454: Flippin’ Heck

How do I adjust to a new school? Are ducks up to something? Why are puzzles so satisfying? Do ocean mammals drink salt water? How did Hank come up with 2D glasses? If the sun disappeared, would earth eventually find another star to orbit? …Hank and John Green have answers! If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [email protected] Join us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn Produced for Hank and John Green by Complexly See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Hank Green?

  You're listening to a Complexly podcast.

• 0:09Hank Green?

  Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John.

• 0:12John Green?

  Or as I prefer to think of it, Dear John and Hank.

• 0:14Hank Green?

  It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you dubious advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, what did the duck say after he bought his chapstick?

• 0:25John Green?

  Quack?

• 0:26Hank Green?

  Just put it on my bill.

• 0:28John Green?

  Oh, yes.

• 0:30Hank Green?

  I like that one.

• 0:30John Green?

  Of course, that's what the duck said. Hank, it's my 20th anniversary today. I am recording a pod in the midst of my 20th anniversary celebration.

• 0:39Hank Green?

  Why?

• 0:41John Green?

  Well, because-

• 0:42Hank Green?

  And also, what are you doing? Because I need ideas, because I'm also about to have this.

• 0:46John Green?

  I was told this was a requirement, or I wouldn't be doing it.

• 0:50Hank Green?

  Thank you. I didn't tell you that, but I'm sure somebody did. And I appreciate you doing it.

• 0:57John Green?

  I... We're just going out to dinner. We're not doing anything fancy. We've been traveling so much, both of us, for work that we just really wanted a week at home. So it's been nice to have a week at home. And this is a beautiful time of year in Indianapolis. The trees are lush, and it's raining all the time. And it's just, it's great. I love it. I'm so... The plants are in the ground, all the pepper plants with my mom, also your mom, that we use to make hot sauce every year. It's just great. I'm... I am living the spring dream.

• 1:32Hank Green?

  I wish I was out there.

• 1:34John Green?

  It's the time of year to be here.

• 1:36Hank Green?

  Getting drizzled on while I tend to the peppers.

• 1:39John Green?

  There you go. That's what you're correctly imagining. The other day, I was sitting in here, just like what my wife calls clicky-clacky, you know, just typing away. Never clear what I'm typing, but I'm always typing something.

• 1:54Hank Green?

  Could be so many different things. I do say that that is the job of the influencer. Everyone thinks it's a lot of glamour, but it is mostly clicky-clacky.

• 2:01John Green?

  Clicky-clacky. So I was in here clicking and clacking, and I looked up and I saw our, you know, 75-year-old parents, like, kneeling in the garden, working away as I clicked and clacked. And I felt a little guilty. Felt a little like I wasn't pulling my weight in the garden.

• 2:21Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 2:23John Green?

  Hank, what is the point of it all?

• 2:30Hank Green?

  You know, that's what they come to Dear Hank and John for.

• 2:32John Green?

  That is.

• 2:33Hank Green?

  They come, we don't get that question that often, but I feel like it's beneath a lot of them.

• 2:40John Green?

  Yeah.

• 2:40Hank Green?

  People are trying to get to what's the point of it all, but they're getting at it through, my roommate wants to put this poster up and I don't.

• 2:48John Green?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, really, the question underneath all the questions is, what the hell are we doing?

• 2:55Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 2:56John Green?

  It's a great question.

• 2:57Hank Green?

  It, to some extent, though, it is interesting to have a nine-year-old because he, that question is, isn't under, under anything. There's no, what is the point of it all for Orin yet, nor for my cats, you know? They don't think about what the point of it all is. They're like, the point is to do what I want to do right now, which is go outside and eat meat. That's the cat life. So, but, but that, you know, we ended up the way that we ended up. And so what is the point of it all actually seems to, to matter quite a lot.

• 3:28John Green?

  Yeah.

• 3:29Hank Green?

  We actually get into this, and I've just listened to our episode of Humans, which we recorded together.

• 3:34John Green?

  I was about to ask you about Humans.

• 3:36Hank Green?

  We know the answer to that question. We talk about it in that podcast, which is that a rock is better than nothing.

• 3:43John Green?

  And if a rock is better than nothing, then a lot of other things become true.

• 3:48Hank Green?

  Yeah. Yeah. Two rocks become better than one rock.

• 3:51John Green?

  Yep. A person becomes better than a rock.

• 3:54Hank Green?

  Yeah. I mean, there's a number of other steps on the way, but yeah, I would agree. But a person is better than a rock.

• 4:00John Green?

  Yeah. And if you're able to make those value judgments, you can make some other value judgments. We should mention that Hank has a new podcast coming out. It's called Humans. It's an interview show. Hank and I are becoming sort of, I would say, D-list McElroy's, where we are launching pods within pods. So I have a new podcast about the World Cup called The Away End with my friend, the brilliant Peruvian novelist, Daniela Aragon. Hank has this podcast, Humans, where he interviews a huge variety of humans on the subject of being a human. And we've got Dear Hank and John, and that's not even to mention the universe with Katie Mack, our attempts to explain the entire history of the universe.

• 4:40Hank Green?

  There's also sideshow tangents, which you can still listen to and even delete this, which you never know.

• 4:45John Green?

  Could, we could.

• 4:46Hank Green?

  Could come back.

• 4:47John Green?

  Could come back at any moment.

• 4:48Hank Green?

  Come back any day. Same thing with The Anthropocene Review. The other day, I almost recorded an episode of The Anthropocene Review, but then I made it a project for awesome, uh, instead.

• 4:56John Green?

  Good for you. Good for you. That makes sense.

• 4:58Hank Green?

  And Humans launches basically in a week. So the day you're listening to this, it's

• 5:04John Green?

  Probably launched.

• 5:05Hank Green?

  Around when, when it came out, then you go got, got a week, but you can go subscribe to it right now.

• 5:13John Green?

  That was a very strange sentence.

• 5:15Hank Green?

  It was. I didn't do great. I will fess up to the fact that I didn't do great.

• 5:19John Green?

  And no McElroy would have allowed that to end up in a, in a finished pod.

• 5:23Hank Green?

  Yeah, but it's in this one.

• 5:25John Green?

  I know. I know it is.

• 5:27Hank Green?

  What I'm saying is the day that this podcast comes out is a week before the first episode of Humans comes out, which is with me and John. It's going to be very similar to this, just a little more serious.

• 5:40John Green?

  It's a little more existential. There's some funny moments, but it's a little more existential. But let's stay on the topic of existential with this question from Evan, who writes, Dear John and Hank, my name is Evan and I am nine years old. I am changing schools next year and I don't know what it will be like. I'm concerned about what my new school will do differently from my old school. Do you have any tips about making new friends or starting somewhere new? Older than seven, but not 11. Evan. P.S. I know you're a top podcast for teens and sleeping and everything, but your podcast is my favorite thing to do when I bring him to school in the mornings. Thanks for sharing your pod with us. I think that's from a parent.

• 6:13Hank Green?

  It does indeed say dad.

• 6:15John Green?

  Oh, yes.

• 6:17Hank Green?

  The, fantastic. What a lovely, it's, it's, I cannot believe the spot that we have earned in Evan's life.

• 6:26John Green?

  Yeah, it's a real honor.

• 6:27Hank Green?

  Remember Ian Scholes? We are Ian Scholes to Evan.

• 6:30John Green?

  Yes. We have a seat at the table in Evan's young life as he goes through these difficult things. Now, part of the reason this is hard, Evan, is probably because you've never done it before, right? So when you're doing anything for the first time, it's hard. And, you know, now if I were to enter a new school, it would still be stressful, but it would be a lot less stressful. And that'll be the case for a new school, right? Like the first day, it'll be really hard and a little stressful and overwhelming. You'll have support from teachers and everything, but it'll still be, it'll, it'll still feel overwhelming, I'm sure. And the second day will feel a little easier and it won't be a straight line where like every day gets easier, but it will get easier over time so that by

• 7:10John Green?

  October, November, you'll be looking back at yourself in August or September and saying, wow, I've, I've made a long journey from that young man.

• 7:18Hank Green?

  And here's the crazy thing, Evan, if you can believe it, but you had a first day at your current school.

• 7:23John Green?

  Yep.

• 7:24Hank Green?

  And that also was hard. And it was probably harder on the first day than it was on the second and harder on the second day than it was on the third. That's kind of how it is. And, and also, it's so easy for our minds to obscure that we've done all of these first things before.

• 7:39John Green?

  Yeah.

• 7:39Hank Green?

  Especially when they work out. Like when they work out, they don't feel like the risk that they were.

• 7:46John Green?

  Right. That's a great point. But it's important to learn how to take risks, Evan, and that's a big part of what you're doing. So you're doing it. You're, uh, you know,

• 7:55Hank Green?

  Doing the life thing. You're doing the person thing.

• 7:57John Green?

  And in the end, I think that's what it's all about, is doing the thing, you know, being a person in the world in the context of other people. And you're doing that with your family and you're going to be doing that with your new friends at school next year.

• 8:13Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 8:13John Green?

  All right, Hank, I got another question for you. It's from Andy who writes, Dear John and Hank, there are four ducks that always hang out on my cul-de-sac. I don't live near any sort of water. Every time I see them, I feel like ducks are awesome and I should love them, but they are also always a little bit looking like they're up to something. Should I love ducks? Or are ducks some sort of nefarious and conniving animal that's just putting on a front, just winging it? Andy.

• 8:36Hank Green?

  John?

• 8:37John Green?

  Yeah.

• 8:37Hank Green?

  Are the ducks up to something?

• 8:40John Green?

  Yeah, I mean, almost certainly, right? Like, in the same way that, you know, humans are reshaping our planet in profound, ongoing ways without really trying to. So are the ducks, man.

• 8:52Hank Green?

  Yeah, so are the ducks. And, and also, like, uh, the great news, this is great news. We aren't letting the ducks do whatever.

• 9:00John Green?

  Right.

• 9:01Hank Green?

  They are still limited by their environment in a way that we are not.

• 9:04John Green?

  Yes.

• 9:05Hank Green?

  That has turned out to be complex, you know?

• 9:09John Green?

  Yeah.

• 9:09Hank Green?

  Complex for the earth and for us. But the ducks, they, they're still in their reign, pretty much.

• 9:14John Green?

  We were on a call recently with a Nobel laureate who pointed out that we have the ability now, for the first time in, it was a little bit of a brag, we pointed out that we have the ability now, for the first time in human history, to solve world-sized problems.

• 9:29John Green?

  And that's really true, right? Like,

• 9:31Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 9:31John Green?

  But but also, it's the first time in even history where we have the ability to create world-sized problems. Like, they're both true.

• 9:39Hank Green?

  One thing you can say about a group of ducks on a cul-de-sac.

• 9:42John Green?

  Yeah.

• 9:43Hank Green?

  They cannot create a world-sized problem. They are they up to something? Maybe.

• 9:48John Green?

  Probably, especially if they're not near water.

• 9:50Hank Green?

  But not climate change, you know?

• 9:52John Green?

  Right.

• 9:52Hank Green?

  They didn't do that.

• 9:53John Green?

  Right, yeah. They're not up to a sixth extinction.

• 9:56Hank Green?

  Yeah, they're not. They're not making a 2,500 nuclear warhead.

• 10:01John Green?

  Yeah, right. That's a great point, Hank. They're not, uh, no, they're not creating like, uh, duck chatbots that allow you to have your own personalized conversation with an imagined duck.

• 10:17Hank Green?

  What's up with duck fertility rates?

• 10:22John Green?

  They're stable.

• 10:24Hank Green?

  They're super stable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably going up a little bit because because they're just they're getting better at living around people. They're figuring out cul-de-sacs.

• 10:33John Green?

  Yeah, they're they're able to live far away from any form of water, then like,

• 10:38Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 10:39John Green?

  they are evolving.

• 10:40Hank Green?

  It's hilarious. These ducks are like moving in on the pigeons' turf.

• 10:48John Green?

  I could see mallards becoming as ubiquitous and as annoying as pigeons.

• 10:51Hank Green?

  Oh, man, I tell you what, I like, they're beautiful birds, and so are pigeons.

• 10:57John Green?

  Yeah.

• 10:58Hank Green?

  This is a crazy thing about about starlings and pigeons and, uh, to some extent, seagulls, certain seagulls.

• 11:07John Green?

  No, but red-winged blackbirds, I'll give you.

• 11:09Hank Green?

  Oh, for sure. House finches, gorgeous birds.

• 11:12John Green?

  Yeah.

• 11:12Hank Green?

  Uh, we just like, we get used to these animals, but but mallards are gorgeous, beautiful, beautiful birds. If they were rare, we would, we would be astounded by them.

• 11:21John Green?

  That's right. You know what we would really be astounded by if it were rare?

• 11:25Hank Green?

  What?

• 11:26John Green?

  Humans.

• 11:28John Green?

  Like the human capacity for sacrifice and compassion and wonder and cruelty and all of that stuff. Like, we would just be like, well, that, we would, we would treat, imagine a world where we're all raccoons.

• 11:42Hank Green?

  And this is gonna be the new intro to my podcast.

• 11:45John Green?

  And there's like 200 humans.

• 11:47Hank Green?

  Yeah, well, raccoons was a bad choice, because there's a lot of those.

• 11:51John Green?

  No, no, no, but imagine a world where we, you and I are all raccoons.

• 11:55Hank Green?

  Okay, okay.

• 11:56John Green?

  And there's like-

• 11:58Hank Green?

  Booting up fresh.

• 11:59John Green?

  You and I are raccoons, eating our trash, but like, we've got semi-opposable thumbs, we can get stuff done, we can turn on the faucet outside, you know, if we need to.

• 12:07Hank Green?

  We've got qualia, there's something that it's like to be a raccoon, but you know, we're not having abstract thoughts or symbolic language.

• 12:13John Green?

  We're not, we're not creating constellations out of the stars.

• 12:17Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 12:17John Green?

  Right? But we're able to get stuff done, and we're pretty, we're, we're a really interesting species, right? Raccoons are really, a really interesting species. And then imagine that there's like 200 humans.

• 12:30Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 12:31John Green?

  Maybe in like three or four different total clumps.

• 12:34Hank Green?

  Uh huh.

• 12:35John Green?

  As the raccoons, we would be like, what the flippin' heck? Look at their ability to collaborate.

• 12:42Hank Green?

  I'm glad that Evan reminded us that we are a top podcast for people between the ages of seven and 11, so that you can say flippin' heck just there.

• 12:50John Green?

  Flippin' heck!

• 12:54Hank Green?

  But yeah, no, very weird. But, but John, let me have, make you a proposal.

• 12:58John Green?

  Yeah.

• 12:59Hank Green?

  What if?

• 12:59John Green?

  Yeah.

• 13:00Hank Green?

  Humans are rare.

• 13:04John Green?

  That's a great point. Humans are really rare, right? Like-

• 13:08Hank Green?

  We're rare in like two dimensions. First, in the, you know, it's a big universe dimension, and second, in the, this has been a bit of a blink, especially in terms of there being a lot of us.

• 13:19John Green?

  Oh, yeah. Although of the humans who have been born, about half were born before Jesus.

• 13:25Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but a lot at the same time is different from a lot over a long time.

• 13:31John Green?

  Not only that, Jesus was relatively recently.

• 13:35Hank Green?

  Oh, very.

• 13:37John Green?

  You know, and even in the context of human history, we've got 298,000 years before Jesus and then 2,000 years since. So yeah, we're just, we are just getting started.

• 13:50Hank Green?

  And the fact that we even know that guy's name indicates that it wasn't that long ago.

• 13:53John Green?

  So true.

• 13:54Hank Green?

  Most of the guy's names not, not around.

• 13:58John Green?

  Yeah, we don't even know when people started having names, really.

• 14:01Hank Green?

  Oh, I'm trying to do this research, and I know I made a video about this forever ago, and it's, you know, I've talked about it, but like, research takes a while, and also I'm not the most focused person. Uh, on, on whether, on how many, uh, names we know, because I've decided that names are a word. Like John is a word for Johns. And John Green is a word for you. And, uh, and I, I am somewhat convinced that some very large portion of the words I know are names.

• 14:36John Green?

  Right, because I know the name.

• 14:37Hank Green?

  And I'd like to know what the number is.

• 14:40John Green?

  I probably know the name of 500 footballers.

• 14:43Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 14:44John Green?

  Independent of the, the 500 people I know, whose names I know, independent of, you know, Troy Savan and Alice Walker.

• 14:55Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's a great, that's a great pull, John, to get both Alice Walker and Troy Savan indicates that in fact, John Green knows a great deal of names.

• 15:03John Green?

  I don't want to brag, but that might be the first time that Troy Savan and Alice Walker have appeared in the same sentence.

• 15:09Hank Green?

  It's possible. They don't tend to appear together. Whatever your mind did to find them both is remarkable.

• 15:18John Green?

  Yeah.

• 15:19Hank Green?

  But yeah, I just, there's just like-

• 15:21John Green?

  Great artists, you know?

• 15:22Hank Green?

  But also, we gotta consider a lot of fictional people. Like, I know who Bilbo Baggins is.

• 15:28John Green?

  Right.

• 15:28Hank Green?

  And I also know that, like, the name of the ship in The Expanse, the Rosinante, that's messed up. That's, that's also a name, kinda?

• 15:36John Green?

  Yeah, I don't remember that, but I remember the USS Enterprise.

• 15:39Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 15:40John Green?

  Anyway, today's podcast is brought to you by names. Names.

• 15:43Hank Green?

  Sixteen minutes in.

• 15:45John Green?

  We have a lot of them. Sorry for the early ad break, y'all.

• 15:49Hank Green?

  This podcast, I wasn't ready at all, is also brought to you by Troye Sivan. Troye Sivan, whatever he's up to, I bet it's great.

• 15:57John Green?

  We are fans, genuinely.

• 15:58Hank Green?

  Yeah, he's a nice guy.

• 16:00John Green?

  Uh, today's po- don't, no bragging. Today's podcast is also brought to you by the Nobel laureate Hank and I were on the phone with.

• 16:08Hank Green?

  Indeed. Indeed. We're not gonna tell you the name of, because it may come, come to something.

• 16:13John Green?

  Yeah, right. I mean, we weren't on the phone for fun. We were on the phone for work.

• 16:17Hank Green?

  Yeah, and this podcast was brought to you by Ducks. Ducks. Up to something. This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by Quince. I do very much like opening up my closet and finding an item that I know is gonna be both comfortable and I'm just gonna look good in it. It's gonna go well with my khakis, or my jeans, or my third kind of pant that I, I have like a, or, like apparel, orange pants. Just things that make getting dressed easier, and that's what Quince does best. Quince focuses on high-quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and merino wool. And the styles are timeless, and they're versatile, and they're designed to become dependable pieces that you reach for day after day.

• 17:00Hank Green?

  This morning, I put on this jacket that I'm currently wearing with just a white t-shirt, and I knew immediately, this is gonna work. I went downstairs and Catherine was like, "Look at that nice jacket. Where'd that come from?" You know where it came from? It came from Quince. Everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands, because they work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middleman, so you're paying- For the quality, not the brand markup. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know that it was Dear Hank and John. It's a good way to support the show. I feel like I should say it's Q-U-I-N-C-E. I guess it's pretty easy to spell Quince. Quince.com.

• 17:45Hank Green?

  I feel tempted to make up a tagline for them, but that's not what they want me to do. I shouldn't do that.

• 17:56John Green?

  Dear Hank and John is brought to you by NoCD. So you may know that I've had obsessive-compulsive disorder since I was a kid, but I was only diagnosed as an adult. I lived with intrusive thoughts and the compulsive behaviors I used to manage those intrusive thoughts for many years without treatment. OCD is not just anxiety. If you have those "what-if" intrusive thoughts and you cannot close the loop on them and you find yourself in thought spirals, you might have OCD. And it's not the organizing stereotype you've heard. It's a persistent, unwanted series of intrusive thoughts that feel totally out of character, along with mental or physical behaviors that you feel driven to, to get relief, even when that relief never actually comes.

• 18:39John Green?

  The good news is that OCD is highly treatable with the right kind of specialized therapy. It needs ERP, Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy, which has proven to be the most effective treatment and it has transformed my life. NoCD is the world's leading provider of OCD treatment, covered by insurance for over 138 million Americans. There are licensed therapists who specialize in ERP therapy, who meet you in live, face-to-face, virtual sessions with support between sessions, so you're never facing OCD alone. So if you're struggling with OCD or unrelenting intrusive thoughts, NoCD can help. Book a free 15-minute call to get started at N-O-C-D dot com. That's N-O-C-D dot com.

• 19:22John Green?

  All right, Hank, we're back with a question from Emma who writes, Dear John and Hank, why are puzzles so satisfying? Surely there's no evolutionary reason why putting little pieces into little perfectly shaped places scratches little itches in my brain. Please reply by pigeon, post, or podcast, whichever comes fastest. Yours, Emma.

• 19:38Hank Green?

  Emma, you are so wrong.

• 19:40John Green?

  Yeah, unfortunately, you're mistaken.

• 19:42Hank Green?

  That is indeed exactly. There is super strong evolutionary impulses to to build things out of things, to find things that have not yet been found, to to to to take disorder and make it into order. Very strong.

• 20:04John Green?

  Also, just to notice little patterns inside of bigger patterns, right?

• 20:10Hank Green?

  Yeah, very satisfying.

• 20:11John Green?

  Not just satisfying. It's satisfying because like on an evolutionary scale, that means that you're noticing the edible berry amidst the plant. And you're like, that feels good. It's like in evolution's best interest to make you like that, because it's in evolution's best interest to make you like being alive, at least a little, you know?

• 20:33Hank Green?

  There's evolutionary pressure toward for for for our ancestors, there was evolutionary pressure toward figuring stuff out.

• 20:42John Green?

  Yeah. And not just, I think there's still evolutionary pressure on figuring stuff out.

• 20:48Hank Green?

  Yeah. I mean, evolutionary pressure is very weird in the modern era. I can't guess much about it. But but yeah, the the reward circuits are there and puzzles, all kinds of puzzles, you know, whether it's a crossword puzzle, or a 2000 piece puzzle, or, you know, like, like, reading a mystery novel. All of those things are like, they are, they are activating that thing that is rewarding about discovering things about the world.

• 21:19John Green?

  I also think it's about the reward of building a picture. I think it's like an act of, it's an artistic act. And I think artistic acts go all the way back.

• 21:28Hank Green?

  1000 piece puzzles are like a big puzzle is also really fun, because it starts out hard, and it gets easier and easier as you go. Because like, every piece you place is one that is no longer in the pool.

• 21:40John Green?

  In which respect, it is not like life.

• 21:47Hank Green?

  I mean, it's like certain parts of life. I feel like

• 21:49John Green?

  Which parts?

• 21:51Hank Green?

  Harder than being 45.

• 21:53John Green?

  Oh, yeah, no, for sure, for sure.

• 21:55Hank Green?

  There's like pieces of the puzzle that are that are placed, you know?

• 21:58John Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. There is something terrible about when you're when everything is still possible. When you could still do anything and still have any life. It seems like a wonderful feeling, but in fact, it gets old really fast.

• 22:13Hank Green?

  Yeah, and a puzzle is such an interesting metaphor for that.

• 22:16John Green?

  I know.

• 22:19John Green?

  Thank you. That's what I was trying to point out.

• 22:25Hank Green?

  But except, except that like you can construct the puzzle and like, like a puzzle has one, one finished product. Whereas when you are constructing the puzzle of your life, you're placing pieces and then you can pick one up and move it. And, and like, you never know what the picture is that you're making and you can do it in any number of ways. And it always, you'll always think, ah, what if I built it a little bit different? Maybe you won't, but I will.

• 22:49John Green?

  Can I tell you how I'm feeling right now, Hank? I feel like when you explained my metaphor back to me, it's like when

• 22:55Hank Green?

  Great.

• 22:56John Green?

  It's, it's like if you went back in time and said to William Shakespeare, like, you know, I think, I think Hamlet is about the struggle to make a decision.

• 23:07Hank Green?

  Yeah, well, you haven't won a MacArthur Genius Grant, so.

• 23:12John Green?

  God. Flipping heck.

• 23:20Hank Green?

  Maybe your metaphor is not that good. I was, I was building, I was building upon your metaphor.

• 23:27John Green?

  Wasn't that good. I know it wasn't that good, but it's just like the fact that you went and like, elucidated it for me when it wasn't that good. I mean, if it had been that good, then everybody would have been like, oh, yeah. But no, everybody already had it.

• 23:42Hank Green?

  John, can I ask you a question that comes from Auden?

• 23:45John Green?

  Yeah, please.

• 23:46Hank Green?

  Uh, Auden asks, Dear Hank and John, the other night, my five-year-old son, my wife and I were talking about how the many mysteries of the ocean. And I asked as a joke, do ocean mammals drink saltwater? And then we realized we actually didn't have an answer. So instead of seeking out an instant Googled answer, we tried the old school way of calling our friends and family who might know. That's lovely.

• 24:07John Green?

  Yeah.

• 24:07Hank Green?

  To our surprise, no one knew, and they were all equally perplexed. So can you help? We still haven't looked it up. Pumpkins and Penguins, Auden, not a building castle. Auden, Duboki and I spent a lot of time on this, and we just kept uncovering more questions.

• 24:24John Green?

  Really?

• 24:26Hank Green?

  Yeah. So you know where a lot of marine mammals get their fresh water?

• 24:30John Green?

  Where?

• 24:31Hank Green?

  By eating ocean life, which is weird, because why aren't the fish salty? They live in the ocean.

• 24:40John Green?

  Yeah.

• 24:40Hank Green?

  And then I thought to myself, are fish salty? And then I thought to myself, no, I've eaten them.

• 24:47John Green?

  Right, right.

• 24:48Hank Green?

  So they're definitely not.

• 24:49John Green?

  They're not salty. They're sort of, they, that tastes like fresh water, insofar as it tastes like water.

• 24:54Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah. You gotta salt the fish. They're, there are some, like I've had, like crab has a little bit of a salty flavor.

• 25:00John Green?

  Yeah.

• 25:00Hank Green?

  I've never had an oyster because I'm allergic to shell, to that kind of fish, that kind of fish.

• 25:05John Green?

  Yeah, maybe. I mean, everything's a fish, Hank.

• 25:07Hank Green?

  That's not true, but...

• 25:09John Green?

  There's no such thing as a fish. It's all, it's all a construct, buddy.

• 25:15Hank Green?

  Just for clarity, oysters are one thing that are definitely not fish.

• 25:20John Green?

  I mean, an oyster would be a fish.

• 25:21Hank Green?

  None of the definitions of fish include oyster, though once they did, I think.

• 25:25John Green?

  It lives in the ocean.

• 25:26Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah. There was a time when like a starfish was a fish and a jellyfish was a fish.

• 25:31John Green?

  I mean, Hank, there's two, broadly speaking, there's two kinds of things. There's fish, which is everything that lives underwater, and then there's land.

• 25:40Hank Green?

  I mean, this is very Galen of you, you know, this is very like, yeah, I'm fine with this.

• 25:45John Green?

  Way to hear about my four humors.

• 25:51Hank Green?

  I actually have no idea what Gail thought about fish. I'm just like guessing. They had weird ideas back in the day. And certainly marine mammals were fish, though. Where do you draw the line? Seals? Not really. I don't live in there all the time.

• 26:06John Green?

  That's true. Salamanders? Anyway, go on, go on. How does the fish get the fresh water?

• 26:12Hank Green?

  It's just like, there's a constant battle. And in fact, freshwater fish have to increase the amount of salt in their bodies. And saltwater fish have to decrease the amount of fish in their bodies. And so, fish, nope, fish, they have to decrease the amount of fish in their bodies. I stand by what I said.

• 26:28John Green?

  Okay. If I've learned anything from being on the internet for 20 years, it's to immediately double down.

• 26:37Hank Green?

  Actually, many fish would like to increase the number of fish in their bodies because they're predators. But it seems like, and I like, we weren't able to get all the way down this rabbit hole. But it seems like there's like an optimal amount of salt concentration in a body, which makes sense because there's a lot of like ion gradient stuff going on with cells that makes so that the body works at all of a fish or of a whale. And so they all have to like kind of be at a pretty freshwater vibe. And there's just a huge amount of life in the ocean, like energy of ocean life goes toward decreasing the amount of salt in their bodies. And this is true of marine mammals, but it is also true of the fish.

• 27:14John Green?

  Hmm. Hmm.

• 27:17Hank Green?

  So there are some marine mammals that will actually seek out fresh water. Like sometimes you'll see manatees going to places where there's fresh water coming into, and they'll actually like drink there. And, but seals will eat snow. But when it comes to the big ones, we're not 100% sure. We think that they're very good at filtering saltwater out of their bodies, but they are certainly preferentially trying to find sources of fresh water, which may just often be their food.

• 27:48John Green?

  Fascinating.

• 27:50Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 27:50John Green?

  That's kind of how I get a lot of my water is like just eating cantaloupes.

• 27:53Hank Green?

  Yeah, I love, I, oh, man, I love a cold liquid explosion in my mouth, just a watermelon ball, a grape, a big old grape, a cold grape.

• 28:03John Green?

  What about gushers, that chewing gum that has a little bit of liquid inside?

• 28:09Hank Green?

  I mean, I'm, I'm fine with them, maybe if I chilled them, but I do like the liquid explosion to be cold.

• 28:15John Green?

  All right, we got another question, Hank. This one's from Michael, who says, Dear John and Hank, John always gives Hank a hard time about not understanding optics. I want to be clear, Michael, I also don't understand optics.

• 28:26Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 28:26John Green?

  I think the number of people who understand optics, like the number of people who really understand the details of how a mirror works is pretty low. It's pretty low. It's that, that and nuclear engineers have some specialized knowledge. But anyway, at the same time, John is always very quick to point out that Hank invented 2D glasses that render three dimensional movies in a crisp two dimensions. Did Hank's understanding of optics just peak early, or are 2D glasses very optically simple?

• 28:54Hank Green?

  Ooh, good sign off.

• 28:56John Green?

  In 2D Eep, Michael. That's good. That's good.

• 29:00Hank Green?

  Oh, God.

• 29:01John Green?

  All right, so the answer is that 2D glasses are beyond simple.

• 29:07Hank Green?

  They're so simple.

• 29:08John Green?

  They're so simple.

• 29:10Hank Green?

  Well, I mean, I'll tell, I'll tell you, they're, they're.

• 29:12John Green?

  Pitch, pitch us your incredibly complicated idea for 2D glasses.

• 29:16Hank Green?

  3D glasses are not simple. I don't really understand how 3D glasses work because it's about polarized light. Light can polarize and you can do a thing to a lens to make it either come through or not, depending on the polarization of the light. And by the lens, I mean a plastic film. So the way that 3D glasses work is that one of the eyes is polarized in one direction and the other is polarized in another direction. And then the light that is projected onto the screen is polarized into those directions so that one, uh, one movie, basically, gets into one eye and the other movie gets into the other eye, and then you perceive the effect of a 3D image. In order to get a 2D image, you just have to block one of the things.

• 30:01Hank Green?

  On in both eyes, like this, like instead of letting one through and the other through, you let the same one through both eyes. And so I reached out to a company that makes 3D glasses. And I said, could you make 3D glasses that had the same polarization film in each eye? And they replied and said, I mean, yes, but that would ruin the 3D effect. And I said, perfect.

• 30:28John Green?

  They were like, yeah, I mean, we can do it, but it's going to render a 3D movie in crisp two dimensions.

• 30:35John Green?

  Doesn't make any dang sense. And then Hank sold 100,000 of them.

• 30:40Hank Green?

  Did sell a stupid amount of 2D glasses.

• 30:43John Green?

  Thanks.

• 30:44Hank Green?

  Did you know that they wanted me to go on Shark Tank with 2D glasses?

• 30:47John Green?

  Did they really?

• 30:48Hank Green?

  They did. They were like, they were like, come and present 2D glasses to the sharks. And I was like, no, no, no, I've seen that show. I know which guy I'd be.

• 31:03John Green?

  Yeah, it's like when you, when you're not a good singer and they call you back to do the special audition in front of the judges for American Idol, you're like, oh.

• 31:14Hank Green?

  Yeah. And, and honestly, I'm glad I'm not in business with Kevin O'Leary. Let's be honest.

• 31:20John Green?

  No joke, man. I mean, Hank can't handle regular capital investors. He can barely handle me as an investor. Like, the idea of Hank having to handle Mark Cuban is beyond the pale.

• 31:35Hank Green?

  Oh, God, what a weird world. So yeah, I said no to Shark Tank. They were like, come fly to New York. And I was like, that's not happening.

• 31:43John Green?

  It's hard to get Hank on an airplane these days, any days. It's always been hard.

• 31:46Hank Green?

  Yeah, no, even back in 2015, when I was the CEO of 2D Glasses.

• 31:51John Green?

  I think it was closer to 2010.

• 31:53Hank Green?

  You're right. I don't know when anything happened.

• 31:55John Green?

  It was a long, long time ago. A lot of water under the bridge since then.

• 31:58Hank Green?

  You can still buy 2D glasses. It's just that 3D movies aren't a nomad of a thing anymore.

• 32:02John Green?

  Yeah. No, I mean, but if you, you know, they're still available at DFTBA.com.

• 32:07Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 32:07John Green?

  All right. Let's answer one more question, Hank, before we get to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. This is from Martina who writes, Dear John and Hank, but mostly Hank, you recently discussed what would happen to Earth if the sun disappeared. You mostly focused on the whole how we would die aspect of it, which is fair, but the whole discussion actually raised a completely different question for me that I now must have answered. So if the sun disappeared, we lose light, but we would also lose our orbit around the sun because the gravity that's pulling us toward it ceases to exist, right? So now we're catapulting through space really, really fast, which seems kind of terrible for a bunch of reasons. But it made me wonder if this might lead us to find another star to orbit. Surely if we slingshot it in the right direction, we'd eventually find another bit of gravity to hang on to. Could we survive if we found a star quick enough? How cooked would we be? Slingshots and sun star shine, Martina.

• 32:50Hank Green?

  Ah, Martina, great thought. We would shoot off. And so basically, the moment the sun disappeared, that this, the curvature of spacetime that it was created would no longer exist. And we would move off in a new direction, which I think would have no effect on us physically. Obviously, the sun not being there would have an effect on us physically.

• 33:10John Green?

  Would we still spin?

• 33:11Hank Green?

  Not reaching us. We would keep on spinning. We would just be moving. And there's a very low chance. I mean, I'd probably say a practically 0% chance that we'd run into another planet.

• 33:23John Green?

  Yep.

• 33:24Hank Green?

  Because they'd all go off shooting in their own directions, too. And there's, might be like a tiny possibility that we'd end up in orbit around Jupiter or something, but tiny. However, we were, we're not going that fast right now in the scale of things. So, so yes, indeed, we would be well dead by the time we ever potentially encountered another star, which would probably never happen. The galaxy is very empty.

• 33:55John Green?

  And even if it did happen, we're talking on the order of like tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years.

• 34:01Hank Green?

  I would actually say more like tens of millions or hundreds of millions of years. Would be my guess.

• 34:05John Green?

  Yeah. So, look, Martina, we're not going to be here for tens of millions of years regardless.

• 34:12Hank Green?

  That's what John thinks. We have this fight on our first episode of Humans coming out in one week.

• 34:17John Green?

  I feel like I need to be plugging the away end as hard as you're plugging humans. Probably I should plug my new book Hollywood Ending, available for preorder now, now that I think about it. Anyway, um, I, I, I don't, I don't. I think that there is a lot that can go wrong. Period.

• 34:42Hank Green?

  Which is the subtitle of John Green's new book Hollywood Ending. Hollywood, comma, ending. A lot can go wrong.

• 34:50John Green?

  Hey, have you read my book yet, by the way?

• 34:52Hank Green?

  I'm like, I'm like 40% of the way through. It's getting good.

• 34:55John Green?

  Oh, great. I'm glad it took 100 pages to get enjoyable.

• 35:00Hank Green?

  Is that what I mean? I see you setting the scene. I know what's happening. It's a cool people. It's interesting things happening the whole time, but.

• 35:08John Green?

  Yeah. But then it starts to click into high gear.

• 35:11Hank Green?

  Yeah, it's getting messy.

• 35:13John Green?

  Gets a little messy.

• 35:16Hank Green?

  Things can go wrong.

• 35:17John Green?

  Things can go wrong. The, the brighter the star, the more dangerous the star.

• 35:24Hank Green?

  Yeah, don't.

• 35:26John Green?

  True for, for both kinds of stars.

• 35:28Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 35:29John Green?

  All right, Hank, it's time for the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. What's the news from Mars this week?

• 35:34Hank Green?

  The news from Mars. We've found a strange thing happening in Mars's atmosphere. So the, the Maven mission in 2023, scientists looking at data from the Maven, Maven mission, found evidence of charged particles looking like they were getting squeezed through a tube, which is weird. So charged particles can happen in, in the atmosphere of a planet and do we have on the earth? We have the ionosphere, which is the, a high layer of the atmosphere where the sun is sending high energy particles and it's ionizing. Molecules from the atmosphere and Mars also has one of these and on Earth we have these ionized particles being squeezed through a tube vibe because we have a magnetic field and that's

• 36:16Hank Green?

  what happens they are being directed by the magnetic field and I'm like why would that be happening on Mars they don't have a magnetic field by they I mean a planet and all of its rocks yeah um this this has a name it's called the Zwan Wolf effect which is great it helps us study solar winds we've seen the Zwan Wolf effect in planetary magnetospheres we've never seen it in an atmosphere of a planet with no magnetosphere but now we are seeing it in Mars's ionosphere and this is weird it it turns out that Mars does have like a weak magnetosphere of a kind that is

• 36:56Hank Green?

  made of the ionosphere kind of so it's just interactions between solar wind and the ionosphere its size and shape change with the solar wind and with space weather so scientists think that the Zwan Wolf effect might always be going on up there but only does it become observable during certain like solar weather the exciting bit this is new physics in Mars's atmosphere that we didn't know was possible and it could become a tool for studying how Mars is affected by space weather and I love that we call it space weather we just didn't have a better term for this

• 37:29John Green?

  Space weather is a great term yeah Hank

• 37:35Hank Green?

  Yes

• 37:35John Green?

  There is a World Cup coming I'm making a podcast about it called the away end

• 37:40Hank Green?

  Yeah it is

• 37:41John Green?

  There's a World Cup coming it is gonna be an interesting World Cup FIFA has tried very hard FIFA has maybe flown too close to the sun when it comes to charging absurd prices and making it very difficult for people to attend games around the country around the three countries where the World Cup is happening Canada the US and Mexico it'll be very interesting to see how it all shakes out but one former AFC Wimbledon player will of course be playing in the World Cup that's Iraq's own Ali Al Hamadi but the news from AFC Wimbledon is that you can watch if you live in southwest London or indeed anywhere in London you can watch England's games at AFC Wimbledon Stadium on the big screen

• 38:25John Green?

  At the Cherry Red Record Stadium, all three of England's games, it's 10 pounds, but your first drink is free. So it's basically free.

• 38:33Hank Green?

  That's basically free.

• 38:35John Green?

  I'm so excited for Ali Al Hamidi. It's so cool that a former AFC Wimbledon player is going to be playing in the World Cup. I mean, that's just, that's the big time, Hank. That's as big as it gets. And I know it's going to be a tough tournament for Iraq, probably. And like, they're, they're, they're underdogs in every game they're going to play and everything. But it's just, I, God, I love the World Cup. I mean, it's impossible.

• 38:58Hank Green?

  It's a whole world.

• 39:00John Green?

  It's, it's the only thing that most humans pay attention to at the same time.

• 39:07Hank Green?

  Oh, fascinating.

• 39:08John Green?

  It's the only thing we have, where more than half of people are engaged in the same thing.

• 39:16Hank Green?

  And yet, not me.

• 39:19John Green?

  Well, I still think we can win you over.

• 39:21Hank Green?

  Oh, for sure. Oh, yeah.

• 39:23John Green?

  I mean, there's a path. Just watch the World Cup, and it'll happen naturally. Just like, turn on a game one time and don't listen to Alexi Lalas and just enjoy the World Cup.

• 39:32Hank Green?

  You're gonna have to hit my phone with a hammer, but then.

• 39:36John Green?

  Yeah.

• 39:36Hank Green?

  I'll be there.

• 39:38John Green?

  Okay.

• 39:38Hank Green?

  I've got, well, I've got a problematic relationship with the phone. John, can I read you a, we also get what we call responses. We've got a response from someone named Frito. Dear Hank and John, Frito says, my take and instinct on Doritos as a Frito Lay employee is to look at animals. It is interesting that Frito works for Frito Lay. Seems like a strange coincidence. Foods high in fat, sodium, sugar, calories in general, are often most appealing to animals. You do not have to look hard to see animals putting themselves in danger to get human food, be it seagulls in parking lots, raccoons in the dumpster, or bears raiding cabins. Mammals are especially well-conditioned at

• 40:20Hank Green?

  identifying the signatures of fats and sugars in food, because our brains are wired to reward us when we find it. So I believe any human alive at any time would likely enjoy the junk food that we make today, chips and dips, Frito. And look, I, I do think that there is an amount of bias here, as a Frito Lay employee, but. They agree with me.

• 40:44John Green?

  Okay, well, let me read you this response from Keat, who writes, Dear John and Hank, but mostly Hank. I am a red-blooded, freedom-loving, American raised in the honest, hard-working heartland of our country. For my entire life, I have had access to both turnips and Doritos, and if given an opportunity to choose between the two, 100 times out of 100, I will opt for the turnip, though in the minority, I know what I like to eat. Keat.

• 41:09John Green?

  So there you go.

• 41:10Hank Green?

  And that's the-

• 41:10John Green?

  So your argument that all humans would prefer Doritos to turnips-

• 41:14Hank Green?

  That's not what I said!

• 41:15John Green?

  Has been refuted by one human, ergo, you're wrong.

• 41:20Hank Green?

  And thus, the brotherhood ends.

• 41:25John Green?

  Isn't that what they called the episode? What a clickbaity title.

• 41:30Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 41:32Hank Green?

  Well, look, we're not in charge of that.

• 41:35John Green?

  No, we don't do that. We don't do the titles.

• 41:38Hank Green?

  Don't let us do that.

• 41:39John Green?

  All right, Hank, well, thank you for podding with me. Thanks, everybody, for listening. You can email us your questions at [email protected]. This podcast was edited by Linus Obenhouse. It was mixed by Joseph Tuna-Medich. Our marketing specialist is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosie Anna Hals-Rohas and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Debuki Shrockervardi. The music gearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gunarola. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.