421: Sonic’s Butt Game

Is it easier to push or pull? What is the difference between bandicoots and bilbies? Any advice on coping with a changing mental worldview? Who are your favorite family-friendly stand-up comedians? Will dinosaurs evolve again? …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. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:01Hank Green?

  You're listening to a Complexly podcast.

• 0:09Hank Green?

  Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John.

• 0:12John Green?

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

• 0:14Hank Green?

  It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you the best advice and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John?

• 0:19John Green?

  Yep.

• 0:20Hank Green?

  What kind of tea is the hardest to fit into a cup?

• 0:23John Green?

  I don't know, Hank. What kind of tea is the hardest to fit into a cup?

• 0:26Hank Green?

  Manatee.

• 0:27John Green?

  Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

• 0:30Hank Green?

  Actually, my tea's right over there. Can you wrap it for me?

• 0:31John Green?

  No.

• 0:32Hank Green?

  Oh, come on. It's right there.

• 0:33John Green?

  You go get it.

• 0:34Hank Green?

  It's so... You're closer.

• 0:36John Green?

  I'm six inches closer.

• 0:38Hank Green?

  You're in the way. I can't... I'd have to go around?

• 0:40John Green?

  We're in the same place at the same time. Hank wants... Hank wants his tea. He's gonna get up and get it.

• 0:44Hank Green?

  I'm gonna go get my tea.

• 0:44John Green?

  Okay. He's gonna put down his microphone. This is the kind of high drama that people come to Dear Hank and John for. Their sort of thrilling, audio-based content that people love.

• 0:53Hank Green?

  I tell you what, the little ASMR tea.

• 0:56John Green?

  Little ASMR.

• 0:56Hank Green?

  Iced tea.

• 0:57John Green?

  Yeah, good for you.

• 0:58Hank Green?

  I almost tried to drink out of my microphone, John. I got confused.

• 1:02John Green?

  So, that reminds me of the time that I ate a memory card, thinking it was a pretzel chip. And horror ensued. And then I eventually had somebody...

• 1:11Hank Green?

  Did you need the contents of the card?

• 1:13John Green?

  Oh, yeah. I had already filmed my Vlogbrothers video for the day and I ate my micro... my, my, my SD card. And I had somebody come and say, "Oh, I can fix any broken SD card." And they did like a CT scan of it.

• 1:25Hank Green?

  Whoa.

• 1:25John Green?

  And they were like, "I can't fix your SD card. You bit right through it."

• 1:31Hank Green?

  I tried to figure out exactly what the problem was, and it turns out the problem was, "You really treated that like a chip."

• 1:37John Green?

  You got a hell of a bite on you, green.

• 1:39Hank Green?

  You didn't half-ass that. I like... John likes a crunchy chip.

• 1:42John Green?

  I do. I do have a crunch.

• 1:43Hank Green?

  A full, satisfying crunch.

• 1:44John Green?

  Now, Hank, we're in the same place at the same time, which is unusual for Dear Hank and John. Usually Hank is in Montana and I am in Indianapolis, but I have come to Montana.

• 1:53Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 1:53John Green?

  For the purposes of doing a bunch of work stuff.

• 1:55Hank Green?

  Do you know what?

• 1:56John Green?

  And also hanging out with my brother.

• 1:57Hank Green?

  We should release this on Hank's channel as like a video.

• 1:59John Green?

  Okay, but we usually release the video on Patreon.

• 2:03Hank Green?

  It's true.

• 2:03John Green?

  Patreon.com/DeerHankAndJohn.

• 2:05Hank Green?

  One, yeah.

• 2:06John Green?

  Okay, do we have anything to advertise if we're gonna be getting all these new, new watchers and listeners?

• 2:10Hank Green?

  Wine is over.

• 2:12John Green?

  Wine is over.

• 2:13Hank Green?

  Iced tea is the way.

• 2:14John Green?

  Iced tea is the future.

• 2:16Hank Green?

  You make your own special iced tea?

• 2:18John Green?

  Catherine just closed our door.

• 2:20Hank Green?

  Iced tea is the future and you can get it at Keats and Co.

• 2:23John Green?

  Keats and Co. Go to goodstore.

• 2:24Hank Green?

  Goodstore.

• 2:25John Green?

  And not only can you get iced tea, but starting now, you can also get underwear.

• 2:30Hank Green?

  It's true.

• 2:31John Green?

  Now Hank, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't everyone go to their local underwear company and think, "God, I wish this place had tea?" And go to their local tea company and think, "God, I wish this place had underwear."

• 2:41Hank Green?

  I had a billionaire say this to me and they were like, "There's no way you can do this." Who would trust their tea people with their socks? And I was like, "I don't care, man. I think you don't see the vision."

• 2:53John Green?

  And he didn't see the vision, or she. But the truth is, you can trust both our underwear and our socks and our coffee and our tea because Hank and I are not... And our soap.

• 3:03Hank Green?

  And our eco-friendly cleaning supplies.

• 3:05John Green?

  And our eco-friendly cleaning supplies because Hank and I are not paid to say any of this because all the profit goes to charity.

• 3:10Hank Green?

  That's right.

• 3:11John Green?

  Goodstore, it really is a better way to buy stuff you need anyway, from underwear to cleaning supplies.

• 3:19Hank Green?

  What were we thinking? That's what I liked to...

• 3:22John Green?

  What were we thinking?

• 3:23Hank Green?

  Yeah, I was like the...

• 3:23John Green?

  By giving it all away?

• 3:24Hank Green?

  Crazy Johnny with his crazy warehouse.

• 3:26John Green?

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:27Hank Green?

  Our prices are so low that we gave away all the profit.

• 3:33John Green?

  Our prices are reasonable, but our profit goes to better places like tuberculosis care and preventing maternal mortality and stuff like that.

• 3:42Hank Green?

  The prices are crazy to me because we price based on margin and like thing to thing. I'm like, "Oh, well, some things are cheap and some things are expensive because that's how they actually should be."

• 3:54John Green?

  Right.

• 3:55Hank Green?

  Coffee's just really hard.

• 3:56John Green?

  Yeah, coffee should cost about 95 cents per cup and that's what ours costs. And if you get it for less than that, you don't want to know the labor conditions that were involved in its farming.

• 4:05Hank Green?

  Yes. So that's part of what's going on. I like to have you here in my office. This is nice.

• 4:10John Green?

  It's a beautiful office. It's very visually stimulating.

• 4:14Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 4:14John Green?

  There's no shortage of visual stimulus in your office.

• 4:17Hank Green?

  I had the thought, if I can make it so that I can see everything, I'll never lose anything.

• 4:23John Green?

  Yeah, and?

• 4:24Hank Green?

  That was wrong.

• 4:25John Green?

  Yeah.

• 4:25Hank Green?

  I lose things all the time.

• 4:26John Green?

  I do prefer for things to be out... Though, this is something that that my wife and I have a fundamental disagreement about.

• 4:31Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 4:32John Green?

  I would prefer that the cabinets, because as you know, I I don't see anything in my mind when I close my eyes. I have the aphantasia.

• 4:38Hank Green?

  Mm hmm.

• 4:38John Green?

  And uh, this extends because I have a pretty severe version of this. It extends to not having any kind of map in my head, not not being able to know directions or like. Like today I got lost getting to your house, even though I've been to your house a million times. And uh, I don't know what's behind the kitchen cabinets. This drives Sarah crazy. She's like, we lived in the same house for 15 years. The the cabinets have not changed. The wine glasses are where the wine glasses always were. And my position is, who knows what's behind a cabinet that you can't see behind? Okay?

• 5:09Hank Green?

  That's crazy. That is wild. I once saw a comment on an Instagram reel. That was about a related phenomena and it said, oh, didn't you know? Men don't see with their eyes. They see with their hearts.

• 5:21John Green?

  I don't know what I see with. And people are always like, how do you write books with this with this uh affliction? And I'm like, it's not an affliction. It's the only way I've ever been. And I am also not convinced that you actually see things in your mind when you close your eyes. But I am impressed by everybody else's ability to like get around and like know what's behind uh, closed.

• 5:40Hank Green?

  But I, yeah, I don't have any closed things in here.

• 5:43John Green?

  Yeah, which I really like because from my perspective. It's almost more terrifying to know that there's so many items and artifacts. Behind.

• 5:52Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 5:53John Green?

  A closed door.

• 5:54Hank Green?

  Yeah, I actually want to put more shelves in here, but there is one closed door over there.

• 5:58John Green?

  Difficult.

• 5:58Hank Green?

  And that has the router and stuff in it. And so you open it and wires just pile out, which I love having that behind a closed door.

• 6:05John Green?

  Yeah, that is a little stressful, but there is a lot of visual information in here, but it's not an unpleasant experience. However, this is an audio based podcast, so I don't know.

• 6:14Hank Green?

  Well, some people are seeing it.

• 6:15John Green?

  I don't know why we've gone quite so video centric for our podcast.

• 6:19Hank Green?

  Can I, you said that you you have this thing aphantasia, but it's the only way you've ever been.

• 6:25John Green?

  Yeah.

• 6:25Hank Green?

  And I would I say, people ask me like, Hank, or you do have ADD, ADHD?

• 6:30John Green?

  Yeah.

• 6:31Hank Green?

  And I say, I don't know what I have, but whatever it is, I like it.

• 6:33John Green?

  Hmm.

• 6:34Hank Green?

  That's that's what I've gone with, but it turns out.

• 6:36John Green?

  You do have ADHD.

• 6:37Hank Green?

  I recently found.

• 6:38John Green?

  Yeah.

• 6:38Hank Green?

  My assessment from when I was a child.

• 6:40John Green?

  Yeah.

• 6:41Hank Green?

  Where I was diagnosed with ADD or whatever it was called back then.

• 6:45John Green?

  Yeah.

• 6:45Hank Green?

  In nineteen ninety eight, nineteen eighty eight, I think like nineteen eighty eight. And uh. And, and mom and dad were just like, "Yeah, that's fine. He's got bigger problems."

• 6:55John Green?

  You did have bigger problems because you had the sensory integration disorder.

• 6:58Hank Green?

  Yeah, I had all kinds of learning dysfunctions.

• 7:01John Green?

  Learning challenges.

• 7:02Hank Green?

  Yes.

• 7:02John Green?

  Yeah, but the point is, you are where you are and you're doing great and we're proud of you. And you're now going to answer this question from Zach, who writes, "Dear Hank and John, John and Hank. Dear John and Hank, is it easier to push or pull?"

• 7:15Hank Green?

  Oh, it's-

• 7:15John Green?

  "Concisely yours, Zach." Now, do not tell me the scientific answer to this. I am not interested in your science.

• 7:21Hank Green?

  Well, there is a scientific answer to it. Well, there's a, there's like an engineering answer to it.

• 7:25John Green?

  Okay, my, my scientific answer is that it's easier to pull.

• 7:29Hank Green?

  That's right.

• 7:30John Green?

  My heart answer is that this, this like answer pretends that all the human muscles are the same everywhere. That is true. Yes. So you are exerting less force when you pull. Exactly. It's easier to pull, but that, what if you have tiny little back muscles in huge pecs? Yeah. Well, it's really- Then it might be easier to push.

• 7:52Hank Green?

  I think that it's largely that it is, it is the legs that you want to have involved. So the legs, did you, I don't know off the top of my head this stat, but somebody once asked me,

• 8:02John Green?

  Yeah.

• 8:02Hank Green?

  Uh, uh, if, if you had to eat a part of the body to survive for a long time, what would it be?

• 8:09John Green?

  The butt.

• 8:09Hank Green?

  It would be a leg.

• 8:10John Green?

  Not the butt?

• 8:11Hank Green?

  Well, the butt is, as you might have heard.

• 8:13John Green?

  Oh my God. Do not give me butt as legs in this context.

• 8:18Hank Green?

  Yeah, but regardless, that, that area, so like the quads, this is the, the far, by far the most calories of the body are in the legs.

• 8:25John Green?

  Sure.

• 8:26Hank Green?

  And, uh, and, and that's because those are by far the strongest muscles in the body. And also there's a lot of fat storage down there.

• 8:32John Green?

  Sure.

• 8:33Hank Green?

  So-

• 8:33John Green?

  Okay.

• 8:34Hank Green?

  Those are the big muscles. You want to be using those. And oftentimes when you imagine pulling, you're imagining just sort of like leaning back and pulling with your arms.

• 8:41John Green?

  But you're actually pulling a lot with your legs.

• 8:43Hank Green?

  But when you're pushing, you usually are pushing all with your legs. So what you have to do is pull by turning your whole body around so that like if you're, if I'm pulling you.

• 8:53John Green?

  Oh, you pull like the way those strong men pull semi trucks.

• 8:57Hank Green?

  Yeah. That's how you pull.

• 8:58John Green?

  Semi trucks?

• 8:59Hank Green?

  Semi trucks?

• 9:00John Green?

  Semi trucks.

• 9:00Hank Green?

  Semi trucks. There's a lot of words for that thing.

• 9:04John Green?

  An 18 wheeler.

• 9:05Hank Green?

  Tractor trailers.

• 9:06John Green?

  A big rig.

• 9:07Hank Green?

  A Randy Jackson.

• 9:09John Green?

  I've never heard that one, but I believe you.

• 9:12Hank Green?

  A lorry is what they call it in the United Kingdom.

• 9:14John Green?

  Yes.

• 9:15Hank Green?

  And in America, they call it a Larry Whitaker.

• 9:20John Green?

  A stoops McGee.

• 9:22Hank Green?

  They call it a highway bigman.

• 9:23John Green?

  All right, I think we're good there, Hank. The point is that when you're a strong person and you're pulling a semi truck, or an 18 wheeler, or a big rig, or a stoops McGee, you are, you're pulling, but you're pulling in the opposite direction. You're pulling with your legs, which you're often not doing when you're pulling, although I guess you're still pulling with your leg. The point being, pulling is easier.

• 9:46Hank Green?

  Yeah. There's something physically that where like if you're turned around, but like this, you know, that kind of pushing is like, it's different.

• 9:53John Green?

  Yeah. Also, doesn't it a little bit depend on the object?

• 9:56Hank Green?

  I think that it does. Like, I think that a semi might not matter that much, but I know that there's, like, I did this physics, uh, like, literally, I did a physics problem in high school or college. It was like, is it more efficient to pull or push a lawnmower? And it was way more efficient to pull it, but you don't pull lawnmowers, because if you fall forward, it goes on top of the lower part of your body.

• 10:20John Green?

  It's going to get ya.

• 10:21Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 10:21John Green?

  Reminds me of that horrifying and lovely poem by Philip Larkin about the hedgehog, groundhog. I don't remember what kind of animal it is. You want me to read it to you?

• 10:32Hank Green?

  Not usually, but one never knows. I have aphantasia for poetry. Once people start talking weird, I can't hear them anymore.

• 10:38John Green?

  I'm not gonna talk weird. I'm gonna, I'm gonna read it to you, I'm gonna read it to you the way that I would read it to you if it were a paragraph.

• 10:44Hank Green?

  Okay.

• 10:45John Green?

  So that you don't have aphantasia for poetry.

• 10:46Hank Green?

  I hope that that works.

• 10:47John Green?

  And by the way.

• 10:48Hank Green?

  It's so hard to do with poems. You, like, immediately you drop into, not you, but one drops into poetry cadence.

• 10:54John Green?

  If you're not moved by this poem, I don't know what I can do for you.

• 10:58Hank Green?

  Okay.

• 10:59John Green?

  "The mower stalled twice. Kneeling, I found a..."

• 11:01Hank Green?

  Immediately went into the poetry voice.

• 11:03John Green?

  All right, I'll try it without the poetry voice and see if that helps. "The mower stalled twice. Kneeling, I found a hedgehog jammed up against the blades. Killed. It had been in the long grass. I'd seen it before, and even fed it once. Now, I had mauled its unobtrusive world un mendably. Buryal was no help."

• 11:22Hank Green?

  I liked it. I liked it.

• 11:24John Green?

  It's not over.

• 11:24Hank Green?

  Okay.

• 11:25John Green?

  "Next morning, I got up, and it did not. The first day after a death, the new absence is always the same. We should be careful of each other. We should be kind, while there is still time."

• 11:38Hank Green?

  I think that there's something wrong with my brain.

• 11:41John Green?

  Yeah, I mean, if you're not moved by, we should be careful of each other, we should be kind while there is still time. I don't know what to tell you.

• 11:47Hank Green?

  Can you unlock your phone? Can I try and read it?

• 11:49John Green?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, this is gold. People are gonna love this.

• 11:53Hank Green?

  I just, you, like, the poetry voice. I don't know how to not do it in the poetry voice, but.

• 11:57John Green?

  Try it.

• 11:57Hank Green?

  The mower stalled twice, kneeling down. Well, I wanna, I wanna add words because this isn't how people talk. The mower stalled twice, kneeling. I found a hedgehog jammed up against the blades, killed. It had been in the long grass. I'd seen it before, even fed it once. Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world unminedably. Burial was no help. Next morning I got up and it did not. Did not what?

• 12:18John Green?

  Get up, buddy. It's dead.

• 12:20Hank Green?

  It did not, okay.

• 12:21John Green?

  It's a dead, dead hedgehog.

• 12:23Hank Green?

  That's how this, a person would say this. Next morning I got up and it did not. The first day after a death, the absence is always the same. We should be careful of each other. We should be kind while there's still time. I don't know, I just like.

• 12:35John Green?

  My way was better.

• 12:36Hank Green?

  You're, that's, but.

• 12:37John Green?

  Let's let the people vote.

• 12:38Hank Green?

  But not for a brain that can't hear when people start talking weird. Like, I feel like I had to do so much work.

• 12:44John Green?

  Well, okay.

• 12:45Hank Green?

  To learn how communication works.

• 12:47John Green?

  I hear you and I believe you, like, you believe me that I have a fantasia, even though I struggle to imagine what that would be like.

• 12:53Hank Green?

  And I also struggle.

• 12:54John Green?

  But, yeah, let me tell you that you already do this very well, and you do it with songs.

• 13:02Hank Green?

  Yeah, I don't know. I think, like, I'm sure if I spent a lot of time with poetry, I would totally get it.

• 13:06John Green?

  That's what I think.

• 13:07Hank Green?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 13:08John Green?

  I think it's.

• 13:08Hank Green?

  I don't think it's, I don't think it's like a fundamental way that I'm broken. I, but like, I have it with comic books, too. I can't read comic books well.

• 13:14John Green?

  Really?

• 13:15Hank Green?

  Because they're not set up the way that I.

• 13:17John Green?

  Your brain works.

• 13:18Hank Green?

  Learns how, learns how to do stories.

• 13:20John Green?

  Yeah, it's just like a big leap to try and start, uh, understanding a new medium. My only point is that we should be careful of each other and we should be kind while there is still time.

• 13:30Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah, especially in the long grass.

• 13:32John Green?

  Especially in the long grass. And let me tell you, we are in the long grass. All right, this next question comes from Doozy, who asks, hi from Melbourne, Australia. My name is Doozy, rhymes with bluesy. Bandicoots are bilbies, or bilbies are bandicoots, question mark. It's very confusing and unclear. They are endangered in Australia and super cute. Now, Hank, if you had told me.

• 13:51Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 13:52John Green?

  That a bandicoot.

• 13:53Hank Green?

  Uh huh.

• 13:53John Green?

  Is an actual animal. I would have bet my life savings against you.

• 13:58Hank Green?

  I think I knew that, but I don't, I didn't know about bilbies. Bilbies also, I would, I would, I would have bet it, bet it against.

• 14:05John Green?

  Anyway, Doozy says, uh, they're super cute and so it would be great to, for you to promote them and talk about them. Thank you, Doozy. I'm happy to promote them and talk about them. I just don't know what they are.

• 14:15Hank Green?

  I also don't.

• 14:16John Green?

  I know what Crash Bandicoot is. Is that a Bandicoot?

• 14:18Hank Green?

  Yeah, that's, that's what he's named after.

• 14:20John Green?

  Are they, are they orange?

• 14:21Hank Green?

  Let's find out. What's a bilby?

• 14:23John Green?

  That's, now that looks like a bunny.

• 14:25Hank Green?

  Well, it's not, cause I'm sure that it convergently evolved to a bunny and it is in fact a marsupial.

• 14:29John Green?

  Oh.

• 14:30Hank Green?

  Because it's from.

• 14:31John Green?

  Cause it's from Oceania.

• 14:33Hank Green?

  And then a Bandicoot, it appears to be the same thing?

• 14:36John Green?

  No.

• 14:36Hank Green?

  It looks a little different.

• 14:37John Green?

  They both have huge ears.

• 14:39Hank Green?

  Doesn't look like Crash Bandicoot. Crash Bandicoot looks like.

• 14:42John Green?

  Crash Bandicoot looks almost nothing like the Bandicoots that I've been exposed to in the last 30 seconds.

• 14:48Hank Green?

  Yeah, I'm looking at Bandicoots and none of them have jeans.

• 14:50John Green?

  None of them are wearing jeans, none of them are wearing shoes, and is, does Crash Bandicoot have gloves on?

• 14:56Hank Green?

  I guess that's how he goes fast.

• 14:57John Green?

  Yeah.

• 14:58Hank Green?

  That's what helps him go.

• 14:59John Green?

  He's got like driving gloves.

• 15:00Hank Green?

  Now, can you remind me, is Crash Bandicoot a good guy or a bad guy?

• 15:03John Green?

  He's a good guy. I'm not entirely sure, actually. Like, when I think about what actually happens in the game.

• 15:08Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 15:09John Green?

  I don't know if he's like trying to make a good outcome occur, or if he's.

• 15:12Hank Green?

  Is he like the Luigi to Sonic's Mario?

• 15:15John Green?

  No, I think he is his own, I think that, I think that people saw Sonic and they were like, I, we don't have Sonic, we need to make Crash Bandicoot.

• 15:23Hank Green?

  Oh, Crash Bandicoot is like the Sonic for Sega.

• 15:26John Green?

  Yeah, he's like, oh, we have Sonic at home.

• 15:28Hank Green?

  Uh, he's like the Kirkland brand. He's the John Green to Hank Green, if you will.

• 15:34John Green?

  Well, yeah, it was like they, somebody, I think Sega had Sonic.

• 15:37Hank Green?

  Sega had Sonic.

• 15:38John Green?

  And then somebody, but I don't know that for sure. That's just like the vibe I get. Cause it feels like he kept it after.

• 15:44Hank Green?

  History of Crash Bandicoot. Okay.

• 15:51John Green?

  I guess Sega, Sega was, uh, right.

• 15:53Hank Green?

  That's confusing for me.

• 15:55John Green?

  Now, can you, can you search for Sonic?

• 15:57Hank Green?

  They, they took inspiration from other games such as Donkey Kong Country, Mario, and Sonic.

• 16:04John Green?

  Not only that, they jokingly codenamed it Sonic's Ass Game.

• 16:09John Green?

  It's a direct quote from Wikipedia. I'll remind you, it's not cursing if you're referring to Wikipedia. What is, what is, what does that mean? It's Sonic's ass game, Hank. What's? You know. Is it Crash Bandicoot is like Sonic but an ass? But he's not an ass, he's a bilby, as we just established. In fact, right there in the name is Bandicoot. It's true. Wait, is Sonic, is, wait, is Crash Bandicoot in fact a Bandicoot? We should answer that question next, or is that just his name? The way some people are named Rabbit. Yes, Crash Bandicoot is a Bandicoot. Specifically, he is depicted as a genetically enhanced anthropomorphic eastern bard Bandicoot. Uh, in the video game of his same name.

• 16:51John Green?

  His ears look nothing like the adorable Bandicoot ears. He was genetically engineered. But he was genetically engineered to make his ears less cute? Yeah, no, so that he could be more powerful. Uh, sometimes cuteness is a diminisher. It can be a drawback. It can be a drawback. Yeah. Is this what the Australian wanted us to promote, is Crash Bandicoot? I think the Australian wanted us- 1990s video game character? I think the Australian wanted us to promote the actual endangered animals, which we are promoting while also saying that Crash Bandicoot is not doing a good job, in our opinion, of depicting a Bandicoot, and is in fact mostly Sonic's ass game. Right, but Sonic's ass game continues. There was just a Crash Bandicoot property released in 2023, Crash Team Rumble.

• 17:34John Green?

  Do you think Sonic's ass game is a better title for an album or a song? Sonic's ass game to me, I'll be honest with you, I'm having a hard time parsing it in a way that isn't about- Yeah, I hear you. How good Sonic is- Is at that. Yeah. Yeah, like how well he fills out his genes.

• 17:55John Green?

  That is, that is how I parse it. Yeah.

• 17:59John Green?

  Sorry for all our five-year-old listeners, but I just don't know how to get around it. We're just quoting Wikipedia. Sonic's butt game. He's got a good butt game. It could be a donkey thing. Could be a donkey thing. He could be playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Sonic's Donkey Game. Yeah. Yeah. That's an ass game. That's an ass game. That's a, in fact, I would argue the single most famous ass game is Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Uh huh, I don't, I couldn't come up with another one. No. I guess donkey riding, like donkey racing is probably a game.

• 18:27Hank Green?

  Donkey Kong.

• 18:28John Green?

  Donkey Kong.

• 18:29Hank Green?

  But he's not an ass. He's just named Donkey Kong.

• 18:33John Green?

  Dude, I just realized that Donkey Kong is not a donkey. He's a monkey.

• 18:39Hank Green?

  Oh, yeah.

• 18:40John Green?

  That's like Crash Bandicoot not being a Bandicoot.

• 18:43Hank Green?

  It's like Sonic the Hedgehog being a Bandicoot.

• 18:46John Green?

  Or Sonic the Hedgehog indeed being a monkey.

• 18:48Hank Green?

  Was Sonic the Hedgehog genetically engineered to be like him?

• 18:52John Green?

  No, he came from space, bro.

• 18:54Hank Green?

  Oh, do you know this because you watched the movie?

• 18:57John Green?

  Yeah. Seventeen times.

• 19:00Hank Green?

  He came from somewhere. I'm not sure if it's space, but I think it is.

• 19:03John Green?

  Right.

• 19:04Hank Green?

  Yeah. You haven't seen the movie?

• 19:05John Green?

  No, but that would, I mean, I am excited to have the Fermi paradox well and truly solved.

• 19:10Hank Green?

  By the Sonic the Hedgehog film.

• 19:12John Green?

  Sonic the Hedgehog film.

• 19:13Hank Green?

  Did you know Jim Carrey said that he was retired from acting unless there was an extraordinary role that came along? And then immediately after that, took the role of the bad guy in Sonic the Hedgehog 3?

• 19:22John Green?

  You know, I think by extraordinary, he meant real fun.

• 19:27Hank Green?

  Or lucrative.

• 19:28John Green?

  I don't know.

• 19:29Hank Green?

  Extraordinary could be lucrative. But I bet, I bet that, I bet that role is really fun.

• 19:33John Green?

  That's the thing. I wonder how fun it all is. Especially once you're good at it, you know?

• 19:38Hank Green?

  That's what I've been writing.

• 19:38John Green?

  You know what you're doing?

• 19:39Hank Green?

  That's what I've been writing a novel about for the last several years.

• 19:41John Green?

  What?

• 19:42Hank Green?

  Whether or not, uh, acting in Hollywood and being a, uh,

• 19:46John Green?

  Yeah.

• 19:46Hank Green?

  movie star is fun.

• 19:48John Green?

  Oh.

• 19:49Hank Green?

  Or whether in fact it is a trap from which it is difficult to escape.

• 19:53John Green?

  Yeah.

• 19:54Hank Green?

  Anyway, let's answer another question from our listeners.

• 19:56John Green?

  That's probably also a, a, an important question for us to ask and for other reasons.

• 20:00Hank Green?

  No joke. This question is from McKenna who asks, hello Hank and John. My name is McKenna and I had cancer three years ago, leukemia. I made it out fine. But my mental worldview shifted dramatically. I grew up going to Protestant Christian churches and consider myself to have faith in the Bible. My hospital stay drastically changed me into an atheist, or if I do believe in God, I don't like the guy very much. Believing in humanity is hard and I've had a hard time coping with that transition. Any advice?

• 20:28John Green?

  I think we should turn to the cancer survivor on this one.

• 20:31Hank Green?

  I guess, but I haven't had any crises of faith in my life.

• 20:36John Green?

  That's true, I have. So you answer from the cancer survivor perspective and I'll answer from the constant crisis of faith perspective.

• 20:43Hank Green?

  Sure, I mean, one thing about that that is uh that is changing about cancer is that it's usually, not always, but usually you come out with a bunch of friends from that community and those people don't all make it. Um, and that was the case for me. That for me isn't that hard to sort of place into the history of humanity.

• 21:06John Green?

  Right.

• 21:07Hank Green?

  Or, you know, sort of like my understanding of how physics and biology and chemistry work. I honestly feel, in terms of humanity, I don't feel like I lost any appreciation for humanity because I saw a lot of humanity. I saw a lot of humanity in the people who love me and the people who love the, the, my, my friends who died. I saw a lot of humanity in the healthcare system, um, that obviously can be inhumane, but like in terms of the actual people in it are just a bunch of people trying to do their best, given the systems that we have. And I, and I learned a lot about sort of myself and what I wanted and was a bit surprised and, and honestly, um, pleased, pleased to find

• 21:50Hank Green?

  that I wasn't worried about like missing the future. I wasn't worried about, you know, lost income. Uh, though I of course had the, the privilege of not having to worry about that too much in terms of like practical considerations. I was just worried about like not being there for the people who I love and, and what they would carry forward if I wasn't here. Um, and so I, that made me like kind of feel good about myself. And it was like lessons that I feel like I don't want to lose a hold of.

• 22:20John Green?

  Mm-hmm. I think part of what a lot of people struggle with in the wake of life-threatening illness and, you know, I've had little glimpses of this. I recovered from a pretty serious, somewhat life-threatening bout of meningitis, for instance. Uh, but I haven't had the kind of glimpse of it that you've had or McKenna's had. But I think a lot of what people struggle with is on the other side of that, like, a lot of your preconceived notions are challenged. Now, a lot of your preconceived notions weren't challenged, which is interesting, but I think McKenna's were, you know? Especially if you grow up hearing, "Everything happens for a reason," or you grow up hearing, like, "God has some kind of master plan for us."

• 22:58John Green?

  And then you see up close that that master plan, if it exists, as McKenna says, is the kind of thing that... Where I don't like the guy very much.

• 23:08Hank Green?

  Right.

• 23:08John Green?

  I'm not... I don't love the master plan.

• 23:09Hank Green?

  Yeah. I mean, could we have a just like a... Like, you're a pretty clever guy up there.

• 23:14John Green?

  Yeah, couldn't you have had a better master plan?

• 23:17Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 23:17John Green?

  Um, or indeed, like, if the master plan is so far beyond my understanding, why was I given this ability to grieve so deeply and to hurt so much?

• 23:25Hank Green?

  Yeah, which we don't need to have.

• 23:28John Green?

  We don't.

• 23:28Hank Green?

  Well, I mean, we may, we may, in order to...

• 23:31John Green?

  Well, we don't...

• 23:32Hank Green?

  Be ourselves, but...

• 23:33John Green?

  Maybe. But almost all the... In my experience, almost all the lessons I learned from my friends dying, or from serious illness, or whatever, are lessons that I could have learned elsewhere cheap... more cheaply.

• 23:42Hank Green?

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:43John Green?

  Um, that I didn't have to... In my opinion, anyway. But part of what's happening for McKenna, maybe, is when they say, "I have a hard time believing in humanity," is that they are struggling to see what you have seen, which is that people are capable of astonishing sacrifice and compassion and kindness and generosity. Uh, and instead is seeing a lot of what is also true of humanity, right? Which is that humanity is monstrous and a catastrophe.

• 24:10Hank Green?

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:11John Green?

  And how do you hold those competing ideas in your mind at the same time? I don't have an easy answer for that, but I think you have to.

• 24:16Hank Green?

  Yeah. I also, like, I don't... I just do, you know?

• 24:21John Green?

  I know.

• 24:21Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 24:22John Green?

  You are able to, but a lot of us struggle to.

• 24:25Hank Green?

  Mm.

• 24:25John Green?

  Uh, we want a simple, straightforward answer to, "Is humanity good or bad? Is humanity good news or bad news? Is humanity a gift or a curse? Like, is consciousness itself something to be reveled in or something to be despised?"

• 24:38Hank Green?

  I do have a hard one with that. Like, here's... Here's the thing.

• 24:40John Green?

  Yeah.

• 24:41Hank Green?

  I... Because I'm... I'm... Like sort of it and also outside of it. I feel very strongly that life is a good thing.

• 24:50John Green?

  Mm hmm.

• 24:51Hank Green?

  And so obviously, like, I'm part of life. But also, there is a way in which humans are sort of, you know, not just biological, but also cultural and technological. And so when I'm like, from that perspective, I'm like, boy, it's good that life exists, but but there is no suffering in a world without life.

• 25:10John Green?

  Yeah.

• 25:11Hank Green?

  So so the fact that the only world without suffering is a world without life.

• 25:15John Green?

  No suffering on Mars.

• 25:16Hank Green?

  To completely destroy all suffering, we could just imagine a world with no living things, and it would contain no suffering. And would that be a better world? And I I have, I don't have like a philosophical reason why, but I just believe that it is better to have life.

• 25:31John Green?

  Yeah.

• 25:32Hank Green?

  And so in the same way, I believe that it is better to have culture, and it is better to have consciousness.

• 25:38John Green?

  But it's but it's hard to make sense of some of the ways that humans hurt each other.

• 25:44Hank Green?

  Oh, yeah.

• 25:45John Green?

  And and and I I don't think that ignoring or minimizing or diminishing the horrors we visit upon each other is the right solution.

• 25:55Hank Green?

  Right. I and I think that I do think that there is space for curiosity about that.

• 26:01John Green?

  Yeah.

• 26:01Hank Green?

  Which isn't a sort of like a first instinct that one has when it comes to horrors. And there's space for eventual compassion, if not forgiveness, where there's just like a, you know, not like a requirement. But it is a thing that can happen and can be positive.

• 26:21John Green?

  Right. But I understand having a hard time having faith in humanity. And part of how I'm able to have faith in humanity is to believe that, you know, I am walking alongside forces of love that are greater than myself.

• 26:34Hank Green?

  Right.

• 26:35John Green?

  And that's part of how I do it. Hank does it a different way. The last thing I'll say about it, McKenna, is that you're on a journey of meaning, to quote the great Hank Green. You are.

• 26:46Hank Green?

  That was you.

• 26:47John Green?

  But, OK. Well, to quote even greater John Green then. But you are, you're on a journey of meaning that lasts a lifetime. Like, that's what, that's, that's what we do here, is we try to make things easier for each other and try to understand as best as we can.

• 27:03Hank Green?

  This next question comes from Sheera, who asks, "Dear Mr. and Mr. Greens, who is your favorite stand-up comedian or your favorite stand-up comedians that are mostly family-friendly? Thanks for your dubiosity, Sheera."

• 27:15John Green?

  I enjoy Pete Holmes.

• 27:16Hank Green?

  He's mostly family-friendly.

• 27:17John Green?

  Pete Holmes is mostly family-friendly. I'm actually not positive.

• 27:19Hank Green?

  I think, yeah.

• 27:20John Green?

  But vibe-wise, he is.

• 27:21Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:22John Green?

  He might curse now and again.

• 27:23Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 27:24John Green?

  But vibe-wise, he's family-friendly, and I find him very funny.

• 27:28Hank Green?

  He's very funny.

• 27:29John Green?

  And he's also, uh, he, he, he sends up some of my other favorite comedians, like Mike Birbiglia, who is also my friend. He sends up Mike Birbiglia in ways that are like, simultaneously like generous and knowing.

• 27:43Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 27:43John Green?

  There's something about...

• 27:45Hank Green?

  I've seen that clip.

• 27:46John Green?

  My son, my son calls this bullying, but he's wrong, he's 15 now, and he calls, he, he refers to like, when he and his friends bully each other, but he means it in a kind way.

• 27:56Hank Green?

  Right, they spar.

• 27:57John Green?

  They spar. There's something about being knowingly and lovingly

• 28:02Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 28:03John Green?

  made fun of, that is better than being knowingly and lovingly complimented.

• 28:07Hank Green?

  Oh, yeah, I mean, I think that it goes, comes down to individual people. I, like, I know people who do not like this kind of communication.

• 28:13John Green?

  Hmm, I do.

• 28:15Hank Green?

  Yeah, me too.

• 28:15John Green?

  I love being teased, if it's, if it's from someone I truly love, in a way that truly knows me.

• 28:23Hank Green?

  They're getting, like, it's very diff, it's hard to do well.

• 28:25John Green?

  Yeah.

• 28:26Hank Green?

  So when someone does it well, it's like, "Ah, it's because you get me, you know me, you know how to like, you know how to hit me in that spot," that's like, uh, that's strengthening that spot instead of weakening it.

• 28:35John Green?

  I remember once I asked my friend Maureen Johnson if my eye looked weird. I said, "Does my eye look weird?" And she said, "I think we've found the name of your memoir."

• 28:48Hank Green?

  Which reminds me that this podcast is brought to you by Does My Eye Look Weird? The new memoir from John Green.

• 28:55John Green?

  Oh, yes. Today's podcast is also, of course, brought to you by Crash Bandicoot. Crash Bandicoot, this is really the only podcast where you can get a little bit of post-cancer life modeling and Crash Bandicoot content in the same 60 seconds.

• 29:09Hank Green?

  This podcast is also brought to you by the human leg. The human leg, the most calorie-dense part of the body.

• 29:16John Green?

  And today's podcast is brought to you by the long grass. The long grass, how do we get out of it?

• 29:21Hank Green?

  We're here.

• 29:22John Green?

  We're here.

• 29:23Hank Green?

  We're here. We're in the long grass because we're in the long grass.

• 29:26John Green?

  That's right. All right, Hank, before we get to all the important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, I have to mention a couple of things. First off, a lot of people have written us about Beef Days. Now Beef Days is a concept that you and I have embraced wholeheartedly, where instead of having beef whenever we feel like it, we have beef on a few certain days throughout the year wherein we celebrate Beef Days. This has cut my personal beef consumption by like 90%, and you said you felt like it was a terrible failure because lots of people didn't get involved in Beef Days and it didn't really change the culture. And the hardest thing in the world to change is

• 29:57Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 29:57John Green?

  social norms.

• 29:58Hank Green?

  Yep.

• 29:59John Green?

  Hundreds, I'm not exaggerating, of people have written in to say that they also celebrate Beef Days. So if we find ourselves at the end of our lives in front of St. Peter's Gate and he lets us in,

• 30:09Hank Green?

  Mm-hmm.

• 30:10John Green?

  just know.

• 30:11Hank Green?

  Beef Days was part of it.

• 30:12John Green?

  Beef Days was part of it. Now, I'm not going to get into heaven. In this hypothetical world where St. Peter exists and you go up to the gates, everyone knows that I'm going to get up there and immediately St. Peter's going to stare me dead in the eyes and say, "I think we both know." And I'm going to say, "Yes, indeed, I know." And he's going to say, "It was the La Croix."

• 30:26Hank Green?

  Yeah. I mean, it's a whole household problem, it seems to me, having had your children in my home.

• 30:33John Green?

  My children love La Croix. They're also not going to go to heaven because of the La Croix. They're going to be like, "You, even though you, even though you quote-unquote recycled all this aluminum, the aluminum came from somewhere, buddy, and you knew. You knew."

• 30:45Hank Green?

  There is a, there is a solution to this problem.

• 30:47John Green?

  I, you're going to say a SodaStream, but I love my La Croix's.

• 30:50Hank Green?

  No, no, there's a solution to this problem that has not yet been invented.

• 30:53John Green?

  Okay.

• 30:54Hank Green?

  Which is whatever soda carbonator does as good a job as La Croix.

• 30:59John Green?

  La Croix on tap.

• 31:01Hank Green?

  La Croix, a keg of La Croix.

• 31:03John Green?

  Oh, you're speaking my language.

• 31:07John Green?

  This midwesterner, this midwesterner just got a shiver that went all through his body.

• 31:13Hank Green?

  You gotta go to like a, like a dram shop and just bring your crowlers to fill it up with La Croix.

• 31:20John Green?

  That sounds so good to me.

• 31:21Hank Green?

  I mean, I've always thought that there must be a way to make La Croix at home. It's not complicated.

• 31:27John Green?

  All right.

• 31:27Hank Green?

  But what are you, what's your concern? What's, why is it not as good to have a home? Cause you have a home carbonator.

• 31:32John Green?

  I do, and I use it sometimes, but it's just not as good as La Croix.

• 31:35Hank Green?

  Is it the flavor or is it the bubbles?

• 31:37John Green?

  It's both the flavor and the bubbles.

• 31:38Hank Green?

  It has worse bubbles?

• 31:39John Green?

  The best tweet of all time was when somebody said a La Croix flavor is like you're drinking a plain soda water and somebody in the next room shouts grapefruit.

• 31:48Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 31:49John Green?

  That's, that's, that's the exact amount of fruit I want and that's the exact amount of fruit they give me.

• 31:54Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 31:55John Green?

  I just had one of your spend, spend drifts.

• 31:57Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 31:58John Green?

  Whatever it's called.

• 31:59Hank Green?

  Mm hmm. Spend, spend drift is a great actual, uh, modification of this name because you spend.

• 32:05John Green?

  You do. It ain't free. Um, and it's like, instead of having an artifact, whatever La Croix has, they have, uh,

• 32:12Hank Green?

  Actual fruit juice.

• 32:13John Green?

  It's terrible.

• 32:16John Green?

  I'm not interested in it at all.

• 32:18Hank Green?

  I love them. They're so good. So good. It's like on the package. It's like this, this, every one of these contains 17 cherries.

• 32:27John Green?

  All right, Hank, we got one last question before we get to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon.

• 32:31Hank Green?

  It comes from Rihanna who asks, dear Hank and John, trying to get my five year old to sleep the other night, I somehow wound up explaining to her how eventually there will come a time when there won't be any people left alive on earth.

• 32:45John Green?

  Oh, this really helps five year olds go to sleep in my experience.

• 32:47Hank Green?

  But that earth will probably still be here.

• 32:50John Green?

  Yeah.

• 32:50Hank Green?

  I was of course, having feelings of extreme panic inside at saying this out loud. I think I did a pretty good job of keeping it together and not letting the dread show. Anyway, my five year old didn't seem panicked because she got excited and asked, when that happens, will dinosaurs evolve again?

• 33:06John Green?

  Well, will they Hank?

• 33:08Hank Green?

  That's not a bad hypothesis, Rihanna says. Yeah. I, look, we don't, what I can say for sure is that the earth has a while.

• 33:16John Green?

  Yeah.

• 33:16Hank Green?

  And also, so, so in both ways.

• 33:21Hank Green?

  There's less time than you think.

• 33:23John Green?

  Right.

• 33:23Hank Green?

  For the Earth, because everybody says, oh, the sun's gonna explode in five billion years.

• 33:26John Green?

  Right.

• 33:27Hank Green?

  But in a billion years, the sun's gonna be so hot that it's gonna bake off the oceans.

• 33:31John Green?

  Which is gonna be a real problem.

• 33:32Hank Green?

  So, that, that's...

• 33:34John Green?

  Because we, I'll remind you, we're mostly a water planet and we're mostly water life.

• 33:38Hank Green?

  We're just fish on land.

• 33:39John Green?

  We're just fish on land, and so boiling oceans will be a big issue for us.

• 33:42Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 33:43John Green?

  Lack of fresh water will be a big issue for us.

• 33:45Hank Green?

  Right. So, we've got, we've got about a billion years.

• 33:48John Green?

  Which is important to note, because that means we're in the second half of life on Earth.

• 33:53Hank Green?

  Oh, yeah. But, we are not in the second half of complex multicellular life.

• 34:00John Green?

  Right.

• 34:01Hank Green?

  So, so for so much of the Earth.

• 34:03John Green?

  Yeah.

• 34:04Hank Green?

  It was just single-celled organisms or really simple multicellular organisms.

• 34:08John Green?

  Right.

• 34:09Hank Green?

  As far as like vertebrates go, we are, we are probably at, at about the halfway point.

• 34:13John Green?

  Wow.

• 34:14Hank Green?

  Which is really interesting, and not at all how I had been pitched to the situation.

• 34:18John Green?

  No, no. If you think about vertebrates, we're, we're 50% in.

• 34:23Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 34:24John Green?

  To life being manageable. Now, that tells me, I think vertebrates are gonna be super sticky, for lack of a better term. I think vertebrates are gonna hang around as long as possible.

• 34:36Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 34:36John Green?

  Do I have a ton of confidence in humanity being there at the end of the vertebrate age? I do not.

• 34:42Hank Green?

  Right. But I think that it is both, it is possible that a very sort of, uh, different-looking vertebrates could evolve in the future.

• 34:50John Green?

  Yeah.

• 34:50Hank Green?

  It's gonna be very dependent on a lot of different things, on the level of heat and the, the sort of composition of the atmosphere, et cetera. Uh, and I think it's entirely possible that another intelligent species could evolve, if we totally obliterated ourselves, that like, you know, primates could do it again, or...

• 35:05John Green?

  Primates could do it.

• 35:06Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 35:07John Green?

  Maybe, I'd be really interested to see what the birds could get up to, but they have like a, they have like a problem with the wings.

• 35:13Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 35:14John Green?

  They don't, can't like do stuff with their wings, except fly.

• 35:16Hank Green?

  Flying birds have had a long, long time to get smart.

• 35:21John Green?

  Yeah.

• 35:22Hank Green?

  And they haven't gotten all the way there.

• 35:24John Green?

  They've gotten, they've gotten interesting. They've gotten really interesting, pretty smart, but they haven't gotten all the way there. I worry that they will struggle to get all the way there. I think primates have a really good chance. I think sometimes we underestimate the chance that raccoons have.

• 35:36Hank Green?

  Raccoons have a, have a pretty high chance, actually.

• 35:38John Green?

  Because they've got the hands.

• 35:39Hank Green?

  They got hands. They got hands. And they're already quite smart. And also, they have evolutionary pressure toward getting smarter.

• 35:46John Green?

  Do you think Jewel wrote the song, "My hands are small, I know, but they're not mine, they're not yours, they are my own," about raccoons?

• 35:53Hank Green?

  Yeah, definitely.

• 35:54John Green?

  I think so, too. I just wanted to double check.

• 35:55Hank Green?

  She follows me on Instagram if you want me to ask her.

• 35:57John Green?

  Don't. That's a weird first question.

• 36:01Hank Green?

  She's a, she's a, I followed her back. She's a weird follow.

• 36:04John Green?

  Is she?

• 36:05Hank Green?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 36:10John Green?

  You just followed her back in case you ever had the occasion to DM Jewel?

• 36:13Hank Green?

  Totally, yes.

• 36:15John Green?

  Just to be like, "Hey Jewel, it's me, Hank Green."

• 36:17Hank Green?

  Well, maybe she could be on Ask Anything.

• 36:19John Green?

  From the internet?

• 36:20Hank Green?

  I had a huge crush on you when I was in high school.

• 36:22John Green?

  You want to be on my show?

• 36:23Hank Green?

  It's not weird at all.

• 36:24John Green?

  Yeah, yeah, it's not weird. Uh, for me, it was Natalie Imbruglia.

• 36:27Hank Green?

  Really?

• 36:28John Green?

  Yeah, and that was my big crush.

• 36:29Hank Green?

  I feel like I came out on, on top on that one.

• 36:31John Green?

  No, I don't know. They're both really talented people. Point being, dinosaurs could evolve again, in the sense, here's how I think dinosaurs could evolve again, and correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm not a scientist, and this isn't science, this is guesswork anyway.

• 36:43Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 36:44John Green?

  But what if you sort of get smarter, larger birds, like, like ostriches, that become less and less mobile, and less and less feathered?

• 36:53Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 36:53John Green?

  And, and have a evolutionary reason to get larger and larger. You're getting toward a dinosaur-like thing again. And we've seen convergent, we've, we've seen-

• 37:03Hank Green?

  I thought you were, I thought you were asking how birds could get smart. But yeah, totally. Well, absolutely.

• 37:08John Green?

  And we've seen convergent evolution, like recreate things that we thought were gone.

• 37:14Hank Green?

  Yeah. I mean, I think the hard part would be the arms. So it's not really a T-Rex unless it's got arms with little claws on it.

• 37:21John Green?

  Yep.

• 37:22Hank Green?

  But that has not, never happened. There's a bird called the Watson. When they're babies, they have a little, uh, claws on their elbows, which is weird, uh, that, that they use to like climb in trees. Um, so I guess, what, in terms of intelligence, can I hit you with a weird idea?

• 37:39John Green?

  Yeah, please.

• 37:39Hank Green?

  So- Birds can do a lot of manual dexterity.

• 37:44John Green?

  Sure.

• 37:45Hank Green?

  They don't use their forelimbs, of course.

• 37:47John Green?

  Right.

• 37:47Hank Green?

  They use their feet, but also they use their tongue. I think it's totally possible that they could end up with a tongue hand in the same way.

• 37:55John Green?

  A tongue hand.

• 37:56Hank Green?

  Uh, that giraffes kind of have like a nose hand.

• 37:59John Green?

  Yeah, or um, I would argue many monkeys have a tail hand.

• 38:03Hank Green?

  They do have a tail hand. They do, they do, they do. And I don't know what would prevent, honestly, the growing of a hand on the tail. Now, I have some ideas about why this would be complicated, but I, I, I don't know that it's, I don't know that it's impossible.

• 38:21John Green?

  Five limbed creatures.

• 38:23Hank Green?

  I, I'd love to talk to an evolutionary biologist who, who's like deep into like body planning parts of the genome.

• 38:30John Green?

  Yeah.

• 38:31Hank Green?

  About and, and how that all works about whether or not the body could sort of just like, be like, oh, I'm gonna take the hand uh, system and just put that on the end of the tail.

• 38:40John Green?

  That seems hard, but I'm not an expert.

• 38:42Hank Green?

  Exactly.

• 38:43John Green?

  I, so I think we agree that raccoons are likely, if we, if we boom snuffed out tomorrow, mammals would start to get bigger.

• 38:51Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 38:51John Green?

  There would be evolutionary pressure for mammals to get bigger and their brains would get bigger. I think that number one, probably, maybe not, number one would be primates. Number two, I'm standing by raccoons because of their hands. I think their hands are incredible.

• 39:05Hank Green?

  People are gonna be thinking about ocean life and I think that there are problems there.

• 39:10John Green?

  I think there's reasons why ocean life never did civilization, even though it's been around way longer than us.

• 39:15Hank Green?

  I agree, and I also think there are problems. I think language, as you know, is a really important part of.

• 39:21John Green?

  Yeah.

• 39:22Hank Green?

  Of.

• 39:22John Green?

  But you could do language underwater.

• 39:23Hank Green?

  Civilizational intelligence. You could do language with hand signals and stuff underwater.

• 39:27John Green?

  No, no.

• 39:27Hank Green?

  And you could do, yeah, whales do it. Whales and dolphins do it. I, I, I think whales and dolphins have had a fairly long time to create really complex language and probably have done it and we just don't understand it. But anyway.

• 39:38John Green?

  That is true.

• 39:39Hank Green?

  So, point being whales and dolphins are possible, but you think it's hard.

• 39:42John Green?

  I think there's other problems. I think that like.

• 39:45Hank Green?

  You think it's hard to build temples?

• 39:46John Green?

  Yeah, it's hard to build at all when you are an ocean animal.

• 39:49Hank Green?

  Yeah, fair enough.

• 39:50John Green?

  Because you're optimized for moving through water, which is not, does not help you optimize toward being able to build stuff.

• 39:56Hank Green?

  I don't know how much you need to build to have a civilization. I think you need specialization of labor.

• 40:03John Green?

  Yeah.

• 40:03Hank Green?

  But for all we know, dolphins already have that. Yeah, well, you need, but you, what, well, what is labor? What, like, what does that come down to? You actually have to be doing stuff together.

• 40:12John Green?

  Right. Which is building.

• 40:15Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 40:16John Green?

  Even if you're not building buildings, you're building some, you're building stories, you're building something.

• 40:20Hank Green?

  It's also extremely hard to do chemistry underwater.

• 40:22John Green?

  Okay, good to know.

• 40:23Hank Green?

  Chemistry is, it, you know.

• 40:25John Green?

  Was born underwater.

• 40:26Hank Green?

  So like chemistry happens underwater, but if you want to do chemistry, you have to control the chemistry.

• 40:31John Green?

  Mm-hmm.

• 40:31Hank Green?

  To control the chemistry in this pot and in this pot, and then mix those two pots together.

• 40:34John Green?

  Mm-hmm.

• 40:35Hank Green?

  That's very hard underwater.

• 40:36John Green?

  Okay, all right. So these are some of the reasons why Hank thinks that water animals are unlikely.

• 40:40Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 40:41John Green?

  I think it's primates number one by a mile.

• 40:43Hank Green?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 40:44John Green?

  Raccoon-like creatures number two.

• 40:46Hank Green?

  And I would prefer that.

• 40:47John Green?

  I would prefer raccoons.

• 40:48Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 40:49John Green?

  We had a chance as primates.

• 40:51Hank Green?

  Yeah, give them a crack at it.

• 40:52John Green?

  Let's give them a crack.

• 40:53Hank Green?

  Oh, and I think, just for clarity, they will do worse than us.

• 40:56John Green?

  Hundred percent. This is something that people don't understand about people, which is that we are incredibly powerful, and as a result, we cause a lot of harm. But if you made another animal incredibly powerful, it would also cause a lot of harm and maybe more harm.

• 41:11Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 41:11John Green?

  I don't know if you've hung out with a raccoon, but it might be worse.

• 41:14Hank Green?

  They're super cute. But, man, ah, the, the drive is in all kinds of fermentic directions.

• 41:22John Green?

  Yeah, I mean, so is ours, to be fair, yes.

• 41:25Hank Green?

  But if you think a bunch of, I mean, if you think ADHD is good for civilization, then raccoons seem to have it in spades.

• 41:33John Green?

  Yeah, I mean, I, I think, I think we should give raccoons a chance. I just think that they might be monstrous to each other, the way like chimpanzees rip off each other's faces and stuff.

• 41:41Hank Green?

  Chimpanzees are also not nice to each other.

• 41:43John Green?

  Um, but nor are we.

• 41:45Hank Green?

  No, and bonobos are.

• 41:48John Green?

  Maybe it'll be bonobos.

• 41:49Hank Green?

  That's fingers crossed, man.

• 41:50John Green?

  Oh, that'd be great.

• 41:51Hank Green?

  That to chimps, for you guys.

• 41:53John Green?

  I might say, I might, I might be able to, to hand it off if it was gonna be bonobos.

• 41:58Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 41:58John Green?

  Lots of pleasure-seeking.

• 42:00Hank Green?

  Yeah, good, like, social bonding.

• 42:02John Green?

  Deep social bonds, not a lot of outcasts within the community.

• 42:06Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 42:07John Green?

  That would be better.

• 42:08Hank Green?

  Less, but still.

• 42:09John Green?

  Still, of course, it's always gonna happen. Now, let me throw out one final one that I think you're gonna love.

• 42:14Hank Green?

  Okay.

• 42:15John Green?

  Dogs.

• 42:17John Green?

  Hmm.

• 42:18Hank Green?

  Dogs.

• 42:18John Green?

  Yeah, sometimes they walk around on two legs. Not that that's a necessity.

• 42:21Hank Green?

  I don't think that's a necessity.

• 42:22John Green?

  Absolutely not, but I think they do it sometimes, just because it's cute.

• 42:26Hank Green?

  They're very, it's interesting, uh, it would be interesting what, to see what dogs did without us, because we have already selectively bred them to have a bunch of more social things going on.

• 42:38John Green?

  Exactly. That's why I think there's a possibility.

• 42:40Hank Green?

  Stuff before, but now there's a lot of like, love.

• 42:43John Green?

  Yeah, they got a lot of love. They got the big eyes.

• 42:45Hank Green?

  Uh huh.

• 42:46John Green?

  I will say, if dogs don't make it as an, a kind of apex civilizational species, I can see them being the raccoons pets.

• 42:54Hank Green?

  No.

• 42:55John Green?

  Hmm.

• 42:55Hank Green?

  They'd be that they, because raccoons are so small.

• 42:57John Green?

  Oh, they would be the like pack animals.

• 42:59Hank Green?

  They'd be the pack animals.

• 43:00John Green?

  They would be the horses of raccoons.

• 43:02Hank Green?

  And then raccoons, if they could make it, would be a way better size for a civilizational species.

• 43:08John Green?

  This is a big issue for Hank. He thinks that we're too big.

• 43:10Hank Green?

  Too big. Raccoons way easier to get to space.

• 43:13John Green?

  Way easier.

• 43:14Hank Green?

  They're so small. They eat less.

• 43:16John Green?

  Now, that is the truth, Hank. When we are visited by aliens, they will not look like us. They will be tiny.

• 43:21Hank Green?

  They will, they, absolutely, like, if actually they get to us.

• 43:26John Green?

  Yeah.

• 43:26Hank Green?

  There is a far greater than 50% chance that they will be smaller than us. I think we're big. I don't think that we understand how big we are.

• 43:35John Green?

  Yeah, it's possible. Cause we're looking at elephants all day, thinking about how big they are.

• 43:39Hank Green?

  But they, yeah. I mean, we're all, I think we're like fairly average when it comes to mammal size. No, no, we're big.

• 43:44John Green?

  We're big for mammals. Think about all the chipmunks out there.

• 43:47Hank Green?

  Oh, the rodents.

• 43:48John Green?

  Yeah, tons of rodents.

• 43:50Hank Green?

  We're so big. That's my, man, if I get to do Smarty Pants again, we're too big. We're too big.

• 43:56John Green?

  If I get to do Smarty Pants, I'm gonna steal that.

• 43:58Hank Green?

  Okay, you should.

• 43:59John Green?

  I would like to. It's a fun one.

• 44:01Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 44:01John Green?

  All right. It's time to get to the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. All start, AFC Wimbledon played their first game against promotion favorites Luton Town, and we lost, which is not a surprise. Uh, we expected to lose, but the manner in which we lost was truly heartbreaking.

• 44:16Hank Green?

  Ooh.

• 44:16John Green?

  We lost on like a bad luck 85th minute, uh, own goal.

• 44:20Hank Green?

  Well, that's a good sign, though.

• 44:22John Green?

  It's a pretty good sign that our defense might be ready for League One, or else Luton Town hasn't fully. Into gear, but it did make me think like, okay, we can, uh, we can maybe survive. We can maybe make it. Uh, we've also signed some new players and, uh, everybody looks, everybody looked congealed. I would say at no point did I watched, I watched the game at no point did it look like we were going to score a goal. Like we did not, we had zero goal mouth threats, but we looked very good defensively. And Luton Town also did not look like they would score a goal, except for this random ridiculous thing that happened. Where it was just like stupid, bad luck.

• 44:59Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 45:00John Green?

  So on the whole, I emerged, and I'm going to be saying this a lot this season because we're not going to win a lot of games. I emerged hopeful from this loss, which is all you can hope for.

• 45:10Hank Green?

  Nice, nice.

• 45:11John Green?

  What's the news from Mars?

• 45:12Hank Green?

  Well, the news from Mars is kind of the news from Jupiter. And look, maybe we're just going to mix it up.

• 45:16John Green?

  Yeah.

• 45:17Hank Green?

  And, and do news from other planets.

• 45:18John Green?

  Cause it's news from non-Earth.

• 45:20Hank Green?

  Messy up, but this is also news from Mars. So the Europa Clipper is a mission that is going to Europa.

• 45:26John Green?

  Yeah.

• 45:27Hank Green?

  Very exciting. Europa is a very exciting place.

• 45:29John Green?

  Now, we think that life could be on Europa.

• 45:30Hank Green?

  We think that life could be in Europa for sure.

• 45:33John Green?

  Okay.

• 45:33Hank Green?

  Probably not on, be a little tricky to be on, but, but maybe in, there's a lot of water in the moons of Jupiter. It's liquid water.

• 45:40John Green?

  Okay.

• 45:41Hank Green?

  Um, so, uh,

• 45:42John Green?

  On the surface?

• 45:43Hank Green?

  No.

• 45:44John Green?

  Okay.

• 45:44Hank Green?

  On the inside. So Europa Clipper is heading out to, to Jupiter where it lives and, uh, where Europa lives. And it, uh, and it has this, uh, this tool on it called Reason, which is a radar tool. They want to calibrate this radar tool. They want to like test how it works and they could only do that so much here on Earth.

• 46:03John Green?

  Sure.

• 46:03Hank Green?

  But in order to get to Jupiter, uh, the Clipper is doing a gravity assist with Mars.

• 46:09John Green?

  So it's going up to, to gravity. Mars news.

• 46:11Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 46:11John Green?

  Oh, yeah. The Europa Clipper just went right past Mars.

• 46:14Hank Green?

  So it's going right past Mars.

• 46:15John Green?

  Slingshot.

• 46:16Hank Green?

  Getting a slingshot, getting pulled along a little bit to speed it up, get it out, all the way out to Jupiter, which is hard. And you don't want to carry fuel around that you don't have to, because that's mass and you want to use that mass for science. So it's headed out, uh, to Jupiter, and as it does its flyby, they also got within like 500 miles of Mars. And they tested out this, uh, thing. They did some tests to see how it was working. It's working. They do some calibrations, and now they have that all ready, so they don't have to do it when they get to Europa.

• 46:44John Green?

  You're just looking for good news, Hank, and this is a little bit of good news in the world of space exploration.

• 46:50Hank Green?

  Yeah, means that this tool is working.

• 46:52John Green?

  Okay, and we are gonna go to Europa, not, I mean, not personally, but, but with our...

• 46:57Hank Green?

  No, and I love that.

• 46:58John Green?

  With our hand satellites. Our satellites are almost like extensions of our hands.

• 47:02Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 47:03John Green?

  That reach out deeply into space.

• 47:05Hank Green?

  Yeah, and they can, they can see in wavelengths we can't see, and they can hear in frequencies we can't hear.

• 47:10John Green?

  So, it's true, the monkeys have tailhands, but we have satellite hands.

• 47:14Hank Green?

  That's right.

• 47:15John Green?

  Which are, I think sometimes we underappreciate how beautiful it is that we have learned so much about what it means to be here, despite each of us only being here for a little while.

• 47:27Hank Green?

  It's wild. It's wild. And see, like, I, I understand why we focus on the problems, because they need to be solved.

• 47:32John Green?

  Yep.

• 47:33Hank Green?

  But, if we only focus on the problems, then it's like, why would we solve all these problems? Everything is terrible.

• 47:39John Green?

  Right.

• 47:40Hank Green?

  Why would we even bother?

• 47:41John Green?

  You can't fall into despair, because despair doesn't tell the whole story.

• 47:46Hank Green?

  Yes. We, and the reason the problems matter is because we care. And care is also something that would not exist without life.

• 47:54John Green?

  All right, we're off to film our Patreon-only, uh, podcast that we do once a month, where we catch patrons up on what we've been up to and how we're doing.

• 48:03Hank Green?

  It's a livestream, so it's weird just to film it, but yes.

• 48:06John Green?

  It will be filmed, in the sense that it's a livestream.

• 48:09Hank Green?

  Yeah, I don't really think about the fact that, you can watch it afterward, and people do do that.

• 48:13John Green?

  But it won't be filmed in the sense that there will be no tape.

• 48:15Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 48:16John Green?

  So, I probably could have used a better word for that.

• 48:19Hank Green?

  Yeah. We're about to do our Patreon-only livestream.

• 48:22John Green?

  There you go, Hank, and, uh...

• 48:23Hank Green?

  You can find out about that at patreon.com/dearhankajohn.

• 48:26John Green?

  That's what I was gonna say. Thank you for podding with me. It is always a pleasure, especially when we get to be together in real life.

• 48:30Hank Green?

  It's nice. We should do it all the time, but I would have to live...

• 48:34John Green?

  In Indianapolis, because I'm not moving to Missoula. It's very expensive here.

• 48:38Hank Green?

  This podcast is edited by Ben Swardout. It's mixed by Joseph Tuna. Our marketing specialist is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosiana Hals, Rojas, and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Deboki Trukravarti. The music you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gonerola. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.