452: The Brotherhood is Broken

Do humans have instincts? Why are there so many “French” foods? How do I introduce Formula 1 fans to the Indy 500? Why does beautiful music give me goose bumps? What’s the difference between Hank Green and Tom Hanks? …Hank and John Green have answers! If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [email protected] Join us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn Produced for Hank and John Green by Complexly See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:01Hank Green?

  You're listening to a Complexly podcast.

• 0:09Hank Green?

  Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John.

• 0:12John Green?

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

• 0:15Hank Green?

  It's a comedy podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you dubious advice, and bring you all the week's news from Madison to FC Wimbledon.

• 0:22John Green?

  Oh, boy. Is that Dracula?

• 0:25Hank Green?

  John, if pronouncing my Bs like they are Vs makes me sound Russian, then Soviet.

• 0:34John Green?

  Ah, I see where you I see how you put this all together. How are you doing?

• 0:39Hank Green?

  I'm good. I'm a little embarrassed.

• 0:42John Green?

  You should be.

• 0:43Hank Green?

  And not least because... Other than that, I'm doing OK.

• 0:46John Green?

  I don't think it was quite far east enough to be fully Russian, but that's neither here nor there. You're doing your best.

• 0:53Hank Green?

  I'm doing my best. I'm feeling OK, you know? I I just it's when there are certain times I've been sick when it just takes a long time to get better. And it's you're a little better every week, and that's all that matters.

• 1:07John Green?

  This bout with shingles has lasted almost as long as your bout with cancer.

• 1:13Hank Green?

  Don't think I haven't thought about it. People always say, like, you know, you got you got it pretty easy with cancer. Maybe maybe like you learned enough that it was worth it. But this is an example of how it probably wasn't.

• 1:26John Green?

  I'm not sure people always say that. Do people say that to you?

• 1:28Hank Green?

  People have said it to me several times. Yes, like on in interviews.

• 1:33John Green?

  You're probably grateful to have had cancer because of all you learned from the experience.

• 1:37Hank Green?

  You've got all this insight. And and like this, you know, I am obsessed with cancer now. So I've got a new hobby.

• 1:43John Green?

  Right, which is valuable, but not I remember when I was being interviewed about Looking for Alaska half my life ago, which is a book about grief and loss and forgiveness and guilt and everything. Sometimes people would say to me, like, are you? You know, are you are you grateful for all that you've learned from your experiences with grief? And the answer to that question for me is is no, I'm simply not. And I know I know that that's not the answer you're looking for, but I'm not I. Have I learned? Have I learned stuff? Of course, but I could have learned it cheaper.

• 2:19Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah, you have much more experience with grief than I do, which terrifies me because I am not ready.

• 2:24John Green?

  It's not something you get good at like it's not like it's not like a skill to be perfected.

• 2:31Hank Green?

  Is there some amount of at least like knowledge going in that feels safer?

• 2:36John Green?

  No, not really.

• 2:37Hank Green?

  God.

• 2:38John Green?

  Like when I think about.

• 2:39Hank Green?

  Then I definitely am not jealous.

• 2:41John Green?

  But again, I think I could have could have gotten this cheaper. Maybe there's a sense in which I. I know that everyone dies, you know, and that that's okay. That's how it's supposed to be. That's how the whole universe was set up.

• 2:57Hank Green?

  Hmm. Supposed to be is so interesting to me.

• 3:00John Green?

  I know, of course, you don't think that's the way it's supposed to be because you don't think anything is supposed to be anything.

• 3:06Hank Green?

  That's correct.

• 3:07John Green?

  You think things just are. Okay, counterargument, secular counterargument, Hank.

• 3:12Hank Green?

  Okay.

• 3:12John Green?

  Push back against that a little bit.

• 3:14Hank Green?

  Okay.

• 3:14John Green?

  The universe was set up with certain rules and we don't know what set the universe up or how the universe was set up. We don't know what lit the match of the universe.

• 3:25Hank Green?

  Sure.

• 3:25John Green?

  We do know that it was set up with certain rules. And one of those rules, in fact, I would argue the central rule is that things die.

• 3:34Hank Green?

  Yeah, I mean, uh, yeah, well, well, the central rule, if I'm going to state it in like my sciencey way is that things fall apart, you know, like that, like eventually randomness wins. Like the tendency is toward things not being organized. So anything that is like, looks like an organization to you, a star or a galaxy or.

• 3:58John Green?

  Thirty trillion cells trying to maintain homeostasis.

• 4:00Hank Green?

  Yeah, those things are all temporary for sure. I don't see that as. I see that as an inevitable consequence to some extent of there being stuff.

• 4:11Hank Green?

  The weird thing is that.

• 4:12John Green?

  It's not an inevitable. No, it's not inevitable.

• 4:15Hank Green?

  Things falling apart is inevitable. The non inevitable things is things sticking together for a little while.

• 4:21John Green?

  You're, you're, you're right, and in the sense that you're half right. There is nothing inevitable about the way the universe got organized. It could have been different.

• 4:32Hank Green?

  Yeah, but, but things falling apart, like entropy, randomness, like tendency toward randomness is, is an inevitable consequence of any amount of organization.

• 4:42John Green?

  Only in a universe with the current rules.

• 4:45Hank Green?

  In fact, it is, it is math the way two plus two equals four. I think, I, I'm pretty sure, I think that, I think that like, that's how entropy is understood in, in, in math, but I, like, things could have fallen apart immediately. And that's the weird thing.

• 5:00John Green?

  Or things could have never formed.

• 5:02Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 5:04John Green?

  There's no reason that we know of why there's stuff in the universe. So there's no reason that we know of why things formed.

• 5:10Hank Green?

  Yes, the weirdest thing is, is that there is any organization at all.

• 5:16John Green?

  I think it's funny that, that you find God to be an utterly unrealistic construction in a universe when there's no reason for the, why there's stuff.

• 5:28Hank Green?

  Yeah, well, let me tell you, I, I have a, I have like a different version, like a different definition of atheism than most atheists.

• 5:35John Green?

  Okay.

• 5:36Hank Green?

  Which is that I don't think that the gods of my world exist. Oftentimes, like, these theological arguments, like, move from being like, okay, so we've got Christian God, and, and then you're like, okay, well, the Christian God, I don't think that that's the thing. And then they're like, the, the goalposts move to, to like, but maybe there was a first mover, maybe there was a person who pushed the button. And I'm like, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about like, the construction of religion in my society, as I understand it, is a technology that we developed in order to, to have cultures work, in order to have societies. It's, it's, it's, it's too useful. Like, the idea of an afterlife is too useful for me to think that it's.

• 6:17Hank Green?

  That it could possibly be real because and so there's all this like baggage that comes along with it, but like the idea of there maybe being something that that you would call a God if you found out about it. Sure, maybe.

• 6:30John Green?

  Right.

• 6:31Hank Green?

  But that's very different from all of the discourse around the religions as they exist.

• 6:36John Green?

  I'm not particularly invested in the afterlife, I have to say, and neither is neither in my reading of the gospels is is is is Jesus.

• 6:44Hank Green?

  How do you feel about the Old Testament? Is that where the afterlife lives?

• 6:47John Green?

  I don't know. No, not really. I think it lives primarily in, I mean, look, there are references to after, especially in the rest of the New Testament. There are lots of references to the afterlife. I'm not, I'm not pretending that there's no.

• 7:01Hank Green?

  I couldn't, I couldn't have told you that the gospels were different from the New Testament.

• 7:05John Green?

  That's great. There's four gospels. Those are the teach life and teachings of Jesus. And then there's a bunch of other books in the New Testament that talk about other stuff like what the apostles did and how the end times are going to look and all kinds of other jazz. But the gospels are where it's at for me.

• 7:22Hank Green?

  He's a gospels boy, everybody.

• 7:24John Green?

  I mean, this is, this stuff is very complicated and probably this podcast is not the place to get into it, but I don't think we're going to get to the bottom of it today. But I think Jesus was a historical figure who who almost definitely lived. We have more information about Jesus's life than about most people's lives who we assume to have been historical figures. And so, yeah, but that doesn't mean that the historical Jesus and the Christian Jesus line up particularly well or any of that stuff. I'd love to, I'd love to ask, I'd love, if I could go back in a time machine, I would definitely go to like 12, 2022 AD.

• 8:04Hank Green?

  1222?

• 8:04John Green?

  22 AD.

• 8:06Hank Green?

  Oh, 22 AD.

• 8:07John Green?

  Yeah.

• 8:08Hank Green?

  So Jesus is, is he working at that point? Is he up to it? Or is he just building houses?

• 8:12John Green?

  He's like 26. I just would like to inquire how things are going for him.

• 8:17Hank Green?

  How's he 20? How's he? How's he 26 in 22? He should be 22.

• 8:21John Green?

  He was born in 4 B.C. There was a miscalculation.

• 8:24Hank Green?

  That's awesome. That's a great fact.

• 8:27John Green?

  It's a great fact.

• 8:28Hank Green?

  Great fact.

• 8:28John Green?

  Well, I mean, we think he was born. Look, we don't really know any of this stuff. That's why it's possible I'd get to 26 B.C. or 26 A.D. and be like, wow, well, that's disappointing. And now, and now there's no antibiotics.

• 8:44Hank Green?

  Turns out none of this, this stuff, this stuff happened a long time ago. I'm 40 years late.

• 8:50John Green?

  This up so bad.

• 8:53Hank Green?

  Jesus is super dead.

• 8:55John Green?

  Yeah, then there'd be a 13th apostle who would be me. That would be weird. I would rewrite all of history, you know, because I'd be like, I would have found Jesus first while he was still a carpenter, and I'd be the anxious apostle. There's the one that, there's the one that Jesus especially loved and the one that Jesus especially found a little bit much.

• 9:13Hank Green?

  He's like at the Last Supper and you're like, everybody's got the same food?

• 9:18John Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is there any way that we could not like just stick our hands in the plate to get? It's just gross, guys.

• 9:27Hank Green?

  Oh, you'd die immediately. Don't worry.

• 9:29John Green?

  I would never, if I, if I, if I, if I arrived in 26, I would never make it to 33 when, or whatever, when, when Jesus was actually arrested and whatnot.

• 9:39Hank Green?

  John, do you want to really get into it in a different way with some questions from our listeners?

• 9:46John Green?

  Great.

• 9:46Hank Green?

  Because this, this was wild.

• 9:48John Green?

  Yeah.

• 9:49Hank Green?

  All right.

• 9:49John Green?

  We never know how this first segment's gonna go, but it usually doesn't go that way.

• 9:53Hank Green?

  We don't plan it, that's for sure. This question comes from Charissa or Carissa. Dear Hanga John, I saw some buzzards circling in the sky, and I just think that it's so interesting that things have instincts that are so deeply ingrained that they all just do them, like a spider makes a web, or birds and butterflies and fish migrating. Do humans have instincts that are like that? Pumpkins and penguins, Charissa or Carissa. Good gracious, we have almost nothing but.

• 10:22John Green?

  Well, I'm not convinced that we do have anything but, like, on the topic of, on the topic of,

• 10:30John Green?

  Everything dies and you know, we live in a universe that was determined in its first spark.

• 10:36Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 10:38John Green?

  If, if we live in a fully deterministic universe, that includes us. And so there's no, if there's no free will, there's no choice, there's no, it's all, it's all just going the way that it was always gonna go.

• 10:50Hank Green?

  It's so interesting. Like where is the line? Where do you, but like, I think that it's really illustrative to like, find a place where it's like, that was an instinct. I had one. Deboki just, and I just spent like our entire pre-call talking about instincts and, and she was talking about pregnancy where she was like, and suddenly I needed apples. And like, I'd never cared about apples before. And then I was like in the kitchen all the time chopping apples. And then she, you know, she was like, and then there's often time, there's a nesting instinct where suddenly you feel like the house needs to be cleaned.

• 11:21John Green?

  Yep.

• 11:22Hank Green?

  So there's that, which of course I didn't, uh, uh, don't get the chance to experience, but just like something like disgust, you know? Like put your face in a, in a dumpster and be like, ah, and that's just, that's just an instinct. That's what instincts are like.

• 11:37John Green?

  Are autonomous functions of the body's instincts? Like, is it, is it instinctual to, it's not instinctual to breathe.

• 11:44Hank Green?

  Yeah. The beating of the heart is not an instinct. That's just happening. It has to like hit the brain somewhere.

• 11:52Hank Green?

  But I guess maybe it doesn't like, like, you know, sometimes you can pull your hand back from a hot stove without the brain getting involved. And that kind of also feels like an instinct, but maybe not. I don't know.

• 12:01John Green?

  I recently read this book, You've Been Pooping All Wrong.

• 12:03Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 12:04John Green?

  Uh, which is a great book. I made a blog by this video about it. I liked it so much. And in that book, she talks about how many neurons there are in the gut.

• 12:12Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 12:12John Green?

  In the stomach, that like the stomach is its own brain.

• 12:15Hank Green?

  Yep. It's doing a lot.

• 12:17John Green?

  It's very upsetting to me.

• 12:21Hank Green?

  Yeah. I mean, it's doing a lot. I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be too concerned about it being.

• 12:28Hank Green?

  A decider, because like, how's that even different than the brain, you know?

• 12:33John Green?

  No, I know. All the, the point is that the decisions are occurring, many of them without me being conscious or aware of it, which is its own kind of body horror story, right?

• 12:44Hank Green?

  Well.

• 12:44John Green?

  But, but also, it's just what it is. Like, I am instinctually disgusted, I am instinctually.

• 12:51Hank Green?

  Compelled, you know, like.

• 12:52John Green?

  Compelled.

• 12:53Hank Green?

  Beauty, you know, like all these things.

• 12:56John Green?

  Smell.

• 12:57Hank Green?

  Uh huh. Hunger, taste.

• 13:00John Green?

  Yeah.

• 13:01Hank Green?

  All this, yeah. Thirst.

• 13:03John Green?

  The cries of a baby.

• 13:05Hank Green?

  The feeling of being in bed and being like, I gotta turn to the other side.

• 13:09John Green?

  Yeah.

• 13:10Hank Green?

  Like, what is that? You know?

• 13:11John Green?

  Right.

• 13:11Hank Green?

  And it's like, it's like so difficult to not do, because it's an instinct. And that's like, I think like, that's, there was this long period of time where we thought that like, we thought, there was like a, a series of thoughts in, you know, European Western tradition, that like, animals were instinctual and, and people weren't. And I think we've like, fully erased the idea that animals are just instinctual and we like, understand that they have experiences that, that drive their instincts. But, but, but what most people haven't yet come along with is like, we also, like, that's also what happens to us, that we just have these sort of sensations. And that's, that's the thing that drives the instinct, you know? The sensation of hunger is driving you toward a food.

• 13:56Hank Green?

  The sensation of, of disgust is driving you away from the poop.

• 14:01John Green?

  Well, when you think about what babies do, right? Like, babies cry to express dissatisfaction. Spiders weave to catch food.

• 14:11Hank Green?

  Yeah. Yeah. Do you think it like, feels good for a spider to make a web?

• 14:16John Green?

  I don't think, I, I, in the same way that I'd be interested to visit 26 AD, I'd be interested to be a spider for a hot minute.

• 14:24Hank Green?

  Yeah. If I could, if I could carry, carry whatever sensations that they had in that away with me, I'd really like that.

• 14:33John Green?

  Yeah. And then every time I'd see a spider, I'd be like, oh, you either are or are not having a pleasant experience. And I either will or will not feel bad about killing you.

• 14:42Hank Green?

  I'm gonna do it either way, though.

• 14:44John Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, either way, you're dead. But, yeah, there may be some guilt.

• 14:48Hank Green?

  God, what, yeah. It can't be anything to be like a plant.

• 14:54John Green?

  I'd like to be a plant too for for a minute and

• 14:56Hank Green?

  Yeah, just to see.

• 14:57John Green?

  Experience that, you know, get that, get that flow of moving.

• 15:01Hank Green?

  Yeah, guy. Yeah, that feels like it'd be nice. Just have like some crisp, cool water coming up through your whole body and out your head.

• 15:09John Green?

  Mm hmm.

• 15:11Hank Green?

  Powering all your powering all your your ATPs.

• 15:15John Green?

  Wedding out some oxygen here and there. That feels good.

• 15:18Hank Green?

  I bet that feels good.

• 15:21John Green?

  All right, Hank, ask me another question.

• 15:22Hank Green?

  This next question comes from Andrew, who asks, Dear Hank and John, does French have some incredibly strong influence on American food that I'm not understanding? We've got French vanilla, French toast, French fries, French press coffee. What's going on? And why does it seem to be happening with no other nationalities other than Canadian bacon? Adieu, Andrew.

• 15:42John Green?

  Well, we have American Chinese food, I would say, first off, which is a very American.

• 15:47Hank Green?

  It's just, yeah, it's like Chinese food.

• 15:49John Green?

  Yeah, but like Chinese food in in America is American. It was, it started in San Francisco. I mean, it's from Chinese Americans, but it's it's as American as anything else. So I do think that we have other, we are reliant upon other things. It is interesting how much the French have deeply enmeshed themselves in our language, especially since French fries are not French. And I'm not sure that French press coffee is particularly French.

• 16:19Hank Green?

  I bet, I bet it's just that like Americans kind of feel like French is fancy. And we're like, let's call things French and because like is is French, like French toast is like a gross idea, but it's good. So if you call it French toast, then it'd be better. Also, French kissing, which is probably also not French. I bet they were doing that before France existed.

• 16:40John Green?

  I'm almost positive they were. Maybe that one's the way that like the French called syphilis the German disease and the Germans called it the French disease.

• 16:48Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 16:51John Green?

  The, uh, you know what it makes me think about actually is French cut green beans? You ever had a French cut?

• 16:56Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 16:57John Green?

  Uh huh. Yeah. My late mentor, Bill Ott, one of my all time favorite people, one of the people I admire most in the world, uh, Bill used to work at a green bean factory and one time he lost part of his finger, uh, in a slicer and they shut down the whole factory and looked for his finger for about 45 minutes. And finally the supervisor said, well, it's just a French cut and back it all went.

• 17:22Hank Green?

  Ah.

• 17:22John Green?

  So that's why, that's why I get whole green beans.

• 17:26Hank Green?

  It's just the French cut.

• 17:28John Green?

  Just a French cut, man.

• 17:31Hank Green?

  Why was that? Oh, man, I bet, I bet that's not the French cut. I bet. That's gotta be just marketing. It's gotta, somebody was like, what do we do with the little beans? Call them French?

• 17:42John Green?

  Yeah. What do we do with the beans that we gotta like slice to make them edible?

• 17:46Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 17:46John Green?

  When you say that's the French cut.

• 17:48Hank Green?

  But there are a lot of, of non like French thing that are, that are French things like brie and like champagne is named for a place in France, France. I think we just, I think we're just like a little bit obsessed.

• 18:00John Green?

  Well, the French have a long history of exporting food and wine and cheese and stuff, uh, as part of their cultural products, right? So like that's, that's their cultural product in the way England's cultural product is fish and chips.

• 18:17Hank Green?

  Uh, yeah.

• 18:18John Green?

  Beetles.

• 18:19Hank Green?

  What do, do we have anything? English muffins? They got, they gave us those.

• 18:24John Green?

  Full English breakfast.

• 18:25Hank Green?

  Oh, full English. Good Lord. What a, what a delight.

• 18:29John Green?

  Well, you love a baked bean.

• 18:31Hank Green?

  What a strange, what a strange thing to do to a man. You're about to wake up. You're gonna take on the world. Have all of your day's food and tomorrow's at once.

• 18:40John Green?

  Yeah. No, it's, it's an impressive, it's an impressive feat, the full English.

• 18:45Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 18:45John Green?

  It's like finishing the big Texan at that steakhouse. It's like a seven pound steak or whatever.

• 18:51Hank Green?

  I'm like, could I have like a third English?

• 18:54John Green?

  Did you ever hear Chris Waters' story about the, that, that he tried to do the big Texan challenge? And you, you have to eat a whole six pound steak, a large Coke, a full baked potato, a salad and something else, maybe some french fries. And Chris was down to his last three bites of grizzle when he had a reversal of fortune of epic proportions on the stage.

• 19:19Hank Green?

  On the stage? They put you on a stage?

• 19:21John Green?

  You're on stage. And so he was on stage and he had the reversal of fortune.

• 19:26Hank Green?

  You've got to eat the gristle first.

• 19:28John Green?

  That's right. You start from the outside in.

• 19:34Hank Green?

  Got to take the least appetizing piece. And that's another instinct. Like you look at the food and you're like, which part do I like the most? You don't know why. It's an instinct.

• 19:45John Green?

  Well, you do know why, because you've learned. That's a learning, the way walking is a learning.

• 19:50Hank Green?

  Maybe.

• 19:51John Green?

  But I would argue that like, learning itself is a little instinctual for humans.

• 19:55Hank Green?

  But some foods are better than other foods, you know? Like liking a Dorito more than you like a turnip is not, is instinctual.

• 20:05John Green?

  I'm not sure, I'm not sure a baby likes Doritos more than they like turnips, but.

• 20:09Hank Green?

  It has nothing to do with babies. Adults have instincts too.

• 20:13John Green?

  Yeah, I know, but I, but I, I'm saying that you like have learned.

• 20:17Hank Green?

  No.

• 20:18John Green?

  Okay, just, just.

• 20:20Hank Green?

  A turnip?

• 20:21John Green?

  We shouldn't be belaboring this point, but if you were to go back to 26 AD and bring with you some Cool Ranch Doritos and a turnip, there is a 0% chance that the people would prefer the, the Cool Ranch Doritos. They would prefer the turnip. Like, it's not a universal human thing to think Cool Ranch Doritos are delicious.

• 20:42Hank Green?

  I completely disagree. This is, this is, we're gonna, the brotherhood is broken irrevocably.

• 20:48John Green?

  You've, you've chosen to die on such a bad hill.

• 20:51Hank Green?

  No, I just think that that's wrong. I think that like, if you gave people a 26 AD Cool Ranch Doritos, they'd be like, these are amazing.

• 20:58John Green?

  No, they wouldn't. They would probably vomit. Like, they would be like, this is a horror. They've never had that much sodium. They've never had that much sugar. They've never experienced anything like that.

• 21:07Hank Green?

  A Coke? You think, you think Jesus wouldn't have loved a Coke? That's un-American.

• 21:15John Green?

  It's not just un-American. At this point, it's un-global.

• 21:20John Green?

  I don't know. I don't think that like, I don't think that food preferences are universal throughout history. I think that there's a lot of social conditioning involved in them.

• 21:29Hank Green?

  A blueberry muffin is gonna be good to pretty much everybody, you know?

• 21:32John Green?

  No, I don't, I don't think that's true at all. I don't think that's true. There's zero evidence for that. And I think you're bringing a ton of your like, social, psychological back, back baggage to this.

• 21:45Hank Green?

  Well, we'll, we'll see. But it does remind me that this podcast is brought to you by Coke's new spokesperson, Jesus. Jesus. He would like to bring the world a Coke.

• 21:55John Green?

  Additionally, today's podcast is brought to you by the spark that began it all. The spark that began the universe. Mysterious.

• 22:05Hank Green?

  This podcast is also brought to you by the French cut. It's just a French cut. French cut green beans.

• 22:12John Green?

  Don't buy them. It's the rare, it's the rare sponsorship that's actually an anti-recommendation.

• 22:19John Green?

  And of course, today's podcast is brought to you by German pancakes. German pancakes. I think that's a thing.

• 22:25Hank Green?

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

• 23:06Hank Green?

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

• 23:48Hank Green?

  I feel tempted to make up a tagline for them, but that's not what they want me to do. I shouldn't do that.

• 23:59John Green?

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

• 24:42John Green?

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

• 25:25Hank Green?

  John, we got another question from Meghan who asks, "Dear Hank and John, but mostly John, my husband and I are preparing to go to our third Indy 500."

• 25:32John Green?

  Oh, congratulations.

• 25:34Hank Green?

  It would be our fourth, but we missed last year because I wasn't ready to leave my three-month-old alone to be watched by another person.

• 25:41John Green?

  Lame.

• 25:42Hank Green?

  This year, we will be staying with my parents and we are taking my cousin and her partner. The thing is, they're Formula One people. And while I am very excited to introduce them to this world, I'm worried the beauty of the Indy will be lost on them. What are some of the things that will help them, that will help show them the wonderful world of IndyCar and the 500? We want to go by the pagoda and see the yard of bricks, but are there any special things that you would recommend? Checkered flags and milk of choice, Meghan?

• 26:12John Green?

  So Hank, this is a pretty cool fact. All 33 drivers for the Indy 500 have to choose their milk of choice that they will drink in the event that they win the Indy 500.

• 26:23Hank Green?

  What's the list of milks? Does they have French milk?

• 26:27John Green?

  Nope, but some people choose 2%. Some people choose skim milk. Some people choose whole milk.

• 26:30Hank Green?

  It's not brand. It's not brand.

• 26:33John Green?

  No, no, you don't get to pick your brand. You don't get to pick your brand. I think somebody has chosen non-dairy milk, which is, completely defeats the point.

• 26:41Hank Green?

  Un-American.

• 26:42John Green?

  It's un-American. So you probably don't know the difference between Formula One and IndyCar. To you, they both look like

• 26:49Hank Green?

  Oh, no, I do.

• 26:49John Green?

  openly wheeled race cars. You do. Okay.

• 26:51Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah. One goes around in a circle and one does interesting stuff.

• 26:54John Green?

  Incorrect. So the Indy cars also do interesting stuff. They also have street and road courses.

• 26:59Hank Green?

  And I don't know.

• 27:00John Green?

  The main difference is that F1 is for rich people.

• 27:04Hank Green?

  I don't know what that means.

• 27:05John Green?

  IndyCar is for everyone.

• 27:06Hank Green?

  Because it was European. F1 was European first. And so we're like, that's the high-class one.

• 27:12John Green?

  That's the one that's sponsored by Rolex. And then ours, ours is sponsored by other stuff.

• 27:17Hank Green?

  Is it more expensive to make an F1 car?

• 27:20John Green?

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, it literally is. The whole series is more expensive. They also like pack them up and ship them around the world. Whereas IndyCar travels mostly by truck. Here's my, my main recommendation. If you ever go to the Indy 500, and you should, it is the largest non-religious gathering of human beings on earth. It is a reminder of what humans can accomplish.

• 27:39Hank Green?

  You call it non-religious, but keep going.

• 27:42John Green?

  Yeah, but it, I mean, it's less religious than, for instance, the Hajj.

• 27:49Hank Green?

  Who's to say that the first mover wasn't an Indy car?

• 27:51John Green?

  That's true.

• 27:55Hank Green?

  This is what I mean when I say I'm an atheist.

• 27:57John Green?

  Yeah, we're all gonna, we're all gonna end up worshipping at the altar of the, of the one true god. The 1996 Bobby Ray Hall, uh, Penske, whatever. Yeah. Um, no, Bobby Ray Hall never raced for Penske, I don't think. But anyway, that's not the point. The point is my one big recommendation is bring ear protection. And the best way to bring ear protection is to have your ear protection double as a radio. So that you can actually follow along with what's happening because the track is so large.

• 28:28Hank Green?

  You can't see all of it.

• 28:28John Green?

  You can't see the whole track. You only see, if you're lucky, you see two, two of the corners. And then also there's lapped cars. And so it can get very confusing who's actually winning and, and it can be kind of hard to follow. But if you're listening along.

• 28:42Hank Green?

  It's 500 laps. It takes a long time. Sometimes they go very slow for some of the laps and that.

• 28:48John Green?

  It's 200 laps, but yeah.

• 28:50Hank Green?

  It's 500 miles.

• 28:51John Green?

  There you go. There you go. You're getting there.

• 28:54Hank Green?

  200 laps is still a lot. That's the same as 500.

• 28:57John Green?

  It's long. Yeah. It's a, it's an investment, um, but it's really, really fun and it's, it's fun people watching. It's fun to see people's traditions and the way that everyone ritualizes the, the 500 and.

• 29:09Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 29:09John Green?

  So I, you're, you're right that it's religious in the sense that it's a highly ritualized event for hundreds of thousands of people. Everybody has their own set of traditions around the 500 and their own time that they like to get there and everything else. So, um, it is highly ritualized. I think, yeah, lean into your particular rituals. Introduce your, uh, your family and friends to those rituals.

• 29:31Hank Green?

  If you don't have rituals, you gotta make some up.

• 29:34John Green?

  Yeah, they're fun to make up.

• 29:35Hank Green?

  You gotta, you gotta, you gotta bring, you gotta bring two Stanleys full of milk.

• 29:40John Green?

  Yep.

• 29:41Hank Green?

  Milk of choice. Choose.

• 29:44John Green?

  It's not, it's not just a, just a hot day's milk.

• 29:49Hank Green?

  And you gotta finish those before the before the 100th lap. That's the rule. What other what other traditions can we come up with for an IndyCar? Do they have like hot dogs and stuff?

• 30:00John Green?

  Oh, sure. Yeah, but you can also bring your own stuff. So I bring my own fried chicken that just sort of sits in a bath of ice with my beer.

• 30:09Hank Green?

  Cold fried chicken.

• 30:10John Green?

  Backpack. Yeah, cold fried chicken. It's not bad. I get it from I get it from this restaurant down the street. It's great.

• 30:17Hank Green?

  That's great, though. You could bring your own thing. Do they sell stuff?

• 30:21John Green?

  Yeah, yeah. But like, why would you buy their $12 beer when you can get your own 80 cent beer?

• 30:26Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 30:28John Green?

  Although the price of, you know, Hank, I don't want to be this guy.

• 30:31Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 30:33John Green?

  The price of Dr. Pepper has risen so much in my in the last five years.

• 30:40Hank Green?

  A IndyCar?

• 30:41John Green?

  That it's really quite shocking.

• 30:43Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 30:44John Green?

  No, no, no, not at not at

• 30:45Hank Green?

  Oh, in general.

• 30:46John Green?

  Napa's Motor Speedway, just the overall price of Dr. Pepper. You would think that like Dr. Pepper is is soon going to cost as much as a gallon of gas.

• 30:56Hank Green?

  Uh, not the way the gallon of gas is going, but

• 30:59John Green?

  That's a good point.

• 31:01John Green?

  I forgot about that.

• 31:04John Green?

  Electric car privilege. I totally forgot about that.

• 31:09Hank Green?

  I have an idea for a ritual, and I think this is very good.

• 31:12John Green?

  Give it to me.

• 31:13Hank Green?

  What's the flag that makes them all go?

• 31:15John Green?

  The green flag.

• 31:16Hank Green?

  When the green flag goes at the beginning of the race.

• 31:18John Green?

  Yeah.

• 31:19Hank Green?

  You have you start your own race. It's a corn race. Everybody brings a corn on the cob.

• 31:24John Green?

  Oh, you have like an ear of corn?

• 31:26Hank Green?

  Yes.

• 31:28John Green?

  Yes.

• 31:28Hank Green?

  And you just

• 31:31John Green?

  And everyone around you is watching the thrilling moment of that first lap when when there's so much

• 31:36Hank Green?

  There's like what's actually happening.

• 31:38John Green?

  And you're just like

• 31:40Hank Green?

  Yeah, just like kernels flying everywhere.

• 31:43John Green?

  Yeah. Or you could do it at the start of the 100th lap, right? Like, you could do it as sort of a low stakes moment in the race.

• 31:49Hank Green?

  Or right at right at the checkered flag or at the end, when you already know who won.

• 31:54John Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you're like, congratulations, Alex Paloe.

• 31:59Hank Green?

  Yeah. I need you to cook him on to that corn.

• 32:02John Green?

  That's a great idea. I love that tradition. Yeah, so everybody's got their own traditions. You gotta, if you don't have traditions, you can invent them and they become traditions over time and that's really fun.

• 32:10Hank Green?

  You should do some kind of like rhyming chant that the cousins don't know about.

• 32:14John Green?

  Sure, sure. Yeah. What rhymes with below? Below?

• 32:19Hank Green?

  What's that?

• 32:20John Green?

  Alex Palau, he's the most famous Indy car driver.

• 32:22Hank Green?

  He's an important man.

• 32:23John Green?

  Yeah, I'm sure. I'm surprised you don't know who he is. He's like the four time reigning champion of Indy car or something.

• 32:29Hank Green?

  I didn't know about the New Testament had more than the Gospels.

• 32:33John Green?

  That's true. You do have some Lakunai in your, in your education.

• 32:40Hank Green?

  That's true.

• 32:43John Green?

  All right. What's the next question?

• 32:45Hank Green?

  This next question comes from Katie who asks, Dear Hank and John, I'm a choir conductor and I often get goosebumps when my choir sings beautifully. Why and how does the music in the air translate into bumps on my skin? Keep on singing, Katie. We've got like a little bit of information like there that we've put people in like FMRI's and given them chills with, with like good music and, and there's some sign that people that get goosebumps more have more connection between emotional centers and auditory centers. But like, yeah, that doesn't tell me anything about what's going on there or why it's happening. You have this vestigial thing, which is that animals that have hair, they can fluff their hair up. They've got little muscles at the base of the hair to fluff it up. And that

• 33:30Hank Green?

  has a number of advantages. You can look bigger than you are. You can look more threatening. You can also puff yourself up if it's cold outside and that can provide some extra insulation. So there's reasons why this evolved that are not just like to have goosebumps. But now for humans, they don't do any of those things. They just are there to give you goosebumps. Now you will get a physical chill and I'm, and this is, I think, just vestigial. When it's cold out, your goosebumps will go and you'll be like, oh my gosh, that's so wild. My goosebumps are going even though I no longer have hair to protect myself from the cold with. And that's just a thing that's left over. But it's also been looped into

• 34:11Hank Green?

  this other thing where it's, it's about an emotional response to something. And there's almost a sense of like, I don't know I'm having this emotional response until I get this physical response. And also, there's like a literal pleasure to getting goosebumps, like it feels good on your skin.

• 34:28John Green?

  Do you ever get a physical chill, like where you sort of your shoulders go like this?

• 34:34Hank Green?

  Sure, sure.

• 34:34John Green?

  Not when you're cold, but when you're like horrified or grossed out or upset about something. So this happens to me so often that, and it's so out of my control that I'll often be on Zoom calls and somebody will say something that I viscerally disagree with and I'll be like, ugh.

• 34:54John Green?

  And I feel terrible about it. I mean, this is why I could never play poker professionally.

• 35:00John Green?

  I feel terrible about it. I don't, but I can't control it. It is beyond my control. It feels that way anyway.

• 35:07Hank Green?

  Yeah. I mean, we know that our emotions have physical impacts on our bodies. Like you can get angry and your blood pressure is going to go up, your heartbeat is going to be faster. You might get sweaty, but like, I don't know, there's something about goosebumps that's like, first, because it's such like, it's a nice emotion, you know, it's like a joyful thing. I don't even know exactly what to call that, that moment of seeing a beautiful thing or like a couple of people do something amazing or, you know, all your friends making a lovely noise together. It's just, it's like, it makes me like, oh God, that's cute.

• 35:40John Green?

  Sometimes there's a reveal in a book that makes like the tears pop into your eyes.

• 35:45Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 35:45John Green?

  Oh, that reminds me, have you read my book?

• 35:48Hank Green?

  I haven't read your book.

• 35:50John Green?

  God.

• 35:52John Green?

  It's getting stressful, Hank. I'm gonna, I need feedback.

• 35:55Hank Green?

  Yeah, I know, I know.

• 35:56John Green?

  It's like when you wouldn't make a will.

• 36:00Hank Green?

  And you got me eventually.

• 36:02John Green?

  Yeah, I'll get you eventually.

• 36:03Hank Green?

  And it turned out I didn't need it.

• 36:05John Green?

  You didn't need, well, I mean, yet.

• 36:10John Green?

  What do you mean you didn't need it? You do need it.

• 36:12Hank Green?

  I survived, John. I made it this long. I could have, I could have put it off longer.

• 36:17John Green?

  You beat entropy. You did it, man. You're the one.

• 36:21Hank Green?

  Oh, God, this podcast is brought to you by entropy.

• 36:24John Green?

  I know, and everything else is also. All right, Hank, let's answer one more question before we get to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon.

• 36:30Hank Green?

  This question comes from Judah, who asks, Dear Hank and John, my roommate isn't great with the names of famous people, so she will sometimes call Hank Tom Hanks. This has got me thinking. In the grand scheme of things, what's the difference between Hank Green and Tom Hanks? Or else, how would you explain the difference between Hank and Tom Hanks to an alien? Thanks, I'm not Tom Hanks, Judah. I don't feel like there's a, there's a ton that we have in common.

• 36:55John Green?

  Yeah, there's not a lot of crossover. Tom Hanks is interested in civics, and so are you.

• 37:03Hank Green?

  Yeah, I think that Tom Hanks was in a movie called The Green Mile, which often comes up when I'm searching for Hank Green. Because.

• 37:13John Green?

  Because there's a character named Hank in it?

• 37:15Hank Green?

  Because his last name is Hank, and the word green is in the title.

• 37:19John Green?

  Oh, yes, yes, yes. So it'll be like Tom Hanks is Green Mile.

• 37:23Hank Green?

  Yes, but, but one thing I'll tell you, I bet Tom Hanks does not Google himself as much as I do.

• 37:29John Green?

  I certainly bet he doesn't Google. When he does Google himself, I bet you're not a problem for him.

• 37:36Hank Green?

  I'm trying to get there. I was, it was such a harder, like, journey for you to get the top of, of John Green than for me to get to the top of Hank Green.

• 37:46John Green?

  I have to say, I was invested in that journey for a time, but that time has passed.

• 37:51Hank Green?

  As it does for everybody who's at the top of their name, you know? And like, like only matters for the people who aren't there. And then, once you're there, that's a good metaphor for how it all feels.

• 38:01John Green?

  Right. You really want to get to the top of the mountain and then turns out, as John Mellencamp so memorably put, it ain't nothing up there worth having.

• 38:09Hank Green?

  Sometimes you get a bit of a reveal.

• 38:11John Green?

  Sometimes you get a bit of a reveal, but the main thing that's revealed was that the pleasure was in climbing the mountain, not in reaching the top.

• 38:19Hank Green?

  Yeah. And so I keep climbing. You know how I feel, John?

• 38:23John Green?

  How?

• 38:24Hank Green?

  Like, I do like this thing where people get names wrong and they just go with it.

• 38:28John Green?

  Yeah.

• 38:28Hank Green?

  Like, I'll never stop calling Uma Thurman Erna Thulman, which is what mom called her once.

• 38:34John Green?

  Right, that's good.

• 38:35Hank Green?

  She was like, "That Erna Thulman?" And I'm like, "Yes, exactly. Of course."

• 38:41John Green?

  Yeah.

• 38:41Hank Green?

  Like, what a thing for your brain to have done to recreate Uma Thurman's name from scratch.

• 38:48John Green?

  And it's totally fine. It's totally fine to call Hank Green Tom Hanks. That's totally fine. It's like, it's like how in our family, we call Timothy Chalamet Timmy Chimmy. And it brings me great joy to reference Timmy Chimmy anytime I can.

• 39:01Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 39:02John Green?

  And we call Olivia Rodrigo O-Rod, which I also love.

• 39:07Hank Green?

  That's very good.

• 39:10Hank Green?

  I don't know that we have any of those. O-Rod is amazing.

• 39:12John Green?

  Alice is a big O-Rod fan. Huge O-Rod fan.

• 39:17John Green?

  I mean, huge. And I am too. I also, I've, I've, I mean, I've been to every Olivia Rodrigo concert series that she's done. I've been to every one of her tours. So

• 39:29Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 39:29John Green?

  I am obviously also a big O-Rod fan.

• 39:31Hank Green?

  I think that I may be somewhat following in the legacy of Tom Hanks and trying to be like an approachable, middle-aged man.

• 39:39John Green?

  Yeah.

• 39:39Hank Green?

  Just, just like fine.

• 39:41John Green?

  Not overly disliked by the public.

• 39:46Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 39:46John Green?

  Insofar as the public has an opinion on them, it's not bad. I'm sure that Tom Hanks has committed atrocities and people will write us about them.

• 39:55Hank Green?

  Tom Hanks, there is like a QAnon conspiracy theory about him being

• 39:59John Green?

  Oh, God. I feel so bad for anyone who gets enmeshed in that stuff.

• 40:04Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 40:05John Green?

  Oh, yeah.

• 40:06Hank Green?

  He got into it. So I mean, just don't, just don't be a public figure is the lesson.

• 40:13John Green?

  Well, certainly don't be a public figure of that scale.

• 40:16Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 40:18John Green?

  I liked that movie Bridge of Spies.

• 40:20Hank Green?

  Apollo 13?

• 40:22John Green?

  That was a good one. Yeah. He's made some bangers. Big. I don't know. I haven't watched Big in a while. I'm not sure if Big holds up.

• 40:31Hank Green?

  I bet it doesn't. I bet that also may have some problems.

• 40:34John Green?

  If we only talk about movies from the 1980s that don't have any problems, we don't talk about movies from the 1980s.

• 40:40Hank Green?

  I bet Tom Hanks is, he's, he's kind of like the Helen Hunt of men.

• 40:44John Green?

  Yeah, I buy that. I buy, I think he'd be, I think he'd be flattered by that comparison. All right, Hank, it's time to get to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. I'm just back from London. I got back.

• 40:54Hank Green?

  Yeah. You did it. You went, you went to London to watch a game you knew they would lose.

• 41:00John Green?

  And boy, did they. It, it was a disaster from the start. We lost 4-0, but that scoreline flatters us.

• 41:12John Green?

  It was the worst performance I've ever seen from a League One outfit, I have to say. But it didn't matter because AFC Wimbledon had already stayed up. I actually got to give the guys a pep talk before the game. I went downstairs and I think that I am responsible for the 4-0 drubbing, Hank. Rarely do I take responsibility for something, but I went down there and I was like, you did it? The season's over? Congratulations. Amazing, avoiding of relegation. I'm so proud of you. Everyone's so proud of you. It means so much to us. You did it. You did it. The season's over. And then they went out there and played like the season was over.

• 41:52John Green?

  So my apologies to the boys in Johnny Jackson, especially because I don't think I got them up for the game in any way.

• 41:59Hank Green?

  You're like, number one thing? This doesn't matter? Don't get hurt.

• 42:03John Green?

  Exactly, exactly. Every time, even after the fourth goal went in, the, uh, the fans at Plough Lane were singing, "Don's going up, ale, ale. Don's staying up. Don's staying up." So the vibes were immaculate. The end of season celebration was super fun. Saw, uh, got to see Marcus Brown, who called me his favorite human.

• 42:23Hank Green?

  Oh, thank God.

• 42:24John Green?

  Which is very nice of him.

• 42:25Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 42:26John Green?

  Uh, that's how I feel about him as well. It's, uh, Marcus Brown, then my wife, then Hank Green. That's the order. And in terms of humans, um, but yeah, it was great. It was a great night. And, uh, I woke up the next morning with a fuzzy head and flew back home. So that's news from AFC Wimbledon. The season has ended, Hank. It is over. We survived. Another season of League One football is ahead of us.

• 42:48Hank Green?

  And there will be news every week anyway, for some reason, somehow.

• 42:52John Green?

  Oh, Hank, I mean, the thrill of the transfer sagas?

• 42:55Hank Green?

  Oh, man. Johnny, Johnny Jackson's got his work cut out for him.

• 42:59John Green?

  He sure does. As does Craig Cope, our director of football.

• 43:02Hank Green?

  As does John Green, their guy that they ask for money.

• 43:06John Green?

  Their primary funder.

• 43:10Hank Green?

  This is like a Mars news scientist. Uh, this is, this is the thing. It's happening. They're, they're testing out a new ion engine. So this is like a way to turn, uh, electricity into thrust. They use electromagnetic fields to accelerate ions through a nozzle and that pushes, uh, things and it can push things quite hard. Um, and also constantly. They use 90% less propellant per amount of thrust that they get.

• 43:38John Green?

  Oh, wow.

• 43:38Hank Green?

  Which is great because then you don't have to have as heavy as a spacecraft, but they cannot produce as much thrust in the moments when they're producing thrust. So you can't use them to like get out of Earth's gravity, but once you're out, you can use them to get a long way. And this is why we've got this like potential, uh, interesting nuclear powered mission to Mars. It's an ion engine based thing. The most powerful ion engine on a spacecraft right now is NASA's Psyche mission, which is traveling to the asteroid Psyche. And it can, uh, get up to about 124,000 miles per hour. Often ion engines use xenon gas, uh, but this design. Uses lithium ions, which they tested in a facility at JPL. And the engine got to 120 kilowatts of power, which is 25 times what Psyche's ion engine can achieve.

• 44:24Hank Green?

  The goal is just to keep getting even more powerful with the idea that maybe one day we will use multiple ion engines to get people to Mars. So we will have these things that can push really heavy spacecraft really efficiently.

• 44:36John Green?

  But you still won't use them to get out of the atmosphere. You'll use them once you're in space.

• 44:41Hank Green?

  Yeah, I don't, I don't know if anybody is ever conceived of an ion engine being powerful enough to escape the gravity well with something heavy. But getting to Mars, it could really speed up the transit time, which would be great.

• 44:52John Green?

  What is the sort of minimum realistic transit time?

• 44:55Hank Green?

  It's seven to 10 months.

• 44:57John Green?

  Seven to 10 months.

• 44:58Hank Green?

  To get, to get there and then seven to 10 months to get back.

• 45:02John Green?

  That's a long.

• 45:05John Green?

  I would not enjoy that trip.

• 45:07Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah. You know, what, what I learned from the Artemis mission is like, those people are going to have to be charming AF.

• 45:14John Green?

  Oh, yeah.

• 45:14Hank Green?

  They're gonna have to be so nice to each other.

• 45:17John Green?

  They're gonna have to be so nice to each other. They're gonna have to work together on a level that I've never worked with anyone.

• 45:23Hank Green?

  Absolutely, absolutely.

• 45:24John Green?

  And I consider myself reasonably affable in the scheme of things.

• 45:27Hank Green?

  You are reasonably affable, John. I do, I do hope you know that. I'm glad you know that about yourself.

• 45:33John Green?

  In the scheme of things, I can be unaffable.

• 45:35Hank Green?

  You're quite pleasant to hang with.

• 45:37John Green?

  I can be unaffable, but I can.

• 45:39Hank Green?

  Unless you've got something going on.

• 45:41John Green?

  Unless I got something going on, then I'm a real pain.

• 45:43Hank Green?

  As long as you're, you're not like capable of diagnosing a medical condition, it's pretty, pretty fun to hang out with John.

• 45:50Hank Green?

  This podcast is edited by Michael Polk. It's mixed by Joseph Tuna Metish. Our marketing specialist is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosiana Halsro, Hassan Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Tabuki Chakravarti. The music you're hearing now at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gonna Roll Up. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.

• 46:14John Green?

  That was a good one. That was a good, don't forget to be awesome. I meant, not a good podcast.

• 46:17Hank Green?

  Oh.