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OTHER_HAND

                              November 20, 2007


One grand issue that I waffle on
continually is the virtues and/or
dangers of extremism and/or moderation.

 At present, there are 52 uses
 of the phrase "other hand" in
 the doomfiles.

 There are 24 occurrences
 of the word "balance".

                                     
 On the one hand, in the absence of any      
 certainty the dangers of extremism are      
 well known; on the other hand, a            
 philosophy of moderation can be used as     
 an excuse for shrugging off any evil.       
                                            
   I continually follow the time-honored
   trajectory of examining the extremes
   and concluding that the only answer
   is to balance between them, but I
   hate being driven to that sort
   of conclusion.                                 REBEL_YELL

   Wimpy, middle of the road, boring.                  PLAY_BALANCE
   An answer that is no answer.


    Bisecting extremes is
    no guarantee of wisdom.    EXTREMES

                                            From   ADDICTION

                                                 Moderation is easy to
                                                 argue for, but impossible
                                                 to define.

                                                 The nice thing
                                                 about extremes is
                                                 that you always
                                                 know what side of
                                                 the line you're on.



             But even all this just
             leads us to inane cliches:

             "Moderation in all things,
             including moderation."

                                              UGLYBEAUTY


     Try analogies to
     other fields:

     One would not
     attempt to              Where actual certainty
     determine a             is possible, where                        
     medical dosage          actual knowledge is          E.g. the evident 
     by taking a poll        achievable, the moderate     reluctance of the
     and averaging           stance is untenable.         press to call         
     the responses.                                       political lies by     
                                                          the most simple       
                                                          term: "lies"          
                                                                                
                                  NEUTRAL_ADVOCATE




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