14 Things Even An Idiot Like You Can Do To Save The World
I've regularly given advice here on Cracked that has inadvertently made the world a worse place. Also sometimes advertently. Sometimes very advertently.
"PUT DOWN THE WORD PROCESSOR. NO ONE ELSE NEEDS TO DIE."
And that's bad. I feel bad about that. As I understand it, that's all I'm required to do in this situation, but I want to do more. So, using an elaborate series of lies, I assembled a crack team of kind people and drilled them for information on how to make the world a better place. Although a lot of their advice was the same -- "Who are you? Why won't you let us go?" -- they did provide a few useful insights. After trying their guidance out for myself and smoothing over some of the impractical bits, I'm happy to report my results to you here.
Be Nice To People
Seems easy enough. Just be a little bit nicer and more understanding to every single person who crosses your path. Yeah, a lot of them won't appreciate it, and many will perceive you as weak and spit in your hair.
But many won't! They'll thank you generously and stroke your hair in kindness, and the world will be marginally better.
Recycle Your Lightbulbs
Modern CFL lightbulbs contain a small portion of mercury, which is highly toxic. Even in small amounts it's capable of doing significant damage to the environment.
Please, please stop dumping them at the playground.
So make sure to recycle all of your old CFLs. Also, try to remind everyone you know to do the same, to the point of annoying them a little bit. That's a common theme I discovered in how the world really gets better. The hard work of kind, irritating people.
Compost The Dead
As opposed to lightbulbs, our bodies are full of valuable nutrients and cool bones that can be helpful to the environment. It's wasteful to lock those up in a little wooden box when we die, and most environmentalists and priests agree that we should instead request that our bodies be ground into a paste and spread over farms instead.
"I literally told you the exact opposite of that."
If that's too much of a long play for you, you can speed up the process by asking around your neighborhood to see if anyone has any dead bodies that need mulching. A great way to get to know your neighbors (present and passed) while greening up everyone's lawns.
Wear A Sweater
We spend a ridiculous amount of energy heating our houses in the winter, when all we really need to do is to heat ourselves. Put on a sweater! A planet will thank you. Probably this one.
"Looks great on you!" -Mars
Likewise, in the summer when your A/C gets too cool, don't open the doors of your house to let in some heat. That's wasteful. Just put on a sweater.
Collect All The Dry Tinder From Your Land
If you're in one of the parts of the world experiencing a record drought right now, you're probably aware that wildfire risks have never been higher.
You might not be aware, actually. It's kind of an outside-person problem.
By collecting any dry tinder from the back corners of the massive plot of land that you -- and indeed all Cracked readers -- own, you'll do your part to protect your neighborhood, the most important part of the world.
Stop Going To The Bathroom In Your Yard
Much like your corpse, your poop contains valuable nutrients that can enrich plants and grasses, which is why we've all been trained from birth to poop in the yard. But human feces also contain pathogens that can spread disease. Many also find its odor distasteful.
Like, for example, this albino.
Consider going to the bathroom in the bathroom instead. Failing that, consider using the garbage can, an open manhole, or train your body to fire your waste directly into space.
Pile All Your Dry Tinder Around The Homes Of The Wicked
Do you know anyone evil? Anyone who schemes and plots and spies on their neighbors' yard-bathroom activities? That's exactly the kind of anti-civil behavior the new and better world we're trying to forge cannot tolerate, and all will clap and rejoice when those traitors perish in the flames.
You can't spell "mob justice" without "justice."
As an added bonus, this kind of community-based retribution can help bring people together. When gathered around the righteousness-pyre, take the time to get to know the people complicit in your world-bettering. This will not only help forge a community spirit, it will let you all establish mutual alibis in case the world-betterment-refusing authorities come knocking.
Donate To A Blood Bank
Blood banks are perpetually in need of donations and are one of the best ways you can be sure that your action is going toward saving a life.
"You can also feel pretty smug about it after!"
Also, given the recent increase in burn victims in your area, it's likely that your local blood bank's need has never been greater.
Stalk Criminals In The Night
Unfortunately there's only so much blood you can give.
You'll know when everything goes to black and white.
You know who has lots of blood? Criminals. And seeing as science is pretty sure wickedness isn't transmitted by blood infusions, there should be no harm in you stalking the streets wearing dark clothes and a funnel, taking what the world needs from those who so wickedly misuse it.
Write Your Political Representative
Now that you have a taste for blood (not literally ) you'll likely experience some pushback from people who don't want the world to get better so fast. The blood-banking sector profits off the limited supply of their product, and your habit of pouncing on criminals like a hobbyist vampire will infuriate them enough to request the authorities shut you down.
"That's not why we're shutting you down."
But there's nothing stopping you from doing the same. Depending on the country you live in, something as simple as a letter to your congressman or member of parliament or Wiccan Night Council rep can be incredibly effective. Politicians need votes and typically presume that for every person writing a letter, there are hundreds of others who care about the same issue. It takes surprisingly few letters to change the world for the better. And there's no law that says you can't send them all yourself under different names.
"Mail Fraud. That's it. That's the law."
Stalk Your Political Representative In The Night
Unfortunately, politicians are notoriously prone to corruption, and on some issues -- grassroots blood collection, to name an example -- no amount of community organization can compete against the establishment.
"Senator, you have to stop this Cracked guy."
And although there aren't any laws that prevent you from stalking your political leaders, stealing their clothes, and showing up in their place to cast votes ...
"All of the laws. That violates all of them."
... it's impractical to do this enough times to make a difference. You'd just be constantly running in and out of the legislative chamber, switching wigs and clothes, tripping over your own trousers.
Worse, we're about to run into another problem ...
Stop, Just Stop
Let's say you do it. You capture all the world's politicians in a room, take their clothes, and then pose in their places to pass various laws to make the world a better place. Rebalance the tax burden on the middle class, drain all criminals of their blood, all that. The problem you'll soon find is that maybe you alone aren't the best judge of what makes the world "better."
Hard as that might be to believe.
What you're actually kind of doing is turning the world into a totalitarian nightmare. And although the notion of a "benevolent dictator" should work in theory, you do sometimes get cranky, don't you?
Maybe there's a limit to how much better you can safely make the world. Let's scale it back a bit.
Go To The Bathroom In Your Yard, Just Less
No, that's too far back.
Go To The Bathroom In Your Yard, Then Throw It Into Your Neighbors' Yards
This seems like a happy medium. We've reduced the scale to something that is more manageable for one person and removed the blood-draining that was causing so many problems.
Both ethical and laundry-related.
Not only does this punish your neighbors for unneighborly complaining about your yard-pooping, it will help mark a larger portion of territory around your house, discouraging bear and wolf intrusions. That's got to make the world better.
Better still, do it while wearing a sweater.
Chris Bucholz is a Cracked columnist and will make the world a different place, at minimum. His first novel, Severance, is incredible and available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Apex Books. Join him on Facebook or Twitter.
Is Chris Bucholz actually helping the world? If he can do it, then we all can right? Eh, maybe we'll just leave it to the people in 4 People Who Really Are Making The World A Better Place. Or maybe we could just focus on how the world actually isn't so bad. David Wong points out that we constantly compare our real world to a fluffy utopia we've created in our mind in 7 Reasons The World Looks Worse Than It Really Is.
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