find other ways to get it. But people who
want to have ideas can't afford to.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
**Notes**  
  
[1] Audiobooks can give you examples of good writing, but having them read to
you doesn't teach you as much about writing as reading them yourself.  
  
[2] By "good at reading" I don't mean good at the mechanics of reading. You
don't have to be good at extracting words from the page so much as extracting
meaning from the words.  
  

