The parable of my neighbour's dogs or why we should be nice on the Internet
I live in a nice neighbourhood where everybody has a big strong metal fence all around their property. My next door neighbour used to have three tiny little dogs living inside his fence: a mother, a father, and a baby. I believe that these dogs were there to keep strangers away. Or possibly to keep my cats away. Regardless of their purpose, they barked at everyone. For a long time. As loudly as they could. I watched them for months. I noticed that when no one was looking, they played together, and that sometimes they spread out and took luxurious naps. I noticed that they were cute when they weren't barking. Every time I passed, even though they barked at me, I made nice noises to them and told them it's okay. One day a neighbour boy showed me that he could put his hand up to the fence and the biggest of the tiny dogs would smell his hand. He was very careful never to put his hand inside the fence, and warned me to keep my hand out. Over time, I kept doing this with the...