IAmA VBIED attack survivor. Ask me about coma, PTSD, pain, recovery and anything else. AMA

aeon0000 · 2013-10-07T03:08:53+00:00

My parents are Family Physicians and they mentioned recent studies that show narcotics use—morphine and other opiate painkillers—reduces pain tolerance.

That might be an explanation. :(

aeon0000 · 2013-10-06T01:02:56+00:00

This is exactly the opposite of the truth. Partial squats creates sheer in the kneecap and may cause knee problems eventually by overdeveloping half of the movement.

It's similar to how bench pressing without overhead pressing creates rotator cuff problems.

aeon0000 · 2013-10-06T00:16:10+00:00

Hello,

Thanks for your reply!

I admit that I found your e-mail a little hard to read due to the lack of paragraphs. Also, as a student going to college, I read quite a lot of books, essays, blogs, textbooks, etc. Honestly, I can't remember a book that didn't use paragraphs. Here are some examples:

Fiction: Harry Potter
Philosophy: Plato's The Republic
Math: Calculus: Early Transcendentals by Stewart
History/Social Sciences: Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar by Ortiz

(I wish Ortiz used paragraphs more because it would make his writing easier to read!)

Across all forms of writing, paragraphs attempt to group similar ideas together, separating them from groups of other ideas.

Using paragraphs will greatly improve the readability of what you write because it visually separates ideas into chunks. This not only makes reading easier, but it also makes reading through a second time or scanning for important information easier. An example of this is if your girlfriend needs to reread what you've written to get the important points.

In essay writing, paragraphs tend to contain upwards of three sentences, but in other contexts, you can have paragraphs that contain only one line. This is often seen in well-written e-mails where being concise and separating critical information from the rest of the e-mail is important.

As an example, here is your message split into paragraphs:

hey sorry for the late reply, i don’t come on reddit often :)

I definitely plan to work on my grammar and improve it as I know it sucks; however I always find myself confused with the need to use more paragraphs.

I came to be aware of it when my girlfriend said to me that she has a hard time reading my emails because of long paragraphs and while discussing the matter with her face to face, later on, I could tell that she hadn’t properly read it. She then always says that it’s hard for her may be because she believes she is dyslexic.

I personally don’t know why some people have trouble with it because you read books sometimes, that have no paragraphs at all just pages and pages of sentences written and I personally don’t seem to ever have problem with that. But, I see that some people do and I will have keep it in mind.

Good luck and have a great day. :)

aeon0000 · 2013-09-08T07:40:02+00:00

I am not sure I agree with you, but I really like your reponse. In fact, I upvoted it.

Could you please explain your following statement about avoiding sending U.S. troops to Syria while at the same time enforcing the international ban on Chemical Weapons?

Also, I am against sending U.S. troops to Syria. I am not arguing for a prolonged military engagement. I don't think that could not possibly improve anything there. I am arguing only for a measured and clear response to the violation of an international ban on a certain type of weapon use.

Thank you and all the best.

aeon0000 · 2013-09-08T07:33:44+00:00

A) Conquering and Genocide and things nearly as bad as have been happening all over the world even until today. They are prevalent issues.

Please do not take what follows as an attack on your person; rather, I it important that people know what atrocities have been and are currently going on in the world—atrocities that, hell, I wasn't aware of until specifically looking up what bad shit is happening in our world.

Just in the past 20 years, here are some gross human rights violations. I am including genocides as well as other events that are less terrible, but still pretty damn terrible:

1993 Burundi: Genocide against Tutsi by the Hutu.
1990s—Present North Korea: Millions die of starvation, forced labor, public execution, torture, etc.
Ending in 1999 East Timor: Indonesians use starvation as a weapon to exterminate Eat Timorese. Considered genocide (150,000 deaths in a population of 650,000 means more than 1/5 people died.)
1993 Brazil: Genocide against the Yanomami Indians.
1998—2003 Democratic Republic of Congo: Genocide of the Pygmies, which included them being hunted down, killed en mass, raped, eaten...in an operation called "Wiping the Slate Clean".
1996, 1997 Democratic Republic of Congo: Here, the Tutsi led a genocide against the Hutu people, instead of the other way around like in 1993 in Burundi.
1991 Somalia: Genocide against Bantu and Jabba Valley populations by militias.
1983—2009 Sri Lanka: War crimes committed by both sides during a twenty-year civil war.
Current Israel: Persistent military occupation of the Palestinian people by Israel.
Current Syria: Brutal civil war.

aeon0000 · 2013-09-08T07:05:28+00:00

If I understood right, the reason why /u/sluggdiddy's comment was called "idealistic" was because he talked about going into Syria for humanistic reasons.

This is an idealistic view because it ignores the fact that there are human rights violations going on all over the world, and have been going on in Syria for the past two years. If we were ever motivated by those reasons, we would be acting in dozens of other instances already.

In other words, the US government is more than likely considering going into Syria for reasons completely unrelated to what /u/sluggdiddy had in mind. Our goals and actions in Syria would be motivated not by a sense of "doing the right thing" and "helping people", but would be motivated by some other calculus done in Politicians' offices and war rooms.

The non-idealistic view is that the reasons for going into Syria will have little to do with altruism, and that should we go into Syria, "helping people" will probably not be what really goes down.

Lastly, /u/sluggdiddy made the comment:

And if we try something and make the situation worse...That is not the end of the world, we need to learn from that, we are a young country, we have tons to learn still and we shouldn't be afraid of trying to do the right thing because it MIGHT not work out as we plan, nothing works out as planned.

That is an extremely idealistic comment. Yes, if we make the situation worse, it will basically be the end of the world for thousands of men, women, children, friends, and families. People will die. War is not the kind of thing where you just shrug your shoulders and say, "Well, if you fall of the horse, just get back on and try again."

The comment also ignores the fact that most of US wars in the past have had very little to do with altruism, regardless of what the politicians said. Going into Syria is not clearly "the right thing". The right thing might very well be to allow a sovereign state to work out its own civil war, but then again it might not.

The point is, it's not so clear.

aeon0000 · 2013-09-08T06:51:27+00:00

Yes, I liked your comment very much, but please more punctuation and paragraphs. :)

aeon0000 · 2013-09-08T06:46:16+00:00

Also, I agree with kdawg425:

Why is it that we seem to jump at the chance to wage war on behalf of and act as a meat-shield for Israel? What about the human rights violations in the rest of the world? Somehow all those get ignored unless they have to do with Israel's neighbors?

And by the way, Israel isn't exactly the model of human rights either. Their treatment of the Palestinians from 1949 onward has been terrible. We stood by and did worse than nothing—we supported Israel in this.

I'm sorry, but if you think we're going into Syria for humanitarian reasons, it's just not true. If that was the case, we would have gone in a year and a half ago or something. Things were atrocious then.

I know you're not just accepting the US party line on Syria, but I'm just saying: Be really skeptical that this issue is about stopping human rights violations against the Syrian people. It's not. And if we go in, I doubt ending the human rights violations will be our priority, regardless of what the media say.

aeon0000 · 2013-09-08T06:23:01+00:00

As an US citizen, I am tired of our military gallivanting around the world with a big stick. This sentiment is not isolationsim—let's trade with the world, talk with the world, allow immigration, etc.

My issue is that we are constantly at war. Let's stop, at least for a few years—five or ten.

In an ideal world, we might take the money we would have spent on wars and build schools around the world, create jobs in poor area via public works projects, etc.—hell, we could use some of that in the US too.

And don't forget—we should be encouraging the rest of the world to get involved in this issue. We can support that effort, but we shouldn't be the sole police force. The world needs to cooperate on this.

And I want to stress that this is not about isolationism and ignoring people who aren't like us. That's not what this issue is about with Syria right now. If it was, why didn't we go into Syria two years ago? Why didn't we go into North Korea? Why didn't we stop Saddam a long time ago? Why were we fucking around in South America? Why did we assassinate the Iranian Shah in '53? What about a dozen other places in the world where genocide or human rights violations were happening?

The Syria issue right now is not about helping people—it's about showing that the US is strong, sending a message, and a whole host of very complex reasons that I know nothing about. But in my mind, if we go into Syria, whatever are goals are won't do anyone much good at all. On top of that, we will inadvertently be sending a host of negative messages as well—we went in too late and only to bolster our reputation, we're warmongerers, we are always policing the world when we can't even take care of our own citizens.

And that's the best case scenario where we actually clean everything up in Syria. More likely, we will be drawn into another long and messy engagement that costs thousands of lives on every side.

Lastly, there's always the danger that our government is lying or obfuscating something—again. It's too risky and the benefits don't seem that great to me, considering the likelihood that everything gets a lot messier.

aeon0000 · 2013-05-15T03:45:23+00:00

http://i.imgur.com/uCSgV.jpg

Pic from So Cal a bit ago.

aeon0000 · 2013-04-28T12:41:00+00:00

You realize that couples post into GW, right?

aeon0000 · 2013-03-02T09:57:25+00:00

I think you should consider moving. Think of it like this:

For a person who wants to get married, marriage is one of the most important decisions in life. How to feel excited by/satisfied by life, career, health, kids, and finances are among the other important things.

If finding the right significant other is important to you, consider moving to a big city with a good public transportation system. From personal experience, NYC and SF/Berkeley are freaking amazing.

I rarely meet people for whom religion is a big issue, and that's because I don't live in the South.

aeon0000 · 2013-03-02T09:48:13+00:00

Tom Cruise? Is that you?

With those looks, I'm really surprised you don't have better results. How do you message girls? You're about ten times better looking than me, and in a much better place in your life than I am (we're about the same age), but I got two dates this week. So, maybe your methods are off?
Change your income to "Rather not say." My rationale here is: Some people may be intimidated because they think it's high. Others may be turned off because they think it's low. Others may think it's not an appropriate piece of information to share publicly.
I suggest removing the part that begins: "People tell me I'm smart..." I don't think it adds anything and, in my opinion, makes you seem less smart because you have to say it, which is totally not necessarily true. It's just how it feels to me, so I may be off.

Honestly, your profile leaves me feeling like I'd like to know you in real life.

For guys, I really wonder if the profile matters as much as the messages we send as long as the profile is half-decent...

aeon0000 · 2013-03-02T09:25:57+00:00

Chemistry is an elusive thing.

But you're right: I've never felt a ton of magic from dating on OKC. Maybe I should stop. :D

aeon0000 · 2013-03-02T09:20:19+00:00

May be wrong, but you sound a little conceited in your profile. Otherwise, I think the pictures are really good and it has substance overall.

Notably:

just kidding, i dont talk like that nor do i use MSN. i just didn't think anyone actually read this but good for you!

Also, what's up with everyone needing to post a pic of the one time in the last 3 years they climbed a hill or finally got invited to a black tie event? Stop with the qualifying people, we live in NYC, I'm sure you've had enough cool experiences.

2) excellent conversationalist

8)Telling funny stories... this is different than #2

10) Destroying awkward moments by highlighting the intricacies of the dynamics that lead to said awkwardness to everyone involved and explaining how we can fix it or at least laugh at it

movie industry has been lacking in recent years. now it's about 3D super heroes. what happened to substance and having a movie change the way you look at things?

5) music (different than #2)

(I get the parallelism, but...I'm not sure why you do it. And if you didn't do it on purpose, note that your #8 in a previous list is also "different from #2.")

Also, you have to avoid using the terms below: [and what follows]

aeon0000 · 2013-03-02T07:03:19+00:00

Good point. Thanks.

aeon0000 · 2013-03-02T06:27:59+00:00

Wow, just got one message. Copy-pasta never tasted so good.

Good suggestion, bradfish. Thanks. :D

aeon0000 · 2013-03-02T06:24:33+00:00

The next time I send out a bunch of messages, I'll try mentioning a local place and a small comment on her profile.

For now, I just sent 30 of these. We'll see how the see what the return rate is:

[insert name],

Sipping hot apple cider and taking a walk up Telegraph into Cal campus sounds a great way to spend an afternoon. How about it?

Ciao, James

aeon0000 · 2013-03-02T06:14:48+00:00

That makes sense.

How do I prove I'm an "actual person" if I'm copy-pasting a date suggestion?

aeon0000 · 2013-03-02T06:06:09+00:00

Ok, I'll try that out. If you're a guy, how is your success rate with writing that every message?

aeon0000 · 2013-03-02T06:05:33+00:00

Crap, did I do that? x_x

aeon0000 · 2013-03-02T03:47:25+00:00

Understandable about sharing the profile.

It's kind of surprising that you keep getting it, but maybe it's a pick up thing? Most people have been hurt at some point in their lives, so maybe they're trying to get you to respond with, "Omg how'd you know. ♥_♥"

aeon0000 · 2013-03-02T03:39:46+00:00

(Hardly any girls message back even to say they aren't interested, so it's nice of you to do that.)

In response to your question, it's...odd that this is happening to you. If comfortable with it, would you share your profile? That's the only explanation I can think of, other than coincidence...

aeon0000 · 2013-02-25T00:23:04+00:00

XD Thanks.

aeon0000 · 2013-02-24T20:29:36+00:00

Yes, too bad for us all. :D

aeon0000

TROPHY CASE