Anvilicious / Cracked

Even a humor site like this won't hesitate to be blunt and direct on certain topics.

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• From David Wong:
  • 5 Things You Think Will Make You Happy (But Won't): The pursuit of things like fame and wealth aren't helpful. Friendship, love, and altruism are where it's at.
  • 10 Things Christians and Atheists Can (And Must) Agree On: Just because you're in the right (or you think you're in the right) about something, doesn't mean you need to be a dick about it.
  • What Is The Monkeysphere?. An article which can be resumed as "how to build empathy and understanding with other human beings". It sums it up by talking about Osama bin Laden:
  "Now, the truth is that bin Laden is as deserving of a bullet in the head as the four-color image on some redneck's T-shirt. But what you've got to realize is this: we're the caricature on his T-shirt."
  • 6 Things Rich People Need to Stop Saying explains why people are so angry at the rich. It's not because the poor are envious; it's because the rich are hypocrites and distant from the masses. Also: any well-off person in the modern world who honestly believes that they've never gotten any help from anyone is completely delusional. Civilized society wouldn't exist if people didn't help each other.
  • 6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better Person shows that what the world really cares about are results. At the same time, it also tells the reader to stop making excuses for why their life sucks, and go DO something.
  • How The Karate Kid Ruined the Modern World: Success doesn't happen at the rate that movies lead people to believe. The game is a lot bigger than you think you know, and if you think you know, then I don't think you know.
  • 6 Ways to Keep Terrorists From Ruining the World: Written in response to the Charlie Hebdo attacks in France in January 2015, it examines the most typical (and more importantly, harmful) reactions to terrorist attacks.
  • 5 Helpful Answers to Society's Most Uncomfortable Questions: Even though the white men of today are not at fault for the racism and sexism of the past, all that sexism and racism still has an effect on all of us today that is far bigger than we think (especially since society had to be forced into accepting women and people of color), and it's our responsibility to make things better.
  • How Half Of America Lost Its F**king Mind says that the reason so many bought into Donald Trump's promises to "Make America Great Again" is that, for most of the Flyover Country, America really isn't great for them. Small towns can't recover from poverty as easily as cities can. The gap between rural and urban life is far bigger than most people realize. Their legitimate problems — significantly lower living standards, fewer work opportunities, and soaring depression rates — as well as their values of family, faith, hard work, and being self-sufficient are ignored in favor of writing them off as good-for-nothing rednecks. It also points out that Trump and his supporters, despite giving others every reason to brush them off as ignorant and destructive, aren't that different from the people the other side celebrates elsewhere (namely the negligence on the warts of various icons as long as they are within their ideology).
  • The 10 Most Important Things They Didn't Teach You in School drops no less than ten anvils:
  10. Ladies, learn how to spot a pickup artist before they can succeed.
  9. Porn is a terrible way to learn about sex.
  8. The only practical/safe self-defense is learning how to run away if someone threatens you.
  7. There are certain things a person living on their own needs to know how to do.
  6. The oft-forgotten key to success is randomly meeting the right people and not pissing them off.
  5. Those "all-natural" cures in the grocery aisle are BS.
  4. Losing weight takes work. A LOT of work. Seriously.
  3. Learn how to cook — it's important.
  2. Talk radio is a terrible source of news information.
  1. Life is hard and you will die one day.
• John Cheese in general writes a lot about being a recovering alcoholic and how much of a struggle it's been. He repeatedly — and to great effect — points out that it's not alcohol that makes you an alcoholic, it's that addiction in your brain, and he also points out that you're never truly "cured" from it. A powerful message. But not the only one from him:
  • 5 Reasons Life Really Does Get Better: The world isn't as bad as you think. When you get older, you actually have the power to do something about it.
  • 5 Common Anti-Internet Arguments that are statistically bullshit: In the face of internet censorship, it's good to remember these points.
  • "5 Things Nobody Tells You About Being Poor": The article explains, in brutal clarity, how poverty is a self-enforcing cycle that manages to claw back any gains those trapped in it make. A required reading if you buy into any of the various bits of mythology on poverty, like the poor being lazy.
  • "5 terrible things you can't stop your children from doing": parents can't control their kids indefinitely. The most you can do is educate them and recognize that they will make their own choices.
• Christina H's "8 Tiny Things That Stopped Suicides": Yes, depressed people often build up a wall around them. Yes, breaking down that wall can be extremely difficult. But sometimes, all it takes to get started is a small crack in the wall, courtesy of a friendly phone call, a hug, or something else.
  • One of her articles named "The Completely Selfish Reason You Should Help People", Christina pointed out Enlightened Self-Interest as a common ground to lines between naivete idealism and nihilistic inactivity. Rather than ranting or volunteering out of ego, sometimes actually supporting the bigger picture (namely charity organization and civil activities) to fulfill their own sense of good along with making actual progress.
• Gladstone's article, NDAA: The Biggest Election Issue No One's Talking About, explains one of the most important but least discussed issues: the President having the ability to indefinitely detain Americans without a trial.
  • Another one of Gladstone's articles, 4 Things Both Atheists and Believers Need to Stop Saying, points out several arguments that only make religious people and atheists seem bad. It also manages to do so without offending either the religious or the atheistic.
• The "Why The Cops Won't Help You When You're Getting Stabbed" video and "Cops Won't Help You: 7 Things I Saw as a Real Slasher Victim" article gives a reality check to hero wannabes. The video details the story of a man who was stabbed multiple times by a spree killer while the police didn't do anything but take credit for his actions. After talking about his failed attempts to sue the NYPD for this, he explains the many flaws of trying to be a hero.
  1. The risk of death isn't worth looking cool in the news or to other people. When you get hit for the first time, your plan will fall apart in milliseconds due to the sheer panic of the situation. You will also die of blood loss if you don't get immediate medical attention.
  2. If you are stabbed but the attacker lets go without pulling out the knife. Don't pull out the knife like it didn't phase you. If you do this, you will bleed out much faster and get closer to death. Leave the knife in for a chance of survival.
  3. If you survive, you'll be in and out of the hospital for a while. Which can be costly depending on where you live, and they won't always check for possible side effects (i.e hepatitis or HIV).
  4. The police won't always be able to help you and bystanders may not back you up.
  5. You won't always get credit for heroism. Someone else may get the credit or it can be a matter of public opinion, since your story might not be as believable as another.
• Robert Evans's 5 Reasons Horrible Dictators Always Catch Us Off Guard discredit the notions, especially based on pop culture, about authoritarian leaders; many of them are shown to be manipulative, self-justifying, willful, and sane enough to assume and eventually display their power rather than being shallow psychopaths who obtained their power through a populace too idiotic to avoid letting an obviously evil leader get into power.
• While the Why Idiocracy Would Actually Be A Utopia? is more of an Alternative Character Interpretation of the movie's universe, Sowen pointed out on the movie's bias towards impoverished people as a threat to their society due to lack of education while ignoring wealthy people whose wealth and privilege masking their own shortfalls in intellect and competence, arrogant people who refuse to admit their own flaws, racism, sexism, and classism (the last part being emphasized to point out the movie's unintentional meta-Irony) being the general factor and issues on ills of society.
• "The West Wing Was A Useless Fairy Tale" criticizes The West Wing's overly-idealistic depiction of American politics as a world where all the leaders act in good faith and simply have different ideas of how to serve the common good, instead of a cutthroat world where some leaders aren't actually interested in that and are more than willing to sabotage others in order to expand their power, arguing that this idealism left the Democratic Party disinclined to question their opponents' interests, which allowed the victory of Donald Trump to take place.

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