442: They’ve Been Plants the Whole Time

Do you ever wonder if a listener question comes from a celebrity? Why are most metals gray? Why does holding a baby silence the worry? How do you decide what to do after school? Can moles convert CO2 to Oxygen? How do you deal with grief? How do potatoes know which way is up? …Hank and John Green have answers! If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [email protected] Join us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn Produced for Hank and John Green by Complexly See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:01Hank Green?

  You're listening to a Complexly podcast.

• 0:09Hank Green?

  Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John.

• 0:12John Green?

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

• 0:14Hank Green?

  It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you the best advice and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, I have a friend, I think he might be addicted to brake fluid.

• 0:24John Green?

  Oh.

• 0:24Hank Green?

  Says he can stop anytime.

• 0:28John Green?

  That's not bad.

• 0:29Hank Green?

  Okay.

• 0:30John Green?

  Okay.

• 0:31Hank Green?

  I am so tired and I'm worried because as we're recording this, it's right before the Project for Awesome.

• 0:36John Green?

  Yeah.

• 0:36Hank Green?

  I am, I am like, I feel like something is, is sapping the energy from my body and it's probably just not sleeping enough.

• 0:46John Green?

  Yeah, I actually have a fever right now.

• 0:48Hank Green?

  Oh, no.

• 0:49John Green?

  Yeah.

• 0:50Hank Green?

  You look amazing, like your hair, what's going on there?

• 0:53John Green?

  Olympic fever.

• 0:55Hank Green?

  Oh, no.

• 0:56John Green?

  Olympic fever, Hank. I got a bad case.

• 0:59Hank Green?

  Okay. Which, what's your, what's your, what's your favorite piece of drama?

• 1:04John Green?

  Mixed doubles curling, Hank.

• 1:08Hank Green?

  Oh.

• 1:08John Green?

  One man, one woman, sometimes brother and sister, sometimes husband and wife, sometimes just buddies.

• 1:13Hank Green?

  Uh huh.

• 1:14John Green?

  From the curling crew in Duluth, Minnesota.

• 1:18Hank Green?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:18John Green?

  Like Corey and Corey, the Americans who stunned the world by getting the silver medal.

• 1:24Hank Green?

  Hey, Miracle on Ice, part two.

• 1:27John Green?

  You will never find me more patriotic than when it comes to the Olympics. Suddenly I've become just a massive, a massive fan of the United States of America.

• 1:36Hank Green?

  Here's, okay, I watched a little clip where someone's broom broke.

• 1:41John Green?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:41Hank Green?

  And they fell and they like kicked a stone. What happens?

• 1:43John Green?

  And if you kick a stone, they have the right to place it.

• 1:47Hank Green?

  Oh, they can put it wherever they want.

• 1:49John Green?

  Well, no, they have to put it about where they think it would have been.

• 1:51Hank Green?

  Oh, wow. Is there no other penalty besides that?

• 1:56John Green?

  The one time I saw it happen to Corey and Corey, there was no other penalty.

• 2:00Hank Green?

  Wow, I would have thought that that would have been a big deal. I bet they send you home.

• 2:06John Green?

  No, no, I think-

• 2:07Hank Green?

  You go straight onto the plane. You touch a stone.

• 2:09John Green?

  My understanding is that curling is largely a sport defined by its sportsmanship, you know, one of those.

• 2:16Hank Green?

  Yeah, for now. Until it gets, until it gets really high status and then, then they're flopping on the ground pretending to be injured, all that stuff.

• 2:26John Green?

  That never happens in football. If that, if that only happened in high status football, explain why it happens at AFC Wimbledon all the time.

• 2:35Hank Green?

  The culture has been defined by the high status football.

• 2:39John Green?

  Maybe. Maybe. I think it was always thus.

• 2:43Hank Green?

  I don't know. It's interesting. You don't, you know, I guess penalties aren't the same in most sports where it's, they're very consequential.

• 2:52John Green?

  Yeah, a penalty is a big, big deal in football. Yeah.

• 2:55Hank Green?

  So like, that's probably why they flop. And penalties are, are gonna be big deals in curling when we introduce my new rules. If you touch one of those, whatever touched it, we take.

• 3:12John Green?

  You shall be separated from your foot, sir.

• 3:16Hank Green?

  That's ours now. Now you have to, you have to, and that becomes your curling stone. You have to throw your foot down the thing.

• 3:22John Green?

  Oh, wow. Well, I'm sorry you're tired, Hank, but you still have all the same creativity that I've come to know and love over the years. So it's good. I'm excited for the Project for Awesome, although it will probably be over by the time this podcast actually airs.

• 3:35Hank Green?

  Yes, very much so.

• 3:35John Green?

  So I hope you had a good P for A and I'm sorry that you can't donate anymore. But you can always donate to Complexly, which is now a nonprofit.

• 3:44Hank Green?

  Complexly.org. It's .org.

• 3:48John Green?

  That's right.

• 3:49Hank Green?

  That's right. Do you want to talk about that at all? Do we want to get into it?

• 3:52John Green?

  Oh, yeah. Let's get into it for a minute.

• 3:54Hank Green?

  Yeah. I, I just, I've, I've done like a bunch of interviews and I feel like I'm doing a bad, a bad job because we had it, we, we hired a PR firm and they were like, you gotta stick to the message. And I'm like, you got the wrong guy.

• 4:06John Green?

  You definitely have the wrong guy for sticking to the message.

• 4:10Hank Green?

  They like booked me on this podcast and the guy started the podcast and then he like immediately started asking me questions about the topic of the podcast and I was like, when do I say my thing? And he did not bring it up at all. I had to like say it at the end.

• 4:22John Green?

  Wow. Well, let's say it at the beginning here. We have decided to transition Complexly from being owned by Hank and John Green, or as I prefer to think of it, John and Hank Green, to being owned by the public as a nonprofit organization.

• 4:39Hank Green?

  Yeah, it's interesting like how the ownership actually works. I was like, who actually owns a nonprofit? And it just kind of owns itself.

• 4:46John Green?

  Yeah, it's all owned by the people who care about it, which is appropriate for Complexly.

• 4:50Hank Green?

  We just, we decided that we, we've experienced the incentives of the, of the, the platforms as a business for long enough. And we'd like to experience the incentives of, of a nonprofit in this space. And I think that like so far it's been, it's, I think very, it's felt like the right decision the whole time.

• 5:11John Green?

  Yeah, it definitely feels like the right decision. I mean, only you and I know how much money we've left on the table, but even so, even so amongst ourselves, it feels like the right decision because, you know, ultimately Complexly, which makes Crash Course and SciShow and lots of other educational media, it, it's not right for it to be owned by a private corporation or even private individuals. And so the succession plan had to be some version of it being owned by the people who benefit from it and care about it. And really the, the built in way to do that is to become a nonprofit.

• 5:50Hank Green?

  Yeah. And there were lots of things pushing us in that direction, including all of the support that we have gotten from people over the years who've been giving money to a for-profit organization, trusting that we're not going to put it into our pockets, which we did not do. And I am so grateful to all of those people for getting Crash Course coins, getting SciShow postcards.

• 6:09John Green?

  Supporting the Dear Hank and John Patreon, which has always gone to Complexly.

• 6:13Hank Green?

  And we'll continue, we should say, we'll continue to support Complexly at, at the Dear Hank and John Patreon.

• 6:19John Green?

  Yeah, for the foreseeable future. That may change at some point, but if it does, we'll communicate.

• 6:22Hank Green?

  Yeah. I thought, well, I think if we do, like that, that there will be a new Patreon that we will start from scratch for Dear Hank and John or something like that.

• 6:32John Green?

  Yeah, we'll figure it out.

• 6:33Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 6:34John Green?

  I'm not that worried about it.

• 6:35Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 6:36John Green?

  And I don't think the people who listen to this podcast are that worried about it either. But yeah, we're really excited that it's.

• 6:42Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 6:43John Green?

  Thank you for trusting us and we hope that we have. We work really, really hard to try to repay that trust. And not abuse it because it's an easy thing to abuse and it's easy to make decisions that are about making money. And sometimes we make those decisions to be clear, but this time it just felt like we couldn't. So this was the, this was the choice we did.

• 7:09Hank Green?

  I, well, yeah, I want, I want the thing to be pushing us to, cause like, one of the things was all of the sort of business things that we should have been doing would have potentially decreased our impact pretty substantially. It was like, how do you charge for things? How do you make it so that it's harder to access them? And I was like, that's not what we want to do. And we, we kept sort of running up against those opportunities and, and not making those decisions in a way that pretty, that, that almost indicated that maybe we were more mission driven than, than revenue driven.

• 7:41Hank Green?

  And, and that mission is constrained in a way that, that is pretty nonprofit-y. We want to be a content company. We want to make stuff for people.

• 7:51John Green?

  Yeah. And now we get to make stuff for people while also enjoying not owning the business, which for me is a big win. Like owning the business was stressful.

• 8:04Hank Green?

  That too. I mean, I, we, it will continue to be stressful because we will continue to care about it. But that's what stress is, John. It's care.

• 8:12John Green?

  Stress is care.

• 8:14Hank Green?

  Manifest.

• 8:15John Green?

  But

• 8:18John Green?

  there can be too much of it. And I had too much of it.

• 8:20Hank Green?

  For sure.

• 8:20John Green?

  Yeah. And now I have a little less. Can we answer some questions from our listeners, beginning with this one from Faye?

• 8:25Hank Green?

  Yes, we can.

• 8:27John Green?

  Dear John and Hank, do you ever wonder if a question you answer on the pod might be from a famous person? Like, maybe one of the many Taylors you read questions from was, in fact, Taylor Allison Swift. Or maybe she used her middle name to be more anonymous. Or maybe even something completely unrelated to her, just in case people are too perceptive. I like using a pseudonym on the internet for privacy, and I'm not even famous, so I imagine celebrities must use them all the time.

• 8:48Hank Green?

  Ah.

• 8:48John Green?

  Ofe, I think you radically underestimate the extent to which celebrities are narcissistic. But anyway, and yes.

• 8:54Hank Green?

  But most of the pseudonymous celebrity posting is in the replies to the celebrities' posts. Actually, I think he has a good point.

• 9:07John Green?

  Oh, somebody tagged me on Reddit in a post that said, just said, "I hate John Green." It was in response to celeb-- it was like, who's a celebrity who everybody likes who you hate?

• 9:18Hank Green?

  Me?

• 9:19John Green?

  It was "I hate John Green."

• 9:21Hank Green?

  That was the question, yeah.

• 9:22John Green?

  Yeah, exactly. And I wanted to reply, "You think you hate him."

• 9:29John Green?

  But I didn't, I stopped myself. Anyway, let's get back to this question from Faye, aka Taylor Swift.

• 9:35Hank Green?

  Yeah. Ah, Faye? Like, Faylor Swift?

• 9:46Hank Green?

  Like, maybe she changes her name to a totally different name to be more anonymous? Something completely, or maybe very slightly related, like, Faye for Taylor, we see you.

• 9:58John Green?

  We see you.

• 9:59Hank Green?

  We appreciate you. We know you're a fan.

• 10:02John Green?

  Well, I mean, she is, weirdly, but yeah.

• 10:06Hank Green?

  I don't know. Wait, is she?

• 10:08John Green?

  A fan?

• 10:09Hank Green?

  Of you?

• 10:10John Green?

  Yeah.

• 10:11Hank Green?

  Of your books?

• 10:12John Green?

  Out of, yeah.

• 10:14Hank Green?

  Out of, like, us?

• 10:15John Green?

  Well, I assume that every, all of the 30 million people who read The Fault in Our Stars also went on to listen to our hit podcast for teens and sleep, Dear Hank and John.

• 10:25Hank Green?

  I forget, remember the time when I introduced a new segment, we had to stop because we're a sleep podcast?

• 10:32John Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're too much of a sleep podcast.

• 10:34Hank Green?

  And then I was like, in the middle of things, like I like, uh, cause I wanted to be like the McElroy brothers. I'd, I'd say, it's time for a million dollar idea.

• 10:42John Green?

  Don't do it. Don't do it. Hank, you're ruining the sleep podcast.

• 10:44Hank Green?

  They just started. They're fine.

• 10:47John Green?

  Okay.

• 10:47Hank Green?

  And then I'd pitch you on a million dollar idea.

• 10:49John Green?

  Yeah, I remember the whole bit. 999, 998, 997. Just keep counting. All right, we're gonna get through this question from Faye if it's the last thing I do, and it might be.

• 11:03Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 11:03John Green?

  Faye writes, maybe the last question you read was from a famous person and you'll never know. Maybe this question is Faye.

• 11:08Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 11:09John Green?

  Do we still sign off with pumpkins and penguins or is that to 2016 Faye? We still sign off with pumpkins and penguins? I know a lot of celebrities listen to this podcast. I know it for a fact.

• 11:19Hank Green?

  All right. How do you know that for a fact?

• 11:22John Green?

  Because sometimes I'll meet a celebrity and they'll, they'll say like, I like your podcast. And I'll be like, I can't believe you listen to my podcast. That's so weird. I mean, we're not talking about necessarily huge celebrities. Mike Birbiglia, for instance, listens to the podcast.

• 11:34Hank Green?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 11:36John Green?

  And I love Mike Birbiglia. And I think he's a proper.

• 11:38Hank Green?

  He's got a good podcast. I love his podcast.

• 11:40John Green?

  I know. His podcast's way better than ours. It's called Working It Out. You should listen to that. It's a great sleep podcast. Oh, my God. You'll laugh and you'll sleep.

• 11:53Hank Green?

  You'll laugh in your sleep. That's, I mean, that's, that's adorable visual. I feel like I've never laughed in my sleep.

• 12:01John Green?

  Cutest possible thing a person could do.

• 12:03Hank Green?

  I talk in my sleep, but the voice that I use is this really scared child voice. And Sarah's always like, you're talking in your sleep and it's really weird and freaking me out. Yikes.

• 12:16John Green?

  Yeah.

• 12:16Hank Green?

  Yikes.

• 12:17John Green?

  It's the only voice I can use. And sometimes I'll be in my dream and I'll be like, oh no, I gotta speak. And I'm gonna have to use that fragile child voice.

• 12:24Hank Green?

  Weird. You're, you're so, you're so messed up.

• 12:29John Green?

  I am messed up. I, I, I am, uh, it's true. I'm not gonna deny it. You know, the other thing that's weird about me that I've never confessed on this podcast.

• 12:35Hank Green?

  Why do you look so good right now, by the way? Why did you, why?

• 12:38John Green?

  I just got a haircut. I got a haircut today.

• 12:40Hank Green?

  Sharp as today? Like that's how they styled it?

• 12:43John Green?

  I got a haircut at 11 a.m. and it's 1:23 p.m. So I haven't had time to mess it up yet.

• 12:48Hank Green?

  Okay. It looks great.

• 12:50John Green?

  The other thing about my sleep that I've never confessed to anyone in my life, but will now confess on this podcast is you know how you wake up in the morning with a song in your head for some reason?

• 12:59Hank Green?

  Uh huh.

• 13:00John Green?

  Almost every morning I wake up with the same song in my head.

• 13:03Hank Green?

  I feel like you have confessed this before on this podcast. God.

• 13:09Hank Green?

  That's so, I mean, we've made so many episodes. Is it, I, I, it's, it's, I feel like it's from the seventies.

• 13:16John Green?

  It is.

• 13:17Hank Green?

  And it's, it's.

• 13:18John Green?

  Or the eighties, maybe.

• 13:19Hank Green?

  A female singer.

• 13:20John Green?

  It is a female singer. I'll even give you a hint. It's Bette Midler.

• 13:24Hank Green?

  Oh. I thought it was Wind Beneath My Wings.

• 13:27John Green?

  It is Wind Beneath My Wings.

• 13:28Hank Green?

  Oh, that's Bette Midler. I don't know.

• 13:30John Green?

  In, in Beaches?

• 13:31Hank Green?

  Oh, Beaches.

• 13:33John Green?

  It's from Beaches.

• 13:34Hank Green?

  I've, right.

• 13:35John Green?

  I haven't heard the song.

• 13:36Hank Green?

  I assume that's a movie or an album.

• 13:39John Green?

  It's a, it's a movie. It's a really sad movie. People say it's the fault in our stars of the eighties.

• 13:46Hank Green?

  I guess that is the eighties.

• 13:48John Green?

  You know what's funny? I don't really like movies like that.

• 13:55Hank Green?

  I also, I will, I will wake up with, I, I have a couple of anchor songs and it doesn't bother me and it seems like it would.

• 14:02John Green?

  No, it doesn't bother me at all. I love.

• 14:03Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 14:04John Green?

  You are the wind beneath my, the wind beneath my wings. That's what I always, that's what I always sing to myself.

• 14:09Hank Green?

  If anybody could cut that and mix it into a John Green version of the song, that'd be great.

• 14:14John Green?

  An EDM song?

• 14:15Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 14:20John Green?

  Sorry, we're a sleep podcast.

• 14:22Hank Green?

  I don't, I, so, so do you think Mike Rebigley has ever sent us a, I bet it's happened. Look, I bet it's happened. I don't think Mike. You think celebrities would say, hey, it's celebrity?

• 14:35John Green?

  Totally. Because then they're more likely to get their question answered. Yes, I think they would 100% be like, hey, it's me, Tim Apple.

• 14:47Hank Green?

  Man, if I had Tim Apple's email address, what do you think I'd do with it?

• 14:51John Green?

  Uh, nothing. Same thing I do with Elon Musk's text message address.

• 14:54Hank Green?

  Ay, ay, ay. Well, hopefully those guys are on different lists.

• 15:02John Green?

  Let's hope so.

• 15:06John Green?

  It does seem to be a list that a lot of them are on, but moving on. I think we've answered Faye's question, not well, but we've answered it.

• 15:12Hank Green?

  We are kind of a mess right now, but we'll, we'll lock in.

• 15:15John Green?

  Yeah.

• 15:15Hank Green?

  All right. This next question, John, it comes from Ruth, who asks, Dear Hank of John, rocks and gases come in every color imaginable. Why are metals always silver slash gray? I guess iron turns red when it oxidizes, but in their base form, I feel like metals are all pretty much the same color. The opposite of ruthless, I'm full of Ruth.

• 15:36John Green?

  Oh, man, that's, uh, I make that joke in my new book.

• 15:40Hank Green?

  Wow.

• 15:41John Green?

  And I don't want people to think that I stole this idea from Ruth.

• 15:44Hank Green?

  So you have to say it right now.

• 15:45John Green?

  Separate from Ruth. So I feel like I have to say it right now, establish that the, the date is February 11th, the 2026, and this has been in my manuscript for at least five years.

• 15:58Hank Green?

  Good. You don't want a joke thief in, in the house.

• 16:01John Green?

  No.

• 16:02Hank Green?

  I asked, I, I asked this question. I chose this question from you, Ruth, to discuss on the podcast. Specifically because I and Taboki have worked hard to try and understand this and we have failed. And I think that sometimes we should, we should just say that, you know, there's all kinds of like, there's things you can say. And you'll be like, oh, that sounds like an explanation, but you won't get it. Like to actually, like, I have not gotten myself to get it. And if I can't get it, then I feel like I can't help other people get it. I will say there are some metals that are not silver. Famously, there's one that is gold and copper is another example.

• 16:41John Green?

  There's one that's gold.

• 16:43Hank Green?

  Thanks. Yeah.

• 16:46Hank Green?

  It's a good joke. And, and then there, there are alloys that are different colors, but they are all like shiny. There, there's like a, there's a thing that they all have in common and that's for real. And, uh, and oxidize, like oxidation doesn't count. That's a totally different compound. The, yeah, but, and, and there's a reason and there are people who get it.

• 17:08Hank Green?

  But it's a it's a light thing and it's an electrons thing and it's it's an orbitals thing and it's like deep in there and I

• 17:15John Green?

  You struggle you struggle with light.

• 17:17Hank Green?

  I don't like light. Somebody asked me recently, they said like Hank, why, why when a rock gets wet, does it get darker? And I was like, I'm gonna figure this one out. No problem. Two hours later, two hours later. I like, I get it better. But this is the thing. One of the reasons, there's more than one reason. So there's multiple effects occurring at the same time. But one of them, one of the the reasons has to do with the fact that when light hits a rock, it goes in a little bit.

• 17:47John Green?

  Hmm. It doesn't just reflect back. It hardly goes in.

• 17:52Hank Green?

  That seems wrong. That's not what that's not how that's not how I understand rocks to be. But actually, there is a there is a depth that the light penetrates. That is not zero.

• 18:02John Green?

  Does the light penetrate me?

• 18:05Hank Green?

  Yeah, for sure. Actually, much more than it would penetrate a rock.

• 18:08John Green?

  That's very good metaphorically.

• 18:10Hank Green?

  Held up like a light, like a strong flashlight to your hand, you know?

• 18:14John Green?

  Oh, yeah, that's true. That's very, that's a very good, that's, that's a reasonably good metaphor.

• 18:20Hank Green?

  It's like that.

• 18:21John Green?

  The light can get in. Like in fact, the light always gets in.

• 18:24Hank Green?

  The light always gets in if there is any.

• 18:27John Green?

  If there is any. I have an artwork in my house by the great artist Carl Pope, who makes posters for mottos that it's sort of like our sponsors on the podcast.

• 18:42Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 18:43John Green?

  You know, like posters for mottos that are underappreciated or that no one else would ever like, you know, put a, put a, put on a poster necessarily. And one of them says, nobody made the darkness.

• 18:57John Green?

  And I just love that. I love it.

• 18:59Hank Green?

  Good.

• 19:01John Green?

  It's so true. It's so deep and it's so true.

• 19:03Hank Green?

  That's good.

• 19:05John Green?

  All right. So we don't know the answer to why metals tend to be shiny and silver.

• 19:09Hank Green?

  We, as humanity do, but we as Hank and John do not.

• 19:13John Green?

  We as John sure don't.

• 19:16John Green?

  All right, let's answer another question, Hank. This one from Heather who writes, Dear John and Hank, I just started listening to your podcast after a Reddit recommendation and have been enjoying it a lot. As a fellow worried person, my mind likes to spiral on big and little things. And recently, my best friend had a baby and I went to meet him. He's cute and small and I adore him, but my most surprising thing is that when I held him, the worry went away and all I could think about was how silly it was to be a worried person when the only thing that mattered in the world was this little baby. I don't have children yet and was wondering if this is a universal experience and also why holding a baby would silence the worry. Thanks. You can call me any flower if you want to. Heather.

• 19:50Hank Green?

  Well, we went with Heather, which is one of them. So.

• 19:52John Green?

  Peony. Sorry, it took me a second. I didn't get the joke.

• 19:58John Green?

  I'm going with peony. Peony.

• 20:00Hank Green?

  Okay.

• 20:00John Green?

  Here's the thing. When I first held my child, the worry did not go away.

• 20:07John Green?

  So I'm very glad you had this experience, but I can, I can, I can be, say with absolute certainty that it's not universal.

• 20:12Hank Green?

  Yeah. Tulip, I agree, though there is like a thing that I had. I remember being like, oh, I'm not worried that I'm doing the wrong thing right now. You know?

• 20:26Hank Green?

  That, yeah, right?

• 20:28John Green?

  I remember wanting to.

• 20:30Hank Green?

  Finally, I'm like, this is exactly the right thing I should be doing right now, which is a, like, is a valuable feeling and not one that I was expecting to get. So in the same way as you, Lilac, I had this moment where I felt like something pretty different.

• 20:46John Green?

  Every time I would hold my kids when they were very, very little, I would think about this thing I'd been told once that probably isn't even true, that they can feel your anxiety.

• 20:56Hank Green?

  Oh, boy.

• 20:56John Green?

  And I would be like, don't feel it.

• 20:58Hank Green?

  Very anxious.

• 20:58John Green?

  Exactly. I would be like, don't, don't communicate anxiety to them. But you are worried.

• 21:05Hank Green?

  It's like when I finished, I finished cancer treatment and my doctor was like, one of the things you're gonna want to do is avoid any excess stress. And I was like, don't say that.

• 21:15Hank Green?

  That's very stressful. I don't know how to avoid stress, Doc.

• 21:20John Green?

  And now every time I feel stressed.

• 21:21Hank Green?

  My expertise is.

• 21:22John Green?

  Now, every time I feel stressed, I'm gonna have the compounding stress of knowing I'm really digging my wrist for cancer.

• 21:27Hank Green?

  Yeah, I have a, I don't have that anymore, though now that I've said this, I might have it a little bit, but I had it really strong for the first year and a half.

• 21:35John Green?

  Yeah.

• 21:36Hank Green?

  Like every time.

• 21:36John Green?

  I will agree with you, Hank, that when, when you're holding a baby, you feel like you're doing the thing that you're supposed to be doing, and that is clarifying in some ways, right? Like, even if it's not necessarily solving the anxiety, it clarifies one facet of anxiety, which is like, what the hell am I supposed to be doing all the time?

• 21:58Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 21:58John Green?

  It helps with that.

• 22:00Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 22:00John Green?

  Yeah, no, it's good, man. Holding a baby, underrated. Sarah is always like, hey, don't ask to hold that baby. You don't know that baby, and you don't even know that that parent. And I'm always like, mm, I don't want to ask to hold the baby so bad.

• 22:18John Green?

  It's been a long time since I held a baby, to be honest with you.

• 22:20Hank Green?

  It's nice. Yeah, you gotta, you gotta get more younger friends.

• 22:24John Green?

  I know. I gotta get friends in my, in their twenties. But they're so energetic.

• 22:29Hank Green?

  It's true. No.

• 22:30John Green?

  You know?

• 22:31Hank Green?

  And I mean, God, I cannot believe that's the nonsense that we used to get up to.

• 22:36John Green?

  We had so much time.

• 22:38Hank Green?

  We had so much time and so much energy.

• 22:40John Green?

  So much energy. I remember I used to run down the halls of a hotel just to feel myself running down the halls of a hotel.

• 22:47Hank Green?

  That's definitely a good childhood activity.

• 22:50John Green?

  But I did it when I was like 30.

• 22:53Hank Green?

  Oh, wow. Cute.

• 22:55John Green?

  I know. Uh, which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by running down the halls of a hotel. Running down the halls of a hotel just because you can. Do it now, because when you're 48, it's not gonna be there.

• 23:10Hank Green?

  This podcast is also brought to you by the coldest metal, the coldest metal. It's gold and also probably won by Canada in the, in the couples curling.

• 23:19John Green?

  No, it was actually won by Sweden. Very exciting final game. I was very proud of Corey and Corey for how they behaved and just held themselves. Look, being an Olympic medalist is an incredible achievement, whether that medal is gold or silver or bronze, which it occurs to me are three different colors.

• 23:35Hank Green?

  It's true. Bronze, though, is not an element.

• 23:37John Green?

  Oh, that's right. Bronze comes from smelting of some kind, right? That's why we have the bronze age.

• 23:44Hank Green?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 23:45John Green?

  Yeah. The kind of fact checking that I don't appreciate for the record. Which reminds me that today's podcast is also brought to you by Hank's fact checking. Hank's fact checking. I've had about enough of it.

• 23:56Hank Green?

  This podcast is also brought to you by Failer Swift. Failer Swift, we know you're watching. We know you're listening. We know you're a fan. And, and also Bette Midler, who's also listening and is the wind beneath John's wings.

• 24:12John Green?

  Huge fan of the pod. Um, hear from Bette all the time.

• 24:16Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 24:17John Green?

  Is Bette with us?

• 24:19Hank Green?

  I believe so.

• 24:20John Green?

  Let's double check real quick, just to make sure we don't, didn't hurt anybody's feelings.

• 24:24Hank Green?

  She's here. She's at it.

• 24:26John Green?

  How's she doing?

• 24:27Hank Green?

  She's in Honolulu, Hawaii.

• 24:29John Green?

  And she's 80.

• 24:31Hank Green?

  She's 80.

• 24:32John Green?

  That's a good run. Ooh, she's been married to the same person since 1984.

• 24:38John Green?

  Yvonne Hasselberg, no less.

• 24:41Hank Green?

  That, of course.

• 24:43John Green?

  I don't want to say that it seems like from Wikipedia that Bette Midler has it figured out, but it does seem like she has it figured out. I mean, she's got a six decade career. She's 80 years old. She's been married to the same person since 1984. She has a Grammy. She's 5'1". I mean, that's a pretty good life.

• 24:58Hank Green?

  It's always good to be 5'1". Yeah. Martin von Hasselberg. Um, I clicked on that and it opened the Wikipedia page for the Kipper Kids.

• 25:09John Green?

  Oh.

• 25:10Hank Green?

  A duo. Um, of which, of which Martin, Martin Roche Sebastian von Hasselberg is one of. Uh, they're known for their extreme often comedic performance art.

• 25:23John Green?

  Oh.

• 25:24Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 25:24John Green?

  They're comedic performance artists. I, I enjoy a comedic performance artist. One time I was at a performance art event with Sarah and the artist was handing out like, uh, candy that tasted intentionally bad.

• 25:37Hank Green?

  Oh, yes.

• 25:38John Green?

  Candy, eat candy disgusting things.

• 25:40Hank Green?

  Sure.

• 25:41John Green?

  And, um, he was like, eat it. And I was like, I don't, I don't, I don't want to. And he's like, it's part of the performance. And I was like, all right, cause I don't want to be a bother, you know? Like, I'll do anything to not be a bother. And so it was crab, it was crab, crab flavored. It wasn't great.

• 25:56Hank Green?

  Yep. Yeah.

• 25:57John Green?

  That's it. That's the story. It's not my best.

• 25:59Hank Green?

  That sounds gross. I wish I, oh, we have to end the sponsors though, so the real sponsorship can play.

• 26:05John Green?

  Good show.

• 26:05Hank Green?

  This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by Quince. I do very much like opening up my closet and finding an item that I know is going to be both comfortable and I'm just gonna look good in it. It's gonna go well with my khakis or my jeans or my third kind of pant that I, I have like a, or like a pair of orange pants, just things that make getting dressed easier. And that's what Quince does best. Quince focuses on high quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton and merino wool. And the styles are timeless and they're versatile and they're designed to become dependable pieces that you reach for day after day. This morning I put on this jacket that I'm currently wearing with just a white t-shirt and I knew immediately

• 26:48Hank Green?

  this is gonna work. I went downstairs and Catherine was like, look at that nice jacket. Where'd that come from? You know where it came from? It came from Quince. Everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands because they work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middleman. So you're paying for the quality, not the brand markup. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or Go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know that it was Dear Hank and John. It's a good way to support the show. I feel like I should say it's Q-U-I-N-C-E. I guess it's pretty easy to spell Quince. Quince.com. I feel tempted to make up a tagline for them, but that's not what they want me to do.

• 27:33Hank Green?

  I shouldn't do that.

• 27:39John Green?

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

• 28:24John Green?

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

• 29:05John Green?

  We're really crushing it on this episode of Dear Hank and John. This next question comes from Audrey.

• 29:09Hank Green?

  It's been a loose one.

• 29:10John Green?

  It's been a loose one. You know, sometimes you get a tight 45 and sometimes you get a real loosey goosey sleep podcast and you never know which one you're gonna get. Dear John and Hank, I'm coming up on one year post grad with my bachelor's in environmental studies. I do not currently have any interest or funds for more school. How do you decide what route to pursue? I deeply believe that it is never too late to shift tracks. So that's not necessarily where this trepidation is coming from. Nothing is permanent in a good way, but I am struggling to envision myself in any career right now. I recently interviewed for what I thought was my dream job and not only did I not get it, but more importantly, I left the interview process not really wanting it. I don't know if it's the constant uncertainty in the political sphere or what, but I don't know what to do or how to decide. Might be joining the Peace Corps. Audrey. Audrey, join the Peace Corps.

• 29:52Hank Green?

  Yeah, that actually, I think you figured it out.

• 29:56John Green?

  I don't know.

• 29:56Hank Green?

  If that's an option.

• 29:58John Green?

  That's what my best friend did. And then he came home and started a business based on his experience in the Peace Corps and did that for the next 30 years and it was great.

• 30:05Hank Green?

  Yeah, I mean, it's 2026. Don't think that you're making a choice that's going to be the choice that you are stuck in for the rest of your life.

• 30:12John Green?

  Well, I don't think Audrey thinks that.

• 30:14Hank Green?

  Well, yeah.

• 30:15John Green?

  I don't think Audrey thinks that at all, but I think it is hard to decide. I remember like when I was Audrey's age, I have this vivid memory of applying for like 20 jobs in one day. And it was like as a paralegal, as a religion teacher at a Catholic school, as a publishing assistant at a magazine, at a bowling journal. Who, who, I had no idea what I wanted to do and no idea how to figure out what I wanted to do.

• 30:40Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's so much like who, uh, there's the, there's the instability of the world right now and of the job market and of like education and and of everything. And then there's like, but there's also like the lack of knowledge of who you are and what you enjoy.

• 31:00John Green?

  Right.

• 31:00Hank Green?

  You know, and so you're gonna have to try a lot of things to figure that out, but try, try them for sure. And I like literally, I think that the Peace Corps is a baller option. I think it is a, a winning move that a lot more people should consider.

• 31:15John Green?

  I don't disagree at all. I, I think that the other thing you can do, Audrey, is go through interview processes like the one you went through where you realized that my dream job is not my dream job, or this is not my field. I thought I wanted to work in the nonprofit sphere and it turns out that it moves too slowly, whatever it is. I think

• 31:33John Green?

  A really good thing to do. It's a cheap way to learn lessons. So I'd encourage that as well.

• 31:38Hank Green?

  Congratulations on being out in it. It's hard. It's it's hard and messy out here. This next question comes from Matt, who asks, Dear Hank and John, I work in pest control. I love this. Is such a cool question. I work in pest control and was told by my employer that moles have the ability to convert CO2 to oxygen due to their hemoglobin. Is that really possible? How can a mammal not be affected by pure CO2? Not loss, Matt.

• 32:05Hank Green?

  I love it when I don't get it until I say it.

• 32:07John Green?

  Yes, I do, too.

• 32:08Hank Green?

  Oh, man, that's happened twice today. I, um, yes, Matt, this is not a thing, but there is a thing. So I love this. This is often the case where you you hear a thing and it's like, that can't be right. And it isn't, but there's a thing underneath it and moles kick ass and are very weird. They do a couple of things and one of them involves their hemoglobin, but they do not convert uh, carbon dioxide to oxygen. If they did, they would be plants and that would be really weird.

• 32:36John Green?

  So that would be awesome. I mean, just stop real quick and imagine with me a mole that is also a plant.

• 32:42Hank Green?

  Yeah, it just turned out one day we were like, holy moly, ha, it turns out that that that those mole things, they've been plants the whole time.

• 32:51John Green?

  They were, they're trees. They're little trees that move. They're moving.

• 32:54Hank Green?

  That's why they're underground.

• 32:56John Green?

  Exactly. They're like roots, kinda. They're trees.

• 33:00Hank Green?

  They're like, no, they're like potatoes. They're like potatoes.

• 33:02John Green?

  Potatoes. They're like moving potatoes, movable potatoes.

• 33:06Hank Green?

  Turns out the whole time they were potatoes. So no, they cannot do that. Uh, there's a bunch of chemistry reasons why that's not possible. Um, but the, uh, the thing that they do do with their hemoglobin is that their hemoglobin is extremely like good. It's better than ours at binding to oxygen. So in even in very low. Oxygen, low oxygen environments, they can pull that oxygen out of the air and it can be theirs. And so it binds really well to oxygen. But there is another effect with CO2 that also matters. So you think that the reason that if you, uh, that, that like carbon dioxide kills you is because you're asphyxiating. And that's usually true. So usually when there's a bunch of carbon dioxide you're breathing in, it's because there's no oxygen.

• 33:51Hank Green?

  But that isn't actually the only way that CO2 can kill you. CO2 on its own, even if there's plenty of oxygen in the atmosphere, can kill you. If there's a high enough concentration of CO2, it, it can compete for space in your hemoglobin. So that's one thing it can do. But more importantly, it raises the acidity of your blood and that kills you. It just like you, your blood gets too acidic and you die. So you have to not be in a situation where there's too much CO2 in the atmosphere. Moles are in that situation all the time. So what do they do? They store the CO2 in their bodies. So they have a special molecule.

• 34:28John Green?

  Trees.

• 34:30Hank Green?

  No, trees, trees do chemistry with CO2 and turn the CO2 into carbohydrates that they then store in their bodies. Moles don't do any chemistry to the CO2. They just grab it and hold on to it. And then later, when they're in a situation where they can exhale it, they exhale it. So they have a system for storing CO2. It's basically just like a molecule in their blood that's really good at binding up CO2 so that the CO2 isn't in solution and isn't acidifying their blood. So they can indeed survive in high CO2 environments and low oxygen environments. But it isn't because they can convert the CO2 to oxygen.

• 35:03John Green?

  Have we thought about using mole blood as a carbon capture strategy?

• 35:08Hank Green?

  You know, uh, the, the things that we got right now are better. Uh, certainly the, the ones that are plants.

• 35:16John Green?

  Oh, right. That's true. There is another form of life that captures carbon pretty effectively and turns it into wood.

• 35:23Hank Green?

  Yeah, which unfortunately can't, not even that will do it.

• 35:28John Green?

  Right.

• 35:28Hank Green?

  People will often say like, here's what we need to do. And I, the, the stat that is so upsetting, but true is that if you burned every plant that exists on earth right now, so if you took all of the stored carbon that is in every living plant right now, you burned it, that would emit less CO2 than we have emitted from burning fossil fuels. And I think like, less than half of the CO2 that we have emitted from burning fossil fuels. So, yeah.

• 36:00John Green?

  Yikes.

• 36:02Hank Green?

  If we're gonna use plants, it's gonna be part of a broader strategy. And then we will have to prevent the plants from decaying, which is not particularly easy, because when that happens, it re-releases the CO2.

• 36:14John Green?

  All right, let's stay on bummer, Hank. Let's answer this question from Jeff, who writes, Dear John and Hank, I've got a bummer question for you guys. So, in the last five years, my wife's mother and grandfather both passed away, our two dogs both died, and I lost both of my parents to cancer. Do you have any dubious advice for how to deal with grief piling on grief? P.S. Listening to your podcast helps. Thank you for the respite. Pumpkins and penguins, Jeff.

• 36:34Hank Green?

  Jeff, I feel like you've ruined it.

• 36:37John Green?

  How?

• 36:38Hank Green?

  Well, now, now your, your respite podcast has your grief in it.

• 36:42John Green?

  No, that's true. That's a really good point.

• 36:44Hank Green?

  I'm sorry.

• 36:46John Green?

  Yeah, we are sorry to pile grief upon grief, now upon grief. Here's, I'll say two things about this. First, Cheryl Strayed once said that when you're in a period of intense grief, it's like you are living on planet, my parents just died, and everyone else is living on planet earth.

• 37:03Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 37:04John Green?

  And the disconnect there is so profound that it's just hard to navigate. And people make it even more awkward by asking you like, how you're doing or whatever. And you're like, well, not great. I mean, both my parents just died. So, that was a bummer. And you don't know how to say that in a casual conversation. And so, you know, all kinds of reasons why it's disorienting, but it's also distancing, like it distances you from the rest of the social order and the rest of, and all the people on it.

• 37:32Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 37:32John Green?

  In it.

• 37:33Hank Green?

  Yeah, but it puts you into this other world. That's so, that's such a good. I hadn't experienced that really, like that true alienation where like someone asks you, how are you doing? And there's literally not a way you can answer. And like, it almost is a crushing question until I got diagnosed with lymphoma. And then I was like, I was like, I cannot believe that these people are just in the grocery store and like just shopping and just living.

• 38:02John Green?

  Like, nothing happened when like I have cancer. The other thing that I would say, Jeff, about this is that what you are going through feels like, I'm sure feels very isolating for you and your spouse, that, you know, because it's been so intense and so profound, and the loss has been so multitudinous. But it's not, right? Like, most of us will bury our parents. Most of us will have a lot of loss in our lives. And it doesn't make you distant from humanity. It makes you an intimate part of humanity, is what I would say. I know that it often doesn't feel that way. But that's because we don't do a good job talking about

• 38:46John Green?

  loss and death and grief. And we tend to brush it aside, or try to minimize it, or, you know, place it under the rug, or whatever.

• 38:56Hank Green?

  Do you think that we used to be better at this and got worse at it?

• 39:00John Green?

  Absolutely. We were so much better at it, because death wasn't a foreign distant thing. It was a part of, it was a natural, normal part of life. And the medicalization of death, in many ways, has been good, of course. But it also means, I think, that it's something we're more distant from. Like, a lot of us have never seen anyone die.

• 39:21Hank Green?

  Sure. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

• 39:24John Green?

  Or very few people, you know, only those who are closest to us, or whatever.

• 39:29Hank Green?

  I I mean, obviously, like, death and grief were always, you know, world-shakingly. Uh, like, like, it's, it's almost like the world wasn't supposed to be shaped the way that it is now. It was supposed to be shaped to certain, it's, it's like, it's like an earthquake where suddenly the ground is moving. And you're like, that's not what ground does, you know? Like, what mom does is she exists, and now mom doesn't exist. And, and that, like, that, you know, and, you know, the, the ultimate difficult to imagine existence is non-existence is like, like, I someday will not be here. And, and, you know, I, I, we build technologies to deal with that.

• 40:11Hank Green?

  And I think that sometimes those technologies are so powerful, but we've, I, I know, I am so focused on truth that I have a hard time incorporating them, the, these systems for helping us deal with the trauma of reality, you know? That like, you

• 40:31John Green?

  Yeah, it's more of a John thing than a Hank thing, for sure.

• 40:34Hank Green?

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 40:36John Green?

  I, I feel like there's always an urge to want to go back to the world as it was before. I think Kurt Vonnegut said once that home is Indianapolis and I'm nine years old and my mother is alive. And I can't get back there.

• 40:51Hank Green?

  Right.

• 40:52John Green?

  And there's always that feeling, especially after, you know, in, in the months and years after intense loss, there's always that feeling of, I can't ever go back there. I can't get back to where I was before. And it's true, you can't go back, but you can go forward and you will. And that has to be the, the hope that you will go forward with the knowledge that not only is death possible, but it's inevitable. And you'll still find a way to forge hopefulness and, and a good life amid that knowledge.

• 41:26Hank Green?

  Yeah, and I assume that, like, time is the, the thing that does the most good in this situation. Like, there's

• 41:33John Green?

  Yeah, but I also think processing it with friends, talking to people, like, being open, all that stuff helps, too.

• 41:39Hank Green?

  Yeah. Thanks for your question, Jeff.

• 41:42John Green?

  Thank you. Our last question, before we get to the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, comes from Chloe who writes, "Dear John and Hank, a few weeks ago, my roommates and I bought a sweet potato. My apartment's kitchen is pretty dark, and after a while of abandoning our sweet potato, it began to grow upwards, you know, the way that potatoes do. My question is this: how does my potato know which way is up? It grows upwards in the ground, so it must have the same reason to grow up in the kitchen, right? But like, how does it know what up is, trying not to be grossed out by potato growths, Chloe? How does it know what up is, Hank?"

• 42:10Hank Green?

  Your potato can sense things? And this is, yeah, like, it's cra- this is, we actually, I think we have a sideshow about this that has been recorded, but it's not out yet. But there are ways that plants sense up and down, and they are complicated, and they are awesome. And they can. And it took us a while to figure out, like, it took us a while to figure out that it was a thing. There was like, there was like botanists putting plants in centrifuges and just like, seeing if they grew toward the middle of the centrifuge, or if there was a magnetic field thing, like, they didn't know what was going on. But it's, they're actually able to sense gravity, and they know which way is down, which is wild, because they're plants.

• 42:53Hank Green?

  But, you know, like, they needed to-

• 42:56John Green?

  So are moles.

• 42:56Hank Green?

  They needed to be able to know. Famously, potatoes. Just like your potatoes are. Just potatoes full of blood.

• 43:06John Green?

  Oh, that's so horrifying image.

• 43:11Hank Green?

  It was like a horror movie, like, you're having a potato fight with your brother, and they start exploding with blood. And you're gonna have that dream tonight, and you're gonna be talking in your baby voice.

• 43:23John Green?

  I am gonna be talking in my little baby, my, my little innocent, "Oh no, I'm so scared right now." It's like I can barely squeak out the words.

• 43:33Hank Green?

  Potato blood!

• 43:34John Green?

  And it's always when I'm terrified. Like, I only speak in my dreams when, like, it's the last possible thing. Where I'm like, "All right, I guess I've gotta beg for my life now."

• 43:43Hank Green?

  Yeah. Well, Chloe, your question has been had for for many years and we we have gotten mostly to the bottom of it. And I hope the episode of Sai Shu is out because it's complicated enough that I can't remember all the details.

• 43:55John Green?

  All right. Well, there you go, Chloe. At least an introduction and then Sai Shu has your back if you need a further, deeper answer. Hank, it's time for the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. I'll go first. AFC Wimbledon had not won a game at home since September 27th.

• 44:14Hank Green?

  Mm hmm.

• 44:14John Green?

  Until they just did.

• 44:16Hank Green?

  Ayy.

• 44:17John Green?

  We won 3-2. All three goals scored by Nerd Fight area's own Marcus Brown. That's right.

• 44:24Hank Green?

  All three?

• 44:25John Green?

  Yes, the person I helped bring, you helped bring, all of us together helped bring to AFC Wimbledon. Marcus Brown scored three goals to win a football game 3-2. And then we also beat Port Vale away from home 1-0, which means that suddenly we are only four, arguably five, hopefully four wins away from being able to stay up. And we have 18 games in which to get those four or possibly five wins. Now, I know what you're thinking. That doesn't sound like a tall task, but remember, we just lost 12 in a row, so it's not easy.

• 44:59Hank Green?

  You gotta keep doing the winning. Did you, did you not, did you also, you just won one game so far and to break your streak of losses?

• 45:08John Green?

  We won one home game, but we also won an away game. So we have two, we have two wins on the bounce, as they say.

• 45:15Hank Green?

  Nice.

• 45:17John Green?

  Yes, I'm very excited. I really like this version of AFC Wimbledon and I want them, I want them to succeed. Like, I like our manager and I like our players and I like our, our general manager a ton. And I think like they've got a great team around the team and then also the team is full of Really charismatic, wonderful young men, and I just, I want them to succeed so much. And it has been brutal to watch every home game since September, knowing that a win is unlikely. So to break that streak was a huge moment for Plow Lane. And hopefully from here, we can move on. And you know, my dream, Hank, my dream is that we play like two or three games this season where we're not at risk of being relegated. That's my dream.

• 46:03John Green?

  Just two or three relaxing games where it does not matter what happens.

• 46:07Hank Green?

  That sounds awesome and you'll get there, buddy.

• 46:11John Green?

  Hmm. What's the news from Mars?

• 46:14Hank Green?

  My God, I'm gonna do it, John. The news from Mars is that that last year Elon Musk tweeted, and let me, let me find the quote for you. Yeah, we are going straight to Mars. The moon is a distraction.

• 46:26John Green?

  Yes.

• 46:27Hank Green?

  Mass to orbit is the key metric thereafter mass to Mars, uh, to Mars surface. The former needs to be in megaton orbit per year range to build a self sustaining colony on Mars. And then this year, which is a mere year later, he has, in fact, for those unaware, SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self growing city on the moon. Uh, as we could potentially achieve that in less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20 plus years.

• 46:57John Green?

  Wow. Elon changing his tune, what's next?

• 47:04John Green?

  Doesn't sound like humans are gonna get to Mars by 2027, Hank. I'm not a scientist, but I think your last best shot just went out the window.

• 47:11Hank Green?

  I knew, I gotta believe that I knew that I was making a bet that I would lose, right?

• 47:16John Green?

  You didn't.

• 47:17Hank Green?

  I knew that. I knew that, right?

• 47:19John Green?

  You didn't. Back then, you sort of believed in the Elon Musk timeline, which was a huge error on your part on a few levels.

• 47:26Hank Green?

  I, I, it's especially on the level where I made it a thing we would have to talk about a bunch.

• 47:34Hank Green?

  Just so I could keep experiencing the shame and regret.

• 47:38John Green?

  Oh, man, we are not going to the moon next year. I'm almost positive.

• 47:44Hank Green?

  Much less Mars.

• 47:45John Green?

  Oh, I'm sorry. We're not going to Mars next year.

• 47:47Hank Green?

  We're also not going to the moon next year. We're gonna, we're gonna fly around it, hopefully, in March, maybe. That is, that is the other, the other news is that the Artemis had a, had a, a test filling and there was a leak in the space launch system.

• 48:06John Green?

  Yeah.

• 48:06Hank Green?

  So they've, they've pushed back the launch to at least March.

• 48:10John Green?

  Well, I am sorry.

• 48:12Hank Green?

  For the, for the flat eye of the moon.

• 48:14John Green?

  I'm sorry that we're not going to the moon or Mars. I really am. I genuinely am. I wish, I, I want us live to see us go to Mars. I am so frustrated, I have to tell you, by the way, the news media and just everyone respond to these Elon Musk statements. Because they're, they're no more based in reality than they've ever been. And it's so frustrating to me to see this argument that we have to become a multi-planetary civilization in order to survive, be treated with any seriousness whatsoever.

• 48:52John Green?

  It is so overwhelmingly obvious that, like, we should absolutely explore Mars and, like, try to make it habitable for humans. And that should be a big goal and we should have big dreams, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But like, the, the idea that we must immediately become a multi-planetary species or go extinct is so destructive to humanity. And I'm only saying this because nobody listens to the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. But like, to me, it's so destructive to the underlying human project, which is an Earth-based project and will be for centuries to come.

• 49:33Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 49:34John Green?

  I agree. And, and we just can't stop paying attention to stuff.

• 49:40Hank Green?

  You know, like, I don't know what it is that makes stuff so easy to pay attention to, but like, that guy saying, making claims, making big claims is like, whoa, God, I feel like we gotta pay attention to that.

• 49:52John Green?

  Can we just ban him from the podcast? I mean, can we ban him from the Mars News? Like, he isn't making Mars News.

• 49:56Hank Green?

  Yeah, we can. We mostly have. I honestly, I was thinking about just talking about Artemis, but I decided to do that anyway.

• 50:03John Green?

  And I guess it makes sense because it is a moment where the podcast name is gonna change, like, officially.

• 50:11Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 50:11John Green?

  So, that's good, for me.

• 50:14Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 50:15John Green?

  I get to do the intro in the future. I'm excited about that. I've been revving up my intro voice.

• 50:20Hank Green?

  And are you gonna have to do dad jokes?

• 50:22John Green?

  No, no, no, I'll still, still turn over to you for that.

• 50:25Hank Green?

  Okay. Well, John, thank you for making a podcast with me.

• 50:29John Green?

  Thank you. Thanks to everybody for their questions. You can, uh, question, question us, or indeed, ask us a question, at [email protected].

• 50:38Hank Green?

  This podcast is edited by Linus Obenhouse. It's mixed by Joseph Tuna-Medish. Our marketing specialist is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosiana Halsarohassan, Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Deboki Chakravarti. The music you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by The Great Gonna Rolla. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.