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Jim Birch's avatar

This brings to mind a quip my father liked: Moderation in everything including moderation.

One of the keys for me is looking how clearly the constituents of an argument can be defined or measured. For example, the location of a brick is is generally conceptually clear and can be measured to arbitrary accuracy. Something like the mental health of a population, on the other hand, is conceptually fraught and couldn't be measured accurately even if we knew what it was. Words can create an illusion of clarity.

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Jon's avatar

The best appellate lawyers try to present the other side's arguments as fairly and well as possible before rebutting them, in order to win the attention and trust of the judges.

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