If there’s anything worse than accidentally CCing someone on an unflattering email about them, it’s receiving an unflattering email you weren’t supposed to see.

When Tim Kreider discovered such an email in his inbox (disparaging the choice he had made to rent a herd of goats “for reasons that aren’t relevant here”), he felt terrible at first.

But then he started thinking about what it means about society that we talk behind each other’s backs even when we love each other, and he wrote a killer Opinionater about it for the New York Times, so in the end, the goat-rental slander was worth it for the greater good.