Pod Insights Dear Hank & John 441: The Value of a Single Shoe About this episode How has your relationship with your audience changed? What’s a good lie to tell my coworkers about my butt surgery? Has anyone ever tasted the moon? What’s the highest altitude we have ever recorded a cloud? How long do I have to sit in the bath to touch every molecule of water? What is the value of a single shoe? How do I handle the information that we might live in a black hole? …Hank and John Green have answers!
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Produced for Hank and John Green by Complexly
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Hank Green? You're listening to a Complexly podcast.
0:09 Hank Green? Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John.
0:11 John Green? Or as I prefer to think of it, Dear John and Hank.
0:13 Hank Green? It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you dubious advice and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, did you hear that if you listen to enough Queen, that you can go crazy?
0:26 John Green? Oh, no.
0:27 Hank Green? Yeah, they think it's the high mercury content.
0:31 John Green? It's good. It's good. I mean, I don't want to rehash your joke, but I would say more that you can become very sick because it's not just mental illness that accompanies mercury poisoning. It's all kinds of illnesses.
0:42 Hank Green? But it seems more like a thing that might actually happen if you listen to a lot of Queen.
0:46 John Green? Sure.
0:46 Hank Green? You could actually go crazy. And they do say that about the Mad Hatters.
0:50 John Green? Okay, all right.
0:51 Hank Green? They are mad because of the mercury and the hating equipment. John, by the time this comes out, this will be old news, but the new news for us is that we are finally announcing to the world that Complexly is becoming a nonprofit.
1:04 John Green? Yeah.
1:04 Hank Green? And one of the things that I'd like, as we shift things slightly, is for the Dear Hank and John to come out more in line with when they are being recorded so that this doesn't seem as crazy as what's happening right now.
1:16 John Green? Yeah, right now, we're on like a two-week schedule.
1:20 Hank Green? Two-week minimum, sometimes more.
1:21 John Green? Which means that you're getting the AFC Wimbledon news, which I know you need piping hot, a little bit cold.
1:27 Hank Green? Yeah, yeah. And the Mars news also.
1:29 John Green? Yeah, and I know that that's why people come to the podcast, Hank, and so it's hard for them.
1:33 Hank Green? What if Artemis has launched? Like Artemis 2 might be on the way to the moon right now.
1:37 John Green? Could be.
1:37 Hank Green? And I have no idea.
1:38 John Green? We wouldn't know. The reason we decided to become a nonprofit, for those who don't know, because I know some people don't watch our YouTube videos, which is fine, don't feel pressured to. I know this because it turns out that our hit podcast is actually bigger than our YouTube channel, that we always thought was much bigger than our hit podcast. So Complexly is the educational media company that makes Crash Course and SciShow and Study Hall and Ask Hank Anything and lots of other shows. And it has functioned in some ways, in the sense that it hasn't made a profit.
2:09 Hank Green? Well, it has. So here's how it's functioned like a nonprofit.
2:14 John Green? Yeah.
2:14 Hank Green? The owners have not been taking profit distributions.
2:16 John Green? Right.
2:16 Hank Green? So when it, when it does take a profit, we give a portion of that as bonuses to the staff and we take a portion of it and save it for a rainy day. And that's been that way for an awful long time.
2:28 John Green? Yeah.
2:28 Hank Green? And like, ever since audience support has become a really big part of Complexly, it has felt entirely wrong to take profit distributions from it.
2:36 John Green? Yeah.
2:37 Hank Green? So it's like, oh, the Crash Course coin did really well this year. I guess I'll just.
2:40 John Green? Spend that on a Maserati.
2:42 Hank Green? Buy a car.
2:43 John Green? Right.
2:44 Hank Green? And so that, that is not how that's been working. And then also another way that it's functioned like a nonprofit is that audience support is a really big part of the, the functioning of the organization, as are grants.
2:57 John Green? So in some ways, we're just enshrining what's been the case for a while.
3:00 Hank Green? Yeah.
3:01 John Green? But in other ways, it is a big change. It's a big change for me personally because I'm not joining the board of directors. So I'm moving into a role as founder emeritus, whatever that means. We'll figure out what that means together. But it's also a big change for Complexly because it means that now it is owned not by Hank and me, but by the public. I mean, that's basically how nonprofits work, is that they are publicly held institutions.
3:26 Hank Green? Yeah. So we're giving our shares and also the money that we have that's inside of the company. We're giving all of that to this new nonprofit organization.
3:33 John Green? Yeah.
3:34 Hank Green? And we're also giving like up a lot of power. So I've not been the CEO for a while, but as owners, we have remained, you know, the controlling interest and we will no longer be that. There will be a board of directors that will have that power and I will be on the board. And like, part of that is going to be fundraising obligation, but also, you know, continuing to direct the course of the company. But I certainly won't be doing that alone, which I think makes sense.
3:57 John Green? I agree. I think it's time. I think it's time for Complexly to be a nonprofit. It's an unusual decision to take a real. Really healthy company and give it away, but it's not an unprecedented decision. There, there have been a number of people who've done this over the years. I think Patagonia did it and they're much bigger than we are.
4:15 Hank Green? Kinda in a, in a different way, I think, but yes.
4:18 John Green? But yeah, we just, we, we decided now is the right time. So that's the news from our world. The other piece of big news is that I went skiing over the weekend.
4:26 Hank Green? Whoa.
4:27 John Green? Yeah.
4:28 Hank Green? That's huge news and you're walking around.
4:30 John Green? Well, I wouldn't say that I'm walking around, actually. You've only seen me seated for a reason.
4:35 Hank Green? I saw you walking for a second at the beginning when, when we were recording. That you were moving from one place to another. I didn't know what was going on there, but I don't know how quick you were moving.
4:45 John Green? Yeah, so I've been skiing once before when I was 44. I'm now 48 and when I went skiing when I was 44, I had an instructor named Haley. Lovely young person, no idea who I was. And the kids were with me and we were all first time skiers. And you know, then by the end of course, the kids were like, you know, shredding down the hills and everything. And I was still very much in a, in a pizza mode. For those who've never been skiing, you initially learn by making a pizza slice with your skis. And I never really advanced past that. And then I went skiing with my friends and, and Sarah, all of whom are very good skiers in Utah this weekend. And I mean, it was catastrophic.
5:30 John Green? It was, there's no other way to say it.
5:32 Hank Green? Okay.
5:33 John Green? There was a lot of falling. There was one really bad sustained panic attack such that I thought for a while that ski patrol might have their first ever mental health call.
5:45 Hank Green? Whereas like, look, I'm okay, but I'm not okay.
5:48 John Green? Yeah, like, uh, I'm not getting down the mound without you guys.
5:53 Hank Green? I think that that actually probably happens fairly frequently. I've, I've had those moments where I'm like, look, I'm not hurt now, but I'm gonna be. And so I. Either I'm walking or somebody's coming to get me.
6:05 John Green? The preemptive ski patrol call? Yeah. Uh, one of the, one of the things that makes panic attacks really scary for me is that I don't know when they're going to end. And in fact, I often don't know if they're happening or if I'm actually having a heart attack or having some kind of, you know, you, you just can't really differentiate. Your brain's too fried. And I'm trying to come down this mountain and Sarah's with me. God bless her. She really, she really coached me down the mountain. She was my ski patrol. And I'd fallen so many times that I'm, at this point I was just going incredibly slowly, like just inching my way down the mountain, stopping every time I could. Like my whole body was shaking. Sarah kept being like, why is your body shaking?
6:49 Hank Green? Well, it's just like, you're so high up. Like there's so much more to do and you can see it. You can see how much more there is to do.
6:56 John Green? Yeah. I mean, there were my, there were literally miles to go before I slept. And so I kept thinking like, I don't know how or when or if this is going to end, but there is no way out but through, to quote Robert Frost. Like there is no way to survive this except to get to the bottom of the mountain uninjured.
7:19 Hank Green? Yeah.
7:19 John Green? Which I didn't really do. Like my hip and my back and my neck are super sore today from all the falls, but I'm not like, I didn't break my leg.
7:28 Hank Green? When you got down, were you like, this is ski lodge hot cocoa time?
7:32 John Green? I mean, I got down Hank and I was truly, I was so drenched in sweat that I went to the bathroom, took off my T-shirt and wrung it out. That's how much panic sweat there was. And it was not, I mean, it was a warm day, but it wasn't that warm.
7:45 Hank Green? It wasn't like time to relax and, and come down off of your adrenaline high. It was time to like go to sleep for two days?
7:51 John Green? Uh, it was time to have a beer, to be frank with you.
7:54 Hank Green? Yeah.
7:54 John Green? I had a beer and I talked it through with Sarah and I don't know if it's the last time I'll go skiing, but it's the last time I'll go skiing for a while.
8:03 Hank Green? Sounds like it. Sounds like it.
8:05 John Green? What's your ski experience Hank? You live in, you live in ski country.
8:08 Hank Green? Zero, zero, nothing. I, I, when we first moved out here, I I did a little bit of snowboarding because I was like, let's get good at this. But the ski hill that's near Missoula is really not for beginners.
8:18 John Green? Okay.
8:19 Hank Green? And oftentimes is very icy. So I went like four times and the last time we went, it was so icy and so unpleasant. And I hurt my knee pretty bad, but like bad enough that I was like, if that had gone another like half a centimeter in the twist.
8:32 John Green? Yeah.
8:33 Hank Green? You know, I'd have like a lifelong thing to deal with.
8:35 John Green? Yeah. I mean, that is my concern about skiing. It seems like the injury risk is pretty high.
8:39 Hank Green? Yeah. And so I didn't do it again, but, but now Orin is getting to the age where it's time for him to ski and all of his friends ski. And I'm like, oh no, now maybe I'm going to have to ski. My hope is that like, back in the day, we couldn't, we didn't have like the ability to get to a bunch of different ski places, but there's better places, not that far away, just like a, like a couple of hours away.
8:59 John Green? For me, I mean, Sarah's a really good skier because she learned as a kid. And so I, I understand like it's a really fun thing. If you know how to do it.
9:08 Hank Green? Yeah.
9:08 John Green? It's less fun if you don't know how to do it. I'll tell you.
9:12 Hank Green? Forty eight's pretty old, John.
9:14 John Green? So then on the plane ride home, Sarah was reading a story that I'm working on. And she looked over at me and she said, you know, reading this is the exact opposite of watching you ski.
9:25 Hank Green? What an amazing compliment.
9:28 John Green? She was like.
9:28 Hank Green? That's the blurb on the back of the book.
9:31 John Green? You seem confident. You know what you're doing. I feel very safe in your hands.
9:36 Hank Green? John Green's, John Green's writing is the exact opposite of John Green skiing. That's a great blurb. John, do you have any questions for me?
9:45 John Green? I got some questions for you, Hank. I got, I got some, I got some science questions for you this week.
9:49 Hank Green? Oh no.
9:50 John Green? Yeah. But let's start out with a non-science question about parasocial relationships from Ellie. He writes, Dear John and Hank, I've been watching your videos since I was in middle school. I've been working professional with a master's degree now. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about parasocial relationships and creator audience dynamics. From your perspective, how is your relationship with your audience and how you view it changed over time? Have you noticed things have changed since you first started sharing your work with the world? I'm very interested to hear your thoughts. DFTBA Ellie.
10:14 Hank Green? John, can I bust in real quick before we get to this question?
10:17 John Green? Yeah.
10:18 Hank Green? Catherine has just won the local taco place, uh, sweepstakes to name a dish.
10:24 John Green? What? This is huge.
10:26 Hank Green? She's won a gift card and the name of the, the, what she calls, what she calls her, her go-to order.
10:33 John Green? Yeah.
10:33 Hank Green? Which is a burrito bowl in a box.
10:35 John Green? Mm-hmm.
10:36 Hank Green? With a, with a number of things on it.
10:38 John Green? Yeah.
10:39 Hank Green? So, so it's, and it's a breakfast burrito bowl. And she calls it the sloppy box. And she was like, oh, great. And like, they were like, hey, like, name, name a dish. We'll put it on the menu. And, and she was like, well, I got one. And they have chosen the sloppy box as their, their dish of the month.
10:56 John Green? The sloppy box is going to be on the menu at your local taco place.
10:59 Hank Green? It's on the menu at the local taco place.
11:01 John Green? Congratulations. This is huge for Catherine.
11:04 Hank Green? So if anybody in and around Missoula, Montana, if you go to Taco Sano, go in, get a sloppy box. Hopefully it will still be February when this episode comes out.
11:13 John Green? All right. So back to how our parasocial relationships have changed. I'll tell you one thing that hasn't changed is that Hank is still willing to tell you what the name of his local taco place is.
11:23 Hank Green? I really, yeah, that is, I mean, how local though, you know? It's, it's, they're all local taco places if they're in Missoula.
11:30 John Green? I guess that's true. I guess that's true. You are like the mayor of that town. Every time I go out with Hank in Missoula, it's like, uh, handshakes and kissing babies.
11:41 Hank Green? And yet, uh, I'm not the mayor. Thank you to Mayor Andrea Davis for being the actual mayor.
11:47 John Green? Indeed.
11:48 Hank Green? Doing the real work. Um, uh, John.
11:51 John Green? Yeah.
11:51 Hank Green? It's changed for sure, but like in so many ways that it's very difficult to even talk about.
11:56 John Green? I agree.
11:56 Hank Green? So there's like, there's like how I imagine them. There's how I imagine them imagining me. And then there's how I imagine me imagining you imagining me. So it goes, it goes all the way down.
12:08 John Green? It goes infinite. I think the biggest change is that I'm much more cautious about what belongs to me because I know that once I share anything, it doesn't belong to me anymore.
12:19 Hank Green? Also, like, the biggest thing I think that I've come to more recently is how diverse the relationship is. It used to really be that it was like Nerd Fighteria and that was it. And it could sort of reliably understand, like reliably envision how those people were understanding me.
12:38 John Green? In 2008, almost everybody who recognized us was a Nerd Fighter and knew us from Vlog Brothers.
12:43 Hank Green? Right. Yeah. And now it could be anything.
12:47 John Green? Yeah.
12:47 Hank Green? You know, it might be books. It might be podcasts. It might be Crash Course. It might be SciShow. It might like, it might just be TikTok. It's been so many different things. And like, sometimes people will be like, hey, my friend is your friend. And it's just like, that's, that's just like, I'm, I'm expecting it to be, you know, internet. Parasocial relationship, but it's just small town, uh, social dynamic.
13:10 John Green? Yeah.
13:10 Hank Green? Uh, and so because it's very hard to know what people know me from, there's sort of like a, a escalating, like nesting dolls of who I expect to be to a person. So like, most people who know who I am, know that I'm just like a science guy.
13:30 John Green? That's your main reputation at this point.
13:32 Hank Green? Yeah. Which is great. Like best job ever, but like, I can get really surprised when people are not aware of other parts of my, you know, public persona, which is very public.
13:44 John Green? Right, but of course like it's not.
13:46 Hank Green? Knows about it.
13:46 John Green? Exactly. It's not their responsibility to go and watch every Vlogbrothers video or listen to every episode of this podcast and stay till the news from Mars and everything.
13:53 Hank Green? Mm hmm. Yeah. Like sometimes people will be mad at me because I didn't say something about, uh, like, like AI, for example. And they're like, Hank Green only talks about AI from X perspective. And I'm like, that's just, I mean, I don't know what you're talking about. It's just that you've only seen one of the videos that I've made, but I've made lots of other videos. But like, they're not all on the same channel, you know?
14:12 John Green? And they're not all on the same platform, right? Like I talk on Tumblr about things that I don't talk about on, on threads. And that doesn't mean that I'm not talking about it. It means I might not be talking about it in your space because I'm not comfortable with like the way the conversations are happening there.
14:25 Hank Green? Or just by pure random chance, you know? It's like, what am I logged into right now?
14:29 John Green? Right. The other thing that I think has changed for me is that I wanted to be famous. I wanted to be famous very, very badly. And I wanted as much attention as I could get and as much positive affirmation as I could get. That's what I wanted. And like, that was true even before we did Vlogbrothers, right? Like, that was part of why I had a website in 2003 and why.
14:51 Hank Green? Part of why you were in a comedy sketch group.
14:54 John Green? In college, absolutely. It's all of that, right? And so I.
14:59 Hank Green? Do you guys believe John was in a sketch comedy group? Like the least John Green activity of all time, he'll do anything.
15:06 John Green? I wasn't a particularly good actor, but I wrote some OK sketches. I did not shine as a comedic performer, I don't think. I tried.
15:15 Hank Green? I mean, I enjoyed watching, like any, any
15:19 John Green? Younger brother.
15:20 Hank Green? Hank Green, I always was a fan of anything you were doing.
15:23 John Green? Right.
15:24 Hank Green? And so I like watched a VHS tape of that Yeah. stuff. And I was like, wow, so good.
15:29 John Green? Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because it does feel like the person who did that was a different person. And the same way that it feels like the person who was a chaplain was a different person. But it feels that way because now I have such a different relationship with celebrity. Like,
15:46 Hank Green? Yeah.
15:46 John Green? I mean, I saw it as merely desirable, as merely a positive outcome, as the best thing that could happen to you. And now I don't. And
15:58 Hank Green? Yeah.
15:58 John Green? that's like the biggest shift in my public life in my adulthood.
16:03 Hank Green? Yeah.
16:04 John Green? So, you know, that has very much changed the way that I interact. I see it more now as a, as an opportunity, as to some extent, an obligation. You know, that like having an audience is a, is a, is a chance to do something, not a desirable outcome in and of itself.
16:26 Hank Green? Which is an amazing learning and also very enabling and also hopefully not horrible. So if it's all obligation and not actually something you want, then like,
16:40 Hank Green? that can be tricky.
16:41 John Green? Yeah, but I mean, listen, everybody has obligations in their professional lives.
16:46 Hank Green? Yeah.
16:46 John Green? It's not just me.
16:47 Hank Green? But is there, is there pieces of it that you still, of the fame stuff that you still enjoy?
16:53 John Green? There's no piece of being famous that I enjoy, really, but there are pieces of having an audience that I'm extremely grateful for and that I really enjoy, you know? Like, I love having an audience for my books. I love having, you know, I love seeing TB fighters flourish, you know? I love seeing
17:09 Hank Green? Yeah, and you love like getting feedback on a piece of work instead of having it like toss out into the world and, and not get much back.
17:16 John Green? Totally. I would even go so far as to say that as unpleasant as I find press junkets, it is worse when nobody wants to talk to you.
17:24 Hank Green? Yeah, yeah. That makes sense.
17:26 John Green? All right, Hank, let's answer another question. This one comes from Anand, who writes, "Dear John and Hank, I have to have butt surgery and I do not want to explain to my coworkers why I can't sit at my desk for the two weeks following. What's a good lie to tell them in place of the actual reason, which is that I'm getting a cyst removed? I've thought about telling them that I'm getting my tonsils out, but they'd probably notice if I were to continue to eat normally. Maybe ear surgery? It's hard to lie to them, though, since I'm a researcher and half of them have doctorates, like MDs. Maybe I'll just hang out with the mice and avoid them." Anonamas.
17:53 Hank Green? Anonamas, if they have MDs, they're used to butt surgery.
17:57 John Green? It's not even a big deal to them.
17:59 Hank Green? Yeah.
18:00 John Green? Anonamas, it is good for the future of the world and the species if you can help de-stigmatize butt surgery by being like, "Hey, folks, I'm having butt surgery."
18:09 Hank Green? You don't have to, but it is more than just a thing to say. It is also pushing forward the future that we want.
18:19 John Green? Yes, it is bringing about a better planet for our species.
18:22 Hank Green? Uh huh, to be like, "I had butt surgery."
18:24 John Green? That said, you don't have to do it, and I understand why you wouldn't want to.
18:26 Hank Green? There are more embarrassing surgeries.
18:29 John Green? Yes, make it more embarrassing.
18:31 Hank Green? I know this is anonymous, so I don't know all of the body parts that are potentially involved.
18:36 John Green? Yes.
18:37 Hank Green? But you could go more embarrassing.
18:39 John Green? You could be like, "Oh, I'm sorry, I can't come to work for two weeks because I had my big toe lengthened."
18:47 John Green? "I've just always needed it."
18:48 Hank Green? It's just always been about a really bad relationship with the shortness of my big toe.
18:55 John Green? "I'm super insecure about it, and I've decided to finally do something." I would just say, like, I like leaving a little bit of, uh, I'm not afraid to leave a little bit of ambiguity in those, just to be like, "Oh, I had a little surgery, so I'm gonna be out for a couple of weeks." And then if they say, "What kind of surgery?" You can be like, "Whoa, whoa, that's a weird follow-up."
19:14 Hank Green? Yeah, I mean, that'll be interesting to see, because I think that I would not ask personally. Would you ask?
19:20 John Green? I would not ask. Not only would I not ask...
19:21 Hank Green? If it was not offered.
19:22 John Green? Nobody should ask.
19:24 Hank Green? Yeah.
19:25 John Green? It's, it's none of your business.
19:27 Hank Green? None of your business.
19:28 John Green? That's what I would do. I would just say I'm having surgery, a small surgery.
19:31 Hank Green? I'm having a little surgery. Yeah. Yeah. Butt surgery, man. This butt surgery is such a pain in, oh my God. I, that was not, I have to.
19:38 John Green? Yeah, it is a pain in the butt.
19:41 Hank Green? I did not say that it was a pain in the butt. It, but it's, it, not being able to sit, ah.
19:46 John Green? Yeah, not being able to sit is uncomfortable.
19:48 Hank Green? Yeah.
19:48 John Green? You gotta kind of stay on your tummy, I guess.
19:50 Hank Green? Yeah. What do you, what do you do? Just do a lot of standing.
19:54 John Green? Yeah, or you can, I, I, I would spend a lot of time lying on my stomach, I suspect, because I do love a lie down.
20:00 Hank Green? You could say, because they're doctors, you could be like, it's in the sacral area.
20:04 John Green? Hmm.
20:06 Hank Green? And they'd be like, gotcha.
20:07 John Green? I mean, according to Hank, you could say you're having upper leg surgery.
20:10 Hank Green? Ah, yes. Why didn't we get there sooner?
20:17 John Green? Lower back, upper leg, somewhere in there.
20:18 Hank Green? It's, it's not the lower back for clarity. It is the upper leg.
20:22 John Green? Well, I mean, where this cyst actually is, might be the lower back. I just Googled it and I'm looking at it. And it looks lower back to me. It looks, it doesn't look upper leg.
20:32 Hank Green? Oh, you're having lower back surgery.
20:35 John Green? Lower back surgery.
20:35 Hank Green? Yeah, that's no big, you're totally having lower back surgery and also that explains why you can't sit.
20:41 John Green? Yep. That's your lower back. It's your upper butt, but it's your lower back.
20:46 Hank Green? I, I, I would argue that that, that's definitely where I've, I've located this cyst. It is definitely not a part of the legs, meaning it is definitely not part of the butt.
20:56 John Green? Ergo, it's part of the back.
20:59 Hank Green? So, problem solved.
21:02 John Green? All right, Hank, one more question for you. This is from Mrs. Marebrot, who writes, Dear John and Hank, I'm a fifth grade teacher and while learning about the moon, a child asked me, what does the moon taste like? I'm sure it would taste like some sort of dirt, but it got me thinking, has anyone ever tasted the moon? It would be inadvisable for an astronaut to take off his suit and try it, but maybe somebody licked their gloves after coming back on the spacecraft. My class would love to hear your thoughts. Moony, thanks. Mrs. Marebrot.
21:26 Hank Green? So we don't know why.
21:27 John Green? Yeah.
21:28 Hank Green? But we do know that.
21:29 John Green? Uh huh.
21:30 Hank Green? The moon has a smell and it smells, according to astronauts who have been to it, like spent gunpowder or like burned charcoal.
21:39 John Green? Oh.
21:40 Hank Green? So I don't know if that tells you much about its taste. I don't think that, I don't know that anybody tasted it, but it has a smell for sure.
21:49 John Green? And usually when something has a very strong smell, and I assume the smell would have to be pretty strong to get through the space suit and everything.
21:54 Hank Green? Well, this was after they were taking their space suits off inside of the capsule, but yeah.
21:57 John Green? Oh, they could still smell the moon?
21:59 Hank Green? Yeah. Yeah, but then by the time it got to Earth, it didn't have a smell anymore.
22:02 John Green? That's a pretty strong smell, though. So that makes me think that anytime something has that strong of a smell, it sort of overpowers the taste buds a little bit. So it would have to taste at least a little bit like burnt charcoal.
22:13 Hank Green? Yeah, and I think that it's mostly made of like basalt, and basalt does not have a taste.
22:18 John Green? Okay.
22:18 Hank Green? Or silicate. Yeah, various silicate minerals, because it's crust.
22:22 John Green? Yeah.
22:22 Hank Green? So it's probably not a lot of taste.
22:25 John Green? But you would still, as you were eating it, you would have the strong smell, which would be proximal to taste.
22:31 Hank Green? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, so like the aftermath of a fireworks show, which is not something I particularly feel like tasting. I once said this about a glass, we were on a wine tasting, I think you were there, and like mom and dad had taken us on a wine tasting, and I said, you know what this tastes like? It tastes like, like after a fireworks show. And they said, no, it does not.
22:53 John Green? Usually they try to yes and your tasting notes, but in that case, they're like, shut your mouth.
23:00 Hank Green? That's not what it's supposed to taste like.
23:02 John Green? You've sullied the reputation of this fine winery, sir.
23:07 Hank Green? But it did. It tasted like gunpowder.
23:11 John Green? No, it does not.
23:14 Hank Green? I was, I was like, oh, okay. Is that a faux pas? I'm learning, I'm learning.
23:19 John Green? Great tasting note, Hank.
23:21 Hank Green? I thought I, that was like the best thing I, I felt like I'd noticed that day. Everything else tasted like grapes.
23:29 John Green? Right. It all tastes like wine, in my experience.
23:31 Hank Green? All right, this next question comes from McKelkey, who asks, dear brothers Green, probably mostly Hank, I'm currently in an airplane, I'm 11,582 meters above the ground.
23:40 John Green? Now for Americans, that's like 35,000 feet.
23:43 Hank Green? Yeah, exactly. It's the, it's the, it's the height that you fly at when you're flying a long way. It's cloudy and I'm sad that I can't see the view, but these clouds are so uniform and flat on the top. So they must stop somewhere near the same place. What's the highest altitude we've ever recorded a cloud? And why don't they just float up forever? I'm currently imagining a little cloud that wants so badly to be an astronaut. Oh, it's children's book coming your way. Any science or otherwise is greatly welcome. Rakhelchi, John.
24:13 John Green? Yeah.
24:13 Hank Green? Why don't you think that the, the clouds can go all the way up?
24:16 John Green? Well, first off, I'm surprised to know that they can even go up that high to 11,582 meters.
24:21 Hank Green? Well, they can, but in this case, I think that Rakhelki is seeing them from.
24:25 John Green? Above.
24:26 Hank Green? Above.
24:26 John Green? And, and it appears that there's sort of like a uniformly flat.
24:30 Hank Green? Right.
24:31 John Green? Cloud ceiling that prevents you from seeing the ground.
24:35 Hank Green? And indeed, that is a thing that occurs where there's a point at which, above which the clouds kind of stop happening.
24:41 John Green? Right. And it looks like, um, you know, an endless pillow or something.
24:46 Hank Green? Yeah.
24:47 John Green? I would say this is because of the amount of atmosphere.
24:53 Hank Green? That's right. Yes. The cloud, so clouds famously made of water droplets, which are heavier than, uh, heavier than most gases. But they can float up when the atmosphere is fairly thick. They can kind of float like feathers because they're really small water droplets. But they also rely on there being water vapor in the atmosphere. Water vapor is fairly heavy. It is actually lighter than oxygen and nitrogen, which is why clouds form at all. So this is crazy. Water vapor is a lifting gas. If you put pure water vapor into a balloon, it will float, which is why water vapor goes up into the sky. And then at a certain point, it gets cold enough that it starts to condense. And that's what a cloud is. And you don't see the water vapor before it condenses. It is invisible. It is see-through, just like all the other gases in the atmosphere.
25:36 Hank Green? One thing that's going to happen in general is that that water vapor is going to condense when it gets cold and it's going to get cold up there pretty quick. It gets cold as you go up.
25:43 John Green? Mm hmm.
25:43 Hank Green? But you can have very high up clouds. They're, they're, instead of being made of droplets, they're made of ice, but they're still considered to be clouds. There's clouds called noctilucent clouds and they start forming at altitudes of around 50 miles up. And you probably couldn't even see them easily if you're in a plane just looking up, or if you're on the ground just looking up. They're very wispy, very thin clouds. And that's about as high as they will go. And they can't go higher than that because there's gravity. So the only like atmospheric mixing is basically what's pushing stuff to different altitudes. But eventually you hit the top and you have mass. So you don't just float away forever. You you stick to the earth.
26:25 John Green? It's crazy to think that there are clouds that go up that high because I always thought that planes go up to pretty thin air.
26:32 Hank Green? They do.
26:33 John Green? We're talking about, I mean, seven, eight miles usually is how high planes fly. And to think that there's a cloud 50 miles high is pretty mind blowing. I guess like when I'm, when I'm looking out the window of a plane, I can kind of see up, but I can't see up as if I had a windshield, you know, because you're like looking to the side and up.
26:52 Hank Green? Yeah, you could still, you can see up, you just tend to not because there isn't a lot to see up there.
26:57 John Green? Yeah, I, I tend to not look out the window because I tend to not want to be reminded about what's going on.
27:04 Hank Green? Oh, gosh, it's so cool out there.
27:06 John Green? Yeah, I do sometimes look out the window and think it's wild that nobody could, nobody ever had this view before 100 years ago. Like, this is a brand new human experience.
27:14 Hank Green? You know, the thought that I have when I look out a window of a plane?
27:17 John Green? Hmm.
27:17 Hank Green? Oh, my God, we make so much corn.
27:20 John Green? Yeah, we do make a lot of corn. We make a lot of corn. We make more grass, which I think is pretty wild. We make more turf grass than we make corn.
27:28 Hank Green? It's just like when you, when you fly over the majority of America, it's just so clear how much like, like, like almost everything is like turns to agriculture. So much land use.
27:40 John Green? Yeah.
27:41 Hank Green? It's crazy. And all for feeding us and our animals and also sometimes our cars.
27:47 John Green? Which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by feeding your cars with plants, feeding your cars with plants, known to not be that efficient.
27:55 Hank Green? This episode's also brought to you by lower back cysts, lower back cysts. That's not your butt.
28:00 John Green? Because your butt is your legs. Today's podcast is also brought to you by John's complicated relationship with celebrity. John's complicated relationship with celebrity. Coming soon to a bookstore near you? Question mark?
28:12 Hank Green? And this podcast is brought to you by John's complicated relationship with skiing. John's complicated relationship with skiing. It was available on a mountain in America, but is maybe never available again.
28:24 John Green? Yeah, no, it was a one time thing and thank God, nobody recognized me going down that mountain. That would have been a double disaster. Man, you don't want to be recognized amid your fragility. It's one of the lessons of life, I think. Hank, I got another question for you. It's from Zoe who writes, Dear John and Hank, how long do I have to sit in the bath for me to touch every molecule of water? If I take a 20 minute bath, will I exit the water having touched each water molecule at least once? The more you knowy, Zoe.
28:50 Hank Green? You know, definitely you will not have touched. I think it may be infinite.
28:55 John Green? What?
28:55 Hank Green? Because one, one thing that's going to happen is that the, the water that's in the bath when you start is different from the water that's in the bath when you end.
29:02 John Green? Right. Because of, because of the aforementioned water vapor.
29:05 Hank Green? Yeah. So a lot of, not a lot, but a substantial number, like a huge number, not a, not a great deal in percentages, but a huge number in, in absolute numbers of that water is the moment that you, your toe touches it, a bunch of it has already left and, and, and is floating around, getting sucked up into your vents, floating around the, yeah, it's just, I think, I think never.
29:28 John Green? Really? That's kind of disappointing. I was thinking that if you sloshed around enough, maybe you could at least get most of it.
29:35 Hank Green? Yeah, I mean, I still think even then, even if you're just talking about the ones that don't evaporate, I feel like there's a really good chance. There's just so many.
29:44 John Green? Right.
29:44 Hank Green? It's just so many.
29:45 John Green? Yeah, I found it helpful when I found out that in a cup of seawater, there are a hundred trillion viruses.
29:53 Hank Green? And those things are pretty big.
29:54 John Green? Exactly.
29:55 Hank Green? Compared to water molecules.
29:56 John Green? Exactly. Right. Those are like complicated, arguably life forms and compared to a water molecule. And, and, and so the, the, the numbers are pretty mind blowing. That said, you could touch a lot of water if you get pretty aggressive in the bathtub. You know what I mean? You just make a point of really moving around in there. I think you get most of them.
30:19 Hank Green? I, I feel like I need a, a person who works in thermodynamics to answer this question for me.
30:23 John Green? Okay. Well, maybe, maybe we've got someone, Hank.
30:26 Hank Green? I, I would say, I would say, don't take everything I have said as gospel here.
30:31 John Green? Hank, this is a dubious advice podcast. Nobody takes anything we say with, with gospel.
30:36 Hank Green? Molecules are so weird.
30:38 John Green? Okay, that's helpful to know.
30:39 Hank Green? Fluids are extraordinarily weird.
30:41 John Green? Yeah, the two things Hank really doesn't know that much about are fluid dynamics and optics.
30:45 Hank Green? I do have a hard time with both of those topics, which is, well, optic is, optics is actually a little embarrassing because it's not that complicated, but fluid dynamics, even people who study it don't understand it.
30:56 John Green? Okay, that makes me feel better because I don't understand it. I remember reading the Richard Feynman essay about Brownian motion and being like, nope.
31:03 Hank Green? Ah, if only, you know?
31:05 John Green? Yeah. No, God bless him. I think he did a good job. It's just like, it wasn't for me.
31:10 Hank Green? All right, John. I have another question from Jen who asks, "Dear Hank and John, I recently discovered that a friend knows a billionaire. Mr. Billionaire apparently introduces himself by saying, 'One of my shoes is worth more than your annual salary.'"
31:24 John Green? Wow. What a, what a charming, down-to-earth way to introduce yourself.
31:30 Hank Green? That can't be right. I have been thinking about this for days.
31:33 John Green? Yeah.
31:34 Hank Green? I'm baffled by the suggestion that a single shoe has any intrinsic value, let alone precisely half of the value of the pair.
31:41 John Green? I like that that's Jen's question.
31:45 Hank Green? "I've been arguing about this with a friend. It keeps me up at night. I may lose my mind. What is the value of a single shoe? Many thanks. May you always have more sense than money and may your shoes come in pairs. Until we meet a Jen. Jen, beautiful question."
32:01 John Green? Yeah, yeah.
32:03 Hank Green? Not really where I thought we were going.
32:04 John Green? No, it took a great turn because the, I'm glad that you were able to see past the abject horror of how that person apparently introduces themselves.
32:13 Hank Green? Especially because if I ever meet this person, it's gonna be amazing. Because I'm gonna say, "Actually, sir, I believe that the value of one of a pair of shoes is substantially less than half of the pair of shoes."
32:24 John Green? So true. So now...
32:27 Hank Green? And as I have proven myself to be your intellectual superior, may you allow me to suggest some potential donations?
32:39 John Green? Checkmate.
32:43 John Green? Now, we do have a writer friend, Josh Sunquist, who only has one leg. He had otisarcoma as a kid. And he shares his pairs of shoes with-
32:52 Hank Green? He's got his shoe buddy.
32:53 John Green? He has a shoe buddy with a distant friend of his he met online, who is missing the other leg and has the same size shoe. And I've always thought that is a great use for a pair of shoes. But even Josh Sunquist, I suspect, wouldn't be willing to pay $30,000 for a single shoe.
33:14 John Green? Or, I mean, first off, I mean, I have so many questions. How do you know my salary?
33:19 Hank Green? Yeah.
33:20 John Green? What is, what is wrong, like genuinely?
33:22 Hank Green? What is wrong with you? What is wrong with you?
33:26 John Green? What broke inside of you that made you buy a $100,000 pair of shoes? And like, thought that that was something to brag about instead of something to be deeply ashamed about?
33:35 Hank Green? Yeah.
33:36 John Green? I've been to some fancy shoe stores, Hank. I'm not a particularly price-sensitive person, but if you put a $100,000 pair of shoes in front of me, I'm gonna laugh out loud.
33:44 Hank Green? I'm looking, and, and from what I can tell, the, the shoes that, that get to this price, they don't come out of the box that price. They're like collector's editions.
33:54 John Green? Oh, like a, like a Rolex from 1973 or something.
33:59 Hank Green? Yeah, yeah, like some like limited edition Nikes that were made in 2002.
34:03 John Green? I love the idea of just wearing Air Jordans and being like, my shoes cost more than your salary. And me being like, those are Nikes.
34:14 Hank Green? Oftentimes, they are Nikes. Nikes are among the most collectible of the shoes.
34:18 John Green? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
34:19 Hank Green? Like, so, yeah.
34:21 John Green? I fully support the sneaker heads out there.
34:22 Hank Green? Maybe this guy isn't a billionaire. He just like got really lucky in 2002 and bought a pair of shoes and forgot about them in the closet.
34:30 John Green? Right, but I would argue that if you've been wearing the shoes, if you wear the shoes regularly, they've got a decrease in value.
34:36 Hank Green? That's true. That's true. That's true. But we're not getting to Jen's actual question, which is, what is the value of one shoe? And I do, I do think that it's like nothing. If you have one of a pair of shoes.
34:48 John Green? Yeah.
34:49 Hank Green? It's nothing.
34:50 John Green? I don't think it's very valuable. It's certainly not half, right? It's closer-
34:54 Hank Green? Certainly not if there has been a foot in it.
34:56 John Green? Yeah, I'd say it's closer to an eighth. If you gave me, like, I, I, here's what I'd pay $5 for. I got a shoe I'd pay $100 for, a single shoe.
35:05 Hank Green? Okay.
35:06 John Green? If you gave me a signed boot by the Montserratian Messi, Lyle Taylor, who helped AFC Wimbledon get promoted in 2016.
35:15 Hank Green? You're paying for a signature. You're not paying for a shoe. I do not accept. I do not accept.
35:19 John Green? All right. Even if you gave me his boot unsigned, I'd still pay 10 bucks for it.
35:24 Hank Green? Sure. You are, you are still paying not for a shoe. You are paying for a story, which I guess would be the case with these.
35:30 John Green? You're not, nobody's buying a hundred thousand dollar shoe to cover their feet, Hank. They're buying a story. They're buying a narrative. And so I, in that, maybe he's walking around, maybe he's walking around with the cleats that Lionel Messi won the World Cup in. Yeah. Maybe, maybe he's squeezing his billionaire feet into those cleats.
35:51 Hank Green? Yeah, yeah. In which case, in which case, one of them would be worth a lot. But, but if you broke up the pair, I'd guess if you broke up the pair of like Lionel Messi's World Cup boots.
36:01 John Green? They'd be worth a lot.
36:02 Hank Green? That in that case, they, they would probably be worth roughly the same apart as alone.
36:07 John Green? I think that like, it would be about half.
36:10 Hank Green? They might be worth more apart than together. Because like, what, like, like two different people get to pay $50,000.
36:17 John Green? Yes.
36:17 Hank Green? But only, like, one person would only pay 75.
36:20 John Green? Right.
36:20 Hank Green? It's like those people who used to buy like the big Audubon books and then they just cut the pages out and sell them separately.
36:25 John Green? Yes, yes, yes. That is the only possibility I can see is that he is walking around in Lionel Messi's World Cup winning boots.
36:34 Hank Green? Yeah. But normal shoes, like my shoes that I'm wearing right now, somebody would pay, nobody would pay, no.
36:41 John Green? Forget that. Nobody's gonna pay for one shoe.
36:43 Hank Green? I don't think anybody's gonna pay two.
36:45 John Green? Well, I mean, you can, I, I don't know. I buy, I buy, occasionally I'll buy a used, uh, pair of Adidas from Goodwill or something, but like.
36:53 Hank Green? Sure, sure, sure. But I think that these shoes I'm wearing right now specifically, people would not pay anything for. But I agree. You could buy used shoes and they have value. But if they're just like normal shoes, if there's just one of them, they have no value.
37:05 John Green? Okay. Uh, wait, hold on. I've just got a, I've got a new argument.
37:09 Hank Green? Okay.
37:10 John Green? What if they're made of gold?
37:11 Hank Green? Sure. If they, if they have actual gold in them.
37:14 John Green? What if they're like 50 pound shoes?
37:15 Hank Green? If there's diamond studs.
37:17 John Green? This guy walks real slow. Big thuds.
37:21 Hank Green? His name's Brian Johnson and he's doing a new health thing.
37:24 John Green? Heavy footfalls.
37:26 Hank Green? Shoes, shoes have to weigh 30 pounds each.
37:30 Hank Green? And to get there, it has to be tungsten and gold.
37:32 John Green? Can you imagine gold shoes with diamond studs in them and just being like, my shoes cost more than your salary. And I would be like, yeah, they're hideous.
37:42 Hank Green? People say he's crazy, but he's got diamonds on the soles of his shoes.
37:45 John Green? That's how, that's what it is. He's got diamonds on the soles of his shoes.
37:47 Hank Green? He's trying to cure his walking blues. And who can blame him for that?
37:51 John Green? In that case, one shoe is valuable. I'll, I'll give you that. One shoe can be valuable in that.
37:56 Hank Green? It's like, it's like the stealing that the stuff from the Louvre where they don't steal the paintings anymore. They steal the stuff they can melt down and sell for scrap.
38:04 John Green? Right. Yeah. Okay. Well, I think we got to the bottom of it. This guy's got gold shoes studded with diamonds on the bottom.
38:10 Hank Green? And I really wanted him to email me.
38:12 John Green? Oh, I want him to email me so bad.
38:14 Hank Green? What's going on, buddy? We have some advice on how to handle social situations.
38:20 John Green? Yeah. You're taking the wrong tack, my friend.
38:25 Hank Green? Oh, Lord. Oh, Lordy Lord.
38:28 John Green? I said it before, Hank, but when you're a billionaire, it's incredibly easy to become a centimillionaire. And then
38:34 Hank Green? Sure is.
38:35 John Green? when people are like, I don't like billionaires. You can be like, me neither.
38:39 Hank Green? I didn't like being one. Felt, I felt like it was weird.
38:45 John Green? Felt wrong. So instead I just became unfathomably wealthy.
38:49 Hank Green? This next question comes from Ari who asks, Dear Hank and John, I was doom scrolling and I found out that there is a very probable possibility that we live inside a black hole. Can we like, talk about this? Like, what does that even mean? Is it black holes all the way down? What do I even do with this information? Beginning to go through an existential crisis, Ari. Ari, let me tell you, this doesn't change anything for me. If it turns out black hole cosmology is real, that's the same, it's the same level of weird as the current situation.
39:19 John Green? Yeah. I mean, first off, we live on a planet which itself is very weird. We live on a planet that is orbiting one star that is one of hundreds of billions of stars in one galaxy that's one of hundreds of billions of galaxies in the known universe that is probably infinite. So, yeah. I mean, things are real, real weird here.
39:40 Hank Green? And the thing that, that I don't think anybody has properly.
39:46 Hank Green? Brought into their understanding of of the situation is that we've known that for like a hundred years.
39:53 John Green? We've known it about as long as we've known that you can look down from from the sky and see little ant people when you're in a plane.
40:00 Hank Green? Yeah, like like the the knowledge that there are basically infinite galaxies are brand new, brand new, really, I'm so impressed that we are in a situation where we found that out and we're still doing, we're still like making it work, you know, we didn't all, we didn't have a complete, complete meltdown.
40:22 John Green? We're still paying the rent, you know, like we didn't, we didn't all just like run out into the streets naked hysterical screaming.
40:28 Hank Green? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it seems, it seems like Edwin Hubble would have been like, hey, so I figured out that not only are we like one of several galaxies, we're one of like billions, hundreds of billions of them, probably infinite of them, and and space is so, so much bigger than we thought, so much bigger than we thought. And then we, and then we were all like, let's, let's try and figure out like new ways of understanding the world. And we're still in in that process, you know, still, still working through that knowledge. Why did God create all of this stuff if if we're the whole point? Maybe we, we in fact aren't the whole point. What does that mean?
41:05 John Green? Yeah, yeah, no, I still think, I mean, look, we're only 200 years removed from evolution as an idea, right? Like from, from the first hint of the idea that there might be an explanation for the emergence of life other than God.
41:21 Hank Green? Yeah.
41:22 John Green? That is also brand new. It's, it's about half as brand new, but it's still brand new in the scheme of things, right? Like our species is 250,000 years old. This happened in the last 1,000th.
41:32 Hank Green? Yeah, yeah, it happened in the, in, in like the last 10% of Christianity. So like 90% of Christianity.
41:39 John Green? Last one tenth of a percent of, of human history.
41:45 Hank Green? Yeah. So like even Christianity is very new.
41:48 John Green? Christianity is very new. This is my, my big argument is that about half the people lived before Christianity, about half the humans who have ever lived, lived before Jesus. And if you're going to make an argument that all those people go to hell, it's a very weird argument to me.
42:04 Hank Green? That seems like a bad one.
42:06 John Green? It doesn't resonate with me. I'm not here to tell other people how to feel, but like that that argument, it's a real problem for about 65 billion people.
42:13 Hank Green? So would you like to know a little bit about black hole cosmology?
42:16 John Green? Yeah, tell me.
42:17 Hank Green? So there's this very weird, there's two very weird facts that that I think black hole cosmology is reckoning with. One is that at the inside of a black hole, nothing makes any sense. So so when you get to the singularity, all of our math breaks. And so we kind of have no idea what that means or is. And so basically, it could mean anything. I guess not anything. I'm sure that physicists would quibble on that. But math breaks. And at that point, who knows? So when you got a who knows, could be, it could be a bunch of different stuff could be happening. Certainly, then jumping to, well, maybe a whole new universe gets created would be a silly idea to have. But also, when we look at the size of of the observable universe, and the amount
43:00 Hank Green? of mass in it, when you do the math, I'm winging it here, so I apologize. It seems like that's about the density of a black hole, the size of our universe.
43:13 John Green? Hmm.
43:14 Hank Green? And that's a that's a weird coincidence. But there are a lot of reasons to think that this is not the case. It's a very fun idea. I like the idea. It also like it would help explain sort of a multiverse situation.
43:27 John Green? Right.
43:27 Hank Green? Where if we have a fine tuned universe right now, we just like happen to be in the universe that has the conditions necessary for life and intelligent life to happen inside of it. That would imply that there's a bunch of other universes that have different conditions where other things are happening. And if a universe with slightly different parameters pops up every time there's a black hole, maybe that that would explain why there are a bunch of universes, because there's a bunch of black holes. But also, you could imagine a universe, like most universes, I don't think black holes would even be possible inside of. So that's weird.
43:57 John Green? Cosmology is so weird, because if we're inside of a black hole, that's the size of the universe, and there's a bunch of other universes that are, you know, inside of black holes, then there must be something bigger than that.
44:12 Hank Green? Yeah, it doesn't solve the problem.
44:14 John Green? It doesn't solve the problem. The problem for me is what started it? And why is it so big that it's probably infinite?
44:22 Hank Green? Yeah, the weird thing is that it does appear to exist.
44:25 John Green? Right. Yeah, like the fact that there's the weird thing is that there's stuff in the universe.
44:29 Hank Green? Or at least there seems to be.
44:31 John Green? I mean, I'm almost positive there's stuff in the universe.
44:33 Hank Green? Yeah, yeah, I agree. I agree. There are some people who aren't quite so sure, which is very strange to me, but
44:38 John Green? Yeah.
44:39 Hank Green? Definitely seems very stuffy.
44:41 John Green? Well, let's do the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon on that note.
44:43 Hank Green? Okay. What do you got, John?
44:45 John Green? Well, AFC Wimbledon lost again. Uh, we can't stop losing. We haven't won in January, but don't worry, we also didn't win in December. And, um, now it's February. So, lost to Bolton Wanderers, played better in the second half. I woke up at 5:30 in the morning in Utah to watch the game. And, uh, we played significantly better in the second half. If we play as well as we played in the second half for the rest of the season, we will stay up. But I don't know that we will. I will say that, uh, the two new players that Nerd Fightaria helped pay for, James Tilly and Zach Nelson, both looked very good.
45:20 John Green? Uh, so that's good. And, um, it will be hilarious if for a second straight season, Nerd Fightaria genuinely and directly contributes to the survival of this football club.
45:32 Hank Green? I was gonna say, you know, all the players are contributing, but the reality is, if you're close to the bottom, you need all the players.
45:41 John Green? Yeah. And at this point, like, three of the 11 players have been brought in by us.
45:47 Hank Green? Wow.
45:48 John Green? Yeah.
45:49 Hank Green? Did you get like a, I was on vacation or I was in England maybe, and I feel like you got a message from somebody who was like, I'd love to support your football club.
45:58 John Green? I did, yeah. And I've, I've, uh, reached out.
46:00 Hank Green? Did you ask that guy how, how expensive his shoes are?
46:03 John Green? I didn't. I should have. I should have been my first question. Hey, hey, buddy. How nice are your shoes?
46:09 Hank Green? What percentage of the average American salary is one of your shoes?
46:13 John Green? Uh, lovely guy. Um, yeah, but if you're interested in, uh, buying part of AFC Wimbledon, don't be afraid to email me.
46:21 Hank Green? John, we'll write back to that one email for sure.
46:24 John Green? All right, Hank, what's the news from Mars?
46:25 Hank Green? Well, as you may have heard, Mars is very far away.
46:28 John Green? Right.
46:29 Hank Green? And so sometimes we have communication lag and that means that scientists can't drive around, uh, a rover in real time, which really slows things down. So scientists have to like analyze the data we have to figure out the best route for the rover and then send that route over to the rover through what's called the deep space network and then let the rover follow the plan. And that's been what we've done for 28 years as we've been driving rovers around on Mars. But on December 8th, JPL's Rover Operations Center tested out a collaboration with Anthropic where they sent instructions that had been developed via generative AI and then tested on a digital twin of the rover. And following the itinerary, that rover drove around 807 feet and did it
47:12 Hank Green? well. So it figured out its own path and it made its own decisions. And in the future, scientists at JPL say that these kinds of tools might help them find cool surface features to study and figure out other autonomous navigational tools for Mars rovers.
47:26 John Green? So if at some point these rovers become smart enough to make their own choices and decisions about where they are roving on Mars, will you try to convince me that there is life on Mars?
47:40 Hank Green? Yeah. Wouldn't you just call that a human? You know, at that point?
47:47 Hank Green? What was the exact phrase? Was it people or was it humans? Because people's different from humans.
47:53 John Green? You're gonna try to convince me that a semi-autonomous rover on Mars is a person?
47:58 Hank Green? It's got AGI. It's got that digital god in it.
48:04 John Green? See, Hank talks about artificial intelligence all the time.
48:08 John Green? Thank you so much for listening to our podcast. You can email us at [email protected] if you have a million and a half dollars to invest in AFC Wimbledon, but also if you don't.
48:16 Hank Green? This podcast is edited by Ben Swartout. It's mixed by Joseph Tuna Menesh. Our communications coordinator is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosiana Halsrohass and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Debuki Trakravarti. The music you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gatorola. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.
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