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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • There are things besides fitness that are relevant to combat situations. In the movie Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, which takes place in a war zone in Afghanistan, we see the female news reporter is able to talk to the female residents in a combat zone and gain information about who was sabotaging a US-built well. The male soldiers weren’t allowed to speak to the women of the village, and had no way of getting this info.

    Women make up 50% of the world population and sometimes you just need a female soldier to properly work with the locals. If men cannot get information from some populations because of their gender, then it makes sense that rules might be slightly bent to allow women to take part in combat roles. As a soldier, I wouldn’t want to be miss relevant info just because no one in my troop could talk to half the local population- that ignorance of knowledge puts my life at risk too.



  • If research is funded by tax dollars, then it should absolutely be free for everyone to have access to.

    I’m not sure how I feel about private research being required to be free to all (does it disencentivize research to let everyone learn from what you paid to learn?). Either way, if the tax payer pays for something, they deserve free access to learn from it.












  • I am coming up on three years sober from alcohol. I lost my dad to alcohol and many other members of my family have gotten cirrhosis so I knew I needed to make changes. I joined the stop drinking community on reddit before I was ready to officially quit, and lurked. I loved hearing their stories and reasons why they were doing what they are doing. From there I learned about a book called “This Naked Mind” and reading it was just what I needed to finally kick alcohol. It talks about what alcohol does for you, what it doesn’t do for you, and what it claims it does (but doesn’t actually do) and it is all backed by science. It really resets the way your brain thinks about alcohol and by the end, I didn’t really want to drink anymore. I realized that alcohol doesn’t help me relax (it decreases my baseline so that I needed alcohol to feel normal). And it helped me better understand that alcohol is addictive and that anyone who drinks enough will get addicted- there isn’t anything wrong with me for becoming addicted.

    Since the book, I’ve been able to stick with sobriety and been really happy with that decision. My health is better, I’m more relaxed, my sleep is better, etc. I replaced cans of beer with cans of sparkling water, and I am surprised at how much I love that stuff. I now know I can’t moderate drinking- there is no such thing as “I’ll just have one.” And that is ok. I’m happy with my non-alcoholic beer at happy hours and sparkling waters on normal nights. My friends and family are really supportive of my decision and that makes a difference too. I wouldn’t have stuck with it if my friends pressured me to drink.

    Whatever your addiction may be, find a positive community of people that have similar view points to you. Alcoholics Anonymous wasn’t for me, but /r/stopdrinking was. Try a few things and you’ll find your people. Good luck to you! You are stronger than you think!