417: You’ll Be Okay in the Medium Run

How do I prove I didn’t use AI in my masters thesis? Why is it so hard to do the things I really want to do? Is there something different about men’s colons? How did people go about collecting relics? Why are short stories not more popular than novels? …Hank and John Green have answers! 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.

• 0:01John Green?

  You're listening to a Complexly Podcast.

• 0:09John Green?

  Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John.

• 0:11Hank Green?

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

• 0:13John Green?

  It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you debriefs of advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, I fell in love with a banker.

• 0:21Hank Green?

  Oh.

• 0:22John Green?

  But when, when she had low interest, I was so interested in her. But then when she had high interest, I just...

• 0:29Hank Green?

  You lost your interest?

• 0:30John Green?

  I lost my interest.

• 0:31Hank Green?

  It's interesting, because I find with bankers that when they have high interest is when I am more interested.

• 0:35John Green?

  Why?

• 0:37Hank Green?

  Oh.

• 0:37John Green?

  Because as a deposit.

• 0:39Hank Green?

  I was thinking about taking a loan.

• 0:40John Green?

  Oh, I was thinking about giving money to the bank.

• 0:43Hank Green?

  There's the moneybags.

• 0:43John Green?

  There's the moneybags over here. Hey, listen, we're in the same place at the same time. If we sound a little different, that's because we're recording on an iPhone, unless you're on Patreon, in which case we're recording on a Hank's vlogging camera.

• 0:53Hank Green?

  We're actually gonna use whichever audio sounds better, and I have no idea which it will be.

• 0:57John Green?

  Great, but we're in the same place at the same time. A rare treat, it has to be said. Hank has been visiting me in Indianapolis. It's been lovely.

• 1:05Hank Green?

  It's been lovely. I would love to just come here for a month and make podcasts.

• 1:10John Green?

  Well, and, you know, we live in a forest. It's, everything is great. I don't understand why you don't come here for a month and make podcasts.

• 1:16Hank Green?

  In the summertime, you need a swimming pool or something. It's so hot.

• 1:19John Green?

  It's a little hot here, but other than that, it's great.

• 1:21Hank Green?

  It's humid.

• 1:22John Green?

  It's a little humid.

• 1:23Hank Green?

  I'd just be in the river, but it's dirty.

• 1:25John Green?

  The river is a little dirty. Uh, we recently had a canoe capsize, however, and so I experienced the river up close and personally. It's not that bad. I didn't get you arty or anything, yet.

• 1:36Hank Green?

  I mean, just don't give it up your nose.

• 1:38John Green?

  Yep, alright. Uh, you want, should we answer questions from our listeners, or should we continue to banter?

• 1:42Hank Green?

  I don't know. How does it work?

• 1:44John Green?

  Okay, this question comes from Elizabeth, who writes, "I'm a PhD student working on my master's thesis, and during my master's thesis proposal, I was accused of using AI to write my thesis document by someone on my committee. I did not use AI to write any part of my thesis document, and I stressed that to my mentor. He told me that he did not believe that I used AI and that I wasn't in any trouble because it couldn't be proven. But what do I do if they accuse me again during my defense?" Oh my God, Elizabeth, you must be so nervous right now. Hopefully, we've gotten to you in time, because we're gonna be able to solve this problem. We can solve the AI problem right now, right here, Hank.

• 2:16Hank Green?

  Great, because I was feeling very much like, what are we gonna do?

• 2:20John Green?

  I have all my version histories, and I use Toggle to track how long I work.

• 2:24Hank Green?

  But god.

• 2:25John Green?

  I mean, the fact that you have to do that to prove that you're not using AI in the year of our word 2025.

• 2:29Hank Green?

  I use toggle. I don't even know what that is.

• 2:32John Green?

  It sounds stressful, though.

• 2:33Hank Green?

  I love the word, though.

• 2:34John Green?

  How do I prove?

• 2:35Hank Green?

  At least they gave it a nice little word toggle.

• 2:37John Green?

  How do I prove that I didn't use AI when AI detectors are notoriously bad? Not the queen Elizabeth.

• 2:42Hank Green?

  AI detectors are so bad.

• 2:44John Green?

  Are they? I have never used one.

• 2:45Hank Green?

  At the beginning, they were okay.

• 2:47John Green?

  Right, but now.

• 2:48Hank Green?

  Now it's so, it's like you could do a bunch of stuff to make the the AI create stuff that doesn't get detected by AI detectors.

• 2:56John Green?

  Sure.

• 2:56Hank Green?

  And then like, what is it picking out? When it is detecting that it's made by AI, that it's like good, like a good bunch of logical words in a row. There are some things when when you're just like getting stock right out of the model that it can sound really like the same.

• 3:12John Green?

  Yeah.

• 3:13Hank Green?

  But honestly, I think that like human human detection is better at this point than AI detection, but it's all a game and it's all faulty and it's like at this point. I don't think that AI detection is fit for purpose. I don't think that it works.

• 3:26John Green?

  What do we do, Hank?

• 3:28Hank Green?

  I don't know. You said you had a solution.

• 3:30John Green?

  Oh, yeah. No, my solution, Elizabeth, is to not stress out about this because your mentor is right.

• 3:34Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 3:35John Green?

  If your mentor believes you that you didn't use AI, if you've logged your work time.

• 3:39Hank Green?

  This is so great. This is so, this is like an opposite Hank and John moment where you stayed in the problem.

• 3:44John Green?

  Yeah.

• 3:45Hank Green?

  I zoomed way out.

• 3:46John Green?

  Usually I'm the one who zooms way out.

• 3:48Hank Green?

  Yeah, and I was like, I don't know what we're gonna do about anything. It's all too big.

• 3:52John Green?

  And you're like, let's focus on our problem. The AI thing is very scary, very powerful, and I worry that the people who are uh have the most power around it are are not the people we would want to have the most power around it.

• 4:04Hank Green?

  It's just whoever showed up that day.

• 4:07John Green?

  What?

• 4:08Hank Green?

  Like, I don't, like, that's how I feel.

• 4:10John Green?

  Oh, no, no, no. It's very smart people are working on working on AI, but like.

• 4:14Hank Green?

  But who, but the people who ended up in charge.

• 4:16John Green?

  The people with the most power.

• 4:18Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 4:19John Green?

  Like, it worries me that Elon Musk, for instance, has a lot of power in the world of AI.

• 4:23Hank Green?

  Yeah, I think that's a legitimate concern.

• 4:25John Green?

  Yeah, I'm concerned about that, but I'm not concerned about Elizabeth. So like, we are not gonna solve the AI problem. We're gonna solve Elizabeth's problem.

• 4:34Hank Green?

  Right, so first of all, you don't have that much of a problem because your mentor is right and you are right and you know the truth. And second, what you need to do is interject some real humanity onto the page.

• 4:45John Green?

  Is that really what's no, because it's a master's thesis.

• 4:48Hank Green?

  But a lot of times you can't do that. A lot of times you can't like talk about like, here's why I personally.

• 4:53John Green?

  Even if you did, that you could just totally have an AI do that, absolutely. You could be like, get real goofy here.

• 4:59Hank Green?

  Yeah, make it, make this super personal. That was good, but make it more personal.

• 5:04John Green?

  I think that maybe the future is apps like Toggle where you prove how long you were inside the world. But even that isn't, the, the truth is, we're going to live in a different world. And I don't know how it's going to shake out, but I do know how it's going to shake out for Elizabeth, which is that Elizabeth is going to be okay. I mean, in the medium run, in the long run, Elizabeth, I have terrible news. Not about your master's thesis, but about the ubiquity of death.

• 5:30Hank Green?

  Yeah, that, that did sound like you thought that the world was going to end.

• 5:34John Green?

  No, no, no, just Elizabeth's world and mine and yours and each of ours.

• 5:38Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 5:39John Green?

  And all the trees and everything we love and the oceans will boil and etc.

• 5:43Hank Green?

  Right, but man.

• 5:44John Green?

  Not yet.

• 5:45Hank Green?

  My biology is telling me this all matters and so I'm gonna listen to it.

• 5:49John Green?

  We've got another question from a master. It's from Sarah. Who writes, Dear John and Hank, I'm about to graduate from my masters and with my masters and don't get me wrong, I'm proud of myself. But I can't help but wonder if I completed a masters because it sounded good to me to say that I have a masters degree or if I actually wanted to. Isn't wanting to be somebody who has a masters degree like, still like having a masters? I feel empty after this huge milestone because I want to be doing other things like creative writing. I guess what I'm trying to ask is, why is it so hard to do the things you really want to do that feeds your soul? How much does free will really guide us or are we just constantly predicting the path that brings us the most happiness from a biased perspective? Even if it might actually be true.

• 6:26Hank Green?

  Oh.

• 6:26John Green?

  Always existential and seeking serotonin, Sarah.

• 6:30Hank Green?

  Hmm, Sarah, you went, you did it. You went from the, the narrow problem to the big one.

• 6:35John Green?

  That's a classic move, Sarah. That's a classic John Green move. I congratulate you on John Green-ing it.

• 6:42Hank Green?

  Yeah, pro tip. Try not to do that.

• 6:45John Green?

  Yeah, stay in the, stay in the moment and in the problem. And if you want to be writing creatively, write creatively.

• 6:50Hank Green?

  Write creatively.

• 6:51John Green?

  Being a, having a master's degree doesn't prevent you from writing creatively. Having a job doesn't prevent you from writing creatively. You know, I wrote my first novel at night and on the weekends, and my second novel at night and on the weekends while working at a job. And that is the story for most creative writers. Um, the vast majority of creative writers don't make creative writing the center of their professional life, but still it's very fulfilling. As for why you became a master, you became a master so that you could say that you were a master of anthropology, or whatever you studied. And if you did that because you, you thought it would sound cool, let me tell you something, Sarah, as somebody who isn't a master.

• 7:25Hank Green?

  It does sound cool.

• 7:26John Green?

  It does sound cool.

• 7:27Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 7:27John Green?

  It sounds cool as heck.

• 7:29Hank Green?

  Well, and this is also, uh, for me, it's, it's true of everything, where it's like, why did, like, the, the main reason for many years I wanted to write a book was to have written a book.

• 7:39John Green?

  Oh, my God.

• 7:39Hank Green?

  To like be a man who's, people always talk to me when they're like, I really want to write it. I feel like just the dream of having, like, walking to a bookstore and seeing my name on the shelf.

• 7:48John Green?

  Yeah.

• 7:49Hank Green?

  They're not thinking about the contents of the book.

• 7:51John Green?

  No.

• 7:52Hank Green?

  They're like, that's a big part of why I wanted to write.

• 7:55John Green?

  I call this the yellow bus phenomenon. So when I was nine years old, I won a competition for writing, uh, in central Florida, not to brag. I beat on all the other third graders. Now, I recently reread this book, Hank. It's called It Just Isn't Fair. It's about, it's about death, like all of my work. And it's not very good. Uh, it doesn't show any particular promise. It's, um, it's very standard third grade work. Um, nothing exceptional about it at all. But they put me on a big yellow school bus and sent me all the way from Orlando to Tampa, Florida, to attend the Florida Young Writers Conference.

• 8:28Hank Green?

  Wow.

• 8:28John Green?

  And that was incredibly exciting. And what was cool about it was not writing the story.

• 8:34Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 8:34John Green?

  What was, or winning the award. What was cool about it was the big yellow school bus. And that is exactly what you're describing is the feeling that you want is like the feeling of being a writer, not the feeling of like writing a book or what the particular book is or reaching readers or all that stuff. And what I've had to do in my life is shed the big yellow bus enthusiasm.

• 8:57Hank Green?

  Right.

• 8:57John Green?

  And try to find meaning in wanting to reach readers, wanting to tell a particular story, wanting like.

• 9:03Hank Green?

  Just in the, just in the process, like in the, in the walk through the woods of, of sitting in front of a blank page.

• 9:09John Green?

  In the getting characters through a room to open doors, et cetera, of writing. That's what I've had to find joy in because if you're only seeking the other stuff, there will never be enough of it. Like I won the Prince Award and it wasn't enough and I won an LA Times Book Primes and it wasn't enough. There will never be enough of that stuff unless you can find joy and pleasure in the process.

• 9:30Hank Green?

  Right. And what like so much of what I find drove me is not what I enjoy about where I am. I've always been very driven by like wanting to be like a hero.

• 9:43John Green?

  Mm hmm.

• 9:44Hank Green?

  But then when I become like a hero, I'm like, oh.

• 9:47John Green?

  This is unpleasant.

• 9:48Hank Green?

  This isn't particularly great.

• 9:49John Green?

  Yeah, I don't like people looking up to me in this weird, weird, uncomfortable way.

• 9:53Hank Green?

  Yeah, I mean, there's parts of it that are like lots of it's, it's, it's nice. It's just like what I thought would be nice is just being me.

• 9:59John Green?

  Yeah.

• 10:00Hank Green?

  But that's not nice. It's all the, it's all the like parts of the job that I like doing that are nice.

• 10:05John Green?

  Right. I think that to walk into a bookstore, I'm just gonna tell you the truth.

• 10:11Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 10:12John Green?

  And look at the bookstore and think, you know what this place needs is a book by me is itself like, like it requires a measure of hubris.

• 10:22Hank Green?

  That's not what I, that's not what I'm thinking about.

• 10:24John Green?

  No, no, no, I'm not like I'm, I'm saying this of myself as much as I am of you. Like it requires a measure of hubris to think that. But like at the same time, what's actually fulfilling in that work turns out not to be the fulfillment of the hubris. It turns out to be the work. And this is, this is.

• 10:43Hank Green?

  And the, and the, I mean, success is a big part of it, like actually having people read the work.

• 10:48John Green?

  Of course, yeah, but that's that what's fulfilling about that is had is reaching readers and hopefully, you know, having an impact on them in a, in a, in a deep and meaningful and ongoing way. That's what's interesting about it.

• 11:01Hank Green?

  And to quit your day job.

• 11:03John Green?

  And absolutely, the financial part of it is huge.

• 11:06Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 11:07John Green?

  But like the, if you can quit your day job, which I think like sixty writers can.

• 11:11Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 11:12John Green?

  But like the, the, the rest of it isn't that good. The like, the prizes and the whatever and the acclaim, like all that stuff just, he, here is an interesting thing. I just read a book about me.

• 11:27Hank Green?

  Oh, wow.

• 11:27John Green?

  I don't think I've told you about this.

• 11:29Hank Green?

  Weird.

• 11:29John Green?

  Yeah, so I read a book about me. I suspect it will be published at some point. It's very good. And it's not entirely about me, but of course, like, I was very interested in the parts that were about me.

• 11:40Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 11:41John Green?

  And it's kind of about that, like, 2010s Tumblr era.

• 11:46Hank Green?

  So I'm in there too, probably.

• 11:47John Green?

  You are in there.

• 11:48Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 11:48John Green?

  It's also a book about you. It's more a book about me, but it's partly a book about you.

• 11:54Hank Green?

  As far as you can tell.

• 11:58Hank Green?

  So true.

• 11:59John Green?

  So I'm, I'm reading this book and this person unfortunately did a lot of very good research and found something I wrote in like 2003 where I was like, I will do anything for fans. I will mortgage my mother's house for fans. And I totally meant that. I was completely sincere. I wanted to be famous so, so badly.

• 12:19Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 12:19John Green?

  And then I got famous and it turns out that like, almost no one on earth is less equipped to be famous than I am.

• 12:25Hank Green?

  I have a, a book of the letters of Isaac Asimov.

• 12:28John Green?

  Yeah.

• 12:29Hank Green?

  And there's these two letters and it's in, they're like organized by topic.

• 12:34John Green?

  Yeah.

• 12:34Hank Green?

  Not by time.

• 12:35John Green?

  Yeah.

• 12:35Hank Green?

  So there's these two letters that are just like in the section about like, uh, having fans.

• 12:40John Green?

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:40Hank Green?

  And one letter is from early in his career where he taught, he just gushes about how lovely it is to sign an autograph or to sign a book. And then 20 years later, he's like, if one more person asks me to sign a book, I may very well move to the moon.

• 12:56John Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, like. It's good, it's good to know that Isaac Asimov also wasn't particularly well-equipped for fame.

• 13:03Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 13:04John Green?

  Um, but there is something about it that like, the thing that I most wanted turns out to be the least fulfilling part of the job that I have now.

• 13:14Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 13:14John Green?

  What's really fulfilling is like getting to do a make-a-wish like I get to do next week. Or getting to hear from readers, hearing from Elizabeth about Elizabeth's problems with AI and having to think about that. Like, thinking about stuff, working on stuff with other people in the community.

• 13:31Hank Green?

  Right.

• 13:32John Green?

  As a leader of that community is really, really fulfilling.

• 13:35Hank Green?

  And so, as much as we can do to be a part of each other's communities.

• 13:40John Green?

  Yeah.

• 13:40Hank Green?

  To, to connect over work, like if you could find people who are also doing stuff.

• 13:46John Green?

  Well, and that's the other thing, right?

• 13:48Hank Green?

  And like, and be waiting, like have a, like be the person who is waiting for that, that other person to finish that next chapter.

• 13:55John Green?

  Yeah.

• 13:56Hank Green?

  Because you're invested in it. So like having somebody who's invested in your work and being invested in the work of others.

• 14:01John Green?

  Yeah.

• 14:02Hank Green?

  Really can drive you forward, like finding that somewhere. I think it's very important for communities to not all be 200,000 people, you know, like.

• 14:11John Green?

  Yeah.

• 14:11Hank Green?

  Most of them should be like six.

• 14:13John Green?

  Twenty. Yeah. The number one fulfillment from my work is, is working with you.

• 14:20Hank Green?

  Right.

• 14:20John Green?

  And working with my editor and working, like, and working, working with Rosiano. Like, the greatest fulfillment I get from my work is working with a relatively small group of people on projects that I really care about.

• 14:32Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 14:32John Green?

  And it's in that collaboration and cooperation that I find the most joy. That's where I really find, and, and also consolation, like I feel less alone when I'm working with you.

• 14:44Hank Green?

  Could I hit you with something that I think that you'll disagree with me on, or like we'll just have a different perspect, like, like we, we will have a different way of working?

• 14:51John Green?

  Yeah.

• 14:51Hank Green?

  I think that in the, in this world of, you know, I just got my master's degree and.

• 14:57John Green?

  Oh, it's just such a terrible time in life.

• 14:58Hank Green?

  It is, yeah.

• 14:59John Green?

  Being twenty, like being in your early twenties and like finishing school or finishing grad school or whenever you finish grad school is such a weird time of life.

• 15:07Hank Green?

  Yeah, because you're like, okay, now I have to like do life.

• 15:09John Green?

  I saw Sarah go through it.

• 15:10Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 15:11John Green?

  Thankfully, I never went to grad school because I dropped out on day one.

• 15:14Hank Green?

  I had, and I just became a freelance web developer.

• 15:18John Green?

  Yeah.

• 15:19Hank Green?

  After having my biochemistry degree.

• 15:20John Green?

  Yeah.

• 15:21Hank Green?

  Anyway. The, the thing that you're gonna be programmed for a little bit.

• 15:27John Green?

  Yeah.

• 15:27Hank Green?

  Is to create works of mastery.

• 15:30John Green?

  Hmm.

• 15:31Hank Green?

  And the thing that you should do.

• 15:33John Green?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:34Hank Green?

  Is, instead of a sniper rifle, just like a handheld machine gun, where you're just like blasting out ideas.

• 15:41John Green?

  Just doing lots of stuff in lots of directions.

• 15:44Hank Green?

  Get it all out of there.

• 15:45John Green?

  Yeah, instead of trying to be highly specialized, just like.

• 15:48Hank Green?

  The pots.

• 15:49John Green?

  The pots?

• 15:50Hank Green?

  The pots.

• 15:51John Green?

  What about the pots?

• 15:52Hank Green?

  There's this parable, and I don't know if it's real.

• 15:54John Green?

  Tell me the parable.

• 15:55Hank Green?

  That, uh, that if you ask a person to make one perfect pot.

• 16:00John Green?

  Yeah.

• 16:01Hank Green?

  And give them a year.

• 16:02John Green?

  Yeah.

• 16:02Hank Green?

  They will make a worse pot than if you ask a person to make a thousand pots in one year.

• 16:07John Green?

  I completely agree with that.

• 16:09Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 16:09John Green?

  Um, as, as a potter.

• 16:12Hank Green?

  Oh.

• 16:12John Green?

  Um, I completely agree with that. If you asked, if you asked me to make a thousand mugs, the thousandth mug will be better than if you asked me to make one great mug.

• 16:20Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 16:21John Green?

  Not least because of the pressure of making the one great mug.

• 16:24Hank Green?

  Yeah, and that's what we do. We do that to ourselves.

• 16:26John Green?

  Yep, absolutely.

• 16:27Hank Green?

  We always think we're making the one perfect mug. And then I go back and I like look at the videos I made, or the stories I wrote, or the, you know, the science communication I did when I thought I was working on the one perfect thing. And I was like, oh, this was one of the shitty pots along the way.

• 16:43John Green?

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:44Hank Green?

  And like, I thought I was, I worked so, and like, there was value in all of that work.

• 16:48John Green?

  Yeah, and by the way, as somebody who makes a Vlogbrothers video every Tuesday.

• 16:52Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 16:52John Green?

  So I've made a lot of pots. I've made 1,200 Vlogbrothers pots over the last 18 years.

• 16:57Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 16:57John Green?

  And many of them are not great.

• 16:59Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 17:00John Green?

  But I still make one every Tuesday because sometimes I make a really good one.

• 17:03Hank Green?

  And the, the, the most interesting thing to me, to me is like, what motivated us to make 1,200 of these?

• 17:10John Green?

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:10Hank Green?

  And it really is, like, in the beginning, it was each other.

• 17:13John Green?

  It's still each other to some extent.

• 17:15Hank Green?

  Well, yeah, yeah, but in the beginning, it was just each other.

• 17:18John Green?

  Just each other.

• 17:18Hank Green?

  And then, and then like, the, the richness of the obligation has continued to increase.

• 17:25John Green?

  Yeah, for sure. But having someone you're responsible to is very helpful.

• 17:30Hank Green?

  So this is a lot.

• 17:32John Green?

  Yeah, I almost told you about my secret Patreon just now, but I decided not to. Let's move on to this question from Amanda. Dear John and Hank, I don't know if it's just me, but it feels like every man in my life takes forever to poop. For me as a woman, I don't go in the first minute or if I don't go in the first minute or so of sitting down, it's just not happening. Now, I may just be not noticing how long women take in the bathroom, but it does seem like men disappear in the bathroom all the time, forever. Is there something different about men's colons that requires them to sit a long time to poop? Or are they really just disappearing to get away from everything? Not a man, duh, Amanda. Really great name specific sign off.

• 18:05Hank Green?

  Wow, so specific to the question.

• 18:08John Green?

  A- and specific to the name.

• 18:09Hank Green?

  Yes.

• 18:10John Green?

  Really good sign off. Somebody asked us recently if the questions on the pod are real or if we fake them.

• 18:16Hank Green?

  Because they all end in puns and so it seems like we must be faking them.

• 18:20John Green?

  As if we are clever punsters. Have you heard Hank's dad jokes?

• 18:24Hank Green?

  Oh.

• 18:24John Green?

  No, that's all Amanda right there. That's Amanda's work. Hank, as somebody who takes a long time to poop, I thought you might be interested in this question.

• 18:33Hank Green?

  I think that like, there's a variety of, of explanations for this phenomenon.

• 18:37John Green?

  Yeah.

• 18:38Hank Green?

  There are some times when it just takes a long time to poop. I don't know what this is called.

• 18:43John Green?

  Mm hmm.

• 18:43Hank Green?

  But my, my gastroenterologist refers to it as dry heaves of the butt.

• 18:50John Green?

  Oh, wow. Yeah, I know what that is.

• 18:51Hank Green?

  Yeah. Um, uh, and.

• 18:55John Green?

  We're really covering all the major topics today.

• 18:58Hank Green?

  You know, I don't have the healthiest colon, obviously.

• 19:01John Green?

  Yeah. No, you have ulcerative colitis, just for context.

• 19:03Hank Green?

  Yes. The, there will be times when I'll like, think I'm done and I'll be, and I will have pooped and then I'll be like, I gotta go again.

• 19:10John Green?

  Yeah, then a little more, a little more happens.

• 19:12Hank Green?

  Yeah, I'm like, ready to go.

• 19:13John Green?

  So there's some of that.

• 19:14Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 19:15John Green?

  I don't know if that's specific to men.

• 19:17Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 19:17John Green?

  But there is also an element, I think sometimes of wanting to escape things.

• 19:21Hank Green?

  Right.

• 19:22John Green?

  Wanting to take a break.

• 19:22Hank Green?

  This is a good point. That's definitely not specific to men.

• 19:25John Green?

  Have quiet time. That's not specific to men either.

• 19:27Hank Green?

  No.

• 19:27John Green?

  I don't think any of this is specific to men.

• 19:29Hank Green?

  I think that there might be a bunch of, there, there might be a, a greater proportion of guys who are like, I don't feel the need to leave this bathroom right now, even though I am done.

• 19:44John Green?

  Oh, even though I'm done?

• 19:46Hank Green?

  Oh, yeah, I'm done.

• 19:47John Green?

  Oh, when I'm done, I'm done.

• 19:49Hank Green?

  Well, okay.

• 19:50John Green?

  I'm out.

• 19:51Hank Green?

  What are you thinking? Like, I think these people just want like, they're just like, want a little more time for themselves.

• 19:55John Green?

  But that's not good for your, that's not good for your colonic health.

• 19:58Hank Green?

  No, it's not.

• 19:59John Green?

  So that's why I don't do that. I'm a very, I don't know if you know this about me, Hank, but I'm very nervous about disease and illness.

• 20:07Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 20:07John Green?

  And the idea of like unnecessarily spending time near fecal matter just doesn't resonate with me.

• 20:14Hank Green?

  Well, then you won't be able to answer this question.

• 20:16John Green?

  Well, that's why I was fascinated by the question because it doesn't resonate with me at all.

• 20:20Hank Green?

  No, I think that there's a, there's a fair amount, and I do this. There's a fair amount of just like, well, I'm here, I'm scrolling.

• 20:26John Green?

  Yeah. You're just gonna keep scrolling.

• 20:28Hank Green?

  I'm just gonna keep, yeah. I think if I go out there, there's gonna be stuff to do.

• 20:32John Green?

  Now, I, I very rarely will scroll or bring my phone into this whole endeavor precisely because I don't want to spend unnecessary time in the bathroom.

• 20:42Hank Green?

  That's the thing to do.

• 20:43John Green?

  All right, we're moving on to this question from Ein, I think. I might be mispronouncing this person's name and they didn't give me a name specific sign off to be sure.

• 20:51Hank Green?

  Hmm.

• 20:52John Green?

  Dear John and Hank, I grew up Catholic and never really thought too much about the details regarding relics. I just accepted it as part of the whole shebang. But looking back, I have a few questions. Like, how did people go about collecting relics or figuring out what had belonged to whom? Was there a process for discerning the saintly teeth from the non-saintly? Was it grave robbing or just snatching a bone or belonging at the time of death? I wonder if Hank even knows what relics are. This feels somehow like something John would have read about and I'm sure can connect to tuberculosis somehow, adesits and axial skeletons, Ein.

• 21:20Hank Green?

  Uh.

• 21:21John Green?

  Give me your knowledge of relics.

• 21:23Hank Green?

  So, sometimes you go to an old church.

• 21:25John Green?

  Yep.

• 21:26Hank Green?

  In Europe.

• 21:26John Green?

  Yep.

• 21:27Hank Green?

  And there will be a thing.

• 21:28John Green?

  Not just in Europe.

• 21:29Hank Green?

  Well, sometimes I will go to an old church in Europe.

• 21:32John Green?

  Yeah.

• 21:32Hank Green?

  I did this.

• 21:33John Green?

  Sure.

• 21:33Hank Green?

  And there is a, there's an, there's a pillar in the middle of the church.

• 21:37John Green?

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:37Hank Green?

  And inside of the pillar is a box and inside of the box theoretically is like the finger of John the Baptist.

• 21:43John Green?

  Right. John the Baptist, by the way, a many-fingered man.

• 21:47Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 21:48John Green?

  Had at least thirty fingers.

• 21:49Hank Green?

  One thing I know is that there's a lot of fingers.

• 21:51John Green?

  Yeah.

• 21:52Hank Green?

  And not a lot of John the Baptists.

• 21:55John Green?

  Just the one. This is a problem with relics is that sometimes the number of relics, you know, like Saint Apollonia, the patron saint of dentists and tooth pain, because she had her teeth crushed by pincers as part of her martyrdom. There's a lot of, there's a lot of, a lot of dark stuff.

• 22:14Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 22:14John Green?

  That people have suffered from religion, let's say, let's say like it is. Anyway, point being, Saint Apollonia has more teeth than she has teeth. You know what I mean? Like she's got, there's a lot of teeth out there.

• 22:25Hank Green?

  Well, because they got crushed, so they're all in little pieces.

• 22:26John Green?

  Well, but there's a lot of like, like crushed tooth relics out there that aren't necessarily Saint Apollonia's.

• 22:30Hank Green?

  Right. I, I, I think I would, I would wager.

• 22:33John Green?

  Yeah.

• 22:34Hank Green?

  That none of them are.

• 22:35John Green?

  No, some of them are.

• 22:36Hank Green?

  Really?

• 22:37John Green?

  Some of them are, for sure.

• 22:38Hank Green?

  Did Saint Apollonia die in the last thousand years?

• 22:40John Green?

  No.

• 22:41Hank Green?

  Then I'd say none of them are.

• 22:42John Green?

  Oh, maybe, maybe none of those, but there are relics that are legitimate.

• 22:45Hank Green?

  Oh, okay.

• 22:46John Green?

  That's what I'm saying.

• 22:47Hank Green?

  Yeah, but there are some relics that are legitimate, but like, it's so easy to convince people of something. It like, like convincing people, if you can benefit from having a finger.

• 23:00John Green?

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:00Hank Green?

  And convincing somebody that this finger is a special finger.

• 23:04John Green?

  Sure.

• 23:04Hank Green?

  Then people will figure out how to do it.

• 23:07John Green?

  Of course. That is not just true for religion and relics.

• 23:11Hank Green?

  Oh, no, yeah, absolutely not. I'm just saying that like, like cons, con artists are a thing.

• 23:16John Green?

  My position is that it doesn't matter if it's Saint Apollonia's tooth. Literally, if you go to that tooth and believe that it is Saint Apollonia's and you are in terrible dental pain and you ask Saint Ap- I'm not, I'm not a Catholic, but if you ask Saint Apollonia to intercede on your behalf with the pain, that is a way of trying to take the pain outside of yourself and, and, and, and share it. And, and, and pain is almost impossible to share and there may be meaning and usefulness in that.

• 23:47Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 23:48John Green?

  The, the, the actual designation of the tooth matters less to me personally.

• 23:54Hank Green?

  I think that that's fair.

• 23:56John Green?

  Yeah.

• 23:56Hank Green?

  Yeah. I think it's fair, especially if no one is currently trying to convince me to pay a bunch of money for a tooth.

• 24:03John Green?

  Now, as is well known, while I don't enjoy being famous, I would love to be a saint.

• 24:08Hank Green?

  Oh.

• 24:09John Green?

  Oh, I'd love to be one.

• 24:10Hank Green?

  But you don't get to be one.

• 24:12John Green?

  What do you mean you don't get to be one?

• 24:13Hank Green?

  You're not Catholic.

• 24:13John Green?

  Well, that's one of the issues. But there are other issues that I like, that I don't deserve it.

• 24:20John Green?

  I want you to be a saint too. I can auction off all of these parts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the thing I was gonna say. I want a diamond encrusted tooth that contains your teeth. I want a hint green. One for every thirty-two teeth. You're my relic auctioneer. Oh, yeah. Because you are a salesperson. Oh, yeah. You, you, you, you can. You're gonna knock a dog off a bone. And then you will make me donate all of the money. I will. I'll make you donate all the money to Partners in Health. I absolutely will. You're right. Which reminds me, that today's podcast is brought to you by John's Teeth. One day, to be donated, uh, to, to, to be used to raise money that will then be donated to Partners in Health. This podcast is also brought to you by the concept of interest. It goes both ways. Yeah, and today's podcast is additionally brought to you, um, by dry heaving of the butt.

• 25:05John Green?

  Dry heaving of the butt, a phrase that I will not soon forget. This podcast is brought to you by a largemouth bass the size of a man. That was actually not in this podcast. That was in a video that we made before this.

• 25:21John Green?

  But, good job. Good job. Good job. All right, we've got another question. This one's from Eleanor. Eleanor says, "Why is it that short stories are less popular than novels? Don't people have short attention spans? Shouldn't we love short stories?" It's a great question. Eleanor, they're too long. That's the problem with short stories. There's two things going on with short stories. One, is that they tend to be a little more literary, and I think people are suspicious of, of, uh, literariness. Like, they're suspicious of highfalutin art, and it makes them feel like, "This isn't the F1 movie. This is something that I'm supposed to eat, like broccoli." Yeah, and, and, and like, the short stories that I can think of that have, like, caught fire, are often not very literary. No. No, they're fun. Yeah.

• 26:04John Green?

  Because, here's the thing. This is a very important thing to understand when it comes to art. Easy... And fun are not opposites. The opposite of easy is not fun.

• 26:16Hank Green?

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:17John Green?

  It's hard. And so you can have something that is that is fun while also being like worthy of critical reading.

• 26:25Hank Green?

  Right.

• 26:26John Green?

  This this.

• 26:27Hank Green?

  Complex.

• 26:28John Green?

  Complex, multitudinous.

• 26:29Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 26:30John Green?

  You know, like, a lot of pop fiction is fun, but also interesting. Like, whatever you think of the year, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, uh, you can't argue that that book isn't isn't interesting. But like, it's also, you know, like, it also holds up to critical reading and stuff.

• 26:46Hank Green?

  Yeah. And I always am surprised by this. Oftentimes, I'll like hit it, I'll I'll be like, fine, I'll read it, and I'll think that it was going to be like.

• 26:53John Green?

  You'll think it's gonna be like broccoli. Because everyone's because everyone's been telling you how good it is, and you're like, oh, great. Good fiction is like hard work fiction.

• 27:01Hank Green?

  Yeah. Yeah, like, I felt I'd never read a Kurt Vonnegut book.

• 27:05John Green?

  Oh, so fun.

• 27:06Hank Green?

  And and like, first of all, I was like Kurt Vonnegut, he's a he's a, you know, it's all literature.

• 27:11John Green?

  Yeah.

• 27:11Hank Green?

  And it's, I mean.

• 27:13John Green?

  It's a good time.

• 27:13Hank Green?

  It's, yeah.

• 27:14John Green?

  Toni Morrison. You don't win the Nobel Prize by being by being merely hard.

• 27:19Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 27:19John Green?

  Like, Toni Morrison is incredibly fun to read. Now, like, not like fun in the sense of like going down a slip and slide, but like.

• 27:26Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 27:26John Green?

  You know, interesting, compelling, you wanna keep reading, the sentences are pleasurable to interact with.

• 27:32Hank Green?

  Yeah, they're not work.

• 27:33John Green?

  They're they're not merely work.

• 27:36Hank Green?

  Right.

• 27:36John Green?

  Like, and when they're work, they're they're they're so rewarding that it doesn't feel like work, right? Like, whether we're talking about Toni Morrison, or we're talking about Gatsby, or we're talking about The Catcher in the Rye, or we're we're talking about Speak by Laurie Holt Anderson, like, like, all these books are are good. Like, they're they're, like, there's a, like, you don't become a classic because you're not good. You become a classic because it's good, it's fun to read. Of Mice and Men is interesting to read.

• 28:02Hank Green?

  Yeah. Yeah, all these books.

• 28:05John Green?

  Scarlet Letter. I'm not sure.

• 28:07Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 28:08John Green?

  Nathaniel Hawthorne never did it for me. You know who doesn't do it for me on a big level? Edith Wharton.

• 28:15Hank Green?

  You're not gonna catch me knowing who that is.

• 28:18John Green?

  Okay. Well, and I feel bad because I know Edith Warden has a lot of big supporters in our community, but it's just not, it's not my thing.

• 28:25Hank Green?

  That's the thing.

• 28:26John Green?

  But yeah, I, I, I am a little bit surprised that there isn't more of a short story culture in one way or another. I listen to a podcast of short stories.

• 28:35Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 28:35John Green?

  The Clark's World podcast, and it's, it's great. You know, of course, it's, it's hit and miss.

• 28:41Hank Green?

  Sure.

• 28:42John Green?

  They're not all, they're not all bangers.

• 28:43Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 28:44John Green?

  But it's, it's such an interesting way to spend a half an hour walk, like, listening to some new science fiction writers, like, take on First Contact, or, or pandemic fiction, or climate fiction, you know?

• 29:00Hank Green?

  Is it all science fiction?

• 29:01John Green?

  Yeah.

• 29:02Hank Green?

  Okay. What's it called?

• 29:03John Green?

  Clark's World.

• 29:04Hank Green?

  Clark's World.

• 29:05John Green?

  It's a sci-fi literary magazine, and they have a-

• 29:08Hank Green?

  A fiction podcast.

• 29:09John Green?

  Fiction podcast.

• 29:09Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 29:10John Green?

  Um, and it's great, but I think that it can often be a little unsatisfying to a person who's used to reading novels.

• 29:17Hank Green?

  Right, because with a novel, you have much more time to get engaged in the world. You get that, like-

• 29:22John Green?

  Yeah, and, and you're almost like, you like, eat, hit the end and you're like, "Oh, I liked this, though."

• 29:27Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 29:28John Green?

  Like, when it's a good one, you're like, "But what do they do next? What are the rock eaters gonna be up to?" Whereas with a novel, you can have that feeling of real overarching fulfillment, because you spent like 10 hours with the story.

• 29:41Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 29:41John Green?

  But, I don't know. I think there's a lot of value to short stories. I think we should read them more, and it's a bummer to me that we don't, and I include myself in that. Hey, before we get to the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, we have an urgent complaint.

• 29:51Hank Green?

  Oh.

• 29:52John Green?

  From Lily and about 500 other people.

• 29:54Hank Green?

  Oh, not about us. Great.

• 29:56John Green?

  No, it is about us.

• 29:57Hank Green?

  Oh.

• 29:57John Green?

  We had a huge failure in a previous episode of the pod, and we need to correct it.

• 30:01Hank Green?

  About 500 other people. I thought she was complaining about 500 people.

• 30:04John Green?

  No, no, no. She's complaining about us. Dear John and only John.

• 30:08Hank Green?

  Oh, good.

• 30:08John Green?

  So that's good.

• 30:09Hank Green?

  Mm-hmm.

• 30:10John Green?

  That's my favorite kind of letter that we get when people are complaining.

• 30:13Hank Green?

  I did well.

• 30:15John Green?

  I have paused the most recent episode of the pod to write to you because the original doctor who said sneezing is never normal was a woman. You keep saying "he", and it is understandable because the name Never Sneezer Scrooge is excellent and does suggest a man. But the last thing we need in this day and age is to bury the historical contribution of yet another woman in medicine. Especially one so important. Thank you, Lily. And everybody else. Lily and everybody else, I am extremely sorry for forgetting that Dr. Never Sneezer Scrooge is in fact a woman and has made an important contribution to medicine by pointing out that sneezing is not, has never been, and will never be normal. And I apologize for failing on the bit.

• 30:57John Green?

  Usually I commit to a bit, this time I failed on a bit and I am sorry. We've been at this for too long, John. Dr. Never Sneezer Scrooge was and always has been a woman. And a fish. And a fish like the rest of us. Again, Hank is referencing a video that we made, which is not part of this podcast, and is very confusing to the many listeners of this podcast who do not watch blog lovers videos. We've been sitting in the same place, though. Think about Hank, think about the person who said, "Can you describe your faces because I'll never see you." Yeah. Think about that person when you're thinking about this pod. Remember when you first saw like a radio DJ who you'd listen to? Oh, yeah. Devastating. Devastating. We get to be that for some people. We get to be that for some people. And don't Google what we look like. Just...

• 31:41John Green?

  I think we look exactly how we sound. Have us be sounds. This is what I want to be most in the world, is to be made of waves and particles, to be like made of light and sound. Peter Thiel's gonna deliver that for you. Alright Hank, it's time for the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. I'll go first since I had some pretty significant AFC Wimbledon news. I don't even know if you know this, but um, along with 10 of my friends, I have acquired 3.7% of AFC Wimbledon. That's a pretty big deal. Yeah. So, uh, my friends and I- I didn't know that was possible because it's uh, it's uh, it's uh, not owned. It's a fan-owned club. Uh, 75% of the shares are owned by the Don's Trust, which is the fan-ownership group that everybody gets the same votes on. And then 25% of the club

• 32:26John Green?

  uh, is purchasable, and has been purchased by a bunch of people over the years and um, and, and by a lot of fans. And I've bought a little bit. Now, this doesn't affect, it doesn't mean that you can control what happens with AFC Wimbledon. It's a fan-owned club, that 75% controls everything. Yeah. But, you can contribute to the club by owning shares in the club, um, up to 25% at the moment. There's some movement to move that to 50 to-

• 32:51Hank Green?

  Forty-nine or something?

• 32:51John Green?

  Forty-nine percent, but for now it's twenty-five percent and there were still some shares left. And so a bunch of my friends, most of them in Indianapolis, but some around the country, um, have got, come together and we have bought three point seven percent of the football club. This is incredibly exciting for me, uh, because I get to invest in a thing that I love. And, um, I don't, you know, in the, uh,

• 33:13Hank Green?

  You're the news.

• 33:15John Green?

  I'm the news. Also, our forward Osman Foyoh has just been charged with two hundred and thirty-eight counts of betting on football, but that's not the news. The news is me. And, um, yeah, so three point seven percent of the football club and I'm excited and that's it.

• 33:31Hank Green?

  That's, that's bad.

• 33:32John Green?

  It's not great, but the news about me is good and we're investing in the football club.

• 33:37Hank Green?

  You just bought, you just bought some shares in a football club that is currently?

• 33:43John Green?

  I mean, in,

• 33:44Hank Green?

  That's a, that's a handleable problem.

• 33:46John Green?

  It's a handleable problem. Charging is not the same thing as being convicted of and I have no idea what's going on and I don't want to know. The point is, we own three point seven percent of the football club. We invested because AFC Wimbledon is a fan-owned club. We don't want to change that, of course. Um, but we're excited and the money is going to go toward improvements to the stadium and paying down debt because we incurred a lot of debt, mostly to ourselves to finance the stadium. And so, um, we're going to help pay that down.

• 34:13Hank Green?

  Sweet.

• 34:14John Green?

  All right. What's the news from Mars?

• 34:15Hank Green?

  It's up there doing, it's just chilling.

• 34:18John Green?

  Mars is stable in a way that I wish Earth were stable, but I don't wish Earth were stable.

• 34:26Hank Green?

  You don't want that.

• 34:27John Green?

  I like part of, I do want that on a superficial level, but if I think about it more deeply, I don't want that.

• 34:32Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 34:33John Green?

  I want Earth to be an unstable, unpredictable environment with a film of life, which includes Peter Thiel.

• 34:39Hank Green?

  What?

• 34:42Hank Green?

  What you, what you know about any four billion year old, uh, system of living chemistry is that it is built on trillions of corpses.

• 34:52John Green?

  Wow.

• 34:52Hank Green?

  So.

• 34:53John Green?

  Well, you were just telling me about the mass extinction that was caused by trees, which was ultimately caused by trees decay. forming what we now know to be soil. Yeah. And then that's soil. And breaking up rocks. And breaking up rocks. And that soil and, and, and rock matter then getting into oceans and lakes and causing these massive algae blooms. Because of overoxygenation, which killed seventy-five percent of species. We think of trees as being so friendly and innocuous, but once they killed seventy-five percent of species on Earth. Yeah, no, they went hard. They were like, when lignin evolved, man, it was a whole different ballgame. Meanwhile, we've killed, what, like, eight percent? We got a long way to go if we want to be trees.

• 35:36John Green?

  Uh, they had more time and we've got, we've got more time. Hopefully. Well, I mean, hopefully not to cause mass extinctions, but yes, we are, um. We're smarter than trees, so we should be able to rein it in. Should. We could. It's theoretically possible. Trees couldn't. And I believe that we will. We are the first creature to do what we are doing and know that we are doing it. And I believe that we are also the first creature that will be able to make the choice to do less of what we are doing that is harmful. Or maybe. Hmm. We won't make the choice, it'll just happen anyway. Yeah. Well, that is sort of the stark reality that we face at the moment.

• 36:21John Green?

  Anyway, we don't want to be Mars. We also don't want to be this Earth. We want to be a better Earth. Be a better Earth. But the fact that we know that. Mm-hmm. Is new. It's relatively new. Well, geologically, it's extremely new. Geologically, it's new. Even in terms of human history, it's extremely new. It's very new. And we're getting used to it, and we're not doing a very good job, but we can do a better job together. Thank you for coming to my second TED Talk. This episode of Dear Hank and Donald is edited by Ben Swordout, mixed by Joseph Tudametash. Marketing specialist is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosiana Halsrohass and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Bradley. Our editorial assistant is Tuvok Yachter Vardy. The music you're hearing now at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gonna Roll Up.

• 37:04John Green?

  And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.