^{I hate reading — I much prefer to listen to articles. If you're the same way, try going to naturalreader.com after copying the contents of this article. Paste it in the text field and slam that play button to have that dry, robotic narration that we all love to hear!}

Learn from our errors — or double-down on our stupidity?

Having moved to a new area last fall, I'm in a more crowded environment. That's fine, since I usually stay in my office and ignore the outside world. However, the vulnerable points in my day occur when I have to take my large dog on walks. He's got a nice fenced in yard, but likes to roam around. Can't blame him, really.

I live in a more well-to-do neighborhood now, and (not surprisingly) there's an air of snobbery sometimes. It doesn't take a lot of time or insight to ascertain who's down-to-earth and who's full of themselves, just by simply passing by them on the street. There's the uptight couple who coldly ignore cheerful greetings. I've dealt with such punks since I was a crumb-cruncher, nothing new there.

Worst of all are the idiots with hyper-aggressive dogs. I lean toward the opinion that "bad dogs" are a rarity, bad OWNERS are the real issue. These failed humans need to A) Get control of their little darlings in the short term and B) Take upon themselves the responsibility of re-training their mutt's genuinely hellacious nature. Aggressive barking/posturing combined with pulling hard on a leash is clear indication that sharp, serious and lasting correction needs to take place. If not, the dog owner is basically complicit in their dog's extreme misbehavior!

There is a particular woman who has given ME an attitude because HER dog turns into a bezerker every time my dog and I peacefully pedestriate on the opposite side of the street. This has gone on for months, on and off. I can tell that she doesn't accept full responsibility of her raging dog and is resentful that our "intrusive" presence disturbs her precious little snowflake from the Abyss.

Things "hit the fan" last friday night. My dog and I were out in the darkened streets when on a sudden, the Tasmanian devil and his sour grapes owner appeared in the distance. My dog and I were quietly moving along. Her dog was full of fiery wrath. She didn't do enough to reign him in. He circled quickly around her and she went face down in the street. We kept moving. I'm not going to offer assistance to someone who is threatening me with her weak negligence. Fortunately, the monster was restrained adequately, despite her fall. She recovered pretty quickly. We moved on, going our separate ways.

I highly doubt that she learned her lesson. I doubt even more that she'd ever apologize — or have the slightest bit of introspection — for putting ME - and who knows who else on other occasions - in danger. Oh yes, I would kick that furry aggressor hard, but then I'd risk a law suit. The owner may even lack integrity to the degree of claiming that my dog was the offending party... and legal battles are often determined by who can afford the better lawyer.

I'm expecting more of this doubled-down stupidity in the near future.

Control your stupidity or it will control you.

Application: Spammy little men

I've been here for almost eight months now, observing these spammy clowns day in and day out. I can tell you with certainty that while there are spambots and full-time spammers, there are also hobbyist or more casual spammers. Spam seems to be their default. They exhale futility. HOWEVER, they still know the difference between a **** comment and a sincere, well-crafted comment. How do I know? While these dorks spam minnows and smaller dolphins, they'll actually put forth effort on comments when they get routine and generous up votes from it.

They know better than to spam. They just spam by default unless someone has gained their financially motivated "respect". Dolphins and Orcas (including myself) should probably exercise better observation to weed out these parasites, but it's hard when we're replying to 25 - 50 comments per post!

The other day, I flagged a spammer for leaving an image for a comment. The image was taken from what looked like a Disney movie and had no relevance. No text whatsoever. On a post that took HOURS to make.

Listen, you morons. (Not that they will, I'm just speaking into a void - they will have already spammed this post and moved onto the next 100 posts). My posts and the posts of hard-working content creators are not your territorial pissing grounds. Take your worthless, cancerous idiocy elsewhere or get flagged... And learn from it — or waste away in frustration.

The only way I knew about the spam (I had muted this guy a long time ago for his worthless comments) is by checking my post with my alt account.

I've seen some spammers weakly defend themselves when caught. I've even seen some apologize. But this worm started cursing at me when I called him out. Well, I guess he really CAN react sincerely to others, it just took a flag to wake him up — and his sincere reaction is purely toxic and prideful. Like the stupid dog owner, he's decided to let his stupidity reign instead of learning to respect others’ boundaries.

Nice move, spammer. Spit venom at an established community member who wants to help others become better and succeed. Everyone, including myself, has made mistakes on Steemit, but if you choose to stubbornly persist, enjoy staying at the tail end of the pack!

What do you think?

Is it good to have self-discipline and respect others' space — or is it better to be a sloppy slob? Please try to answer the question without using vague movie clips from Disney.