[paul]

This is a very interesting observation. It might be amusing if PG rewrote some of his more controversial essays in the second style, then made both versions available. Think of it as "skinning". Since the discovery version was written before the persuasive version, the persuasion needn't interfere with the discovery.

[pg]

Intriguing idea, at least as a sort of practical joke. The problem is, it would change the ideas. For example, when I rewrote the paragraph about labor unions, I had to ditch the point about fallen civilizations overrating past eras; though I didn't make the link explicitly, the comparison to medieval history would be obvious to anyone who'd studied much of it. (People in medieval Europe felt inferior to the ancients long after it ceased to be true.) I didn't like tossing this point, but there was no convenient way to get it into the new version.

[gregwebs]

How about a program to re-write for persuasion once you have written for discovery. I bet it wouldn't be to hard to program one that could make an essay sound more timid and nice. That is a fairly simple process that I usually go through before communicating electronically. However, as you stated you would still have to add the extra content.