Another favorite quote from David Brin's Earth

Dear Net-Mail User [ EweR-635-78-2267-3 aSp]:

You mailbox has just been rifled by EmilyPost, an autonomous courtesy-worm chain program released in October 2036 by an anonymous group of net subscribers in western Alaska. [ ref: sequestered confession 592864 -2376298.98634, deposited with Bank Leumi 10/23/36:20:34:21. Expiration-disclosure 10 years.] Under the civil disobedience sections of the Charter of Rio, we accept in advance the fines and penalties that will come due when our confession is released in 2046. However we feel that's a small price to pay for the message brought to you by EmilyPost.

In brief, dear friend, you are not a very polite person. EmilyPost's syntax analysis subroutines show that a very high fraction of your net exchanges are heated, vituperative, even obscene.

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For one thing, your credibility ratings would rise. (EmilyPost has checked your favorite bulletin boards, and finds your ratings aren't high at all. Nobody is listening to you, sir!) Moreover, consider that courtesy can foster calm reason, turning shrill antagonism into useful debate and even consensus.

We suggest introducing an automatic delay to your mail system. Communications are so fast these days, people seldom stop and think. Some net users act like mental patients who shout out anything that comes to mind, rater than as functioning citizens with the human gift of tact.

If you wish, you may use one of the public-domain delay programs including in the version of EmilyPost, free of charge.

Of course, should you insist on continuing as before, disseminating nastiness in all directions, we have equipped EmilyPost with other options you'll soon find out about...

One of my favorite quotes from David Brin's Earth

I sometimes wonder what animals think of the phenomenon of humanity -- and especially of human babies. For no creature on the planet must seem anywhere near so obnoxious.

A baby screams and squalls. It urinates and defecates in all directions. It complains incessantly, filling the air with demanding cries. How human parents stand it is their own concern. But to great hunters, like lions and bears, our infants must be horrible indeed. They must seem to taunt them, at full volume.

"Yoo-hoo, beasteis!" babies seem to cry. "Here's a toothsome morsel, utterly helpless, soft and tender. But I needn't keep quiet like the young of other species. I don't crouch silently and blend in with the grass. You can track me by my noise or smell alone, but you don't dare!

"Because my mom and dad are the toughest, meanest sumbitches ever seen, and if you come near, they'll have your hide for a rug."

All day they scream, all night they cry. Surely if animals ever held a poll, they'd call human infants the most odious of creatures. In comparison, human adults are merely very, very scary.

--Jen Wolling, from The Earth Mother Blues, Globe Books, 2032. [hyper access 7-tEAT-687-56-1237-65p.]

Earth, David Brin