Helpful (and funny) articles by David Wong

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I know articles from Cracked are occasionally posted here and there, but I wanted to share this list of articles that have been incredibly helpful to me in understanding NTs, how to survive and be happy in the world, and common pitfalls that I can try to avoid now that I'm aware of them. I thought it might be helpful to other people as well, so here's the list. They're all written by David Wong, senior editor of cracked.com, who has a talent for clearly explaining things that previously baffled me. Also, the articles are pretty funny.

5 ways you're accidentally making everyone hate you
5 ways modern men are trained to hate women
How 'The Karate Kid' ruined the modern world
5 things you think will make you happy (but won't)
8 reasons the 21st century is making you miserable
6 harsh truths that will make you a better person
6 things rich people need to stop saying

Hope other people find these articles as useful as I have.

I actually read and kind of enjoyed John Died at the End when Cracked.com didn't exist and David Wong ran "Pointless Waste of Time."

Many of his old articles from there are on Cracked now. I think John Died at the End and its sequel is being sold on Amazon.

I've considered buying his books actually, but so far I've been stopped by the cost. I'd have to buy it on amazon.co.uk and have it shipped here (to Prague), which would be really expensive (by local standards). Do you think it's worth the money?

I don't know. I mean the online version was really cheesy (but amusing in its cheesiness), and I find such things are hard for me to recommend to people. If you can find the online version anywhere, might be worth it to read it and see.

If you like cheesy and funny mixed with horror and some surrealness, and do not mind a lot of profanity, it may very well be worth it.

That might be something I'd like, actually. When you say horror, do you mean gory stuff, or just suspense and fear stuff?

Also, I just found another article on Cracked that isn't written by David Wong but is still very helpful: http://www.cracked.com/article_19376_5- ... wrong.html

For a humor site, Cracked sure does offer a lot of insight, spelled out very clearly in a way that happens to be incredibly helpful for those of us who don't understand society via the normal nonverbal mechanisms.

Yeah, many of their articles are pretty well researched. I have caught a few inaccuracies.

There is gory stuff and I think there is some kind of suspense stuff. I also think that the story changes genre a few times.

Yes, I would say that this makes up a lot of what underlies human interactions. I wouldn't have described it that way, but I have seen it in play. What I need tends to drive what I do.

Yes, I also never realized that power was at all a factor in things like simple conversation. When I talk, it's to exchange information. If my information is wrong, I want to be corrected. If I notice someone else's information is wrong, I try to correct them. I always do my best not to make them "feel stupid" as I've been told I can do, but never in a million years would it have occurred to me that the conversation was never about the information to begin with.

I think arguments in particular make much more sense to me after reading that. The argument is never about who is right, or even the topic being argued about! This is why arguments always go so badly for me. I'm expecting the other person to see that my logic is irrefutable and realize that they had been mistaken. Meanwhile, everyone else thinks it's about who is stronger, who is smarter, who has power over the other. The argument isn't about the topic being argued, it's about the people arguing.

Which, of course, is utterly nonsensical, and I can't comprehend how difficult it must be to live with that attitude. I continue my way of conversation as a method of conveying and exchanging information, but now I always have in the back of my mind that for other people, "who has the power" is more important than the thing we're talking about. When I start to sense that maybe they're feeling like I'm making a power play, I just find a way to exit the conversation to avoid hostility. It's not easy and I don't always succeed, but overall I've been less frustrated now that I realize this is what's going on.