Pod Insights Dear Hank & John 417: You’ll Be Okay in the Medium Run About this episode How do I prove I didn’t use AI in my masters thesis? Why is it so hard to do the things I really want to do? Is there something different about men’s colons? How did people go about collecting relics? Why are short stories not more popular than novels? …Hank and John Green have answers!
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 John Green? You're listening to a Complexly Podcast.
0:09 John Green? Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John.
0:11 Hank Green? Or as I prefer to think of it, Dear John and Hank.
0:13 John Green? It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you debriefs of advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, I fell in love with a banker.
0:21 Hank Green? Oh.
0:22 John Green? But when, when she had low interest, I was so interested in her. But then when she had high interest, I just...
0:29 Hank Green? You lost your interest?
0:30 John Green? I lost my interest.
0:31 Hank Green? It's interesting, because I find with bankers that when they have high interest is when I am more interested.
0:35 John Green? Why?
0:37 Hank Green? Oh.
0:37 John Green? Because as a deposit.
0:39 Hank Green? I was thinking about taking a loan.
0:40 John Green? Oh, I was thinking about giving money to the bank.
0:43 Hank Green? There's the moneybags.
0:43 John Green? There's the moneybags over here. Hey, listen, we're in the same place at the same time. If we sound a little different, that's because we're recording on an iPhone, unless you're on Patreon, in which case we're recording on a Hank's vlogging camera.
0:53 Hank Green? We're actually gonna use whichever audio sounds better, and I have no idea which it will be.
0:57 John Green? Great, but we're in the same place at the same time. A rare treat, it has to be said. Hank has been visiting me in Indianapolis. It's been lovely.
1:05 Hank Green? It's been lovely. I would love to just come here for a month and make podcasts.
1:10 John Green? Well, and, you know, we live in a forest. It's, everything is great. I don't understand why you don't come here for a month and make podcasts.
1:16 Hank Green? In the summertime, you need a swimming pool or something. It's so hot.
1:19 John Green? It's a little hot here, but other than that, it's great.
1:21 Hank Green? It's humid.
1:22 John Green? It's a little humid.
1:23 Hank Green? I'd just be in the river, but it's dirty.
1:25 John Green? The river is a little dirty. Uh, we recently had a canoe capsize, however, and so I experienced the river up close and personally. It's not that bad. I didn't get you arty or anything, yet.
1:36 Hank Green? I mean, just don't give it up your nose.
1:38 John Green? Yep, alright. Uh, you want, should we answer questions from our listeners, or should we continue to banter?
1:42 Hank Green? I don't know. How does it work?
1:44 John Green? Okay, this question comes from Elizabeth, who writes, "I'm a PhD student working on my master's thesis, and during my master's thesis proposal, I was accused of using AI to write my thesis document by someone on my committee. I did not use AI to write any part of my thesis document, and I stressed that to my mentor. He told me that he did not believe that I used AI and that I wasn't in any trouble because it couldn't be proven. But what do I do if they accuse me again during my defense?" Oh my God, Elizabeth, you must be so nervous right now. Hopefully, we've gotten to you in time, because we're gonna be able to solve this problem. We can solve the AI problem right now, right here, Hank.
2:16 Hank Green? Great, because I was feeling very much like, what are we gonna do?
2:20 John Green? I have all my version histories, and I use Toggle to track how long I work.
2:24 Hank Green? But god.
2:25 John Green? I mean, the fact that you have to do that to prove that you're not using AI in the year of our word 2025.
2:29 Hank Green? I use toggle. I don't even know what that is.
2:32 John Green? It sounds stressful, though.
2:33 Hank Green? I love the word, though.
2:34 John Green? How do I prove?
2:35 Hank Green? At least they gave it a nice little word toggle.
2:37 John Green? How do I prove that I didn't use AI when AI detectors are notoriously bad? Not the queen Elizabeth.
2:42 Hank Green? AI detectors are so bad.
2:44 John Green? Are they? I have never used one.
2:45 Hank Green? At the beginning, they were okay.
2:47 John Green? Right, but now.
2:48 Hank Green? Now it's so, it's like you could do a bunch of stuff to make the the AI create stuff that doesn't get detected by AI detectors.
2:56 John Green? Sure.
2:56 Hank Green? And then like, what is it picking out? When it is detecting that it's made by AI, that it's like good, like a good bunch of logical words in a row. There are some things when when you're just like getting stock right out of the model that it can sound really like the same.
3:12 John Green? Yeah.
3:13 Hank Green? But honestly, I think that like human human detection is better at this point than AI detection, but it's all a game and it's all faulty and it's like at this point. I don't think that AI detection is fit for purpose. I don't think that it works.
3:26 John Green? What do we do, Hank?
3:28 Hank Green? I don't know. You said you had a solution.
3:30 John Green? Oh, yeah. No, my solution, Elizabeth, is to not stress out about this because your mentor is right.
3:34 Hank Green? Yeah.
3:35 John Green? If your mentor believes you that you didn't use AI, if you've logged your work time.
3:39 Hank Green? This is so great. This is so, this is like an opposite Hank and John moment where you stayed in the problem.
3:44 John Green? Yeah.
3:45 Hank Green? I zoomed way out.
3:46 John Green? Usually I'm the one who zooms way out.
3:48 Hank Green? Yeah, and I was like, I don't know what we're gonna do about anything. It's all too big.
3:52 John Green? And you're like, let's focus on our problem. The AI thing is very scary, very powerful, and I worry that the people who are uh have the most power around it are are not the people we would want to have the most power around it.
4:04 Hank Green? It's just whoever showed up that day.
4:07 John Green? What?
4:08 Hank Green? Like, I don't, like, that's how I feel.
4:10 John Green? Oh, no, no, no. It's very smart people are working on working on AI, but like.
4:14 Hank Green? But who, but the people who ended up in charge.
4:16 John Green? The people with the most power.
4:18 Hank Green? Yeah.
4:19 John Green? Like, it worries me that Elon Musk, for instance, has a lot of power in the world of AI.
4:23 Hank Green? Yeah, I think that's a legitimate concern.
4:25 John Green? Yeah, I'm concerned about that, but I'm not concerned about Elizabeth. So like, we are not gonna solve the AI problem. We're gonna solve Elizabeth's problem.
4:34 Hank Green? Right, so first of all, you don't have that much of a problem because your mentor is right and you are right and you know the truth. And second, what you need to do is interject some real humanity onto the page.
4:45 John Green? Is that really what's no, because it's a master's thesis.
4:48 Hank Green? But a lot of times you can't do that. A lot of times you can't like talk about like, here's why I personally.
4:53 John Green? Even if you did, that you could just totally have an AI do that, absolutely. You could be like, get real goofy here.
4:59 Hank Green? Yeah, make it, make this super personal. That was good, but make it more personal.
5:04 John Green? I think that maybe the future is apps like Toggle where you prove how long you were inside the world. But even that isn't, the, the truth is, we're going to live in a different world. And I don't know how it's going to shake out, but I do know how it's going to shake out for Elizabeth, which is that Elizabeth is going to be okay. I mean, in the medium run, in the long run, Elizabeth, I have terrible news. Not about your master's thesis, but about the ubiquity of death.
5:30 Hank Green? Yeah, that, that did sound like you thought that the world was going to end.
5:34 John Green? No, no, no, just Elizabeth's world and mine and yours and each of ours.
5:38 Hank Green? Yeah.
5:39 John Green? And all the trees and everything we love and the oceans will boil and etc.
5:43 Hank Green? Right, but man.
5:44 John Green? Not yet.
5:45 Hank Green? My biology is telling me this all matters and so I'm gonna listen to it.
5:49 John Green? We've got another question from a master. It's from Sarah. Who writes, Dear John and Hank, I'm about to graduate from my masters and with my masters and don't get me wrong, I'm proud of myself. But I can't help but wonder if I completed a masters because it sounded good to me to say that I have a masters degree or if I actually wanted to. Isn't wanting to be somebody who has a masters degree like, still like having a masters? I feel empty after this huge milestone because I want to be doing other things like creative writing. I guess what I'm trying to ask is, why is it so hard to do the things you really want to do that feeds your soul? How much does free will really guide us or are we just constantly predicting the path that brings us the most happiness from a biased perspective? Even if it might actually be true.
6:26 Hank Green? Oh.
6:26 John Green? Always existential and seeking serotonin, Sarah.
6:30 Hank Green? Hmm, Sarah, you went, you did it. You went from the, the narrow problem to the big one.
6:35 John Green? That's a classic move, Sarah. That's a classic John Green move. I congratulate you on John Green-ing it.
6:42 Hank Green? Yeah, pro tip. Try not to do that.
6:45 John Green? Yeah, stay in the, stay in the moment and in the problem. And if you want to be writing creatively, write creatively.
6:50 Hank Green? Write creatively.
6:51 John Green? Being a, having a master's degree doesn't prevent you from writing creatively. Having a job doesn't prevent you from writing creatively. You know, I wrote my first novel at night and on the weekends, and my second novel at night and on the weekends while working at a job. And that is the story for most creative writers. Um, the vast majority of creative writers don't make creative writing the center of their professional life, but still it's very fulfilling. As for why you became a master, you became a master so that you could say that you were a master of anthropology, or whatever you studied. And if you did that because you, you thought it would sound cool, let me tell you something, Sarah, as somebody who isn't a master.
7:25 Hank Green? It does sound cool.
7:26 John Green? It does sound cool.
7:27 Hank Green? Yeah.
7:27 John Green? It sounds cool as heck.
7:29 Hank Green? Well, and this is also, uh, for me, it's, it's true of everything, where it's like, why did, like, the, the main reason for many years I wanted to write a book was to have written a book.
7:39 John Green? Oh, my God.
7:39 Hank Green? To like be a man who's, people always talk to me when they're like, I really want to write it. I feel like just the dream of having, like, walking to a bookstore and seeing my name on the shelf.
7:48 John Green? Yeah.
7:49 Hank Green? They're not thinking about the contents of the book.
7:51 John Green? No.
7:52 Hank Green? They're like, that's a big part of why I wanted to write.
7:55 John Green? I call this the yellow bus phenomenon. So when I was nine years old, I won a competition for writing, uh, in central Florida, not to brag. I beat on all the other third graders. Now, I recently reread this book, Hank. It's called It Just Isn't Fair. It's about, it's about death, like all of my work. And it's not very good. Uh, it doesn't show any particular promise. It's, um, it's very standard third grade work. Um, nothing exceptional about it at all. But they put me on a big yellow school bus and sent me all the way from Orlando to Tampa, Florida, to attend the Florida Young Writers Conference.
8:28 Hank Green? Wow.
8:28 John Green? And that was incredibly exciting. And what was cool about it was not writing the story.
8:34 Hank Green? Yeah.
8:34 John Green? What was, or winning the award. What was cool about it was the big yellow school bus. And that is exactly what you're describing is the feeling that you want is like the feeling of being a writer, not the feeling of like writing a book or what the particular book is or reaching readers or all that stuff. And what I've had to do in my life is shed the big yellow bus enthusiasm.
8:57 Hank Green? Right.
8:57 John Green? And try to find meaning in wanting to reach readers, wanting to tell a particular story, wanting like.
9:03 Hank Green? Just in the, just in the process, like in the, in the walk through the woods of, of sitting in front of a blank page.
9:09 John Green? In the getting characters through a room to open doors, et cetera, of writing. That's what I've had to find joy in because if you're only seeking the other stuff, there will never be enough of it. Like I won the Prince Award and it wasn't enough and I won an LA Times Book Primes and it wasn't enough. There will never be enough of that stuff unless you can find joy and pleasure in the process.
9:30 Hank Green? Right. And what like so much of what I find drove me is not what I enjoy about where I am. I've always been very driven by like wanting to be like a hero.
9:43 John Green? Mm hmm.
9:44 Hank Green? But then when I become like a hero, I'm like, oh.
9:47 John Green? This is unpleasant.
9:48 Hank Green? This isn't particularly great.
9:49 John Green? Yeah, I don't like people looking up to me in this weird, weird, uncomfortable way.
9:53 Hank Green? Yeah, I mean, there's parts of it that are like lots of it's, it's, it's nice. It's just like what I thought would be nice is just being me.
9:59 John Green? Yeah.
10:00 Hank Green? But that's not nice. It's all the, it's all the like parts of the job that I like doing that are nice.
10:05 John Green? Right. I think that to walk into a bookstore, I'm just gonna tell you the truth.
10:11 Hank Green? Yeah.
10:12 John Green? And look at the bookstore and think, you know what this place needs is a book by me is itself like, like it requires a measure of hubris.
10:22 Hank Green? That's not what I, that's not what I'm thinking about.
10:24 John Green? No, no, no, I'm not like I'm, I'm saying this of myself as much as I am of you. Like it requires a measure of hubris to think that. But like at the same time, what's actually fulfilling in that work turns out not to be the fulfillment of the hubris. It turns out to be the work. And this is, this is.
10:43 Hank Green? And the, and the, I mean, success is a big part of it, like actually having people read the work.
10:48 John Green? Of course, yeah, but that's that what's fulfilling about that is had is reaching readers and hopefully, you know, having an impact on them in a, in a, in a deep and meaningful and ongoing way. That's what's interesting about it.
11:01 Hank Green? And to quit your day job.
11:03 John Green? And absolutely, the financial part of it is huge.
11:06 Hank Green? Yeah.
11:07 John Green? But like the, if you can quit your day job, which I think like sixty writers can.
11:11 Hank Green? Yeah.
11:12 John Green? But like the, the, the rest of it isn't that good. The like, the prizes and the whatever and the acclaim, like all that stuff just, he, here is an interesting thing. I just read a book about me.
11:27 Hank Green? Oh, wow.
11:27 John Green? I don't think I've told you about this.
11:29 Hank Green? Weird.
11:29 John Green? Yeah, so I read a book about me. I suspect it will be published at some point. It's very good. And it's not entirely about me, but of course, like, I was very interested in the parts that were about me.
11:40 Hank Green? Yeah.
11:41 John Green? And it's kind of about that, like, 2010s Tumblr era.
11:46 Hank Green? So I'm in there too, probably.
11:47 John Green? You are in there.
11:48 Hank Green? Yeah.
11:48 John Green? It's also a book about you. It's more a book about me, but it's partly a book about you.
11:54 Hank Green? As far as you can tell.
11:58 Hank Green? So true.
11:59 John Green? So I'm, I'm reading this book and this person unfortunately did a lot of very good research and found something I wrote in like 2003 where I was like, I will do anything for fans. I will mortgage my mother's house for fans. And I totally meant that. I was completely sincere. I wanted to be famous so, so badly.
12:19 Hank Green? Yeah.
12:19 John Green? And then I got famous and it turns out that like, almost no one on earth is less equipped to be famous than I am.
12:25 Hank Green? I have a, a book of the letters of Isaac Asimov.
12:28 John Green? Yeah.
12:29 Hank Green? And there's these two letters and it's in, they're like organized by topic.
12:34 John Green? Yeah.
12:34 Hank Green? Not by time.
12:35 John Green? Yeah.
12:35 Hank Green? So there's these two letters that are just like in the section about like, uh, having fans.
12:40 John Green? Mm-hmm.
12:40 Hank Green? And one letter is from early in his career where he taught, he just gushes about how lovely it is to sign an autograph or to sign a book. And then 20 years later, he's like, if one more person asks me to sign a book, I may very well move to the moon.
12:56 John Green? Yeah, yeah, yeah, like. It's good, it's good to know that Isaac Asimov also wasn't particularly well-equipped for fame.
13:03 Hank Green? Yeah.
13:04 John Green? Um, but there is something about it that like, the thing that I most wanted turns out to be the least fulfilling part of the job that I have now.
13:14 Hank Green? Yeah.
13:14 John Green? What's really fulfilling is like getting to do a make-a-wish like I get to do next week. Or getting to hear from readers, hearing from Elizabeth about Elizabeth's problems with AI and having to think about that. Like, thinking about stuff, working on stuff with other people in the community.
13:31 Hank Green? Right.
13:32 John Green? As a leader of that community is really, really fulfilling.
13:35 Hank Green? And so, as much as we can do to be a part of each other's communities.
13:40 John Green? Yeah.
13:40 Hank Green? To, to connect over work, like if you could find people who are also doing stuff.
13:46 John Green? Well, and that's the other thing, right?
13:48 Hank Green? And like, and be waiting, like have a, like be the person who is waiting for that, that other person to finish that next chapter.
13:55 John Green? Yeah.
13:56 Hank Green? Because you're invested in it. So like having somebody who's invested in your work and being invested in the work of others.
14:01 John Green? Yeah.
14:02 Hank Green? Really can drive you forward, like finding that somewhere. I think it's very important for communities to not all be 200,000 people, you know, like.
14:11 John Green? Yeah.
14:11 Hank Green? Most of them should be like six.
14:13 John Green? Twenty. Yeah. The number one fulfillment from my work is, is working with you.
14:20 Hank Green? Right.
14:20 John Green? And working with my editor and working, like, and working, working with Rosiano. Like, the greatest fulfillment I get from my work is working with a relatively small group of people on projects that I really care about.
14:32 Hank Green? Yeah.
14:32 John Green? And it's in that collaboration and cooperation that I find the most joy. That's where I really find, and, and also consolation, like I feel less alone when I'm working with you.
14:44 Hank Green? Could I hit you with something that I think that you'll disagree with me on, or like we'll just have a different perspect, like, like we, we will have a different way of working?
14:51 John Green? Yeah.
14:51 Hank Green? I think that in the, in this world of, you know, I just got my master's degree and.
14:57 John Green? Oh, it's just such a terrible time in life.
14:58 Hank Green? It is, yeah.
14:59 John Green? Being twenty, like being in your early twenties and like finishing school or finishing grad school or whenever you finish grad school is such a weird time of life.
15:07 Hank Green? Yeah, because you're like, okay, now I have to like do life.
15:09 John Green? I saw Sarah go through it.
15:10 Hank Green? Yeah.
15:11 John Green? Thankfully, I never went to grad school because I dropped out on day one.
15:14 Hank Green? I had, and I just became a freelance web developer.
15:18 John Green? Yeah.
15:19 Hank Green? After having my biochemistry degree.
15:20 John Green? Yeah.
15:21 Hank Green? Anyway. The, the thing that you're gonna be programmed for a little bit.
15:27 John Green? Yeah.
15:27 Hank Green? Is to create works of mastery.
15:30 John Green? Hmm.
15:31 Hank Green? And the thing that you should do.
15:33 John Green? Mm-hmm.
15:34 Hank Green? Is, instead of a sniper rifle, just like a handheld machine gun, where you're just like blasting out ideas.
15:41 John Green? Just doing lots of stuff in lots of directions.
15:44 Hank Green? Get it all out of there.
15:45 John Green? Yeah, instead of trying to be highly specialized, just like.
15:48 Hank Green? The pots.
15:49 John Green? The pots?
15:50 Hank Green? The pots.
15:51 John Green? What about the pots?
15:52 Hank Green? There's this parable, and I don't know if it's real.
15:54 John Green? Tell me the parable.
15:55 Hank Green? That, uh, that if you ask a person to make one perfect pot.
16:00 John Green? Yeah.
16:01 Hank Green? And give them a year.
16:02 John Green? Yeah.
16:02 Hank Green? They will make a worse pot than if you ask a person to make a thousand pots in one year.
16:07 John Green? I completely agree with that.
16:09 Hank Green? Yeah.
16:09 John Green? Um, as, as a potter.
16:12 Hank Green? Oh.
16:12 John Green? Um, I completely agree with that. If you asked, if you asked me to make a thousand mugs, the thousandth mug will be better than if you asked me to make one great mug.
16:20 Hank Green? Yeah.
16:21 John Green? Not least because of the pressure of making the one great mug.
16:24 Hank Green? Yeah, and that's what we do. We do that to ourselves.
16:26 John Green? Yep, absolutely.
16:27 Hank Green? We always think we're making the one perfect mug. And then I go back and I like look at the videos I made, or the stories I wrote, or the, you know, the science communication I did when I thought I was working on the one perfect thing. And I was like, oh, this was one of the shitty pots along the way.
16:43 John Green? Mm-hmm.
16:44 Hank Green? And like, I thought I was, I worked so, and like, there was value in all of that work.
16:48 John Green? Yeah, and by the way, as somebody who makes a Vlogbrothers video every Tuesday.
16:52 Hank Green? Yeah.
16:52 John Green? So I've made a lot of pots. I've made 1,200 Vlogbrothers pots over the last 18 years.
16:57 Hank Green? Yeah.
16:57 John Green? And many of them are not great.
16:59 Hank Green? Yeah.
17:00 John Green? But I still make one every Tuesday because sometimes I make a really good one.
17:03 Hank Green? And the, the, the most interesting thing to me, to me is like, what motivated us to make 1,200 of these?
17:10 John Green? Mm-hmm.
17:10 Hank Green? And it really is, like, in the beginning, it was each other.
17:13 John Green? It's still each other to some extent.
17:15 Hank Green? Well, yeah, yeah, but in the beginning, it was just each other.
17:18 John Green? Just each other.
17:18 Hank Green? And then, and then like, the, the richness of the obligation has continued to increase.
17:25 John Green? Yeah, for sure. But having someone you're responsible to is very helpful.
17:30 Hank Green? So this is a lot.
17:32 John Green? Yeah, I almost told you about my secret Patreon just now, but I decided not to. Let's move on to this question from Amanda. Dear John and Hank, I don't know if it's just me, but it feels like every man in my life takes forever to poop. For me as a woman, I don't go in the first minute or if I don't go in the first minute or so of sitting down, it's just not happening. Now, I may just be not noticing how long women take in the bathroom, but it does seem like men disappear in the bathroom all the time, forever. Is there something different about men's colons that requires them to sit a long time to poop? Or are they really just disappearing to get away from everything? Not a man, duh, Amanda. Really great name specific sign off.
18:05 Hank Green? Wow, so specific to the question.
18:08 John Green? A- and specific to the name.
18:09 Hank Green? Yes.
18:10 John Green? Really good sign off. Somebody asked us recently if the questions on the pod are real or if we fake them.
18:16 Hank Green? Because they all end in puns and so it seems like we must be faking them.
18:20 John Green? As if we are clever punsters. Have you heard Hank's dad jokes?
18:24 Hank Green? Oh.
18:24 John Green? No, that's all Amanda right there. That's Amanda's work. Hank, as somebody who takes a long time to poop, I thought you might be interested in this question.
18:33 Hank Green? I think that like, there's a variety of, of explanations for this phenomenon.
18:37 John Green? Yeah.
18:38 Hank Green? There are some times when it just takes a long time to poop. I don't know what this is called.
18:43 John Green? Mm hmm.
18:43 Hank Green? But my, my gastroenterologist refers to it as dry heaves of the butt.
18:50 John Green? Oh, wow. Yeah, I know what that is.
18:51 Hank Green? Yeah. Um, uh, and.
18:55 John Green? We're really covering all the major topics today.
18:58 Hank Green? You know, I don't have the healthiest colon, obviously.
19:01 John Green? Yeah. No, you have ulcerative colitis, just for context.
19:03 Hank Green? Yes. The, there will be times when I'll like, think I'm done and I'll be, and I will have pooped and then I'll be like, I gotta go again.
19:10 John Green? Yeah, then a little more, a little more happens.
19:12 Hank Green? Yeah, I'm like, ready to go.
19:13 John Green? So there's some of that.
19:14 Hank Green? Yeah.
19:15 John Green? I don't know if that's specific to men.
19:17 Hank Green? Yeah.
19:17 John Green? But there is also an element, I think sometimes of wanting to escape things.
19:21 Hank Green? Right.
19:22 John Green? Wanting to take a break.
19:22 Hank Green? This is a good point. That's definitely not specific to men.
19:25 John Green? Have quiet time. That's not specific to men either.
19:27 Hank Green? No.
19:27 John Green? I don't think any of this is specific to men.
19:29 Hank Green? I think that there might be a bunch of, there, there might be a, a greater proportion of guys who are like, I don't feel the need to leave this bathroom right now, even though I am done.
19:44 John Green? Oh, even though I'm done?
19:46 Hank Green? Oh, yeah, I'm done.
19:47 John Green? Oh, when I'm done, I'm done.
19:49 Hank Green? Well, okay.
19:50 John Green? I'm out.
19:51 Hank Green? What are you thinking? Like, I think these people just want like, they're just like, want a little more time for themselves.
19:55 John Green? But that's not good for your, that's not good for your colonic health.
19:58 Hank Green? No, it's not.
19:59 John Green? So that's why I don't do that. I'm a very, I don't know if you know this about me, Hank, but I'm very nervous about disease and illness.
20:07 Hank Green? Yeah.
20:07 John Green? And the idea of like unnecessarily spending time near fecal matter just doesn't resonate with me.
20:14 Hank Green? Well, then you won't be able to answer this question.
20:16 John Green? Well, that's why I was fascinated by the question because it doesn't resonate with me at all.
20:20 Hank Green? No, I think that there's a, there's a fair amount, and I do this. There's a fair amount of just like, well, I'm here, I'm scrolling.
20:26 John Green? Yeah. You're just gonna keep scrolling.
20:28 Hank Green? I'm just gonna keep, yeah. I think if I go out there, there's gonna be stuff to do.
20:32 John Green? Now, I, I very rarely will scroll or bring my phone into this whole endeavor precisely because I don't want to spend unnecessary time in the bathroom.
20:42 Hank Green? That's the thing to do.
20:43 John Green? All right, we're moving on to this question from Ein, I think. I might be mispronouncing this person's name and they didn't give me a name specific sign off to be sure.
20:51 Hank Green? Hmm.
20:52 John Green? Dear John and Hank, I grew up Catholic and never really thought too much about the details regarding relics. I just accepted it as part of the whole shebang. But looking back, I have a few questions. Like, how did people go about collecting relics or figuring out what had belonged to whom? Was there a process for discerning the saintly teeth from the non-saintly? Was it grave robbing or just snatching a bone or belonging at the time of death? I wonder if Hank even knows what relics are. This feels somehow like something John would have read about and I'm sure can connect to tuberculosis somehow, adesits and axial skeletons, Ein.
21:20 Hank Green? Uh.
21:21 John Green? Give me your knowledge of relics.
21:23 Hank Green? So, sometimes you go to an old church.
21:25 John Green? Yep.
21:26 Hank Green? In Europe.
21:26 John Green? Yep.
21:27 Hank Green? And there will be a thing.
21:28 John Green? Not just in Europe.
21:29 Hank Green? Well, sometimes I will go to an old church in Europe.
21:32 John Green? Yeah.
21:32 Hank Green? I did this.
21:33 John Green? Sure.
21:33 Hank Green? And there is a, there's an, there's a pillar in the middle of the church.
21:37 John Green? Mm-hmm.
21:37 Hank Green? And inside of the pillar is a box and inside of the box theoretically is like the finger of John the Baptist.
21:43 John Green? Right. John the Baptist, by the way, a many-fingered man.
21:47 Hank Green? Yeah.
21:48 John Green? Had at least thirty fingers.
21:49 Hank Green? One thing I know is that there's a lot of fingers.
21:51 John Green? Yeah.
21:52 Hank Green? And not a lot of John the Baptists.
21:55 John Green? Just the one. This is a problem with relics is that sometimes the number of relics, you know, like Saint Apollonia, the patron saint of dentists and tooth pain, because she had her teeth crushed by pincers as part of her martyrdom. There's a lot of, there's a lot of, a lot of dark stuff.
22:14 Hank Green? Yeah.
22:14 John Green? That people have suffered from religion, let's say, let's say like it is. Anyway, point being, Saint Apollonia has more teeth than she has teeth. You know what I mean? Like she's got, there's a lot of teeth out there.
22:25 Hank Green? Well, because they got crushed, so they're all in little pieces.
22:26 John Green? Well, but there's a lot of like, like crushed tooth relics out there that aren't necessarily Saint Apollonia's.
22:30 Hank Green? Right. I, I, I think I would, I would wager.
22:33 John Green? Yeah.
22:34 Hank Green? That none of them are.
22:35 John Green? No, some of them are.
22:36 Hank Green? Really?
22:37 John Green? Some of them are, for sure.
22:38 Hank Green? Did Saint Apollonia die in the last thousand years?
22:40 John Green? No.
22:41 Hank Green? Then I'd say none of them are.
22:42 John Green? Oh, maybe, maybe none of those, but there are relics that are legitimate.
22:45 Hank Green? Oh, okay.
22:46 John Green? That's what I'm saying.
22:47 Hank Green? Yeah, but there are some relics that are legitimate, but like, it's so easy to convince people of something. It like, like convincing people, if you can benefit from having a finger.
23:00 John Green? Mm-hmm.
23:00 Hank Green? And convincing somebody that this finger is a special finger.
23:04 John Green? Sure.
23:04 Hank Green? Then people will figure out how to do it.
23:07 John Green? Of course. That is not just true for religion and relics.
23:11 Hank Green? Oh, no, yeah, absolutely not. I'm just saying that like, like cons, con artists are a thing.
23:16 John Green? My position is that it doesn't matter if it's Saint Apollonia's tooth. Literally, if you go to that tooth and believe that it is Saint Apollonia's and you are in terrible dental pain and you ask Saint Ap- I'm not, I'm not a Catholic, but if you ask Saint Apollonia to intercede on your behalf with the pain, that is a way of trying to take the pain outside of yourself and, and, and, and share it. And, and, and pain is almost impossible to share and there may be meaning and usefulness in that.
23:47 Hank Green? Yeah.
23:48 John Green? The, the, the actual designation of the tooth matters less to me personally.
23:54 Hank Green? I think that that's fair.
23:56 John Green? Yeah.
23:56 Hank Green? Yeah. I think it's fair, especially if no one is currently trying to convince me to pay a bunch of money for a tooth.
24:03 John Green? Now, as is well known, while I don't enjoy being famous, I would love to be a saint.
24:08 Hank Green? Oh.
24:09 John Green? Oh, I'd love to be one.
24:10 Hank Green? But you don't get to be one.
24:12 John Green? What do you mean you don't get to be one?
24:13 Hank Green? You're not Catholic.
24:13 John Green? Well, that's one of the issues. But there are other issues that I like, that I don't deserve it.
24:20 John Green? I want you to be a saint too. I can auction off all of these parts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the thing I was gonna say. I want a diamond encrusted tooth that contains your teeth. I want a hint green. One for every thirty-two teeth. You're my relic auctioneer. Oh, yeah. Because you are a salesperson. Oh, yeah. You, you, you, you can. You're gonna knock a dog off a bone. And then you will make me donate all of the money. I will. I'll make you donate all the money to Partners in Health. I absolutely will. You're right. Which reminds me, that today's podcast is brought to you by John's Teeth. One day, to be donated, uh, to, to, to be used to raise money that will then be donated to Partners in Health. This podcast is also brought to you by the concept of interest. It goes both ways. Yeah, and today's podcast is additionally brought to you, um, by dry heaving of the butt.
25:05 John Green? Dry heaving of the butt, a phrase that I will not soon forget. This podcast is brought to you by a largemouth bass the size of a man. That was actually not in this podcast. That was in a video that we made before this.
25:21 John Green? But, good job. Good job. Good job. All right, we've got another question. This one's from Eleanor. Eleanor says, "Why is it that short stories are less popular than novels? Don't people have short attention spans? Shouldn't we love short stories?" It's a great question. Eleanor, they're too long. That's the problem with short stories. There's two things going on with short stories. One, is that they tend to be a little more literary, and I think people are suspicious of, of, uh, literariness. Like, they're suspicious of highfalutin art, and it makes them feel like, "This isn't the F1 movie. This is something that I'm supposed to eat, like broccoli." Yeah, and, and, and like, the short stories that I can think of that have, like, caught fire, are often not very literary. No. No, they're fun. Yeah.
26:04 John Green? Because, here's the thing. This is a very important thing to understand when it comes to art. Easy... And fun are not opposites. The opposite of easy is not fun.
26:16 Hank Green? Mm-hmm.
26:17 John Green? It's hard. And so you can have something that is that is fun while also being like worthy of critical reading.
26:25 Hank Green? Right.
26:26 John Green? This this.
26:27 Hank Green? Complex.
26:28 John Green? Complex, multitudinous.
26:29 Hank Green? Yeah.
26:30 John Green? You know, like, a lot of pop fiction is fun, but also interesting. Like, whatever you think of the year, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, uh, you can't argue that that book isn't isn't interesting. But like, it's also, you know, like, it also holds up to critical reading and stuff.
26:46 Hank Green? Yeah. And I always am surprised by this. Oftentimes, I'll like hit it, I'll I'll be like, fine, I'll read it, and I'll think that it was going to be like.
26:53 John Green? You'll think it's gonna be like broccoli. Because everyone's because everyone's been telling you how good it is, and you're like, oh, great. Good fiction is like hard work fiction.
27:01 Hank Green? Yeah. Yeah, like, I felt I'd never read a Kurt Vonnegut book.
27:05 John Green? Oh, so fun.
27:06 Hank Green? And and like, first of all, I was like Kurt Vonnegut, he's a he's a, you know, it's all literature.
27:11 John Green? Yeah.
27:11 Hank Green? And it's, I mean.
27:13 John Green? It's a good time.
27:13 Hank Green? It's, yeah.
27:14 John Green? Toni Morrison. You don't win the Nobel Prize by being by being merely hard.
27:19 Hank Green? Yeah.
27:19 John Green? Like, Toni Morrison is incredibly fun to read. Now, like, not like fun in the sense of like going down a slip and slide, but like.
27:26 Hank Green? Yeah.
27:26 John Green? You know, interesting, compelling, you wanna keep reading, the sentences are pleasurable to interact with.
27:32 Hank Green? Yeah, they're not work.
27:33 John Green? They're they're not merely work.
27:36 Hank Green? Right.
27:36 John Green? Like, and when they're work, they're they're they're so rewarding that it doesn't feel like work, right? Like, whether we're talking about Toni Morrison, or we're talking about Gatsby, or we're talking about The Catcher in the Rye, or we're we're talking about Speak by Laurie Holt Anderson, like, like, all these books are are good. Like, they're they're, like, there's a, like, you don't become a classic because you're not good. You become a classic because it's good, it's fun to read. Of Mice and Men is interesting to read.
28:02 Hank Green? Yeah. Yeah, all these books.
28:05 John Green? Scarlet Letter. I'm not sure.
28:07 Hank Green? Yeah.
28:08 John Green? Nathaniel Hawthorne never did it for me. You know who doesn't do it for me on a big level? Edith Wharton.
28:15 Hank Green? You're not gonna catch me knowing who that is.
28:18 John Green? Okay. Well, and I feel bad because I know Edith Warden has a lot of big supporters in our community, but it's just not, it's not my thing.
28:25 Hank Green? That's the thing.
28:26 John Green? But yeah, I, I, I am a little bit surprised that there isn't more of a short story culture in one way or another. I listen to a podcast of short stories.
28:35 Hank Green? Yeah.
28:35 John Green? The Clark's World podcast, and it's, it's great. You know, of course, it's, it's hit and miss.
28:41 Hank Green? Sure.
28:42 John Green? They're not all, they're not all bangers.
28:43 Hank Green? Yeah.
28:44 John Green? But it's, it's such an interesting way to spend a half an hour walk, like, listening to some new science fiction writers, like, take on First Contact, or, or pandemic fiction, or climate fiction, you know?
29:00 Hank Green? Is it all science fiction?
29:01 John Green? Yeah.
29:02 Hank Green? Okay. What's it called?
29:03 John Green? Clark's World.
29:04 Hank Green? Clark's World.
29:05 John Green? It's a sci-fi literary magazine, and they have a-
29:08 Hank Green? A fiction podcast.
29:09 John Green? Fiction podcast.
29:09 Hank Green? Yeah.
29:10 John Green? Um, and it's great, but I think that it can often be a little unsatisfying to a person who's used to reading novels.
29:17 Hank Green? Right, because with a novel, you have much more time to get engaged in the world. You get that, like-
29:22 John Green? Yeah, and, and you're almost like, you like, eat, hit the end and you're like, "Oh, I liked this, though."
29:27 Hank Green? Yeah.
29:28 John Green? Like, when it's a good one, you're like, "But what do they do next? What are the rock eaters gonna be up to?" Whereas with a novel, you can have that feeling of real overarching fulfillment, because you spent like 10 hours with the story.
29:41 Hank Green? Yeah.
29:41 John Green? But, I don't know. I think there's a lot of value to short stories. I think we should read them more, and it's a bummer to me that we don't, and I include myself in that. Hey, before we get to the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, we have an urgent complaint.
29:51 Hank Green? Oh.
29:52 John Green? From Lily and about 500 other people.
29:54 Hank Green? Oh, not about us. Great.
29:56 John Green? No, it is about us.
29:57 Hank Green? Oh.
29:57 John Green? We had a huge failure in a previous episode of the pod, and we need to correct it.
30:01 Hank Green? About 500 other people. I thought she was complaining about 500 people.
30:04 John Green? No, no, no. She's complaining about us. Dear John and only John.
30:08 Hank Green? Oh, good.
30:08 John Green? So that's good.
30:09 Hank Green? Mm-hmm.
30:10 John Green? That's my favorite kind of letter that we get when people are complaining.
30:13 Hank Green? I did well.
30:15 John Green? I have paused the most recent episode of the pod to write to you because the original doctor who said sneezing is never normal was a woman. You keep saying "he", and it is understandable because the name Never Sneezer Scrooge is excellent and does suggest a man. But the last thing we need in this day and age is to bury the historical contribution of yet another woman in medicine. Especially one so important. Thank you, Lily. And everybody else. Lily and everybody else, I am extremely sorry for forgetting that Dr. Never Sneezer Scrooge is in fact a woman and has made an important contribution to medicine by pointing out that sneezing is not, has never been, and will never be normal. And I apologize for failing on the bit.
30:57 John Green? Usually I commit to a bit, this time I failed on a bit and I am sorry. We've been at this for too long, John. Dr. Never Sneezer Scrooge was and always has been a woman. And a fish. And a fish like the rest of us. Again, Hank is referencing a video that we made, which is not part of this podcast, and is very confusing to the many listeners of this podcast who do not watch blog lovers videos. We've been sitting in the same place, though. Think about Hank, think about the person who said, "Can you describe your faces because I'll never see you." Yeah. Think about that person when you're thinking about this pod. Remember when you first saw like a radio DJ who you'd listen to? Oh, yeah. Devastating. Devastating. We get to be that for some people. We get to be that for some people. And don't Google what we look like. Just...
31:41 John Green? I think we look exactly how we sound. Have us be sounds. This is what I want to be most in the world, is to be made of waves and particles, to be like made of light and sound. Peter Thiel's gonna deliver that for you. Alright Hank, it's time for the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. I'll go first since I had some pretty significant AFC Wimbledon news. I don't even know if you know this, but um, along with 10 of my friends, I have acquired 3.7% of AFC Wimbledon. That's a pretty big deal. Yeah. So, uh, my friends and I- I didn't know that was possible because it's uh, it's uh, it's uh, not owned. It's a fan-owned club. Uh, 75% of the shares are owned by the Don's Trust, which is the fan-ownership group that everybody gets the same votes on. And then 25% of the club
32:26 John Green? uh, is purchasable, and has been purchased by a bunch of people over the years and um, and, and by a lot of fans. And I've bought a little bit. Now, this doesn't affect, it doesn't mean that you can control what happens with AFC Wimbledon. It's a fan-owned club, that 75% controls everything. Yeah. But, you can contribute to the club by owning shares in the club, um, up to 25% at the moment. There's some movement to move that to 50 to-
32:51 Hank Green? Forty-nine or something?
32:51 John Green? Forty-nine percent, but for now it's twenty-five percent and there were still some shares left. And so a bunch of my friends, most of them in Indianapolis, but some around the country, um, have got, come together and we have bought three point seven percent of the football club. This is incredibly exciting for me, uh, because I get to invest in a thing that I love. And, um, I don't, you know, in the, uh,
33:13 Hank Green? You're the news.
33:15 John Green? I'm the news. Also, our forward Osman Foyoh has just been charged with two hundred and thirty-eight counts of betting on football, but that's not the news. The news is me. And, um, yeah, so three point seven percent of the football club and I'm excited and that's it.
33:31 Hank Green? That's, that's bad.
33:32 John Green? It's not great, but the news about me is good and we're investing in the football club.
33:37 Hank Green? You just bought, you just bought some shares in a football club that is currently?
33:43 John Green? I mean, in,
33:44 Hank Green? That's a, that's a handleable problem.
33:46 John Green? It's a handleable problem. Charging is not the same thing as being convicted of and I have no idea what's going on and I don't want to know. The point is, we own three point seven percent of the football club. We invested because AFC Wimbledon is a fan-owned club. We don't want to change that, of course. Um, but we're excited and the money is going to go toward improvements to the stadium and paying down debt because we incurred a lot of debt, mostly to ourselves to finance the stadium. And so, um, we're going to help pay that down.
34:13 Hank Green? Sweet.
34:14 John Green? All right. What's the news from Mars?
34:15 Hank Green? It's up there doing, it's just chilling.
34:18 John Green? Mars is stable in a way that I wish Earth were stable, but I don't wish Earth were stable.
34:26 Hank Green? You don't want that.
34:27 John Green? I like part of, I do want that on a superficial level, but if I think about it more deeply, I don't want that.
34:32 Hank Green? Yeah.
34:33 John Green? I want Earth to be an unstable, unpredictable environment with a film of life, which includes Peter Thiel.
34:39 Hank Green? What?
34:42 Hank Green? What you, what you know about any four billion year old, uh, system of living chemistry is that it is built on trillions of corpses.
34:52 John Green? Wow.
34:52 Hank Green? So.
34:53 John Green? Well, you were just telling me about the mass extinction that was caused by trees, which was ultimately caused by trees decay. forming what we now know to be soil. Yeah. And then that's soil. And breaking up rocks. And breaking up rocks. And that soil and, and, and rock matter then getting into oceans and lakes and causing these massive algae blooms. Because of overoxygenation, which killed seventy-five percent of species. We think of trees as being so friendly and innocuous, but once they killed seventy-five percent of species on Earth. Yeah, no, they went hard. They were like, when lignin evolved, man, it was a whole different ballgame. Meanwhile, we've killed, what, like, eight percent? We got a long way to go if we want to be trees.
35:36 John Green? Uh, they had more time and we've got, we've got more time. Hopefully. Well, I mean, hopefully not to cause mass extinctions, but yes, we are, um. We're smarter than trees, so we should be able to rein it in. Should. We could. It's theoretically possible. Trees couldn't. And I believe that we will. We are the first creature to do what we are doing and know that we are doing it. And I believe that we are also the first creature that will be able to make the choice to do less of what we are doing that is harmful. Or maybe. Hmm. We won't make the choice, it'll just happen anyway. Yeah. Well, that is sort of the stark reality that we face at the moment.
36:21 John Green? Anyway, we don't want to be Mars. We also don't want to be this Earth. We want to be a better Earth. Be a better Earth. But the fact that we know that. Mm-hmm. Is new. It's relatively new. Well, geologically, it's extremely new. Geologically, it's new. Even in terms of human history, it's extremely new. It's very new. And we're getting used to it, and we're not doing a very good job, but we can do a better job together. Thank you for coming to my second TED Talk. This episode of Dear Hank and Donald is edited by Ben Swordout, mixed by Joseph Tudametash. Marketing specialist is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosiana Halsrohass and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Bradley. Our editorial assistant is Tuvok Yachter Vardy. The music you're hearing now at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gonna Roll Up.
37:04 John Green? And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.
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