411: You’ve Gotta’ Optimize

Can sharks get tuberculosis? Why create your own products rather than promote existing products? Where did I exist before I was born? How do I deal with fear of missing out on memes? Is this a sleep podcast or a workout podcast? How do bones heal? Why are envelopes the size they are? How big and dense are neutron stars? …Hank and John Green have answers! If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [email protected]. Join us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn. Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:01Hank Green?

  You're listening to a Complexly podcast.

• 0:09Hank Green?

  Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John.

• 0:12John Green?

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

• 0:14Hank Green?

  It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you dubious advice and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, have you ever done that thing where you turn your camera on, but you actually turned it off and then you turn it off and then you try and film something and then you turn it off and then you get like a 20 minute video of just your feet?

• 0:33John Green?

  I've done this, yes.

• 0:35Hank Green?

  That's some pretty good footage, though.

• 0:37John Green?

  Oh, God. Hold on, I have to unzip my jacket. So if you're watching this on the Patreon, if you subscribe to our Patreon, you can get a...

• 0:48Hank Green?

  You can get the video version.

• 0:49John Green?

  You can get the video version.

• 0:50Hank Green?

  You can see John unzipping his jacket.

• 0:52John Green?

  You can see me unzip my jacket, but otherwise you just have to sort of, it's like a radio play, you know?

• 0:57Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 0:58John Green?

  You've just got to believe that I'm doing it.

• 0:59Hank Green?

  And he unzipped his jacket. He's wearing, as he wore his AFC Wimbledon cap, he unzipped his jacket to show a sort of off-green sweatshirt underneath. And also a blue checked button down. That's a lot of layers, John. You OK in there?

• 1:18John Green?

  Yeah, it's a little cold today. But you look ridiculous. What are you talking about? You're making fun of me? You're wearing a Pizza John shirt with a vest over it.

• 1:26Hank Green?

  I know, I'm reverse Marty McFly-ing. By which I mean the vest is blue instead of red.

• 1:31John Green?

  The reverse Marty McFly. I'm about to do the reverse Paddington, traveling from England to Peru, but first we've got to answer some questions from our listeners.

• 1:38Hank Green?

  Which is different from a reverse poo, everyone.

• 1:41John Green?

  What's a reverse poo?

• 1:42Hank Green?

  That's where you're just wearing pants and no shirt.

• 1:46John Green?

  What?

• 1:48Hank Green?

  Pooh Bear wears a shirt and no pants.

• 1:50John Green?

  I was imagining a reverse poop. And I was like, I can't imagine such a thing.

• 1:56Hank Green?

  It's where you put it back in.

• 1:59Hank Green?

  It's eating is a reverse poo.

• 2:01John Green?

  Oh, I guess so. Reverse, but the reverse Winnie the Pooh, to be clear, is where you

• 2:06Hank Green?

  It's the other famous talking bear.

• 2:09John Green?

  It's where you wear a shirt but no pants?

• 2:12Hank Green?

  No, that's a poo. That's poo bearing.

• 2:14John Green?

  Okay, so it's where you wear pants but no shirt?

• 2:16Hank Green?

  Yeah, that's the reverse poo, which is just like fairly normal for dudes.

• 2:21John Green?

  Well, as long as you don't expect to get service in 7-Eleven.

• 2:25Hank Green?

  That's right.

• 2:26John Green?

  No shirts, no shoes, no service, buddy.

• 2:28Hank Green?

  And if you have, they could, they don't like good footage there. All right, everybody, let's do the questions.

• 2:35John Green?

  So dumb.

• 2:36Hank Green?

  That was the tightest intro we've ever had.

• 2:40John Green?

  His first question comes from Becca, who writes, Dear John and Hank, but really only John.

• 2:45Hank Green?

  Patreon, patreon.com/dearhankandjohnny. You can get the video version. You can see our delighted faces as we talk about all of this stuff.

• 2:52John Green?

  My close friend is not, my close friend does not believe that everything is tuberculosis, despite all the examples I've given him. He is and always has been obsessed with sharks, and he does not think TB can be related to sharks at all. Can you help me out trying to blow a friend's mind here? Becca.

• 3:06Hank Green?

  Uh, can I try? Can I try?

• 3:08John Green?

  You try. You go first.

• 3:09Hank Green?

  Uh, sharks cannot get tuberculosis, but did I start out good?

• 3:15John Green?

  No.

• 3:17Hank Green?

  Shoot, they can get tuberculosis?

• 3:19John Green?

  Yeah.

• 3:20Hank Green?

  Oh, my God. Do they get it from eating seals?

• 3:23John Green?

  So there's so much that sharks don't get, right? Like, there's so many diseases. Sharks are famously sort of semi-immune to many diseases. But one disease they are not immune from

• 3:33Hank Green?

  What?

• 3:34John Green?

  Is tuberculosis.

• 3:35Hank Green?

  No.

• 3:36John Green?

  There is aquatic tuberculosis that mostly happens in fish tanks, mostly happens in human maintained fish tanks. But sharks can get it, and sharks do get tuberculosis. So there, I've already connected it. It wasn't even hard. Animals are always easy because most animals get tuberculosis. Can you?

• 3:55Hank Green?

  Can I get tuberculosis from, from a shark?

• 3:59John Green?

  It's unlikely. It's possible, though.

• 4:02Hank Green?

  Yeah, I'd have to be really up close and personal a lot, you're saying? Maybe I'd have to drink its aquarium water?

• 4:08John Green?

  Yeah, Hank, you can get tuberculosis from sharks inside your aquarium because this disease is zoonotic and can be passed to humans through open wounds. So if you have an aquarium and you've got a chance of fish tuberculosis in there, do not play with your fish when you have an open wound.

• 4:27Hank Green?

  Additionally, one thing that I know sharks are related to open wounds. They can make those happen themselves.

• 4:35John Green?

  That's a great point. They're in, they're kind of in the open wound business.

• 4:39Hank Green?

  They open, they open wounds. That's one of, that's like the main thing they do.

• 4:43John Green?

  What do you do for a living? Oh, I mostly bite. I'm sort of a biter.

• 4:50John Green?

  Some chewing, but I'm most known for the biting.

• 4:55Hank Green?

  They don't chew. Sharks don't chew.

• 4:58John Green?

  They don't chew?

• 4:58Hank Green?

  They bite and they swallow. Those are the two things they do.

• 5:01John Green?

  It occurs to me that if you ask really any non-human animal what it does for a living, its answer is so simple.

• 5:07Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 5:07John Green?

  Yeah, biting, swallowing.

• 5:09Hank Green?

  I bite, I chew, I move.

• 5:12John Green?

  In the case of dogs.

• 5:13Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah, that's sort of what they do. Yeah, dogs actually have a job. Like, most animals are doing, are like working for themselves. But dogs do work for people, and so do people.

• 5:26John Green?

  Yeah, people and dogs and cats work for each other, and everything else works for itself.

• 5:32Hank Green?

  Except for ants and bees.

• 5:34John Green?

  That's a great point, Hank. Bees have weird jobs. What do you do? Oh, I'm a soldier. What do you do? Oh, I'm a worker.

• 5:44Hank Green?

  These are actually pretty typical jobs, pretty common jobs. That's one of the, two of the most common jobs throughout history.

• 5:51John Green?

  Yeah, yeah, those are big ones. All right, let's move on to the question.

• 5:54Hank Green?

  I'm a queen, very uncommon job, but also most, true for most bees. There's way more bee queens than there are human queens. Even if you, okay, video title, have there been more human queens than there are currently bee queens?

• 6:11Hank Green?

  No, is the answer to that question, I'm pretty sure.

• 6:15John Green?

  We have another question. It's from Callan who writes, "Dear John and Hank, as someone who generally keeps up with Nerd Fight Terry, I've heard about these really awesome laundry and cleaning supplies from EcoGeek. From previous Dear Hank and John pods, I remember sponsorships from other similar products, EarthBreeze for one, but not trying to make this an ad for them." I appreciate that, Callan. We don't, we don't give free promo unless it's for EcoGeek, our incredible cleaning supplies company.

• 6:36Hank Green?

  If you're watching the video version, I'm holding up a bunch of those very products.

• 6:40John Green?

  Why create your own line of these products rather than continuing sponsorships with these other companies or partnering with them in some way or another? Pumpkins and Penguins, Callan. You can pronounce it however you like. Thank God, Callan. I really appreciate your generosity on that front.

• 6:52Hank Green?

  The way their advertisements work is that they pay us and then they make more money than we make.

• 6:59John Green?

  Right.

• 7:00Hank Green?

  Because otherwise, they wouldn't, they wouldn't pay us. So the amount of money that gets spent by people listening to our podcast is lower than the amount of money that we get paid to run an advertisement for that product. And, and so, one, better for us to take that money and then give it to charity. We don't get to keep that money the way that we did with advertisements, but that's not the highest priority for us.

• 7:27John Green?

  I got terrible news for you, real quick.

• 7:29Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 7:30John Green?

  We also don't get to keep the money that we get from advertisements because it goes to Complexly.

• 7:34Hank Green?

  It's true. Yeah, yeah. But that's the kind of keeping the money.

• 7:37John Green?

  Okay.

• 7:38Hank Green?

  But yeah, it's, it's diverting it into diff, into different important things that we care a lot about.

• 7:43John Green?

  Sure.

• 7:44Hank Green?

  And then, second, we get to, we haven't like created these products ourselves. We picked people we really wanted to work with who we thought were doing a really good job. So we get to have more control over it that way. And I like that. And we get to have a deeper relationship with those people so that if we want to do a specific product, we can work with them and help them maybe fund a new product. We haven't done that yet, but like, we're interested in it. And then also, it gets to be part of our broader effort at Good Store to create a place where you buy things that you would typically buy from any place for, that are, that are high quality, that are vetted by us and that are, and then all the profit goes to charity. So that's, that is the...

• 8:28Hank Green?

  That is the whole shebang of that, but I appreciate you asking. And it is actually like way long term better for the number of dollars going to Partners in Health than if we just took an advertisement and then donated that money to Partners in Health.

• 8:42John Green?

  Yeah, it means building more systems, but we also have a great team of people who help us build those systems. So that's why we're able to do it relatively efficiently. And yeah. And plus, we get free advertising. Like, right now, we can go to good.store and look up EcoGeek Cleaning Support. Look at that, free advertising.

• 9:00Hank Green?

  Free advertising. And you did it for us.

• 9:01John Green?

  That's the best kind of advertising.

• 9:02Hank Green?

  Callan, thank you.

• 9:04John Green?

  Thank you, Callan. We appreciate you.

• 9:06Hank Green?

  Also, I had this whole group of people who worked just on helping YouTubers sell stuff, and that seemed like a business that was going to continue being commodified, and the margins were going to get thinner and thinner until we couldn't compete anymore. And I really wanted those people to still have jobs.

• 9:22John Green?

  Yeah, so Good Store exists for many good reasons. It's, yeah, we're really, we're really proud of it. And it's done some amazing good in the world, including donating over $10 million to reduce maternal and child mortality in Sierra Leone. Pretty incredible what Hank has built.

• 9:38Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 9:39John Green?

  And that awesome team of people.

• 9:41Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah. And thanks, everybody who has subscribed. Check it out at good.store.

• 9:45John Green?

  All right, Hank, I got to ask you this question from Michelle.

• 9:48Hank Green?

  Uh huh.

• 9:49John Green?

  Dear John and Hank, I have a three-year-old daughter who will not stop asking me where she existed before I was pregnant with her. All the answers I have given her so far must not be sufficient because she has not stopped asking. I have tried the following. I don't know. No one knows. Maybe you were part of the universe. You were a tiny egg in my body. I've run out of ideas. Do you have answers that might satisfy her curiosity? Philosophically perplexed, Michelle.

• 10:11Hank Green?

  I'm gonna leave this one to you, because my question, I mean, I have a fairly simple answer.

• 10:15John Green?

  Well, I think that-

• 10:16Hank Green?

  That you can predict.

• 10:17John Green?

  I think your answer is, you tell me what you think my answer is gonna be. I'll tell you what I think your answer, I think your answer is gonna be, you are exactly where you'll be after death.

• 10:29Hank Green?

  Uh, yeah, except I don't actually think that that's true because I think after death, uh, where, where you are is in other people's minds.

• 10:38John Green?

  He's on a journey of meaning, a journey of meaning.

• 10:42Hank Green?

  And before birth, there, there isn't a you that's specifically in other people's minds. There is a, there's an idea of what might be, but there isn't a specific you. But I think that, um, before, before birth, um, so, so my two answers are you were nowhere, you didn't exist. I think that that's a fairly cut and dried answer, but then I have another answer, which is, uh, that you currently don't exist. You're just a bunch of stories that one part of your brain is telling to another part of your brain.

• 11:13John Green?

  Yeah, no, that's something you should say to a three year old.

• 11:18John Green?

  That's not going to cause any issues.

• 11:20Hank Green?

  I don't, I like, it's, it's simplifying for me, but I guess I'm not three.

• 11:24John Green?

  I think if I were three and somebody said, hey, so the bad news is that you didn't exist before you were born, but the good news is he still really don't exist. I don't know that I would be particularly comforted by that.

• 11:36Hank Green?

  So you, so you remember what it was like when you were one? Yeah, you don't. That's because that you was already dead.

• 11:43John Green?

  They're long gone. I, first off, all three year olds think they can remember being one and they think they can remember being born.

• 11:51Hank Green?

  Orin thinks, Orin thinks he can remember every moment of his life.

• 11:55John Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It takes, it takes until you're like 16, when you're like, all right, some of that stuff's pretty fuzzy back there, actually.

• 12:03John Green?

  I, I would answer the question differently than saying you don't exist to a three year old. I think I would say before you were born, you were the idea of the hope of your existence. You were the, the hope of your existence and that hope was in your parents and that hope was in the world. It just wasn't, um, it wasn't made manifest until you were born.

• 12:26Hank Green?

  That's lovely. I also don't know that a three year old's totally going to grasp that. I think the problem here is that, um, self is a difficult one for a three year old.

• 12:37John Green?

  Well, and for a 47 year old.

• 12:40Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah, easier, I'd say, but still mostly ungrappled with.

• 12:46John Green?

  I don't know, man. The days when I actually am paying attention to what myself is are tough days around here.

• 12:52Hank Green?

  It's true, and you don't have to. One of the things that I've learned from therapy is that you don't have to, like, fix everything.

• 13:01John Green?

  Yeah.

• 13:02Hank Green?

  You have to have, like, ways of dealing with it.

• 13:05John Green?

  Yeah.

• 13:06Hank Green?

  Some, yeah, it's like, like, yeah, like, sometimes, like, you glue a cup back together, and it's still got cracks in it.

• 13:15John Green?

  Right, right. That's beautiful, Hank.

• 13:19Hank Green?

  That, thank you. And then there's that Japanese one where they emphasize the cracks with gold, and the gold is the most precious part of the broken cup.

• 13:27John Green?

  That's right.

• 13:28Hank Green?

  Whatever that's called. Very metaphorical.

• 13:32John Green?

  I think it's called Golden Crack Cup.

• 13:34Hank Green?

  Yeah, but in Japanese.

• 13:36John Green?

  But in Japanese.

• 13:38Hank Green?

  This next question comes from Cat, who asks, Dear Hank and John, empires rise and empires fall. Okay, all right. Specifically, I'm referring to my feelings about billionaire-owned social media apps. Oh, great, okay.

• 13:52John Green?

  Oh, thank God, yeah.

• 13:57Hank Green?

  I'm handling the withdrawals from following my boycott of Twitter better than I expected, but man, I have fumum, fear of missing out on memes. And Blue Sky just isn't appeasing that, even though it seems like all of the pieces are there. Why doesn't it feel like that app is quote-unquote "online"? Craving Taylor Swift discourse, Cat. Great point. It doesn't, it feels like Blue Sky has not woken up to the reality that it is its own thing, and it feels like all of the things that go really big on Blue Sky are in opposition to some other thing.

• 14:39John Green?

  How's that? Give me an example. I need, uh...

• 14:41Hank Green?

  Well, if you go and you look at, like, every tweet that was posted on Blue Sky in the last day that has, like, over 10,000 likes, they are 100% about billionaires...

• 14:54John Green?

  Gestures broadly.

• 14:54Hank Green?

  Billionaires or Donald Trump.

• 14:57John Green?

  Right.

• 14:57Hank Green?

  Like, they are about the actions of the Trump administration.

• 15:00John Green?

  I like the distinction that you made there, Hank.

• 15:04Hank Green?

  Well, the truth is Donald Trump is now a billionaire again, and I need everyone to know that that is the case because he's using his powers, the president, to become very wealthy, which is what despots do.

• 15:17John Green?

  Yeah, empires rise and empires fall.

• 15:20Hank Green?

  Empires rise and empires fall. What goes up must come down. That's what Isaac Newton told us.

• 15:26John Green?

  Yes. I'm not sure that actually Isaac, that's funny you should say that, Hank, because you're always criticizing me for applying scientific principles to the social sciences. You're always like, anytime-

• 15:37Hank Green?

  I do not like that, it's true.

• 15:39John Green?

  John gets on his high horse and he starts talking about how energy is not created or destroyed. It makes me cringe and then you just went and did it. I just want to call that out. You just went and did it.

• 15:48Hank Green?

  It's true, but for different reasons.

• 15:51John Green?

  All right. Exactly. It's true, but for different reasons. That's fine. So it is true that the memes are not as good on Blue Sky as they are on Twitter. Here's what I'll say about that, though. If you mix Blue Sky and Tumblr, and this is a dangerous cocktail, don't get me wrong, take it from somebody who knows about the dangers of Tumblr cocktails.

• 16:10Hank Green?

  That's how you, that's how you make a middle school volcano science project.

• 16:15John Green?

  Or alternately, or alternately like an Everclear-based mixed drink, right? Like, it's a, it's a serious, it's a serious thing that you're, that you're encountering. It's no small matter, but if you mix Tumblr and Blue Sky in the right way, I find that it does replace Twitter effectively. But like, is it any healthier for you? I'm not convinced.

• 16:37Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 16:37John Green?

  But I bet there's a bunch of Taylor Swift discourse on Tumblr.

• 16:40Hank Green?

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, it is, yeah, I think that the-

• 16:44John Green?

  Did I tell you when I had a post go viral on Tumblr, I said to Sarah, Sarah, I had a post go viral on Tumblr and Sarah said, what, did all 12 people on Tumblr like it?

• 16:58Hank Green?

  It's a, it's a vibrant little place.

• 17:01John Green?

  It is a vibrant place. I got like 10,000 likes on that, on that, that tumble. I tumbled on the Ides of March, get it, nerds, we're killing Caesar.

• 17:10Hank Green?

  I recently went a little viral on Tumblr with, with, but it wasn't me. It was somebody else talking about a take that I once had. And it got like 16,000 likes or something. Notes, notes.

• 17:22John Green?

  That sounds fun.

• 17:24Hank Green?

  Yeah, it was fine.

• 17:26John Green?

  Um, I do not like going viral. I think that going viral is a great phrase because it implies a disease correctly.

• 17:38Hank Green?

  It's the memes.

• 17:42Hank Green?

  They are amazing.

• 17:43John Green?

  How do you get the memes? So on Tumblr, I cosplay as an unpaid social media intern for Keetzen Co., the coffee and tea company that Good Store runs. And that works really well for me because then whenever people are like, "Oh, I hate John Green," in my ask box, I'll be like, "Oh, I'm sorry. You must be confused. I'm not John Green. I'm an unpaid social media intern for a coffee and tea company."

• 18:06John Green?

  That works pretty well.

• 18:07Hank Green?

  That's great. That is a solution to your problem. And uh, and it's never gonna, it's never gonna be a problem ever again. You did it.

• 18:16John Green?

  Yeah, no, I'm sure that I will never regret going back to Tumblr, Hank. As indeed, I never regretted going on Tumblr for the first time.

• 18:27John Green?

  Which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by Tumblr. Tumblr, somehow, still a thing.

• 18:32Hank Green?

  This podcast is also brought to you by the reverse poo bear. That's just what, that's just like guys at the beach.

• 18:40John Green?

  Yeah, it is. It is a little bit. It's a little bit. Today's podcast is also, of course, brought to you by the reverse Tigger. The reverse Tigger, it's where you jump on your head.

• 18:51Hank Green?

  This podcast is also brought to you by the reverse Eeyore, which is where you're always happy all the time and your tail is stuck to your head.

• 19:00John Green?

  Did I tell you I did an episode of The Happiness Lab with Laurie Santos, the amazing podcast, The Happiness Lab, which is all about the science of happiness and how we can be happier? And Laurie Santos was like, "You're a bit of an expert on happiness." Like, she follows her work really closely. She's been a nerd fighter for a long time. And she was like, "You're, you're a bit of an expert on happiness. You and Hank both are." And I was like, "Tell that to my wife."

• 19:23Hank Green?

  I'm a bit of an expert on happiness. Okay, I gotta listen to this.

• 19:27John Green?

  Well, it's just because we're Eeyores, Hank, but you're less of an Eeyore than I am. You're more of a Tigger. And of course, finally, today's podcast is brought to you by the Happiness Lab. The Happiness Lab. Shout out Dr. Laurie Santos.

• 19:39Hank Green?

  All right, John, we got another question from Kaylee. She asks, Dear John and Hank, I'm upset that this podcast is seen as a sleep podcast. This is my Tuesday workout podcast. The 50 minutes or so is perfect for my Tuesday specific workout. Best wishes, Kaylee.

• 19:59Hank Green?

  John, that's got the, that's the exact tempo of Kaylee's workout.

• 20:02John Green?

  I'm just, that's what your heart sounds like right now, Kaylee, because you're pushing. You're going, you're in, you're in that mode.

• 20:07Hank Green?

  Yeah, Kaylee, move it. What, do that.

• 20:11John Green?

  We've got to move it, move it. Leg curl, leg curl, leg, that's too fast. Leg curl. Leg curl. Leg curl. You've got this, Kaylee.

• 20:19Hank Green?

  Elliptical, elliptical, elliptical, elliptical, elliptical, elliptical, elliptical. Is that what it sounds like when you do the elliptical? Everybody clap your hands.

• 20:30John Green?

  I'm gonna start doing that when I do the elliptical. I'm gonna start making, I'm gonna start singing elliptical, elliptical, elliptical, elliptical.

• 20:36Hank Green?

  Yeah. Punch, punch, punch, punch, punch, punch, punch. And then kettlebell, kettlebell, kettlebell. Jog, jog, jog, jog, run, punch, jog, punch, kettlebell.

• 20:46John Green?

  This is the world's hardest workout.

• 20:52Hank Green?

  Push up, push up, sit up, push up, sit up, push up. Plank, plank, plank.

• 20:59Hank Green?

  Keto.

• 20:59John Green?

  We got it. This is a workout podcast. This is definitely as much, this is both a sleep podcast and a workout podcast. Because what it is at its core, Kaylee, is a banter podcast. And banter podcasts can be all things to all people at all times.

• 21:13Hank Green?

  Yeah, we banter. We really are a banter podcast, aren't we?

• 21:19John Green?

  Yeah.

• 21:19Hank Green?

  And also, we're an optimizer podcast. You have to wake up and if you are not outside in the sunshine within

• 21:26John Green?

  Yes.

• 21:26Hank Green?

  30 seconds, you are not going to have an optimal life. You're gonna have a suboptimal life. You need to get sunshine on, ideally, the butt.

• 21:39John Green?

  No, no, that's incorrect, Hank. And you know that's incorrect. The science says that you've got to reverse poo it. You've got to go outside and you've got to be wearing pants but no shirt. And you've got to let that torso get all that natural sunlight and soak in all that vitamin D. If you, if you

• 21:53Hank Green?

  I don't know, John.

• 21:54John Green?

  Have it on your butt or your legs, that doesn't do any good.

• 21:56Hank Green?

  I think you got to reverse, reverse poo it, where the shirt is only on your head and you're blind and naked everywhere else.

• 22:03John Green?

  The shirt's like wrapped around your head so you're blindfolded?

• 22:06Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 22:07John Green?

  And you're just kind of like running around in a circle desperately trying to get the shirt off?

• 22:10Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah. This is how you optimize, because that's really good for your, your core and your balance.

• 22:16John Green?

  And you do want to optimize your life, because if you spend your entire life optimizing your life, at the end of it, you will not die.

• 22:25Hank Green?

  Well, but here's what's gonna happen, John.

• 22:27John Green?

  Yeah.

• 22:27Hank Green?

  Is, is that, is that like, it'll, it'll just feel like you're doing something that's worth it. Because being alive is the thing and all, and you're just like, I, I just want to feel like I'm doing something that's worth it.

• 22:40John Green?

  Yeah, and the thing that's worth it.

• 22:42Hank Green?

  And nothing can fill that gap inside of me, because I've decided apparently that like, social responsibility just isn't for me.

• 22:50John Green?

  No, Hank, that's not optimized, thinking about other people. And empathy isn't optimized.

• 22:58Hank Green?

  I just, I just like, sort of like, uh, like, did a real quick zip to a take I have that's broader. Uh, and I, I don't really want to get deeper into it, but that is a take I have.

• 23:07John Green?

  Let's not, let's not get deeper into it.

• 23:09Hank Green?

  Okay.

• 23:09John Green?

  Remember when you were talking that you were gonna go on that Muscle Guy podcast? And I talked you out of it because I'm a frickin' hero?

• 23:14Hank Green?

  Yeah, you did do that. I didn't do it.

• 23:16John Green?

  Oh, thank God. All right. Let's, uh, let's move on to another question. But thank you for letting us be your workout podcast. We really appreciate that.

• 23:22Hank Green?

  I just want to be clear. I do think that workouts are good. And I, I, it is important to To be healthy and

• 23:29John Green?

  Yeah, move your body.

• 23:30Hank Green?

  Move your body around. It does feel good.

• 23:32John Green?

  Of course, move your, nobody's saying, don't move your body. We're grateful that we're a workout podcast, Hank. Why would we?

• 23:37Hank Green?

  That's absolutely correct.

• 23:38John Green?

  Why would people interpret that any other way?

• 23:41Hank Green?

  I don't know. Well, this is the thing, John. The internet interprets you in all kinds of ways you don't intend.

• 23:45John Green?

  Sometimes people are not generous in their interpretation, but usually that's on them, not, not on, not on you. But sometimes it is on you. It's complicated.

• 23:53Hank Green?

  I could do better.

• 23:55John Green?

  Um, we all could, my man. We all could. This next question comes from Elena who writes, Dear John and Hank, what do you mean that when you break a bone and they put a cast on it, the bone heals? How does the bone heal? Does it regenerate? Do the broken parts kiss and make up? Just a little confused, Elena.

• 24:10Hank Green?

  Yeah, basically they kiss and make up.

• 24:12John Green?

  They basically kiss and make up. I mean, that's essentially what happens. They grow back together. But do you know, Hank?

• 24:19Hank Green?

  What?

• 24:20John Green?

  That my grandfather in law invented a compound called BMP that makes bones kiss and make up faster than they naturally do.

• 24:33Hank Green?

  He invented a compound?

• 24:35John Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's famous for it. He also wrote the bone article in the World Book Encyclopedia.

• 24:41Hank Green?

  Whoa, I didn't know people wrote that. I figured that that was just sort of bestowed on the world by I don't know.

• 24:49John Green?

  Yeah, but it's not. No, God doesn't write the encyclopedia. People do.

• 24:52Hank Green?

  Um, that's very cool. It's called BMP?

• 24:56John Green?

  Yeah, BMP. You can look up Urist BMP and find, uh, find out all about.

• 25:01Hank Green?

  So yeah, bones, I don't know. This is like a wild thing, but if you, when you break a bone, it bleeds. Like, cause there's blood vessels in there. There's living cells inside of your bone. If you break, if you break a bone, the bone like does a part where it's like bleeding and it, it, there's like the, it has to form clots and it has to repair and that's gonna, uh, bring up, uh, like a lot of inflammation, which is gonna bring certain kinds of cells to it to help with the healing. And then there's like, um, There's like a temporary patch phase and then there's a part where the the bone cells, which are constantly rebuilding your bones, like they're living things. I know that we like, think of them as like dead things because there are dead bones that you can see. Whereas a lot of the rest of the body is, doesn't last as long.

• 25:47Hank Green?

  But they are living things and and the cells that come in and that are constantly like repairing and strengthening and rebuilding bone come in and they rejoin the bone. You could see, if you want to go and like, look on the internet, you can see like what a repaired bone break looks like in a bone from a person who has subsequently died.

• 26:07John Green?

  Which is

• 26:07Hank Green?

  And it's really cool.

• 26:08John Green?

  To be clear, all of us eventually.

• 26:12Hank Green?

  Yes.

• 26:13John Green?

  See, I'm such an Eeyore, Hank, I can't help myself.

• 26:16Hank Green?

  I thought, what, look, that doesn't have to be bad news.

• 26:20John Green?

  That we're all gonna die?

• 26:26Hank Green?

  It is kind of bad news.

• 26:27John Green?

  It's objectively bad news.

• 26:29Hank Green?

  That I like revel in, yeah.

• 26:30John Green?

  Yeah, I don't look forward to it. I like this world. I mean, I, I, I am grateful to be here with the rest of you.

• 26:39Hank Green?

  The, somebody recently asked, like, would I, would I want to live forever? And like, they caveated it and then they like, made all of the things, like, you're gonna be like, you, you're not gonna like, be in pain, you're gonna be relatively youthful, you're going to be able to continue to enjoy things. And also, you don't have to live forever, like, you just

• 27:03Hank Green?

  can. And I'm like, yeah, no, I would do that. Why would, I currently don't want to die. Why would I take away the future me's ability to like, who, like, who probably won't want to die?

• 27:15John Green?

  Oh, not me, man.

• 27:16Hank Green?

  Surprising number of people who are like, no, I just want to like, be able to, I don't, I like, I want to have the natural way of it going, go.

• 27:23John Green?

  Yeah, I don't think I'm supposed to be here for

• 27:25Hank Green?

  I've had the natural way of it going, go, and I, I don't want to do that. But like, then don't. If you, if you can make the choice, be like, at some point, be like, okay, I'm done.

• 27:36John Green?

  Okay, I'm into that.

• 27:38Hank Green?

  Yeah, I don't know. It's complicated. Life is

• 27:41John Green?

  I wouldn't pick, would you pick a thousand year lifespan?

• 27:45Hank Green?

  Uh, yeah.

• 27:48John Green?

  Oh, not me. I don't want to see that much change.

• 27:51Hank Green?

  I know. It's already been on quite a lot. It's been a surprising amount. I started, I felt, I'm feeling it more now.

• 27:56John Green?

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, I feel the change. I think that we've already experienced the last major technological revolution that I'm just never going to get on board with. Now, you will, Hank, because you're the kind of person who like gets on board with things and like continues to grow and everything in adulthood, but not me. I'm done. I hit the age of 47 in like a brick wall.

• 28:16Hank Green?

  Yeah, I, I don't know that I'm gonna be on the next social media app. Like the next TikTok, I think I just, I think I just might take a pass, but like, that's me now. That's like you saying that you're not gonna sign your next book. You say it every time.

• 28:30John Green?

  Yeah, I have been thinking about how I could sign 100,000 copies of my next book by just stretching it out more.

• 28:36Hank Green?

  Oh, they'll just, yeah, yeah, yeah, just not having it.

• 28:40John Green?

  Yeah.

• 28:41Hank Green?

  Just like have the book come out six months later than it normally would.

• 28:44John Green?

  Yeah, do like a thousand a day instead of 3,000.

• 28:46Hank Green?

  Or just start signings, tip in sheets now. You're gonna write another book.

• 28:50John Green?

  I'd like to, but that's contingent upon my staying alive and everything.

• 28:54Hank Green?

  That's true. I think that you're, I think that you're okay. Let me know if you have any worries about that.

• 28:58John Green?

  I have constant, non-stop, overwhelming worries about that.

• 29:05John Green?

  Thank you for asking.

• 29:08Hank Green?

  Okay. This next question comes from Eleanor, who asks, Dear John and Hank, why are most envelopes the size they are? In order to fit a normal sheet of A4 paper into a regular envelope, you have to fold the paper into thirds, which can be rather difficult to do. Why don't we use taller envelopes so we only have to fold the paper in half? This has been plaguing me for years. Not Mrs. Rigby, Eleanor. That's a good question. I have a guess.

• 29:36John Green?

  I have a guess too. My guess is.

• 29:38Hank Green?

  As a person who electro jogs, you have a guess?

• 29:42John Green?

  No, my guess is not electro jog related, but that's interesting. My guess is that it fit into some kind of early

• 29:53John Green?

  slot.

• 29:55Hank Green?

  Right. So like if you have a situation where you have to have a lot of slots in a small space, you can go deep. But you don't want to go higher. So you want them to, like, you want the square, the box, to be, have the smallest possible area with, but the largest possible volume. And so in that situation, you want something that's deep and relatively small.

• 30:20John Green?

  Hmm. Interesting.

• 30:23Hank Green?

  Slide it in. So that's, that's an interesting guess. I like that guess.

• 30:28John Green?

  It's not that old.

• 30:30Hank Green?

  No? Interesting.

• 30:32John Green?

  The window envelope was invented in 1901.

• 30:36Hank Green?

  Well, that's the window envelope. And that's,

• 30:38John Green?

  Oh.

• 30:39Hank Green?

  Yeah. With the, with the hole in it. So you don't have to put the address on the outside.

• 30:43John Green?

  Oh, okay. Yeah, no, you're right. The envelope. That makes more sense. I was like, how'd they get away with it? What were they doing?

• 30:51Hank Green?

  Yeah. You can tell envelope is old because the word for it is envelop.

• 30:56John Green?

  Yes.

• 30:57Hank Green?

  What are you gonna do with your letter? I will envelop it.

• 31:00John Green?

  Yes.

• 31:00Hank Green?

  That's not something someone in 1901 would have said.

• 31:03John Green?

  There are a lot of different sizes of envelopes, and they seem to vary a lot based on whether you live in China, Japan, internationally, or in North America. And there are a number of different

• 31:17John Green?

  lengths and measures of envelopes. And some of it seems to be because of the size of a personal check.

• 31:24Hank Green?

  Oh, okay.

• 31:27Hank Green?

  Here, my other thought was, have you ever, so like, you pull together a bunch of cards, right? Just a bunch of playing cards?

• 31:35John Green?

  Yep.

• 31:36Hank Green?

  And then you have to like, sort them so that they're flat again. And that's kind of annoying, right?

• 31:40John Green?

  Right.

• 31:41Hank Green?

  If they were only a little bit different, if the proportions was like, one to 1.1, that would be extremely hard.

• 31:47John Green?

  Right.

• 31:48Hank Green?

  And if the proportions were two to one, it'd be easier. And if the proportions were three to one, then it would be easier. And that was my thought, that it was like, you just gotta get a bunch of them. It's a lot easier to sort them to be flat if they have a longer ratio. But I, that might just be like a side benefit.

• 32:03John Green?

  Yeah. Yeah, I bet that there's somebody out there who's gonna answer this question for us, and we'll get back to you next week. But in the meantime, that's our best guess.

• 32:12Hank Green?

  The other thing is, what I'll say is, it's not that hard to fold three times versus one. And I kind of like it. It's kind of like, nice.

• 32:20John Green?

  Well, it's only two folds, actually, instead of one.

• 32:22Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:23John Green?

  So it's twice as many folds. But you're right, it's not that bad.

• 32:26Hank Green?

  Yeah. And people used to have way more time.

• 32:28John Green?

  Oh, yeah. No, back then, there was so much time to fold.

• 32:35Hank Green?

  Like, writing a letter with your ink quill and then scattering some stuff on it to absorb the ink so that it wouldn't smear, doing that every line.

• 32:45John Green?

  Yeah.

• 32:45Hank Green?

  The folding part of the letter was, that was like, I did it. I'm gonna do, oh, this feels good. I finally finished this, this letter that took me two hours to write. An hour, just like, send.

• 32:59John Green?

  The folding was the joy.

• 33:01Hank Green?

  Okay, sounds good.

• 33:02John Green?

  That was when you felt the satisfaction of a job well done.

• 33:05Hank Green?

  Right. And now, now you just like, click on the Google auto-created message that you most prefer, and click on send. And then the person replies with their Google auto-created message that they then click on send. It's great.

• 33:21John Green?

  Yeah. Empires rise and empires fall, buddy.

• 33:23Hank Green?

  I'm so glad that we've made human communication so efficient, because that's really what it needed.

• 33:28John Green?

  Yeah. No, that's what was missing. All right, we got a question from Max Hank. This one's for you. It says, Dear John and Hank, please tell me about neutron stars. How big are they? How dense? Why are they? Dreams and democracy, Max.

• 33:39Hank Green?

  Oh, thanks. Thanks for asking. My son is fairly obsessed with neutron stars. He loves pulsars, which are a kind of neutron star. And so we are talking about it all the time. But they're the leftovers from a certain type of supernova. And all the, the sort of like, the collapse of the supernova is so intense that it forces all of the protons and electrons to annihilate each other, I think, until they become a neutron. Is that right? I'm not sure.

• 34:13John Green?

  Do you want me to ask you a different question?

• 34:15Hank Green?

  I think that's right. I just looked, I just checked that it is right.

• 34:18John Green?

  Okay.

• 34:19Hank Green?

  So they're not very big. So they're like, they are the leftover core of a star. But when you're just packing neutrons together, so, so as you probably know, atoms are almost entirely empty space. They seem very heavy to us, but in fact, they're just puffy balls. And, uh, but neutron stars are just neutrons and they don't have any of that puff. So they are small, but they are extremely dense. Like, uh, like if you had a teaspoon, it would weigh six billion tons. So that's, uh, like the size of, like the weight of a mountain in a teaspoon, because there's so much space in atoms. So neutron stars are often like the mass, like they're like 15, they get like, like 10 to 15 miles across, uh, but the mass of like the sun.

• 35:05John Green?

  So they're like the size of New York City, but the mass of the sun?

• 35:10Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 35:11John Green?

  Whoa.

• 35:12Hank Green?

  It might be like, what's the mass of a neutron star? Mass of?

• 35:19John Green?

  Yeah, wow, yeah, that's right. Geez.

• 35:22Hank Green?

  Okay. Um, but, uh, and they're out there and they're basically, they could, like if, if the star had been bigger, they might have become a black hole, but it's not, not big enough. So they're neutron stars. And then like, there's weird ways in which they can actually, um, emit light or, or more like infrared radiation. So usually like in the radio spectrum. So we can see them, you can't see them with your eyes, but we can see them with radio telescopes. And when we first spotted them, we were like, what the heck is going on?

• 35:50John Green?

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, back it up. You can't see them with your eyes?

• 35:55Hank Green?

  I mean, I, if there was like light shining on them, you could see them.

• 35:59John Green?

  Okay, okay. So they're, they're like there.

• 36:02Hank Green?

  They don't emit in the visual spectrum. Yeah.

• 36:05John Green?

  Okay. All right. But you'd need to shine light on them to see them, but they do emit radio waves.

• 36:10Hank Green?

  Yeah. That's so mind blowing. Very, very strong magnetic fields as well. Um,

• 36:16John Green?

  Yeah.

• 36:16Hank Green?

  They're called magnetars.

• 36:18John Green?

  Yeah, people say that about me too, actually.

• 36:22Hank Green?

  That you have a very strong magnetic field?

• 36:25John Green?

  I'm just kind of, I just have that inherent charisma.

• 36:27Hank Green?

  The riz.

• 36:28John Green?

  The riz, if you will.

• 36:30Hank Green?

  You don't have to say all those syllables, John.

• 36:32John Green?

  Sorry.

• 36:32Hank Green?

  Say, I just have that riz.

• 36:37Hank Green?

  It's 2025.

• 36:40Hank Green?

  You've got sigma riz and you, you don't have to be afraid to say it.

• 36:44John Green?

  I am terribly, terribly afraid to say it, and I'm also afraid that you've said it.

• 36:49Hank Green?

  This, this morning, I was watching a video about a paper, a published scientific paper next to my son, and he was watching it with me, and he turned to me, and instead of discussing this scientific paper, he said, what's a sigma mean? And I was like, oh, no.

• 37:08Hank Green?

  I was like, I don't know what sigma means, son. That's for you to tell me. You have to go to school, figure out what sigma means, and then tell me.

• 37:19John Green?

  Yeah, it's interesting. My son does not use any of that slang with me, but

• 37:24Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 37:24John Green?

  or, or with us in our family, but I hear him use it with his friends.

• 37:29Hank Green?

  Oof, jeez.

• 37:30John Green?

  Not like, he wouldn't say sigma riz. I mean, I think like, that's a joke. Like, I think, I think people, young people say that as a way of making fun of old people rather than a, than a thing that they would actually say.

• 37:41Hank Green?

  It's irony. It's the, it's the extension of irony into every facet of everything.

• 37:46John Green?

  Yes, exactly. Like irony also has to invade slang as part of ironies taking over our overall discourse. But it, it does fascinate me that he has a different language, and this is true for all teenagers, I think, a different language when talking to his friends than when talking to his family.

• 38:06Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 38:08John Green?

  It's, it's wild, man. Having a teenager is the best. And he, yeah, anyway. Hey, Hank, before we get to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. Which actually this week is very important because we're recording the podcast. As we're recording this podcast, I'm sitting next to a suitcase that I will immediately upon finishing the podcast, take with me to London. I wanted to give a quick update, so a little bit of a good news update, actually, for once, from Chris. Dear John and Hank, at the time of writing this email, John mentioned the magic paste made with peanut butter from Georgia in the latest episode. More importantly, the people who helped make the paste have lost their jobs and contracts,

• 38:49John Green?

  and many of those paste were sitting in warehouses where malnourished people live overseas who should have been receiving them. And all of that is true, except I come bearing good news. I know the episodes are pre-recorded, but the magic paste is back. The contracts with USAID were reinstated, the workers are back at their jobs, and the awesome magical peanut butter paste is once again being sent to those in need. Now, that is good news. There is, however, still problems with links in the chain further down, like last mile delivery stuff, because so many community health workers have been fired in impoverished communities as a result of the USAID cuts. So unfortunately, the magic paste is not getting everywhere it needs to be getting, but it is getting to more places than it was a few weeks ago. So this is a reminder, actually, that what feels inevitable and we feel totally powerless

• 39:34John Green?

  against, like some of that, we are not totally powerless against. Like, we've seen some tuberculosis funding restored from USAID, not nearly enough. And, you know, obviously, this is still a huge unmitigated and unprecedented catastrophe. But we have seen sort of marginal, small, private successes.

• 39:56Hank Green?

  Yeah. Right. And like, it's very frustrating, because like, it's what attention can be brought, you know?

• 40:07John Green?

  Yeah.

• 40:08Hank Green?

  Mostly, that is like, bringing life back into things. But there's a finite amount of attention to be brought.

• 40:16John Green?

  For sure.

• 40:17Hank Green?

  Because the people that you need the attention from are just like a couple of guys.

• 40:21John Green?

  Yeah.

• 40:22Hank Green?

  And so they can only feel a certain amount of attention being spent on them.

• 40:26John Green?

  Right.

• 40:27Hank Green?

  And that is why it shouldn't just be a couple of guys.

• 40:30John Green?

  No, no, no.

• 40:32Hank Green?

  That's why the framers of the Constitution made it not say that.

• 40:37John Green?

  Yes. No, they gave Congress the power of the purse in fairly unambiguous terms, and Congress needs to take back that power in a big way. But in the meantime, um, we have to fight and scrap for everything that we can fight and scrap for because so many lives depend on it. So I think we have to do both at the same time. We have to pressure Congress to take back its power, but we also have to encourage, uh, uh, we have to work within the systems as they are to try to get funding restored where we can.

• 41:07Hank Green?

  So what's going on with AFC Wimbledon, John?

• 41:09John Green?

  Oh Hank, it's so tense. It's so tense right now.

• 41:12Hank Green?

  God, of course it is.

• 41:13John Green?

  AFC Wimbledon are in fifth place in League One, um, which is a playoff spot as it stands. There are four games left in the season. If we're going to get automatically promoted, we probably have to win at least three of those four games. And we've only won one of our last five games, so I'm not brimming with optimism that we'll suddenly turn it around and win three of those last four games. I hope we do. That would be amazing. It would also be fun for me since I'm taking my father-in-law to the game that's on Friday. And so I would, uh, I would much prefer for his first visit to Plough Lane to involve joy than suffering. But it's probably more realistic for him to see suffering. Uh, so yeah, we are, uh,

• 41:55John Green?

  we are four games left in the season and basically three points from automatic promotion and four points from falling out of the playoffs. So it's very tight at the top of the League Two table. Good things could happen this season. This could be a special season. This could also be a catastrophic season where, you know, lots of bad things happen. So the, the tension is high. We had a game against Doncaster Rovers that was a huge, huge game and we ended up tying that game. But tying was a pretty good result because we played for most of the game with only 10 players because our captain Jake Reeves got, in my opinion, a very soft red card. And as a result of that red card, we were playing with 10 people and they were playing with 11. Now they eventually got a red card too.

• 42:41John Green?

  And so it was 10 versus 10 and then they equalized, which was frustrating for sure, but still proud of the way the guys played. I thought they played really well and they stuck together and defended as a unit. Uh, great Joe Lewis, our central defender played great. So I'm feeling good about the team on the whole. Uh, I think that we're a good football club going here into the last four games, but man, is it tight and is it nervous?

• 43:07Hank Green?

  That's intense. I opened up the AFC Wimbledon stats. Like, Google told me about it when I opened my Google and it was like, draw. And I looked at the numbers, you know, it was like, it's as is often the case, you guys scored early and then they scored late, which is frustrating. But then I looked and I was like, oh, you also got a red card early. And I texted you and I was like, this, you played almost all of this game, one person down?

• 43:33John Green?

  Yeah, we did. And I think they had like 80% possession and they had 18 shots and only scored one goal. It was a proper Alamo kind of defense.

• 43:42Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah. And AFC Wimbledon had one goal and one shot on goal.

• 43:47John Green?

  That is correct. It was a very good shot on goal by Alastair Smith and we're very grateful to him for that great shot on goal. What's the news from Mars?

• 43:57Hank Green?

  The news from Mars is gonna be news from Earth this week. So we're looking at more cuts that could have future impact on future Mars newses. So we got an open call from DOGE to call for early retirements and resignations in the Astro Geology Science Center, which is in Arizona, and it's part of the US Geological Survey. So it's expected that after that, more employees will be laid off. The Science Center is responsible for precision mapping and it has experts from tons of different fields. It's got it's got mineralogy people, volcanology people, and it's played an important role in making all of these beautiful maps of Mars and the moon and other

• 44:40Hank Green?

  planets that you have seen on the internet. Those don't just come out of nowhere. NASA makes them and we get to enjoy them and they are a thing in the world because of our shared tax dollars. And they also help plan out NASA missions, where things are gonna land, what they're gonna do. And that goes for for the moon stuff as well as for Mars stuff. And it does all the maps and software for the Perseverance rover. So that's gonna have potential consequences for crude missions to Mars. Since those are people that would would find things like the water ice deposits that they might use to

• 45:18John Green?

  Right.

• 45:19Hank Green?

  Have like pre pre-missions that like manufacture oxygen or fuel. But also the actual crude missions. And then they they've just been a really great resource for NASA and for private companies. Like, for example, a private company you may have heard of called SpaceX. So.

• 45:35John Green?

  Yeah. That's pretty frustrating. I mean, these, um. It's pretty frustrating. I don't know what else to say.

• 45:43Hank Green?

  It's pretty frustrating. It's and that again, it's like so annoying that like the attention can't be paid to everything.

• 45:48John Green?

  But it's heartbreaking that so many.

• 45:50Hank Green?

  Ultimately, what are like, what are they even trying to do? Just like be, it feels like be mean. Like, it's not like the budget is being affected.

• 46:00John Green?

  I think it's really important to understand that the budget is not being affected. That we are not spending less money as a country. In fact, we are spending more money in 2025 than we did in 2024 or 2023. So.

• 46:11Hank Green?

  Which was the expected outcome, like that was going to happen.

• 46:14John Green?

  Actually, the expected outcome was a freeze. That's the O M B expected spending to be flat. So we're spending more. Partly because we're paying a lot of workers who are on leave but not actually fired. And it's not clear that they actually can be fired.

• 46:33Hank Green?

  Right.

• 46:33John Green?

  But partly because we're spending more on defense and we're spending more on different forms of enforcement, for lack of a better term. But yeah, it's a really, um. It's just heartbreaking. I know so many people personally who've lost their jobs and who've, you know, worked in public service for decades and have seen their jobs go away. And that just breaks, it just breaks my heart because so many of those people are doing such important work. And it both, um. It costs them their livelihood. It also, in many cases, costs them their life's work. And that's that's doubly devastating.

• 47:06Hank Green?

  Here we are. Empires rise and empires fall, my man.

• 47:13Hank Green?

  But. But we will continue to pod for you.

• 47:17John Green?

  That's right. And, uh, and, and just go out there, do a little reverse poo bear.

• 47:27John Green?

  Got to optimize. Just make sure you're optimizing.

• 47:29Hank Green?

  That's, that'll fix everything.

• 47:31John Green?

  Get some, get some, get some vitamin D in you and you'll be all right.

• 47:34Hank Green?

  Oh, man. What's the relationship between the obsession with like the efficient use of a human life and how, how actually inefficient all of that energy is and the efficient use of the US government and how actually inefficient all of that is?

• 47:49John Green?

  No, I think there's a, I think there's a pipeline there, Hank, for sure. There's something, you're on to something.

• 47:54Hank Green?

  Yeah, well, that's, that's not the video I'm going to make this week.

• 47:57John Green?

  Great. Thank you in advance.

• 48:02Hank Green?

  John, thank you for making a podcast with me. It's always really nice. And I hope that you have an excellent experience at, in London. I'm going to go have, right after this, hopefully, an excellent experience at a Bernie Sanders rally, which is happening in Mizzou, Montana. So that'll be fun. Though I think that I will put a scarf around my whole face to hide from people.

• 48:23John Green?

  Smart man.

• 48:24Hank Green?

  If you want to send us questions, you can do that at [email protected]. We don't have a podcast without you, so thank you. And also, you can watch a video version of our podcast if you become a patron at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn. 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 Hals-Rohas and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Bradley. Our editorial assistant is Debuki 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.