416: The Free Will Episode

Why do fish jump out of the water? What do I talk about in therapy? If the whole world quarantined itself for six weeks, would all viruses die out? If I want to donate to the TB cause, what is the best organization to do that with? Does a place without wind exist? Why does diet Dr. Pepper taste so differently when it is cold versus when it is room temperature? What do I do when it is my circus, but not my monkeys? …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. Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn 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, recently, there was a theft of $20,000 of college textbooks from the University of Montana bookstore.

• 0:29John Green?

  Wow.

• 0:29Hank Green?

  Luckily, luckily, the authorities were able to get both of those books back.

• 0:35John Green?

  See, that's, that's a good joke because it's not a pun.

• 0:39Hank Green?

  No, it's not. It's a, it's a cultural commentary.

• 0:42John Green?

  Exactly. It's analysis. It's biting analysis of what's broken about the college system in the United States.

• 0:48Hank Green?

  No, it gets, it keeps getting worse. They were so expensive when I was in school. I like paid for an entire summer of food by dumpster diving textbooks.

• 0:58John Green?

  I know, I remember. You also would dumpster dive for electronics that just needed a little bit of repair and then repair them and sell them on eBay. But most, mostly, actually, you paid for that summer of food by selling my baseball cards on eBay without my permission.

• 1:13Hank Green?

  That was a separate, that was a separate summer.

• 1:16John Green?

  I can't believe that you did that.

• 1:17Hank Green?

  And it led, and it led to my, the entrepreneurial spirit that has brought us so much as brothers.

• 1:23John Green?

  It's true.

• 1:23Hank Green?

  Without those baseball cards, I would never have learned the first lesson of business, which is steal.

• 1:29John Green?

  Steal.

• 1:30Hank Green?

  Steal.

• 1:34John Green?

  Steal fearlessly from, I mean, you were stealing from me, but I'd stolen from you too, I guess, but it still annoys me. I don't think I've ever told you this story, but my, my great friend Kava Akbar, who wrote the brilliant book Martyr, which was, you know, like a Pulitzer finalist and National Book Award finalist, all that stuff. It's a great book. Anyway, I told him once that story and how he sold my Johnny Bench rookie card, which was the most egregious.

• 1:56Hank Green?

  I thought Carl, I thought Carl Yastrzemski was the biggest deal in there.

• 1:59John Green?

  Carl Yastrzemski was the most expensive one, but Johnny Bench was a player I had a real affection for. Carl Yastrzemski was just, that was an investment play.

• 2:08Hank Green?

  Yeah, well, it turned, it worked out.

• 2:10John Green?

  The Johnny Bench card was, was just a pure love, you know, pure love of, of the catcher game.

• 2:16Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 2:17John Green?

  So apropos of nothing, because he is the loveliest person. I tell I tell Kava this story. We were having a great conversation. The conversation moves on to other topics. Three weeks later, what should arrive in my mailbox but a Johnny Bench rookie card?

• 2:31Hank Green?

  Whoa, John, I honestly, people gotta stop that.

• 2:36John Green?

  It's so thoughtful. He's such a thoughtful friend.

• 2:39Hank Green?

  I feel so bad all the time because I know people like that and I will never be like that. I go, I drive by my friends' houses and you know what I feel? Guilt.

• 2:50John Green?

  Yeah.

• 2:51Hank Green?

  I feel like, oh, that person, that person told me about that thing and I was gonna do that thing for them. And then I was just, I forgot about it and I'll never, I'll never do it because this thought is going to be in my mind for a total of 45 seconds. And I'll just take the negative feeling of guilt with me out of that thought. And then that's all I'll have left from that thought. I won't have the impetus to actually do the nice thing. I will just carry the guilt and negative self-talk forward and I'll put it on the pile. Put it on the pile.

• 3:20John Green?

  I love the idea that you just blame people for being really good gift giver.

• 3:23Hank Green?

  I do. People gotta be worse.

• 3:26John Green?

  Like me. They gotta be more like me, less thoughtful.

• 3:29Hank Green?

  More stealing.

• 3:31John Green?

  More stealing, less thoughtfulness. I got a thank you letter from Amy Kraus Rosenthal once, the late, great writer. And it was about yay big. I realize that most people listen to this on podcast form, not on Patreon. But it was about, I would say, one inch by one inch and it came with a gigantic magnifying glass. And only by using the gigantic magnifying glass could you read the thank you letter? Now, see, that is a classy thank you letter. If you, if you need paraphernalia to read the thank you letter, that's how you know it's classy.

• 4:03Hank Green?

  This is one of my favorite thank you letters I've ever forgotten. It is on since, since we're tired of the Patreon people now. It's on a quarter of a paper plate that has been ripped up.

• 4:12John Green?

  Yeah.

• 4:13Hank Green?

  Because it was at like a barbecue and my friend Brett ripped this piece off of it and wrote a nice thank you letter on it. And I keep it on my shelf.

• 4:22John Green?

  And you keep that one?

• 4:23Hank Green?

  I do.

• 4:24John Green?

  Yeah, that's great. The first gift Amy Cross Rosenthal ever gave me was when we first got to know each other, when we first became friends. So you you know, our late great grandmother, Billy Grace Goodrich, nanny.

• 4:35Hank Green?

  Of course, of course, yes.

• 4:36John Green?

  When I moved to Chicago, nanny told me to keep $40 in my left pocket at all times for when I got mugged.

• 4:42Hank Green?

  That's a good, that's a good plan, just in case.

• 4:45John Green?

  I would argue that it was a little bit of fear of urban environments that pervaded nanny's life. Anyway, so I was telling Amy Cross Rosenthal about this. The next time I saw her, she gave me two money clips. One said JMG and the other said MM for mugging money.

• 5:01Hank Green?

  That's so weird.

• 5:03John Green?

  It's so thoughtful.

• 5:04Hank Green?

  This is the future that I that maybe will be delivered by AI. If if AI does all the work, then we could just be nice to each other full time.

• 5:13John Green?

  Yeah, I think that.

• 5:15Hank Green?

  Is that how it goes?

• 5:16John Green?

  I don't particularly love the idea of like, oh, I I I got you this gift. It was suggested by ChatGPT. Like, that does, that does take some of the thoughtfulness out of it.

• 5:26Hank Green?

  It's gonna be doing all the laundry and stuff, right? And then we'll have time to just be nice.

• 5:31John Green?

  We'll have time to be to be kind to each other and thoughtful and generous because ChatGPT will be doing the dishes.

• 5:37Hank Green?

  But unfortunately, apparently it cannot do the dishes.

• 5:41John Green?

  I was gonna say, based on my interactions with the ChatGPT so far, I've seen very little evidence that it can do the dishes.

• 5:46Hank Green?

  I, I, it could tell you how.

• 5:53John Green?

  Exactly. It's gonna give me orders in the in the great, in the glorious future.

• 5:57Hank Green?

  Did, he did learn my first rule of business.

• 6:02John Green?

  Steal.

• 6:05Hank Green?

  All right, John, we got a bunch of questions from our listeners. Do you want to hear one?

• 6:09John Green?

  Yeah.

• 6:09Hank Green?

  This one comes from Anna, who asks, Dear Hank and John, I'm sitting on the shore of beautiful Table Rock Lake in southwest Missouri. While admiring the water and enjoying the sound of the waves, I suddenly saw a fish jump out of the water. Why do they do this? Clearly, fish need water to survive. So are they just wanting to catch a small glimpse of our world? Or are they going full on aerial and trying to become the where the people are?

• 6:35John Green?

  Well, let me answer this with what I suspect is true, and then you can tell me the science answer, which is gonna be boring. I suspect fish are playing.

• 6:46Hank Green?

  Hmm.

• 6:47John Green?

  I suspect they're having a good time. Nobody asks like, why do John and Hank get in the water sometimes, even though they're fundamentally land creatures?

• 6:54Hank Green?

  Yeah, why are they doing that? They're gonna die in there.

• 6:55John Green?

  We would die in there, but we're doing it to play. We want to have a good time. And also maybe to cool off a little bit, but mostly just to have a good time.

• 7:03Hank Green?

  So there are some fish that jump and we don't know why.

• 7:07John Green?

  Yeah, it's because they're having fun.

• 7:08Hank Green?

  And we can't accept that. So we say, maybe they're trying to knock parasites off their body. Or they're practicing in case in the future they have to escape. So like sometimes fish jump out of water, of course, because they're being chased by a bigger fish. And so maybe they're practicing for that eventuality. And so they knew to do it even when they're not being chased by a bigger fish, so that they are good at it when the big fish shows up. And then in this case, in the case of this particular fish, almost certainly that fish was going for a snack. So there was something at the top of the water that they snuck up on and ate.

• 7:40John Green?

  Oh, they're just like getting an insect, a water bug or whatever?

• 7:44Hank Green?

  Yeah, like those videos you see on Shark Week of a giant great white popping out of the water with a half a seal in its mouth, like that, but for a mayfly.

• 7:54John Green?

  Yeah, that's not, I think you're underrating the extent to which fish, well, obviously fish don't have free will. None of us do, but like the extent to which fish are able to.

• 8:05Hank Green?

  No, that's all, that's, that's just the way of the podcast. That's all.

• 8:10John Green?

  But I think you're underestimating the extent to which fish are able to like, wish to express themselves through the only vehicle they have, which is their bodies.

• 8:18Hank Green?

  Can I add you with a theory?

• 8:19John Green?

  Yeah.

• 8:20Hank Green?

  Here's my theory. I don't think it matters if my biology is telling me that free will exists. I think that there is, there's, there's not enough attention being paid to my subjective experience as a valid piece of the equation here. Whether or not I have free will doesn't really matter if I feel like I do. Just like, doesn't really matter if the universe is a simulation, if it feels real. I am acting inside of it. And I think that this can go for a number of sort of big philosophical questions where it's like, well, am I being told by my biology that all of this is the case?

• 9:04Hank Green?

  How much does the objective experience matter if the subjective experience is the whole thing for me? Like, I only have the subjective experience.

• 9:15John Green?

  Yeah, there's a part of me that would like to know if I'm merely my biology. But I think for you, that's a solved question, because you think you are merely your biology. So

• 9:25Hank Green?

  I do, I do.

• 9:26John Green?

  Yeah, which seems like a way to live.

• 9:34John Green?

  But if your subjective experience is all that matters, like, why not, why not embrace a subjective experience that has a little more flavor to it?

• 9:41Hank Green?

  I think a lot of people do that. Yeah.

• 9:43John Green?

  Like, drink Dr. Pepper instead of water, if you were, but the spiritual version.

• 9:47Hank Green?

  Hmm. And instead, I'm having like La Croix's over here, you think?

• 9:51John Green?

  Yeah, you're like, you're drinking La Croix, and you could be drinking sweet, sweet Dr. Pepper.

• 9:55Hank Green?

  Yeah, it's not even bad for you.

• 9:56John Green?

  Meh. I mean, some people would argue it's kind of bad for you.

• 10:01Hank Green?

  It's it's done good and bad.

• 10:02John Green?

  It's done. I mean, it's done a lot of bad. If we're going to talk about religion on this podcast again, let's just acknowledge, as the religious person, I feel like I should acknowledge it has driven quite a lot of suffering.

• 10:13Hank Green?

  Doesn't give you diabetes, but it does.

• 10:15John Green?

  Sometimes I'll be listening to a podcast, like a history podcast, and they'll be talking about burning people at the stake or whatever, or like Trial by Fire, where they would have people walk through a fire. And if they made it, then they were blessed by God. And if they didn't, then they were damned anyway. And I'll be like, oh, my goodness, like, it's very helpful to come to that my particular church was formed entirely by the most powerful person in all of the world, arguably wanting to get a divorce.

• 10:44Hank Green?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 10:46John Green?

  You know, like, that helps me center my religion right where it ought to be, which is that like, this is a function of like, this is a thing that people in power use to get what they want.

• 10:55Hank Green?

  There's a lot here that's earth-based.

• 10:57John Green?

  Lot of earth-based. So I think that there is, I think there's some advantage to objective reality. I think you slightly are underestimating the benefits of knowing objective reality.

• 11:07Hank Green?

  But there's like something about free will in particular that's like, I do, like, my biology is telling me very clearly that I have choices and that I exercise them.

• 11:18John Green?

  Yeah.

• 11:19Hank Green?

  And I, and like, that's so, like, in my face. That's so in the face of my consciousness. Like, my consciousness is constantly having that shoved in its face. And I don't know by what, but it like, that is, I feel like that is a thing.

• 11:36John Green?

  Yeah. I mean, you are on a journey of meeting, and you're getting perilously close to my relationship with the divine, which is that if I experience it, it is real.

• 11:45Hank Green?

  Sure. I just don't experience it.

• 11:46John Green?

  Well, maybe you will someday.

• 11:48Hank Green?

  Got it.

• 11:50John Green?

  Maybe you'll be driving through Michigan with your buddy Rob in freshman year of college, and you'll see a sign for the world's largest wooden crucifix, and you'll be like, that sounds funny. And you'll go there and you'll be overwhelmed by an experience of the divine and literally fall to your knees, looking at the world's largest wooden crucifix, even though you are yourself not.

• 12:07Hank Green?

  John is going to get me back for selling Carl Yustremsky by giving me a religious experience.

• 12:14John Green?

  That's right. You're gonna end up tithing. That's how, that's how I'm gonna get that Carl Yustremsky money back. All right, we gotta get to another question. This one comes from Anna, who writes, Dear John and Hank, I just started therapy, mostly because I'm in college and it's free, and also because I have a friend who definitely needs therapy. So I keep saying that everyone can benefit from therapy, so I figure I should take my own word on it. However, I feel like I'm mostly emotional stable and don't have one major thing I want to work on, so I don't know what to say. So far, we've had a fair amount of awkward silences. Do I just start blabbing about other things I'm thinking about? Would it be weird for me to ask my therapist questions? Not an attorney, an attorney.

• 12:48Hank Green?

  Ha! Are you serious?

• 12:50John Green?

  I, I, how could I make that up? I'm not clever enough. I don't do the dad jokes.

• 12:55Hank Green?

  An attorney? That must have been on purpose.

• 12:57John Green?

  An attorney, I, I regret to inform you on a few levels that you only have one career option after college.

• 13:06John Green?

  You must. I'm not telling you what kind of law to practice. I'm just telling you that you absolutely have to be an attorney, an attorney. It's like Bob Loblaw from Arrested Development. Like, you have to be an attorney.

• 13:19Hank Green?

  That is, that is messed up. I had a friend in high school named Amanda Lynn.

• 13:24John Green?

  Oh, like Amanda Lynn, the instrument?

• 13:25Hank Green?

  Yeah. And I don't know that she ever, she ever got into the instruments, but um, an attorney, an attorney, an attorney. I'm sorry. That's, your whole question should be, what? Like, my parents so clearly wanted me to choose a profession that they named me an attorney, and I don't want to be an attorney. What do I do? And we'd be like, it doesn't matter what you want. No free will. You're an attorney.

• 13:52John Green?

  Exactly, exactly. It's like if you were named, I'm a gymnast. Like, you're a gymnast.

• 13:56Hank Green?

  Sorry.

• 13:57John Green?

  I knew a kid when I was growing up in Alabama named Tiger Blanche, the first, first name, middle name. Tiger, of course, being the Auburn Tigers and Blanche being a mix of blue and orange, the color of the Auburn Tigers. And then they went to Alabama.

• 14:13Hank Green?

  Wow. That's, that can't be, you're messing with me.

• 14:19John Green?

  You can defy your parents, an attorney, and you don't have to become an attorney, although I think you should.

• 14:24Hank Green?

  Tell me this person's name again.

• 14:26John Green?

  Tiger Blanche.

• 14:27Hank Green?

  No.

• 14:29John Green?

  Yeah.

• 14:29Hank Green?

  No. They named-

• 14:31John Green?

  I wonder if I can Google them right now.

• 14:32Hank Green?

  They, they named this person, their middle name is Blanche? No.

• 14:38John Green?

  Yeah.

• 14:39Hank Green?

  No.

• 14:41John Green?

  Yeah. Hank, you don't understand how people in the South like college football. It's like the way I like AFC Wimbledon.

• 14:50Hank Green?

  That's, that's wild.

• 14:54John Green?

  Now, Tiger may have gotten married and may have lost their middle name in the process. That does sometimes happen, but that, that's, that's how I knew them. Uh, let's get to Anna's actual question.

• 15:05Hank Green?

  I'm trying to figure out what, what, which is, what the, if, if it was named after the college football team in my town, what it would be. Cause they're maroon and silver, and the mascot is the Grizzly. So it'd be Grizzly. Milver.

• 15:20John Green?

  Maruville. Milver. Grizzly Milver is a better name than Maruville. Grizzly Milver. Grizzly Milver isn't even that weird of a name. If I met a guy and he was like, hey, my name's Grizzly Milver Smith, I would be like, oh, that makes sense.

• 15:34Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 15:35John Green?

  I'd be like, I got a cousin named Sanders.

• 15:37Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah, it's just like somebody's mother's maiden name. Yeah.

• 15:40John Green?

  Yeah.

• 15:41Hank Green?

  Milver.

• 15:41John Green?

  Milver.

• 15:42Hank Green?

  Probably some Milvers out there.

• 15:44John Green?

  Probably some Milvers out there. So I don't think it's that unlikely. Here in Indiana, of course.

• 15:49Hank Green?

  Everybody send us what it would be for you, but John's gonna tell you what it would be for him.

• 15:54John Green?

  What it would be for me is naming a kid Indiana, which isn't that weird. I actually know some kids named Indiana.

• 15:59Hank Green?

  Oh, what's the mascot? No, it's the mascot. Tiger. What's the mascot?

• 16:02John Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It'd be the Indiana. Oh, right. Okay. So it'd be the Ho- it'd be Hoosier.

• 16:06Hank Green?

  Hoosier's great.

• 16:07John Green?

  Which is a weird first name.

• 16:08Hank Green?

  Hoosier's great.

• 16:08John Green?

  Hoosier's a big first name, but it's not an impossible first name. And then it'd be red and white. So it'd be Hoosier Wright. Hoosier Wright. I mean, that seems like a person.

• 16:19John Green?

  If you told me like, what's your name? Hoosier Wright? I'd be like, well, that's a little weird that your name's Hoosier, but like Wright totally, totally works.

• 16:25Hank Green?

  It fixes it. It fixes it. All right, everybody.

• 16:27John Green?

  Yeah, honestly, I'd be like, why don't you go by Wright?

• 16:31Hank Green?

  Okay, you gotta send us in what your college football name would be if you're, if you were named after your dad's favorite college football team or, or the one where you live.

• 16:39John Green?

  There you go.

• 16:40Hank Green?

  Okay, what's the question? What do you do in therapy if you don't feel like you have anything to work on?

• 16:45John Green?

  An attorney. With respect, you have something to work on.

• 16:49Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 16:50John Green?

  I mean, you've gotta talk to your therapist about what you're.

• 16:53Hank Green?

  My parents wanted me to be an attorney so bad.

• 16:56John Green?

  So bad.

• 16:59Hank Green?

  They named me Anne Attorney, which is grammatically correct.

• 17:07John Green?

  Right? They didn't name you a attorney.

• 17:10Hank Green?

  No.

• 17:10John Green?

  No.

• 17:11Hank Green?

  Anne Attorney.

• 17:11John Green?

  They named you Anne Attorney. You've got to talk to your therapist about this for at least a little bit. As a way, and usually the way I find therapy works is you, is you open like a top shelf and that leads to a lower shelf. And then eventually you get to the bottom shelf, which is like, did my, have my parents attempted to take away my free will and prescribe my entire life?

• 17:32Hank Green?

  Yes.

• 17:33John Green?

  All right.

• 17:34Hank Green?

  I think we answered the question. I have been very interested. Therapy's been fascinating for me. I'm fascinated by my therapist who tells me nothing about her. Um, I've heard that other people hear a lot about their therapists in their session. I know.

• 17:45John Green?

  I know very little about mine.

• 17:46Hank Green?

  And also, I recently did our first telehealth session and I talk all the time about like my job and what I do for a living. And, uh, and that, that it's a lot of pressure. And then I have all these sort of like what I consider to be unique difficulties that, you know, I think she sees as somewhat universal. Um, and I did our first telehealth and she was like, is that what your office really looks like or is that like a green screen? And I was like, no, that's actually my office, uh, which indicates to me that over the six months that we've been talking, she's never watched one of my videos. She's never been like, ah, I'm curious enough to, to go and like, see what this guy's up to.

• 18:27Hank Green?

  Does she think that I'm, that I'm lying about having a giant audience and lots of pressure?

• 18:33John Green?

  No, but my, uh, I don't think she does, but my psychiatrist initially thought that I had delusions of grandeur. Cause I came in there and I was like, listen, I'm a bestselling author and everybody on Tumblr hates me.

• 18:48John Green?

  And he was like, I've heard that one before.

• 18:53Hank Green?

  But it, it turns, it turns out that you are a bestselling author, but like 60% of Tumblr hated you and that's basically the same thing.

• 19:00John Green?

  I was exaggerating to be fair. Um, I always had a little group of people on Tumblr who, who stood by me.

• 19:06Hank Green?

  Yeah, thank you so much.

• 19:07John Green?

  But yeah, seriously, no joke. Um, but yeah, I, uh, I, I, I think it's good that your therapist doesn't watch your videos and I think it's probably a conscious choice.

• 19:17Hank Green?

  I think you are correct and I appreciate it. Which reminds me that this podcast is brought to you by my therapist, currently accepting new clients in Missoula, Montana.

• 19:25John Green?

  And not listening to this podcast.

• 19:27Hank Green?

  No idea it even exists.

• 19:30John Green?

  Yeah. Cause you don't have to talk about this podcast in therapy because it's actively pleasant.

• 19:33Hank Green?

  No, I did, does not come up.

• 19:35John Green?

  Today's podcast is also brought to you by an attorney. An attorney, that's where you go to get legal advice.

• 19:41Hank Green?

  In addition, this podcast is brought to you by the world's biggest crucifix. It's on the side of the road in a state in America.

• 19:53John Green?

  The world's biggest wooden crucifix, to be fair. Okay, let's get specific.

• 19:58Hank Green?

  Where is it?

• 19:59John Green?

  Uh, Michigan, I believe.

• 20:00Hank Green?

  It's on the side of the road in Michigan somewhere, probably from somewhere in the middle would be my guess, or near Chicago, probably. Where is it? On the way to?

• 20:11John Green?

  And today's podcast is, finally, today's podcast, I'm just gonna roll right through that. Finally, today's podcast is brought to you by sitting on the shore of a beautiful Table Rock Lake in southwest Missouri, wondering why fish jump out of the water only to learn that they do it for the pure joy of having free will-ish.

• 20:30Hank Green?

  Podcast is also brought to you by Theft.

• 20:35John Green?

  Couldn't let it go.

• 20:36Hank Green?

  All right, John, this next question comes from Hannah, who asks, Dear Hank and John, if the whole world quarantined themselves for four to six or whatever weeks, would all viruses, like the common cold, et cetera, die out? How long do viruses live? If they all need a host to reproduce, surely they would die some when, when there are no new hosts? Or can they survive in our bodies indefinitely? Neither a hypochondriac nor a scientist, just Hannah. Well, I have great news for you, Hannah. So little pressure on you to choose a specific career.

• 21:06John Green?

  Yeah, that's true. Although it just occurred to me that the huh in Hannah actually is pronounced. I always thought that the huh in, the second huh in Hannah was silent, but actually, there it is, right at the end, Hannah.

• 21:19Hank Green?

  And if it wasn't, would it be Hannah? Like Anna? Anna? Anna?

• 21:24John Green?

  Anna also ends in an H. Anna.

• 21:29Hank Green?

  All right.

• 21:29John Green?

  We've just made a discovery.

• 21:31Hank Green?

  I don't know that we would be the first. Linguists pay a ridiculous amount of attention to the noises we make.

• 21:36John Green?

  No, no, no, I'm gonna publish this in a linguistics journal and blow everybody's mind.

• 21:42John Green?

  The field is about to be turned upside down by this Hannah huh news.

• 21:46Hank Green?

  I have terrible news with regards to the eradicability of viruses. It's real hard.

• 21:52John Green?

  Yeah.

• 21:52Hank Green?

  There are, there are some that we could quarantine our, our way out of. But, but only if we really did it. And that would be basically impossible, but most we couldn't. Most either have long reservoir in the human body where especially like some people might clear it very quickly, but others might have that disease for, for months and still have, have enough to transmit it to someone else.

• 22:19John Green?

  Mm hmm.

• 22:19Hank Green?

  And then, uh, but some are in there forever.

• 22:22John Green?

  Yeah.

• 22:22Hank Green?

  Uh, basically, and will hang out and, and reactivate. And in those situations, you can, you can reinfect people. And then there are.

• 22:32John Green?

  Yeah, like how you get chickenpox again.

• 22:34Hank Green?

  You get chickenpox back and then, uh, and you can get that from, I don't know if you can get chickenpox from someone with shingles. I assume that you can, but I don't know that for sure.

• 22:43John Green?

  I don't know. That seems like something that would be a Hank thing.

• 22:46Hank Green?

  Yeah. And then there are many, many viruses that have wild reservoirs. And unfortunately the animals are not going to quarantine along with us. So they'll keep passing it back and forth between each other and then can reinfect us when it's time to, for the quarantine to end. So there are, I, I do kind of think of, of viruses as either being eradicable or ineradicable based on the wild reservoir.

• 23:11John Green?

  Wild reservoir is a great phrase.

• 23:12Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 23:14John Green?

  It's a good, it's a good title for a book or something.

• 23:16Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 23:16John Green?

  Wild reservoir.

• 23:18Hank Green?

  For example, has, has many wild reservoirs and so, uh, is, is.

• 23:22John Green?

  You know what has a lot of wild reservoirs?

• 23:23Hank Green?

  TB.

• 23:25John Green?

  Tuberculosis, man. Everybody can get, sharks can get tuberculosis. Aquarium.

• 23:28Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 23:29John Green?

  Aquarium fish.

• 23:30Hank Green?

  You told me once that they thought maybe tuberculosis like arrived in the Americas by seals?

• 23:35John Green?

  It did. It went from Japan, probably, or somewhere in Eurasia to the Americas via seal. And then the seals, when they were being butchered in the Americas, gave somebody tuberculosis who then spread it in their communities. And then it pretty much spread. But tuberculosis was one of the only diseases from Afro-Eurasia that had already gotten to the Americas before the great, before the Colombian exchange and the great dying. And so it was one of the, it was one of the diseases that there was actually like, you know, a little more experience with in, in indigenous American populations than there was for, for instance, like smallpox.

• 24:10Hank Green?

  Wild. Interesting.

• 24:11John Green?

  Yeah. Tuberculosis, man, it was everywhere and it still is everywhere. We have 10,000 cases in the US every year, even though we don't talk about it much. So we need to be talking about TB more, which reminds me of this question from Audrey, who writes, Dear John and Hank, but mostly John. This is my favorite kind of question. If I want to donate to the TB cause, what is the best organization to do that with pumpkins and penguins? Audrey, I think, I mean, I'm biased, Audrey, because Hank and I are working on a big project, anti-TB project with Partners in Health in Lesotho, but I think PAH, Partners in Health, they do really good work in tuberculosis. And they've also sort of led the charge on tuberculosis since the 1990s, when they began providing multidrug resistant TB care in Peru. And so I think that if you want to be on the

• 24:54John Green?

  leading edge of the people who are making the blueprints for what the future might look like with TB care, I would, I would say Partners in Health. We got this message from Sarah that's very important for me to read because it allows me to tell you a story about myself. Sarah says, Dear John and Hank, I've had L. O. Langley's song, "Weren't for the Wind," stuck in my head this morning, and it made me think, if this guy wants her to stick around, he just needs to move somewhere without wind. Does such a place exist? May the wind always be at your back, Sarah. Hank, is there a place without wind?

• 25:24Hank Green?

  Wow. Not, I mean, not entirely. Well, there are places without wind, space.

• 25:31John Green?

  Right.

• 25:32Hank Green?

  Mercury has solar wind, but that's not, that's not wind. That's a totally different thing. But on Earth, I think it's gonna, under the water, never mind, under the sea in a submarine, there's probably still gonna be a little bit of ventilation or else things are gonna be real unpleasant. But like, the International Space Station, not as windy as you'd like. They have a lot of fans actually up there. You don't want to fall, like, you can fall asleep on the International Space Station and create a bubble of carbon dioxide around your face and you wake up like choking.

• 26:00John Green?

  Oh, that's terrifying.

• 26:01Hank Green?

  It's so bad. So they like fall asleep.

• 26:03John Green?

  Well, there is the dolphos.

• 26:05Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 26:06John Green?

  Which is around the equator and has very little wind.

• 26:08Hank Green?

  Right.

• 26:09John Green?

  But it does have some wind.

• 26:10Hank Green?

  Yeah, there are definitely areas that have very little wind. And I think that the a very consistent middle of the ocean situation where there's no Coriolis effect creating wind, which would be right at the equator, would be your best bet for a unwindy place?

• 26:25John Green?

  All right, let's go, let's, let's, uh.

• 26:27Hank Green?

  Ooh.

• 26:28John Green?

  What?

• 26:28Hank Green?

  Caves.

• 26:29John Green?

  Caves don't have wind.

• 26:31Hank Green?

  They gotta move to the caves.

• 26:33John Green?

  You gotta move to the caves.

• 26:34Hank Green?

  Very, very deep caves that do not have outlets. Some caves, of course, have wind. But, but there are definitely caves that don't have wind and also collapsed mines. That would be a place to move.

• 26:45John Green?

  Seems like a good life.

• 26:47Hank Green?

  Down there in a hot, wet, humid, dark, collapsed mine.

• 26:54John Green?

  Hmm.

• 26:54Hank Green?

  Just hunting for old denim like that guy on YouTube.

• 26:58John Green?

  I love that guy on YouTube. I can't believe you also watch that guy on YouTube who owns the ghost town.

• 27:04Hank Green?

  He owns the ghost town and he like searches for old denim because the old, old jeans are very valuable.

• 27:09John Green?

  Old jeans are worth hundreds and hundreds of dollars. And that's how he makes a living. It's going down into the mine and finding old denim.

• 27:15Hank Green?

  Why do people leave their denim in the mine?

• 27:18John Green?

  I don't know.

• 27:19Hank Green?

  They just got too hot. They took them off.

• 27:21John Green?

  Yeah.

• 27:21Hank Green?

  Folded them up, put them on a shelf, lost them. It's hard in a mine.

• 27:24John Green?

  We've all been there.

• 27:26Hank Green?

  Walking around pantsless in the dark.

• 27:32John Green?

  Yeah, we don't know what people got up to in those old abandoned mines.

• 27:34Hank Green?

  That's true. Wow.

• 27:35John Green?

  And frankly, none of our business.

• 27:36Hank Green?

  That's correct.

• 27:38John Green?

  It's time to transition to a question from Emma who writes, Dear John and Hank, why does Diet Dr. Pepper taste so vastly differently when it is cold versus when it is room temperature? It's like a different soda. Both are good, but what is going on? I won't try it hot because I'm not a monster, but does it taste extremely different than too? In a dill, Emma. She's in a dilemma. It's pretty good. It's not as good as an attorney, Emma, unfortunately.

• 28:02Hank Green?

  John? Yeah, I think that this must be true of all of all sodas.

• 28:07John Green?

  It totally is, but I think it is more true of Dr. Pepper, simply because Dr. Pepper has more convergent flavors and different ones come out at different temperatures. One thing I've also noticed, and this is going to make me sound weird, it's going to make it sound like I drink a lot of Dr. Pepper in different circumstances, which I do, is that Diet Dr. Pepper tastes very different outside than inside. Like, the exact same Dr. Pepper can drunk outside tastes different than inside because you're you're just ingesting different chemicals along with it. You're ingesting fresh air instead of instead of store bought air conditioned air.

• 28:43Hank Green?

  Sure.

• 28:43John Green?

  And I am 100% convinced that more of the complexity of Dr. Pepper comes out, this is making me sound weird.

• 28:50Hank Green?

  Yes.

• 28:51John Green?

  More of the complexity of Dr. Pepper comes out when you drink it outside than when you drink it inside. And I think that you actually taste more of the flavors when you drink it room temperature than when you drink it cold. Now, it's not as refreshing.

• 29:02Hank Green?

  I think that that is definitely correct.

• 29:04John Green?

  It's not as fun to drink.

• 29:06Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 29:06John Green?

  But you can you can taste more of the complexity. It's almost like drinking a red wine.

• 29:11Hank Green?

  Yes.

• 29:11John Green?

  Where there's a certain temperature that's perfect and that temperature isn't ice cold.

• 29:15Hank Green?

  Well, I mean, this is a known known effect. So when a thing is warmer, there's two things are going to happen. First, your taste buds will be more active because they will be warmer and molecules move around more. And two, more things will volatilize. So it's when it's warmer, it's easier for those smells to leap off of the drink. And Dr. Pepper is, I would imagine, formulated to be tastiest when cold, because that's what we want. There's and there's another effect here, which is that warm water can hold less carbon dioxide. So it's going to fizz more when you're drinking a warmer.

• 29:54John Green?

  It definitely fizzes more.

• 29:55Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 29:55John Green?

  Definitely fizzes more.

• 29:57Hank Green?

  And that's going to have a number of effects. It's going to make it, I think, like, less easy to drink, more like, there's going to be more like. Volatilization because of that, because it's creating a bunch of surface area. It's gonna be like weird in the mouth. Yeah. So yeah, definitely different.

• 30:15John Green?

  Warm Dr. Pepper doesn't taste, it's precisely for those reasons. Warm Dr. Pepper, I think, isn't as like refreshing or as fulfilling to drink. But I'm telling you, there is more complexity on the palate than cold Dr. Pepper.

• 30:27Hank Green?

  For sure. You get, you would get more flavor. But I, but as for whether it's different inside or outside, I, I, I, I, you maybe are warmer outside and that's making it sort of a nicer experience. I don't see. What else is happening there?

• 30:43John Green?

  But I, well, I'm just telling you, something's happening.

• 30:45Hank Green?

  Your biology is experiencing it. And if, so what does the objective reality matter when the subjective reality is your experiences?

• 30:54John Green?

  Boom. Boom. I mean, back to the theme of today's video, the free will episode.

• 30:57Hank Green?

  The free will episode. I think we, we didn't name the religion episode, the religion episode. Think that was a huge mess. This should, should be called the free will episode.

• 31:06John Green?

  Yeah.

• 31:07Hank Green?

  That's what people want. They want us to, they want us to hit the, the hard, complicated issues of humanity, but in ways that don't solve anything or get deep at all. Or actually create any kind of new insight.

• 31:22John Green?

  Well, when we try to provide proper advice, it's always, it's always a poor quality.

• 31:26Hank Green?

  Wouldn't want to do that.

• 31:27John Green?

  No, it's extremely dubious at best, which reminds me to take on this important question from Melissa who writes, Dear John and Hank, I'm listening to episode 226 of the pod. It is the monkey in which you two frequently use the phrase, not my circus, not my monkeys. And I've been thinking throughout the episode, what do I do when it is my circus, but they are not my monkeys? Alternately, what do I do when my monkeys end up in someone else's circus? Melissa, very good question.

• 31:51Hank Green?

  John, have you heard of Mel Robbins?

• 31:54John Green?

  Oh, sure. The let them theory.

• 31:55Hank Green?

  The let them theory is just not my circus, not my monkeys. We could have been Mel Robbins.

• 32:03John Green?

  We could have been.

• 32:03Hank Green?

  We just had to focus. We had to focus on the monkeys.

• 32:07John Green?

  We had to make a, we had to make a book called Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys. Actually, it would be called Not My Monkeys.

• 32:12Hank Green?

  Not My Monkeys.

• 32:13John Green?

  Because that's a catchier title.

• 32:15Hank Green?

  Not My Monkeys. People would be like, what's Not My Monkeys about?

• 32:20John Green?

  Maybe we could have called it The Not My Monkeys Theory.

• 32:22Hank Green?

  They'd stop in their tracks and they would.

• 32:24John Green?

  Not My Monkeys, especially if it's in that like big business book font.

• 32:28Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 32:29John Green?

  Not my monkeys.

• 32:30Hank Green?

  And then it's just like, like on yellow with one of those clapping monkeys from the, from the past with the wind up on them on the bottom.

• 32:39John Green?

  Yeah.

• 32:39Hank Green?

  Or maybe one of the flying monkeys.

• 32:41John Green?

  Wind up clapper monkey.

• 32:42Hank Green?

  From Mary Poppins? No, The Wizard of Oz. And it's just some kind of, some kind of monkey down there.

• 32:50John Green?

  Some would argue that Mary Poppins would have been improved by flying monkeys.

• 32:53Hank Green?

  And in a way, isn't Mary Poppins a flying monkey?

• 32:57John Green?

  Herself a flying primate.

• 32:58Hank Green?

  Yes.

• 33:00John Green?

  Great point, Hank.

• 33:00Hank Green?

  Thank you.

• 33:02John Green?

  So you got Mary Poppins on there. You got those whole wind up monkeys. And it says Not My Monkeys in big letters by John and Hank Green, authors of The Let Them Theory.

• 33:12Hank Green?

  You can, you can take theft.

• 33:16John Green?

  Steal.

• 33:18John Green?

  Steal. The number one lesson in business.

• 33:22Hank Green?

  Oh, my God. What were we talking about?

• 33:24John Green?

  Sometimes, well, sometimes it is your circus, but it's not your monkeys. And then you have to tell the person whose monkeys they are, that you actually don't need monkeys in this particular circus. And sometimes they are your monkeys and it's not your circus. And then you have to listen when someone says, I'm sorry, but this is not your circus. These are your monkeys, but this is not your overall circus. The overall circus is mine, and therefore you can take your monkeys if you want, or you can let them be in my circus, but you, you cannot have control over the circus just because you own the monkeys.

• 33:54Hank Green?

  Yeah, this is gonna be great stuff for our new book, The Let Them Monkeys Theory.

• 34:04John Green?

  Oh, man.

• 34:05Hank Green?

  The Let Them Monkeys Do What Those Monkeys Is Up To Theory.

• 34:08John Green?

  I just see Mel Robbins a lot because we're both on the bestseller list right now. And I have no idea. I have no idea if Mel Robbins is male or female, if Mel Robbins is 20 or 70. I have no idea who Mel Robbins is, I have to confess.

• 34:20Hank Green?

  I, yeah, I do. I'm too, I'm too online.

• 34:24John Green?

  I haven't read The Let Them Theory, but I love the idea of letting other people make their own mistakes.

• 34:29Hank Green?

  There is.

• 34:30John Green?

  If that's the thesis.

• 34:31Hank Green?

  That is the thesis. You might wonder whether it needs a whole book, but that is how these things work.

• 34:37John Green?

  Yeah, well, I mean, the Not My Monkeys thesis is going to be like a 350, 400 page book. It's gonna be long.

• 34:46Hank Green?

  That's actually not what you want to do. You want it.

• 34:49John Green?

  Oh, you want it to be nice and punchy?

• 34:50Hank Green?

  You want it to be, you want it to be an approachable length.

• 34:54John Green?

  Who Moved My Cheese?

• 34:55Hank Green?

  Yeah, Who Moved My Cheese length, for sure.

• 34:58John Green?

  Okay. So 150 pages, heavily illustrated, kind of like line drawing, illustrated, but also graphs, but hand drawn.

• 35:06Hank Green?

  And citations. Citations that take you to papers that don't actually say what you say, they say.

• 35:11John Green?

  No, come on now.

• 35:12Hank Green?

  I'm just saying this, like.

• 35:14John Green?

  No, that's not how we're gonna do it. The Not My Monkeys book is going to be a big hit because of the quality of its citations.

• 35:21Hank Green?

  All right. And the citations are just gonna be two websites that are us saying the thing that we said.

• 35:28John Green?

  I love that.

• 35:29Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 35:29John Green?

  That's brilliant. That's brilliant. It'll be, it'll be, all the citations will link to Vlogbrothers videos where we say things with great confidence.

• 35:38Hank Green?

  And then some of the citations, but only like five of them, or it's gonna be me dancing.

• 35:41John Green?

  I love that.

• 35:42Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 35:42John Green?

  Occasionally you'll get Hank doing.

• 35:45Hank Green?

  A monkey dance.

• 35:45John Green?

  Never gonna give you, but dancing like a monkey while doing.

• 35:49Hank Green?

  Yes.

• 35:50John Green?

  Love it.

• 35:50Hank Green?

  With symbols.

• 35:51John Green?

  Love it.

• 35:53Hank Green?

  Anyway, John, did we do a good job?

• 35:56John Green?

  I mean, how can you?

• 35:57Hank Green?

  This is hard.

• 35:58John Green?

  How can you just? How can you just anyway? Our first million dollar idea in weeks.

• 36:09Hank Green?

  John, I really do want to write a book with you. I think that we would be good at it. I just think that I think that we need to figure out the system.

• 36:17John Green?

  Yeah, we need to figure out the time. The time in the system, and that's not easy.

• 36:22Hank Green?

  It's not. No, our time, our time schedules don't often overlap in terms of.

• 36:26John Green?

  No, I think that the book that we write together is probably going to have to be done in our 60s when we're retired from the other stuff, except for this, because I want to call it Dear John and Hank Forever.

• 36:36Hank Green?

  You're gonna, you're gonna immediately make me some bet that I'm gonna win.

• 36:39John Green?

  All right, Hank, it's time to get to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. You want to go first?

• 36:43Hank Green?

  Nah, you go first.

• 36:45John Green?

  All right, AFC Wimbledon, keep signing players, Hank. We can't stop signing new players.

• 36:48Hank Green?

  Yes.

• 36:49John Green?

  But the most important player we signed, Marcus Brown, Nerd Fight area's own Marcus Brown, is coming back for two more years. Marcus Brown just signed a two year contract, our central attacking midfielder, and we signed a new keeper, Nathan Bishop, on a three year contract. He came from Sunderland, well, a team now in the Premier League, actually. And, uh, but he didn't really play for them. He was on loan last year. Anyway, he looks like he's going to be really good. And I don't know if you've seen our kits, Hank, but our kits have come out here. I'll text them to you. They are gorgeous. Take a look at these.

• 37:21Hank Green?

  There it is.

• 37:21John Green?

  AFC Wimbledon home away and third kits. I don't know about the third kit that's green and black, but the blue and yellow kits are massive.

• 37:28Hank Green?

  Massive? Looks very nice. Looks fairly similar to what the last one looked like, I gotta say.

• 37:33John Green?

  Strongly disagree. Didn't have that collar, wasn't made by Lotto, didn't have that cool diamondy background that we've got now.

• 37:40Hank Green?

  Yeah, that's cool. I like that a lot.

• 37:42John Green?

  These are, these are class.

• 37:43Hank Green?

  I like the green. That's awesome.

• 37:45John Green?

  Okay, you like the green one. What do you think of the yellow one at the bottom there?

• 37:48Hank Green?

  Um, I, not as much, not as much. It doesn't, doesn't have a ton going on.

• 37:54John Green?

  Yeah, but I kind of like the fact that it doesn't have a ton going on. The only thing I don't like is that it has those side panels. And anytime it's a side panel, for me, when I'm wearing it as an extra large, those are significant side panels.

• 38:06John Green?

  When the players wear them, they look great, but I'm not, I'm not a professional footballer.

• 38:09Hank Green?

  Okay, well.

• 38:11John Green?

  All right. So that's the news. We got, we got Marcus Brown. We got a goalkeeper, which is huge. Having a goalkeeper is really an essential part of having a soccer team. And especially for a club like Wimbledon, who does take on a lot of shots.

• 38:22Hank Green?

  I, you know, I'd do it if they asked.

• 38:26John Green?

  Yeah, but respectfully, I don't think that you'd keep us in League One.

• 38:30Hank Green?

  I would let a lot of balls.

• 38:33John Green?

  Yes.

• 38:33Hank Green?

  Into the net.

• 38:35John Green?

  People, people would be like, wow, like it, we're actually in a situation where we could pick somebody out of the stands who would be a better keeper.

• 38:42Hank Green?

  Definitely. I played goal. I played goal when I was, when I was little. Uh, I think that I'd have some knee issues. And also I, here's what I predict, that the ball, the ball would hit my hands and I'd be like, I got it. I stopped, but it would keep going.

• 38:59John Green?

  Just keep right through the hands. I don't have the strongest wrists.

• 39:03Hank Green?

  No, I mean.

• 39:04John Green?

  No, I've got those soy boy wrists.

• 39:05Hank Green?

  Oh, boy.

• 39:06John Green?

  Yeah, I don't have them. Um, I think that also the diving would be an issue. Every time the goalkeeping coach was like, why didn't you dive for that one? I'd be like, are you kidding?

• 39:15Hank Green?

  We're trying to avoid injuries, right? Cause every, every dive is an injury.

• 39:19John Green?

  Do you want me to break a rib? Like, who's the goalkeeper behind me for God's sakes?

• 39:24Hank Green?

  The last, the last guy. If I'm in here, I'm the last guy.

• 39:29John Green?

  Exactly. If I'm playing, you know?

• 39:31Hank Green?

  I really can't get injured.

• 39:32John Green?

  Bench.

• 39:34Hank Green?

  Well, in Mars news, John, the Mars reconnaissance orbiter has been orbiting Mars for almost 20 years. It's got five instruments on board. They're pointed at Mars. They're doing stuff and it's just learned a new trick. Can you believe that? You know what that trick is?

• 39:50John Green?

  What's the new trick?

• 39:51Hank Green?

  It can roll over.

• 39:52John Green?

  Oh, it can go upside down?

• 39:53Hank Green?

  It can roll over.

• 39:55John Green?

  Well, that's exciting.

• 39:55Hank Green?

  So, uh, the, the, the team orbiting the orbiter could roll it up to 30 degrees in any correction, in any direction to help point at, uh, the various instruments at different targets on the planet. Uh, and that's hard enough because you have to keep track of where all the other instruments are going to be pointed to make sure that all the people doing. Science with that data are getting what they want. One of the instruments on the orbiter is called the Shallow Radar, and it helps scientists see things like ice and rock and sand. And it might be particularly good at figuring out where there might be ice close to the surface, which could be helpful for future astronauts and also just science in general. So they wanted to see if they could execute what they called a very large roll.

• 40:38John Green?

  Oh.

• 40:39Hank Green?

  Which would be around 120 degrees and would allow the Shallow Radar a better view of Mars. These are super hard to do because they require a lot of planning to make sure the spacecraft will be like, okay, after it does it. And in a recent paper, scientists reported that they were able to do three very large rolls between 2023 and 2024. It's exciting, but also because of the time that it takes to do these rolls, the mission is currently limited to doing only one or two very large rolls per year.

• 41:08John Green?

  Oh, wow. So it turns out you can teach an old craft new tricks.

• 41:12Hank Green?

  That's right.

• 41:13John Green?

  Yeah, that's great, man. Congratulations on your three very large rolls that led to, I believe, a 360-degree turn.

• 41:20Hank Green?

  And I am, after this, I may have

• 41:23John Green?

  Yeah.

• 41:23Hank Green?

  another very large roll.

• 41:26John Green?

  All right. Well, before that, we've got to go do our Patreon-only livestream that we do every month to say hi to our many patrons. We're very grateful to all of you. You can join them at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn. But regardless of whether you're a patron, thank you so much for listening.

• 41:41Hank Green?

  This podcast is edited by Ben Swartout. It's mixed by Joseph Tuna-Medish. Our marketing specialist is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosiana Hals-Rojas and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Devoki Chakravarti. The music you're hearing 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.