Pod Insights Dear Hank & John 425: The Deal With Airports About this episode When did Hank decide to start going by “Hank”? Why do we have to die? Should I point out to my friend that they missed my birthday? What is your airport advice? Who is driving Saturn? …Hank and John Green have answers!
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Hank Green? You're listening to a Complexly podcast.
0:09 Hank Green? Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John.
0:11 John Green? Or as I prefer to think of it, Dear John and Hank.
0:14 Hank 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.
0:22 John Green? Hank.
0:22 Hank Green? Yeah, what? Wait, what? What?
0:24 John Green? I have a dad joke for you. My pilot, my pilot, our pilot, said it today over the intercom, and I thought it was medium funny.
0:32 Hank Green? Okay.
0:33 John Green? How do you know a dad joke is in fact a dad joke?
0:36 Hank Green? Ah, yeah, tell me, John.
0:39 John Green? It should just be a parent.
0:40 Hank Green? Yay!
0:43 John Green? Oh, see?
0:44 Hank Green? Your pilot said that?
0:46 John Green? The tables have turned.
0:47 Hank Green? Nice.
0:48 John Green? Yeah, and then the flight attendants were like, "He does that every time."
0:53 Hank Green? Oh, wow.
0:54 John Green? Yeah.
0:55 Hank Green? I wonder what the FAA regulations are for how long the pilot can go on. Is there a point at which they're like, "Actually, sir, you need to get to work"?
1:05 John Green? Exactly. "We didn't hire you primarily as a stand-up comedian, but indeed to fly the plane."
1:12 Hank Green? Because they gotta be talking to the tower as well, I've heard. I've seen those TikToks where they're talking to the tower. So it can't always be talking to you. But I'm sure there's some times when they're just sort of not doing anything. So can you just pop on in the middle and be like, "Hey, everybody"? Because they do that. They're like, "People on the left side, if you look out, you can see Mount Rainier," or something like that.
1:33 John Green? Right.
1:34 Hank Green? So they can.
1:35 John Green? They can. And I think the question is, how often can they do it without getting fired? And the answer, I suspect, is pretty often, which makes me feel like, maybe they don't like us?
1:45 Hank Green? Well, like...
1:46 John Green? Do they like flying the plane more than they like talking to the people?
1:50 Hank Green? Right, right. The people. You have them at your disposal. You could do whatever you want. You could be like, "Hey, if you look out your left window, you'll see America. That's the home of the free, the land of the brave, and there's a reason the founders wrote the Constitution the way they did," and then push the button.
2:10 John Green? I like that. I also like the idea of an hour-long stand-up comedy special that you're just subjected to, that you have no choice but to listen to in the pilot's, in that sort of radio, somewhat tinny voice. It's just like...
2:26 Hank Green? Hey, I'm Mike Birbiglia. Here's my new hour.
2:31 Hank Green? I bet you didn't know, but I learned how to pilot.
2:35 John Green? Just so that I could, just so that I could give you an hour of my new special.
2:38 Hank Green? It was 10 years of my life. I worked up from the, from the bottom up, you know? Started out, went to the Air Force for a little bit.
2:47 John Green? Yeah, yeah. I've been doing these regional legs.
2:52 Hank Green? Hey, you really can't get anything done on the regional legs.
2:55 John Green? Exactly. I can't do my full hour when it's just Indianapolis to Pittsburgh.
2:59 Hank Green? Yeah, barely, barely time for the tight five.
3:04 John Green? All right, Hank. Speaking of your tight five, I want to answer some questions from our listeners, beginning with this one from Amy who writes, Dear John and Hank, when did Hank start going by Hank? Did he choose it? Was it during childhood or college? Did Henry and John just not have the same ring to it? Don't blame me, Amy. This is such a good observation because Dear John and Henry, or Dear Henry and John is not a good podcast title.
3:26 Hank Green? I don't think it would work. You know, I refer to Hank as my tight four.
3:29 John Green? Because it has four letters?
3:31 Hank Green? Mm hmm. And Henry was just too many.
3:34 John Green? It's also, but it has, it has decreased the syllables by half.
3:38 Hank Green? Oh, yeah. That is the big, the big advantage.
3:40 John Green? And there's something about John and Hank, they're the same number of letters. They just kind of flow off the tongue. John and Henry, even though Henry is my son's name, just doesn't flow off the tongue quite as well. And so what a good decision, but was it a decision made by you or a decision made by someone else?
3:56 Hank Green? Certainly not a decision made by me. I was always Hank. I've only ever known myself to be Hank. When people call me William, because I'm getting my license plate at the DMV, I find this very, uh, sort of disconnected from reality.
4:12 John Green? Yeah. So this is an important thing to understand. Hank's name is William Henry Green.
4:17 Hank Green? Yeah.
4:18 John Green? And he goes by Hank, which is short for Henry, which is not his first name. So it actually, it's more likely that our podcast would be called Dear Bill and John, or Dear Will and John, because they would have picked something short for William. Or it could be like Dear John and Billy, which is just weird.
4:35 Hank Green? Dear Willie and John.
4:36 John Green? Willie and John.
4:37 Hank Green? I mean, I could pull off Willie.
4:39 John Green? Internet entrepreneurs, Willie and John.
4:42 Hank Green? Willie Green and his brother. Perpetually, perpetually anxious and unwell, John.
4:48 John Green? No, God, I am anxious and unwell. So true. I wish that I could be either not anxious or well. You know what I mean? Like, I wish that I, like,
4:58 Hank Green? You could just take one. I'm not asking for much.
5:01 John Green? In the early 20th century, like, certain children, like Maurice Sendak, or Andy Warhol, or Eudora Welty, would just be told that they were sickly, and they would be told they sort of had to stay in bed because of an elevated heart rate or something, or because they gave people the willies. Who knows why they?
5:16 Hank Green? Well, people were so, the people died so much when they were kids. And so you just kind of assume, you're like, oh, this one's not looking good.
5:23 John Green? Yeah, so, these were sickly people who then grew into adults. But I don't think of them as having been particularly sickly adults. Like, I think Eudora Welty lived to be 93 years old. I was a sickly child who have become a sickly adult. Which I do resent a little bit, I have to confess. I,
5:41 Hank Green? Give him a break.
5:42 John Green? Wouldn't mind being sickly if I weren't so anxious about being sickly.
5:45 Hank Green? Maybe I would be like a super healthy 65-year-old.
5:48 John Green? I mean, the odds aren't good, given that I've had every itis you can imagine.
5:53 Hank Green? No, it's not great. It's not, it's, but you never know, you know?
5:56 John Green? I probably shouldn't complain to the brother who had cancer about being sickly.
6:00 Hank Green? Ah, you know.
6:01 John Green? It is true that I'm sicklier than you, though, in general.
6:04 Hank Green? Yeah. Um, it is inconvenient. I would not suggest this to anyone having a child to name them one thing and call them something else. I would certainly not do that to my child after having experienced the confusions, uh, that it can create. There was a period of time where I desperately needed some money and could not get my bank to accept a check that had been made out to me. And it was very frustrating. And I needed to pay rent, and they would not give me my money, and it was a lot of money. And eventually, I fixed that problem, but it was, it was, at the moment, very stressful.
6:37 John Green? You know what that story reminds me of, Hank?
6:39 Hank Green? Yeah.
6:39 John Green? The heroic story of Horatio Alger just picking himself up by his bootstraps like just making his way in the world alone without any help. You really are an inspiration to us all, my friend.
6:51 Hank Green? Oh, thanks. Uh, I solved the problem in both of the ways where I, one, signed up to have the bank have an alternate name for me, while also, while that was being processed, getting the check made out to my other name.
7:05 John Green? Well, I mean, truly, a hero for our time who overcame unfathomable odds. Not since Bob Dole survived three years with antibiotic resistant infection has somebody really
7:18 Hank Green? Bob Dole? That's a weird pull.
7:20 John Green? Well, I just was thinking about Bob Dole because I was just at the University of Kansas where the Bob Dole Institute for Politics is. And you know what I learned about Bob Dole, former US Senator from Kansas? I learned that Bob Dole had a favorite song, and that favorite song was "You'll Never Walk Alone," which is also one of my favorite songs.
7:39 Hank Green? More and more like Bob Dole every year, John.
7:42 John Green? I mean, would that I have his life expectancy? The guy lived to be like 95 years old.
7:46 Hank Green? This is, this is the, the frame that it is now forever in. In fact, we have a question about death, if you'd like to do that one.
7:54 John Green? Sure, let's do it.
7:55 Hank Green? Jess asks, "Dear Hank," and hi, John.
7:57 John Green? Wow, hard not to take that personally, Jess.
8:00 Hank Green? I have a seven-year-old son, Caleb, who has repeatedly requested that we ask a scientist to explain
8:06 John Green? Oh, now I get it. I'm not a scientist. That's, that's the argument. But if I'm not a scientist, Jess, how come I'm the author of the hit new science book, Everything is Tuberculosis?
8:15 Hank Green? That's true. I think John will have plenty to say about this question. But has repeatedly asked that we ask a scientist why we have to die?
8:22 John Green? Hmm.
8:24 Hank Green? Can science soothe Jess? I think science can soothe, but not, uh, not, not intentionally.
8:31 John Green? No, no, it's not soothing on purpose. It's just doing what it does. Here's the thing, Caleb. We have to die because everything has to die. Everything in the universe has to die. Because everything is temporary, and there is no forever, at least not on this side of the veil. That probably, that image probably doesn't resonate with a seven-year-old.
8:55 Hank Green? Yeah, the veil is complex. Um, I, the one thing I know about the veil.
9:01 John Green? Right? I mean, isn't that why, Hank? Like, everything has to die, like, including the universe itself.
9:05 Hank Green? Certainly, everything has to die. Everything, yes. The, the, the reality is that there, uh, from what, from our current understanding, there isn't a thing that can last forever. But we can certainly do our best to help things live longer. And we don't want death to be a thing, like us, you and I, like, like everyone I've ever known who has died. I, I wished that hadn't happened. And like, we do work hard to keep people alive. And I think that we're working hard to like, try and make it so that death is a thing that happens less.
9:38 John Green? I don't think we're gonna succeed at that, Hank, because I think death, as the, as the famous Onion headline put it, I think the world death rate will remain steady at 100%.
9:49 Hank Green? That's true. In terms of the number of like, per capita, death will remain the same. But per year, it actually can, can go up. Um, so like, the number of people who die per year.
9:59 John Green? Right, can go up or down because life expectancy gets longer.
10:03 Hank Green? Yeah, yeah.
10:03 John Green? But I, I think Caleb's worry is not that he's not gonna live to 100, or not that his cat won't have a long or good life, or whatever. Caleb's worry is about death itself. And I think-
10:13 Hank Green? Why does this thing exist?
10:14 John Green? And I think Caleb is right to worry. Like, if you, if you pitch the idea of a universe to a seven-year-old, there's no reason why death should have to be in it. The thing that I tell myself, Caleb, is that it is the nature of things to, to decay. We are so complex. We are so interesting. We are so multitudinous that we can't stay that way forever. It's just the way that, that things are, unfortunately. Or maybe it isn't unfortunate, Caleb. Like, maybe it's appropriate that we can't be here forever.
10:47 Hank Green? And there is something to that, where what we are is not necessarily just ourselves. We're part of a billions of years long story of life that continues to perpetuate and exist. And no individual piece of that life can perpetuate. And if you tried to invest all your energy into making one piece of the life live as long as possible, it would not be as interesting, or as long-lived, or as inspiring and amazing and beautiful, as what happens when things trade life into the next thing. When like, your mom gave birth to you, that's part of the very, very long story of life continuing to exist for a sizable percentage of the life of the universe.
11:32 Hank Green? Like, life on Earth is a very long story. And it isn't that way because like, evolution tries to keep one thing alive for a very long time. It's that way because we are evolving by creating new things and having other things not last.
11:45 John Green? Caleb, if I could put it another way.
11:49 Hank Green? You're getting the Hank and the John here, Caleb.
11:51 John Green? Nothing lasts forever, man, not even cold November rain. That was the Guns N' Roses version.
11:57 Hank Green? John, one might even say, "Nothing lasts forever." And we both know hearts can change, and it's hard to hold a candle in the cold November rain.
12:05 John Green? Yeah. It's almost impossible to hold a candle in the cold November rain, depending on how cold it is and how long you have to hold the candle.
12:12 Hank Green? I would actually say it's extraordinarily easily done to hold a candle in the rain, as long as you don't want that candle to be lit.
12:19 John Green? No, even if you don't want it to be lit, if the rain is cold enough, eventually you're gonna develop hypothermia.
12:24 Hank Green? That's true, and we have to maintain our homeostasis for as long as possible.
12:28 John Green? Thanks for coming to our TED Talk, Caleb. This next question comes from Anonymous, who writes, "Dear John and Hank, my birthday passed last week, and there were a few people, one good friend in particular, I did not hear from. Well, Anonymous, let me tell you what's even worse than that. Getting a text from your brother at 10:12 PM that says, 'Happy birthday to' exclamation points, nothing else. Anyway, I'm not hurt or offended at all. I'm terrible with dates myself, and birthdays are not very important to me. But I talk to this friend often, and it feels weird not to mention anything when he asks what I've been up to lately. I don't want to make him feel bad, but dancing around it feels strange, and I think he might figure it out himself, and he'll feel worse. What should I do? I wasn't born yesterday." Anonymous. Now, I don't think your friend is gonna notice. I'll be honest.
13:06 Hank Green? When you anonymous, when you said my birthday passed last week, I thought you meant that it died because we've been talking about that so much. I was like, that's wild.
13:16 John Green? Yeah.
13:16 Hank Green? It's just, it's just dead. It's just done.
13:18 John Green? It's just over now. No, I no longer collect time in 365 day increments because my birthday died.
13:25 Hank Green? My birthday died.
13:28 John Green? Now I just collect time one day at a time. Every day is a new day. I have no idea how old I am because the last time, the last time I had a birthday, I was 28, but that was some time ago.
13:38 Hank Green? I don't need any of this.
13:41 John Green? Uh, I don't think this friend is gonna ever know that it was your birthday if you don't mention it.
13:46 Hank Green? Yeah.
13:47 John Green? It's almost impossible to remember that other people have birthdays anonymous. It's so easy to remember our own birthday. But even remembering the birthdays of those closest to us is hard work.
13:56 Hank Green? Yeah. I, uh, I mean, if there was a party that they weren't invited to.
14:00 John Green? Yeah, then maybe you have to mention it. But like, why didn't you invite them to the party if they're an especially close friend? You know what this actually smells like to me, Hank? And I'm not an expert, but it smells like a budding romance. It smells like these people are interested in each other, maybe more than just as friends. And so it's a little different than your average birthday. Cause like, if I miss my best friend's birthday, he's not gonna get mad at me. He's not even gonna mention it to me.
14:25 Hank Green? Yeah.
14:25 John Green? And we've been best friends for 20 years, but he's not gonna be like, oh, you know, it was June 6th.
14:30 Hank Green? Right.
14:30 John Green? Dot, dot, dot.
14:31 Hank Green? Yeah, yeah. And you're also in that situation, you're always thinking real hard about everything.
14:36 John Green? Yeah, exactly. But you're, when you're in a budding romance, you're hyper analyzing every interaction and everything. And so when the person says like, what have you been up to? You feel like you have to say like, well, I went to my birth, I had my birthday and I had a few friends over and then they're gonna feel bad for not wishing you a happy birthday. That's, that's what it feels like to me. I might be wrong, anonymous, but go ahead and
14:57 Hank Green? Wow.
14:57 John Green? write me back and make sure that I'm right because I'm pretty sure I'm right on this one. I can smell a budding romance coming a mile away, Hank. It's one of the gifts of having been a Y novelist for so many years.
15:08 Hank Green? Man, and I am blind to it. A budding romance. One time, a couple of people, like a couple of my friends, I saw them kissing. Uh, and they had not previously been kissing. And I was like, I like, I was flabbergasted. I was just like jaw on the floor. Like, I had never thought that that could be a thing that those people would do. Two, two young people who are, who, who I know are both heterosexual and of the opposite gender.
15:40 John Green? Yeah.
15:40 Hank Green? Kissing?
15:41 John Green? I know. It's crazy. I meanwhile, not only do I see it coming a mile away when it is there, I see it coming a mile away when it isn't there.
15:51 John Green? You know, I'm like ChatGPT. I can, I, I know a lot, but I also hallucinate a lot.
15:59 Hank Green? Oh, man. I never see it. I never see it to the point where like, it can be a problem. People like ask me for advice on things and I'm like, oh, you didn't, you didn't, you didn't tell me the actual situation.
16:09 John Green? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'm, I'm very good. I'm very good at it. And I think there's something there, anonymous. Whether you know it or not, I think you might be about to get married.
16:17 Hank Green? Oh, wow.
16:18 John Green? See, I'm jumping to conclusions.
16:19 Hank Green? Anonymous, imagine, imagine giving the little kiss and see how that feels in your brain.
16:24 John Green? When I, um, when I got married, there was a rehearsal dinner where all of my friends gave toast. And you gave a great toast, Hank, at the wedding itself. But the night before, all my like groomsmen and everything gave toast. And my friend, uh, gave this great toast where he said, you know, when, when John came home from his first date with Sarah, he said, I think I'm going to marry that girl. And it was only the 11th time he'd said that.
16:47 John Green? I fell hard, man. I fell hard and I fell all.
16:50 Hank Green? You fell hard every time.
16:52 John Green? And I would have, the truth is, I would have married any of those girls.
16:58 John Green? Thank God that they had the foresight not to marry me because I was down. I was ready.
17:04 Hank Green? That's amazing. I feel like we're kind of both set up that way.
17:07 John Green? Yeah, we are. We're both similarly inclined, for sure. But that's, anyway, I don't think you should feel bad, and I don't think you need to mention it's your birthday. But if it's a crush, I think you should confess the crush.
17:19 Hank Green? Be like, look, my birthday recently passed, so maybe you just want to come over, just the two of us.
17:24 John Green? There you go.
17:25 Hank Green? What do people do these days? We'll watch Instagram reels while laying next to each other.
17:29 John Green? Yeah, I'll show you my Instagram likes, the ultimate display of love and vulnerability.
17:35 Hank Green? Wow, John, do you want to show? Let's do it.
17:38 John Green? No.
17:38 Hank Green? Just the first one, as a, as a show of brotherly love and vulnerability.
17:43 John Green? All right, I'm going to show you my most recent Instagram like.
17:45 Hank Green? My most recent Instagram like.
17:47 John Green? It's actually not that easy to get to your Instagram likes.
17:49 Hank Green? You have to like go to your activity.
17:51 John Green? Yeah, which is a little confusing. My most recent Instagram like is from the Awesome Socks Club.
17:59 Hank Green? Nice.
17:59 John Green? There it is, the Awesome Socks Club. It's got a new sock coming out, and I liked it on Instagram. So that's, that's a pretty unvulnerable one. My second most recent like is from my friend Daisy and Kylan's wedding that I officiated. Don't they look great? Just a beautiful young couple, full of promise and hope.
18:15 Hank Green? Oh, lovely, lovely, lovely.
18:17 John Green? What's your most recent Instagram like?
18:18 Hank Green? My most recent Instagram like is a science communicator named Dr. Knoc, who is talking about.
18:24 John Green? I've watched Dr. Knoc before.
18:25 Hank Green? Yeah, Dr. Knoc, he's talking about cancer.
18:28 John Green? Oh, he's not a fan of it, from what I understand.
18:30 Hank Green? No, no, he doesn't like it, and he's got, he's got ways, you actually can do things to adjust your risk of cancer, and he's talking about them.
18:36 John Green? Yeah, you could take a vaccine, the HPV vaccine, you can change your diet, change your, have a good activity level, that kind of thing.
18:45 Hank Green? Yeah, those are all big ones. Don't smoke, because also.
18:48 John Green? Oh, God, you can resist the siren urge to smoke cigarettes.
18:51 Hank Green? Yeah, or you could just never have done it.
18:55 John Green? Yeah, that's true. That's better. I haven't smoked in 20 years. I still think about it, though.
18:59 Hank Green? Really?
19:00 John Green? Yeah. I loved it.
19:07 John Green? It was a disgusting habit that enriched the worst people in the world and I loved it.
19:15 Hank Green? What is it that got, that got you off the most, uh, off of cigarettes, I mean?
19:20 John Green? Well, I mean, I had chronic bronchitis and I was like 23 and I was like, that seems maybe it's time.
19:28 Hank Green? So it was a health, it was a health thing.
19:30 John Green? It was a health concern and in general, I don't.
19:32 Hank Green? It wasn't the enriching the worst people in the world?
19:34 John Green? No, it was more a feeling of like, I need to do this for my health and also like, I'm already sickly. Right? Why am I trying to worsen the situation? Which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by John Quitting Smoking. John Quitting Smoking, the hardest thing he ever did.
19:51 Hank Green? This podcast is also brought to you by the 11th time, the 11th time, sometime, that's the charm.
19:57 John Green? Today's podcast is also brought to you by that cold November rain. Nothing lasts forever, Caleb, not even cold November rain.
20:03 Hank Green? And finally, this podcast is brought to you by Hank. The weirdest possible way to give a child a nickname when his name is William.
20:15 John Green? I mean, it's almost like they could have picked anything, right? Like, why, I don't know why we're limiting ourselves in our imaginations to Henrys and Wills and Bills. They could have picked anything.
20:23 Hank Green? Well, that's what I do, that's what people do with cats, you know? Name them one thing and then like, I got a cat named Chester and we call him Cheese. And I have a cat named Gummy Bear and he's called Gumblebums.
20:33 John Green? Yeah, there you go. It reminds me, your, your being named Hank reminds me of one of my favorite stories from my late mentor, Bill Ott, uh, the publisher of Bookless Magazine, who, when he was a child, collected baseball cards and Hank Aaron was a famous baseball player. But it, on his baseball card, it said Henry and then in quotation marks Hank Aaron. And so Bill grew up believing that Hank Aaron's name was Henry Hank Aaron.
20:58 Hank Green? Yeah.
20:59 John Green? And so he would always call you when he would ask, when he asked after you, he would always call you, how's Henry Hank?
21:04 Hank Green? Nice. But that's not even, that's not even me.
21:07 John Green? That's not even you. All right. This next question comes from Elizabeth, who writes, Dear John and Hank, I have not flown since I was a kid. Next year, I am flying internationally for a study abroad program. I'm not afraid of the flying part, but I am afraid of the airport. Oh, Elizabeth, you've come to the right place.
21:23 Hank Green? People ask us dating advice? No, no, no. Get out of our inbox. But you want airport advice?
21:29 John Green? Airport navigation advice? You want to know how to while away three hours inside of an airport? Boy, have you landed upon the brothers who are experts.
21:38 Hank Green? Tell me the three letters and I'll tell you everything.
21:42 John Green? Oh, that's so true. It's so true. I was just thinking about that in beautiful Kansas City. Anyway, I've been told that all airports are different, but no one has really explained how. How do airports work? What's the first thing I should do once I get there? Are there different steps for different airports? Flying solo, Elizabeth. So Elizabeth, first off, the good news, the good news is that there is almost no place on earth that has more signage than an airport. There are so many signs.
22:09 Hank Green? The wayfinding is advanced.
22:11 John Green? Oh, my. So they, first you have to decide if you're going to arrivals or departures. Presumably you're going to departures since you're leaving for your study abroad program. And then you go to the airport counter.
22:23 John Green? Which is exciting.
22:24 Hank Green? You're gonna go through the whole thing?
22:25 John Green? I'm gonna go through the whole thing, Hank.
22:26 Hank Green? I assume you've got a bag. If you've got luggage, the procedures are slightly different.
22:30 John Green? Yep, yep. You're probably not carrying on if you're doing study abroad, so you're gonna have to go to.
22:35 Hank Green? And also, John just told you that you're gonna go to a counter, but that's not what you're gonna do because it's 2025. You're gonna go to a little machine.
22:41 John Green? That's true.
22:41 Hank Green? And you're gonna put in your confirmation number. So have that ready. You're gonna type that in. It's gonna tell you all the information. You can check in with the app beforehand, but then it's gonna make sure that you get your bag tags in a number of different ways. Sometimes it prints it out right there. Sometimes you have to go see a person about it that'll ask for your ID. You wanna have your ID, your real ID or your passport ready to go.
23:02 John Green? Yep.
23:02 Hank Green? For a number of different interactions, you're not gonna have to know when you need it. They're gonna tell you when you need to show it to them. They're also gonna want your boarding pass sometimes, and that can be on your phone, or it can be a piece of paper. If you got it on your phone, you don't need the piece of paper.
23:15 John Green? Although, I like to have both, Elizabeth, just in case. So I like to print out a boarding pass and also have one on my phone, just in case I lose one or the other.
23:23 Hank Green? Yeah.
23:23 John Green? Then the next thing you're gonna wanna do, Elizabeth, and this is a, this is a curveball, you're not expecting this one, you're gonna wanna go to the chapel. The chapel is almost always-
23:31 Hank Green? It's not gonna, not gonna be there in all of the airports, but sometimes-
23:33 John Green? The chapel is in literally all of the airports.
23:36 Hank Green? Well, there's not one in the Missoula Airport. We only have five rooms.
23:39 John Green? I think there might be a little chapel in the Missoula Airport. I have not investigated it, but I, you're gonna, if you're flying internationally, Elizabeth, you're not flying out of Missoula anyway, you're flying, maybe you're flying out of Missoula, then you go to Detroit. Once you get to Detroit, you wanna, you wanna go to the chapel. It's, it's a banger experience. It's always interesting, it's quiet, it's meditative, it's the opposite of the rest of the airport. You don't hear all the constant banging and humming and noises and whatnot, it's just a quiet place for contemplation. Go there for like five minutes just to recover from the fact that you just did all this work to get your boarding pass and get your luggage and everything, and then-
24:14 Hank Green? And what John, by the way, what John is suggesting, and this is absolutely the right thing to do, is get their way early.
24:19 John Green? Oh, yeah.
24:20 Hank Green? Don't be stressed out, cuz that's number one. You're new at this, just be at peace. Two, there's a whole airport to explore.
24:28 John Green? It's a whole airport.
24:28 Hank Green? So you can't really get there too early. It's like going to the mall too early.
24:32 John Green? They've got art exhibitions, you know, they, they've got, there's like a-
24:36 Hank Green? There's a chapel, there's-
24:37 John Green? There's a handbags, there's a handbag store.
24:39 Hank Green? Yeah. There's gonna be several restaurants of, of, a wide variety of experiences and qualities. When I typed in chapel, Missoula International Airport, you know, wanna know what came up?
24:52 John Green? What?
24:52 Hank Green? Free wifi at the Missoula International Airport.
24:56 John Green? Well, that's nice.
24:56 Hank Green? So that's a little bit like church.
24:58 John Green? Plus, you get free wifi, so why not enjoy that? Like, why not get to the airport a little early and get some, get some of that sweet, sweet free juice?
25:04 Hank Green? Great people watching.
25:06 John Green? Great people watching.
25:07 Hank Green? John and I apparently love the airport. And they are all different from each other, but the main thing that you need to know is like, the biggest difference is some of them don't require you to get there as early, and some of them you have to get their way earlier. So if you're new, get there super early, and, and then if you're like too early, no, no harm, no foul, you're just like watching Instagram reels, but actually looking at the weird people.
25:27 John Green? I think you should do, so I, I wasn't finished with my recommendations, Hank, you're jumping- You're jumping ahead. So after you've visited the chapel and you've recovered your cool and you're just feeling centered and intentional, that's when you go to the part that's not security yet, the part that's right before security, which is all where all the passengers come out and get greeted by their family members. Now, of course, very few people actually get greeted at the airport anymore.
25:55 Hank Green? It used to be a thing.
25:56 John Green? It used to be a thing, but now mostly people just go out to the cars. But still, you can sometimes see a family waiting for another family member who's been gone for a while. And you get, I recommend spending at least five minutes in the hopes of getting to see one of those reunions because they are magical. And then, once you see the reunion and you've been to the chapel, then you can go through security.
26:18 Hank Green? Oh, the chapel's before security?
26:20 John Green? Heck, yeah, it is.
26:21 Hank Green? Oh, man.
26:23 John Green? Then you go through security. Maybe there's two. You go through security, you find a quiet, first off, you walk to your gate after you get through.
26:31 Hank Green? You always, everybody, you always gotta do this. It's not technically necessary, but there's no way that my brain will chill out until I visually inspect the gate and make sure the place I'm going is on the name of the gate.
26:42 John Green? Eye contact with the gate, Elizabeth.
26:44 Hank Green? You exist. I exist. We know each other exists.
26:47 John Green? But then, once you've made eye contact with the gate, you've confirmed the time of departure, there's no delays or anything, then you can go to whatever gate you want. Go to a quiet gate. Go to a gate that doesn't have a flight leaving anytime soon. Sit there, enjoy the free wifi, and then about 45 minutes to an hour before your plane leaves, then you can go to the gate. Or if you're feeling dangerous, you can wait until it's boarding.
27:09 Hank Green? Yeah, which might be slightly different for an international flight. Just listen to the people.
27:13 John Green? Yeah. It's gonna go great, Elizabeth. You're gonna have so much fun. What an adventure you're going on. And I don't mean your study abroad program. I mean to get to go to an airport.
27:22 Hank Green? Some people are like, what's the deal with airports? And then they like have a long list of complaints about airports.
27:27 John Green? Yeah, not me.
27:28 Hank Green? The deal with airports is that like, one, I don't know who owns this thing or runs it. It's not like, it's as far as I can tell, like a weird example of business socialism.
27:39 John Green? Yeah.
27:39 Hank Green? Uh, and then, and, and then also, uh, it works amazingly well. Like, everything is constantly moving in order to arrive just in time. So that everybody gets into the place and there's never any time wasted and things are, I don't know. It's just like, if you actually just like look out of the window at an airport and like, watch all the little trucks, like the little baggage carts and the food service and
28:05 John Green? To miracle efficiency.
28:06 Hank Green? The planes going from one place to another, like do a little time lapse out of the window of an airport and you're like, what? No one could make this.
28:14 John Green? No.
28:14 Hank Green? No one can do this. It's like, it's like looking at the inside of a smartphone blown up to a billion times scale. So you're actually seeing all of the like little electrons moving around. And they're all like made of people doing their thing, their own little part in order for all of it to work. Like, airport is the craziest thing.
28:35 John Green? It is a reminder that humans in collaboration can accomplish orders of magnitude more than they can accomplish in isolation. And that almost everything that you do in your life that is important will be done in partnership, Elizabeth. That is what you're going to feel on this visit to the airport.
28:51 Hank Green? It's a good place. Might be a little stressful, but it's a good place. Damn, that's the wildest.
28:57 John Green? Yeah.
28:57 Hank Green? That's the wildest set of responses to this particular question you could imagine.
29:03 John Green? One time, uh, I was flying to England and I flew through Atlanta, which is always a mistake. And I got into the Atlanta airport and my flight to England was delayed like five hours. And my kids were in, in, in absolute flames because they were going to have to be up until two o'clock in the morning or whatever. But I was like, guys, this is a chance to explore the Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson International Airport. Like this place has five different terminals, for God's sakes. We can, the, the possibilities are endless. I bet there's four chapels.
29:34 Hank Green? There's probably chapel for every single one of these religions that we got.
29:38 John Green? All right, this last question that we've got to get to before we go to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon is from Rob, who says, my three-year-old son Jim Jam has a great many questions. And one of those questions is-
29:52 Hank Green? I'm sure that's, that's, that's probably not on the birth certificate.
29:56 John Green? Maybe. Who is driving Saturn? And if the planets don't have drivers, how do they go anywhere?
30:02 Hank Green? You won't believe this, John.
30:03 John Green? Yeah.
30:04 Hank Green? Saturn.
30:05 John Green? Saturn is driving Saturn.
30:07 Hank Green? The god.
30:08 John Green? Oh, I thought, I thought you meant the mass.
30:13 Hank Green? Nope, it's the god. He's riding on, he's up in that hexagonal storm at the top with a, with a, with a whip and a steering wheel.
30:20 John Green? Yeah.
30:21 Hank Green? And I don't know what the whip's for, because there's not actually any horses.
30:24 John Green? There's a horse there to encourage.
30:26 Hank Green? He just likes to crack it. It just makes a cool noise.
30:29 John Green? Makes him feel powerful.
30:30 Hank Green? Yeah, because that's all he has left. Like, nobody here is thinking much about Saturn, but he's still got Saturn.
30:36 John Green? Yeah, he's still got Saturn going.
30:38 Hank Green? Everybody's always talking about him when they, when they talk about Saturn. And he's like, I guess that's where I go now.
30:42 John Green? Yeah, so he just went over there. No, the truth is that there are these invisible forces that shape so much of our life, Jim Jam, that are the reason why we stick to the earth instead of floating away, that are the reason why the sun moves across the sky throughout the day, that are the reason why half the day is night, all that stuff is controlled by these strange forces that we can't see or hear or smell, but are nonetheless real.
31:10 Hank Green? I think the rings are a steering wheel.
31:12 John Green? Oh, yes, I like it. It's sort of Saturn's gigantic steering wheel with which he steers the planet.
31:21 Hank Green? No matter who's driving Saturn, they definitely bought it in the 90s.
31:27 John Green? Yeah, Jim, Jim Jam's gonna love that joke, Hank. He loves a 90s joke. Three-year-olds love a 90s reference.
31:35 Hank Green? Because of the, because of the car company?
31:37 John Green? Yeah, no, I got it. I got it. I got it. He amuses himself, everybody. Nobody, nobody loves a Hank Green joke quite like Hank Green does.
31:49 Hank Green? John, what's up with AFC Wimbledon?
31:51 John Green? Oh, life is long and full of suffering, Hank.
31:54 Hank Green? Oh, no.
31:55 John Green? And League One was never going to be easy. I guess like the good news is that we've all the games that we've played with our first team, like with our best players, we've either won or lost by one goal. And so we lost to Bradford City. It was very frustrating. We lost by one goal and we gave up some bad, like we lost three to two and two of the goals were really bad. We're kind of embarrassing. But then our, um, our B team played in one of these meaningless cup competitions that won't go anywhere. And, uh, that was like literally the second best 11, you know, like you have your first best 11 who play every week. And then, you know, you have this, the kind of second tier of people who play in the cup games.
32:38 John Green? And then if there's injuries kind of thing, or come on as subs or whatever. And they got beat five to one by Stevenage. So I'm concerned and I watched the game and honestly, five to one was a generous score line. It could have been much worse. And so I'm concerned about the quality of the ability of our kind of second tier to compete in League One, but I still think-
33:00 Hank Green? It could be a real problem if-
33:01 John Green? If we have injuries.
33:02 Hank Green? Yeah.
33:03 John Green? So we, I'm rooting against any injuries always. I mean, who wants to see injuries in football? But, uh, especially right now, because yeah, it wasn't, uh, we didn't cover ourselves in glory in that game. And it made me a little nervous for the first time this season. But AFC Wimbledon overall remain utterly clear of the relegation zone, Hank. We have nine points in our first six games and, uh, we were sitting in 12th place in League Two. Comfortably mid-table is what I believe the kids call it.
33:30 Hank Green? Long season left to go, but let's just, uh, keep that going and, and you know, one year at a time.
33:36 John Green? One year at a time, just like life. Unless you stopped, unless your birthday died, in which case it's only one day at a time.
33:42 Hank Green? I mean, the biggest problem for AFC Wimbledon, I'm, I'm sorry I have to say this is that when you meet billionaires, you don't ask them for money for AFC Wimbledon. You try and get money for partners in health. And that is just, I think that the other people would do it differently.
33:56 John Green? Well, I mean, interestingly, and I don't, I haven't really examined the psychology of this exactly. Even though Partners in Health and AFC Wimbledon are equally terrible investments from a return perspective.
34:10 Hank Green? But yeah, for your own pocket, yes.
34:11 John Green? Yes, for your own pocket. People are more inclined to invest in football clubs because it seems like an investment, even though it is mostly a way to lose all of your money.
34:21 Hank Green? People get that investing in Partners in Health is also an investment, right?
34:26 John Green? I don't know that they do. I think they think of it as an act of charity when it is in fact an investment in our shared future.
34:34 Hank Green? Yeah, like, all of that money provides more benefit than the money costs.
34:40 John Green? Indeed. Yes, I agree.
34:42 Hank Green? And that compounds over time. I don't know if there's any billionaires listening right now, but you gotta understand that you give, if you like, give $10 to Partners in Health, that that does more than $10 of good, especially 100 years from now. It's gonna be like, continue to compound where like, a person who otherwise would be suffering or wouldn't have a parent or wouldn't, you know, would have lost a child, gets to, like, the whole, the whole society there is doing better because of that. And yes, people get to do stuff. And so it all adds up until like, that $10 becomes worth $1,000, just like if you'd like bought Microsoft or whatever.
35:17 John Green? Yeah, yeah, it's not in your pocket, but it's still compounds in terms of social good and the overall economic impact of your investment and everything. So if you are a billionaire and you're listening to this, there's never been a better time to invest in global healthcare systems because they are more impoverished than they've ever been, thanks to the hard work of some of our governments.
35:37 Hank Green? Or even, I'll say it, if you're a tens of millionaire.
35:41 John Green? Oh, yeah.
35:42 Hank Green? That also counts. I know you're thinking, I'm not one of them, but yeah, you are.
35:46 John Green? You should email us at [email protected] and we'll find a good place for those tens of millions of dollars.
35:54 Hank Green? Well, John in from Mars, we continue to learn more about this boy in space being driven around by Mars, the God.
36:03 John Green? I was gonna say, is he driven by Mars?
36:05 Hank Green? Yeah, yeah.
36:07 John Green? Cool.
36:07 Hank Green? Luckily, luckily Mars doesn't have enough power to get it closer to us, which would be a problem because he was not very nice.
36:13 John Green? Yeah, no, he was, as I recall, something of a warlord.
36:17 Hank Green? Yeah, the original. So scientists.
36:21 John Green? Invited to the genre.
36:24 Hank Green? A lord of war and a warlord. So we're looking at data to learn more about Mars. There's a paper published at the end of August, scientists looking at data from the seismometer from insight. And I measured 1,300 Mars quakes and they found that there were eight Mars quakes with seismic waves that were strong enough to go deep into Mars's mantle. But at some point, those waves started to slow down because it was hitting something inside of there. There's something embedded in the mantle. And they think that these are fragments of something that slammed into Mars like 4.5 billion years ago and that melted big chunks of the crust and the mantle into like a big magma ocean.
37:08 Hank Green? And then that got sent down into the, the chunks got sent down into the interior planet.
37:14 John Green? So it's not running into water.
37:16 Hank Green? No, no, no.
37:17 John Green? It's running into, it's running into something very hard.
37:20 Hank Green? Yes. And, and this tells us basically two things. One, that there was, and this is unsurprisingly, a very large impact at some point in the early history of Mars. But two, maybe more interesting, is that Mars's mantle and tectonics has been locked for basically the whole time.
37:36 John Green? Yeah.
37:36 Hank Green? So we, and we like a pretty good idea of that, but the, the, it's just a very, much less, sort of exciting place, the interior of Mars than the interior of Earth, which is doing all kinds of crazy stuff and has, has been for a long time, resulting in.
37:55 John Green? Play tectonics.
37:56 Hank Green? The play tectonics was a pretty big deal.
37:59 John Green? Yeah. It's why we don't have a Pangaea.
38:01 Hank Green? Yeah, I mean, it's it's also kind of why we have continents, which is pretty important.
38:05 John Green? Yeah, I don't know. I think we could have made a go of it without continents.
38:08 Hank Green? I think it would have been a fine planet if it was just a water world, but I don't think that it would have art yet.
38:18 John Green? Yeah, I think that's probably correct. That's why we climbed out of the oceans, Hank, was so that so that Andy Warhol could make those Jackie Onassis paintings.
38:27 Hank Green? I could think mostly it was so that something could eat the lichens. It's like, hey, guys, there's plants out here. Nobody's eating them.
38:37 John Green? Yeah, yeah, but it made it made space is what I'm saying for the future of Andy Warhol.
38:42 Hank Green? I did do that.
38:43 John Green? Well, I'm I'm glad to know that we're we're continuing to learn about Mars, and I'm glad that the news from Mars this week wasn't a bummer. What a gift to me.
38:50 Hank Green? Yeah, we're doing our best.
38:51 John Green? I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Well, thanks, everybody, for listening to our podcast. Hank, thank you for making a podcast with me. Please email us your questions or your comments, but mostly your questions, at [email protected] .
39:03 Hank Green? This podcast is edited by Ben Swartout. It's mixed by Joseph Tuna-Medich. Our marketing specialist is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosiana Halsrohass and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Tabuki Trugravarti. 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.
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