444: Hank Brown

Why are humans not transparent? If you lived on a moon, would you know it? What did cavemen dream about? How does Good Store work with other companies? How do you deal with the grief of having limited time left with your parents? …Hank and John Green have answers! If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [email protected] Join us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn Produced for Hank and John Green by Complexly See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:01John Green?

  You're listening to a Complexly podcast.

• 0:09Hank Green?

  Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John.

• 0:11John Green?

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

• 0:13Hank Green?

  It's a comedy podcast where two brothers rasp you your questions, give you do beautiful advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon.

• 0:23John Green?

  John? Yeah.

• 0:25Hank Green?

  Do you know who can have 10 liters of gasoline without getting sick?

• 0:32John Green?

  A car?

• 0:33Hank Green?

  Jerry can.

• 0:35John Green?

  Good old Jerry.

• 0:38Hank Green?

  Hi, how are you doing? I am not doing good.

• 0:42John Green?

  I can tell just from your intro. It was low energy.

• 0:46John Green?

  It was raspy. I can tell that you're sick, which is weird because we were together yesterday and you were fine.

• 0:51Hank Green?

  I was fine. I was fine on my on my 24 hour flight home.

• 0:56John Green?

  Yeah, Hank and I had a really-

• 0:58Hank Green?

  A lot of things went bad on the way home. The first flight got delayed. I had to reschedule it. And then after rescheduling to a much later flight, my last flight got delayed a lot. And we landed in Missoula at 2:22 in the morning after having having waken up at like 4:22 in the morning Montana time.

• 1:16John Green?

  Yeah, it was not an easy schedule flight day for you. I hope it didn't completely ruin the Caribbean vibes that we enjoyed together because I really enjoyed-

• 1:25Hank Green?

  Thank you for giving me some time to get away and get off of the phone.

• 1:29John Green?

  Yeah, I really enjoyed you off of your phone, off the internet. I thought you did a great job. You were truly detached. It was a beautiful thing to see.

• 1:37Hank Green?

  I really also enjoyed how you you didn't get me off those pina coladas, but maybe I should have.

• 1:45John Green?

  Yeah.

• 1:45Hank Green?

  I feel like my immune system is just not up to it.

• 1:48John Green?

  Well, it is true-

• 1:50Hank Green?

  Maybe that was it.

• 1:52John Green?

  That now you can drink a little bit. You know, when you first got out of chemo, you couldn't drink at all. You were almost allergic to alcohol and now you can drink a little bit. And I did take advantage of that. There's no denying it.

• 2:06Hank Green?

  I was like, the pina colada smoothie, there's rum in it, but there's also fruit in it.

• 2:10John Green?

  Hank was literally.

• 2:11Hank Green?

  And that's good for you.

• 2:12John Green?

  Hank was literally dancing in a wading pool. That's how, that's how off the clock Hank Green was. And it was beautiful to see.

• 2:21Hank Green?

  I would have done that sober.

• 2:22John Green?

  Well, it was beautiful to see regardless.

• 2:24Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 2:25John Green?

  It made me really happy to be with you and Catherine and hope it was a good vacation for you.

• 2:30Hank Green?

  Sarah also.

• 2:31John Green?

  Sarah also. I mean, it goes without saying that I, I'm with Sarah all the time. And Island Sarah is a different person.

• 2:38Hank Green?

  Different lady. Yeah. No, she's, she's fairly, she's fairly abusive to me in my lack of having the, the kind of glasses I need.

• 2:48John Green?

  Oh my God. Well, she feels passionately for good reason.

• 2:54John Green?

  For good reason that you, Hank Green, need progressives.

• 2:59Hank Green?

  Progressives.

• 3:01John Green?

  You.

• 3:01Hank Green?

  You can't name them that way.

• 3:03John Green?

  You.

• 3:04Hank Green?

  You can't call them progressives.

• 3:06John Green?

  You need, you need progressives so bad. And Sarah started out by just saying, you need progressives. And you were like, yeah, yeah, whatever. As you took off your glasses and held a menu one and a half inches away from your face to read it.

• 3:19John Green?

  Sarah was like, maybe you should get progressives. And you were like, no. And then you, and then she took a brilliant strategy. She said, I think it would increase your productivity. And you freaked up and you said, what now?

• 3:31Hank Green?

  Nothing can increase my productivity, John. I'm at max.

• 3:33John Green?

  No, no, getting progressives really would increase your productivity because it would make it so that you can read.

• 3:40Hank Green?

  I have my reading glasses for the computer.

• 3:42John Green?

  Yeah.

• 3:43Hank Green?

  So as long as I never leave this space, I'm doing great.

• 3:46John Green?

  Yeah. I'll tell you what, on vacation, you were, uh,

• 3:49Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 3:50John Green?

  direly in need of some sweet, sweet progressive lenses.

• 3:53Hank Green?

  Who said it to me. Yeah.

• 3:54John Green?

  Yeah. I, I love mine. I, I thought I was going to take a long time to get used to them, but it, for me, it only took like a couple of days and now I can read whenever I want. It's beautiful.

• 4:03Hank Green?

  Wow, that sounds magical.

• 4:05John Green?

  All right, Hank, let's answer some questions from our beloved listeners here at Dear Hank and John. All right, let's start with this question from Ren who writes, Dear John and Hank, why are we not transparent? I know that melanin is probably part of the reason, but there must be more to it than that. I thought that blood might be a factor, but those deep see-through fish that have blood too, right? Is being transparent the default state or did they evolve specifically to be transparent? Wish I could see my organs now and then, Ren. That makes one of us, Ren.

• 4:31Hank Green?

  Well, we certainly have transparent parts of our bodies. What do you think is the most transparent part of your body, John?

• 4:36John Green?

  Nah, the skin on the inside of my wrist. I can see my veins through it.

• 4:39Hank Green?

  Not even close.

• 4:40John Green?

  Okay, let me think again. My eyes.

• 4:42Hank Green?

  The inside of your eyes.

• 4:44John Green?

  Right.

• 4:44Hank Green?

  Very transparent. The light goes through it. It's not empty in there. There's a bunch of stuff. You're in there.

• 4:51John Green?

  Yeah, most of me, most of what I consider myself, all the parts of me that aren't the gut bacteria that do half of my thinking are in there.

• 4:58Hank Green?

  Well, just behind, but yeah.

• 5:00John Green?

  Yeah, I can almost see the wheels of my consciousness turning, but not quite, which is probably a blessing.

• 5:06Hank Green?

  That part's definitely invisible.

• 5:08John Green?

  Yeah.

• 5:09Hank Green?

  Nobody's, nobody's found it. They keep looking and they don't find it.

• 5:12John Green?

  No, you can't remove it with a You can't remove it with a tweezer. That's the thing about consciousness.

• 5:17Hank Green?

  You can remove it with propofol or just going to bed.

• 5:21John Green?

  That's true.

• 5:22Hank Green?

  Well, you don't totally

• 5:23John Green?

  You can remove it by going to bed. You still have dreams, but with propofol, it's pretty removed.

• 5:27Hank Green?

  That's a different thing.

• 5:29John Green?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 5:30Hank Green?

  It's on different guys' consciousness. What are we talking about?

• 5:32John Green?

  Hank, why aren't we transparent?

• 5:34Hank Green?

  It's just the stuff that light does and, and I will point out that everything's a little bit transparent. You know, you put like a one, one atom thick sheet of something down.

• 5:45John Green?

  Yeah.

• 5:45Hank Green?

  Shine some light through that.

• 5:47John Green?

  Sure.

• 5:48Hank Green?

  There's, there's space there. There's a bunch of space between all the nuclei, famously.

• 5:53John Green?

  But we're not transparent in the sense that I can't see my pancreas right now.

• 5:57Hank Green?

  Right, yeah. But if you had a bright enough light.

• 6:01John Green?

  Well, in some ways, I mean, not to get too specific, but isn't that what a CT scan is?

• 6:06Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, it's more of a more energetic kind of light with a different size wavelength. But yes, absolutely.

• 6:15John Green?

  Yeah, it's not visible light, but it's radiation.

• 6:17Hank Green?

  We're transparent to X-rays, partially.

• 6:20John Green?

  Partially.

• 6:21Hank Green?

  But, you know, it absorbs some, but not all of them. You know, I'd be interested to actually know how many visible light photons, I don't, I guess it would be zero. Like, it would, it would get to zero. Like, there isn't a number that would get through.

• 6:36John Green?

  All the way to the pancreas, you mean?

• 6:38Hank Green?

  Yeah, all the way to the other side.

• 6:41John Green?

  Right.

• 6:41Hank Green?

  But certainly, there is if you, like, shine a flashlight up to your hand, you know? Comes out the other side.

• 6:46John Green?

  It comes out the other side. So I guess theoretically, if you had a bright enough light, some of it would come out the other side of your trunk.

• 6:54Hank Green?

  I am wondering this. Yeah. I'm curious. And now I feel like that may be a thing. I didn't think to search it beforehand, because I was sleeping.

• 7:02John Green?

  Why'd you build the world's brightest light? Oh, I wanted to see through a man.

• 7:08Hank Green?

  Like intuitively, I feel like if you, if you held a little bright enough light up to a man, his back would glow. That's what it feels like.

• 7:17John Green?

  Intuitively, it feels that way, but I feel like it might kill him.

• 7:21Hank Green?

  Yeah, that's certainly possible.

• 7:22John Green?

  Yeah, I mean.

• 7:26Hank Green?

  I mean, there's, there's pieces of visible light that don't do any absorbing, that don't absorb at all. But they do bounce, they would bounce around a lot. So it wouldn't be like a straight through shot.

• 7:36John Green?

  You remember in the old days when doctors would get anxious about doing a clinical trial, so they would just test it on themselves and their mistress, who was named Hedwig?

• 7:45Hank Green?

  Yeah. Yeah, that's what, that's what we should do with a really bright light, huh?

• 7:50John Green?

  Yeah, I just, I don't trust, I feel like if you're passionate enough to learn about this, Ren, I feel like you're gonna have to shine that light on yourself.

• 7:57Hank Green?

  Take your first burn child.

• 7:59John Green?

  No.

• 8:01Hank Green?

  They do it to their kids sometimes, too.

• 8:03John Green?

  That's true. They do it to their kids as well. And again, to their mistresses, who are incredibly truly named Hedwig.

• 8:12Hank Green?

  As she was named for her wig and where she wears it.

• 8:20John Green?

  Let's move on to this next question from M who writes, "Dear brothers Green, if there was life on our moon, or really any moon for that matter, would the inhabitants of that moon know they were on a moon of a planet, or would the moon's planet be the moon's moon? Moons and more moons, M."

• 8:33Hank Green?

  Oh.

• 8:33John Green?

  So Hank, if we, like, eventually, we would have figured this out, right?

• 8:39Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 8:40John Green?

  But I don't think cougars would have figured it out. I don't think, I don't think bobcats would have figured it out. I don't think any of the major cats would have known.

• 8:48Hank Green?

  They wouldn't even have figured out that the thing in the sky was, was maybe a, a thing.

• 8:54John Green?

  Were we the first creature to think that the thing in the sky is a thing?

• 8:58Hank Green?

  I don't know. I think so.

• 9:01John Green?

  God, we're so underrated as a species.

• 9:05Hank Green?

  We're so weird. It's very weird. Now, there might be somebody who's gonna come and be like, "No, actually dolphins know that the thing in the sky is a thing."

• 9:11John Green?

  It's very possible. But I just, we're so weird. They don't know what's keeping the stars apart, though. We are very weird as a species. We have worked incredibly hard and collaborated across time and space for millennia now to figure out a lot of weird stuff.

• 9:25Hank Green?

  And the more we learn, the more, the more we realize that all of, all of that is not a function of the individual, but of the connections between the individuals.

• 9:33John Green?

  Yeah. And the great thing about being a person is that you don't just collaborate with the people you share the world with. You can also collaborate with people who died 500 years ago, or 2,000 years ago, or whatever. Like, uh, this is, this is a, a, our ability to pass along and share information across time and space and death is truly impressive to me.

• 9:52Hank Green?

  Absolutely. Well, John, just a quick question. Do you think that it's possible that the, that all of the connections between humans, uh, could be like, all of the connections between the neurons in a brain, and it could have like, a kind of super consciousness that exists, but we are unaware of?

• 10:08John Green?

  Where one super consciousness, and the great thing about that super consciousness is that it doesn't need to poop.

• 10:13Hank Green?

  It doesn't. It needs to poop a lot, though. It's either doesn't, or it's always pooping. One of the two.

• 10:20John Green?

  It's like a camel with water. Like, it just, uh, it just poops once every, once every three weeks.

• 10:26Hank Green?

  No, because it's made up of all of the people.

• 10:28John Green?

  No, it's not. It's made up of all the-

• 10:29Hank Green?

  Each of its, each of its neurons is poop. One of them's always pooping.

• 10:34John Green?

  At least, yeah. That's kind of comforting. Next time you poop, you can think I'm not alone in this endeavor.

• 10:39Hank Green?

  Yeah, no, I'm probably there.

• 10:42John Green?

  Hank's always with you.

• 10:48Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah, you don't want to get turned into an AI assistant after you die, where people can keep talking to you, but I do, but only when you poop.

• 10:56John Green?

  I do not want to be turned into an AI after I die. Like, that is terrifying to me. It's bad enough to be stuck inside of a body. Being stuck inside of a computer would be worse.

• 11:07Hank Green?

  Yeah, no, I'm into it. Hank Green is gonna die, but Hank Brown will live forever.

• 11:12John Green?

  Okay, all right, great, great.

• 11:18John Green?

  Such a stupid joke, but it was so effective on me. Not as effective as it was on you. I mean.

• 11:25Hank Green?

  No, I did, I did. I was, I had it loaded up for like, for like a full 15 seconds beforehand. Like many of my poops.

• 11:37John Green?

  Hank, how advanced would moon, moon people have to be to recognize that they're on a moon, not on the earth, and that they are in fact orbiting a planet and get excited about the potential of that planet? So like, if you're, if you're on Europa, how long would it take you?

• 11:53Hank Green?

  Well, here's an interesting thing about Europa, because the, the life there would happen in the subsurface ocean. And so they would never know, they would never know about a world outside of their world. The, the, the thickness of the ice above them is too thick. It would feel like the ground beneath their feet. They might eventually create like ground penetrating radar and be like, after a long way of being very hard, the roof stops.

• 12:23Hank Green?

  Whereas after a long way of being very hard, the ground doesn't. It goes all the way through to the other side, but the roof stops. You guys, I think we might be on a ball, in a ball.

• 12:36John Green?

  Right, they might figure out that they're in a ball, but there's no way they would figure out that they're in a ball that's orbiting a ball that's orbiting yet another ball that's orbiting the center of the galaxy.

• 12:45Hank Green?

  Which, which is, is very advanced technology.

• 12:48John Green?

  It makes me think.

• 12:49Hank Green?

  We don't have yet.

• 12:50John Green?

  It makes me think that we are both very lucky to be on the surface of a planet.

• 12:56Hank Green?

  Very, probably very unusual.

• 12:58John Green?

  And also.

• 13:01John Green?

  That there must be countless ways in which we are in the deep sea of Europa and cannot see X, Y, or Z.

• 13:13Hank Green?

  Simply cannot know.

• 13:14John Green?

  Because we cannot know what we cannot know.

• 13:16Hank Green?

  That's just how I actually feel about consciousness. I feel like that that information is very available and very understandable, but but like simply we cannot reach it because we cannot see the ground for what it is.

• 13:29John Green?

  Hmm.

• 13:31Hank Green?

  Or the ceiling or whatever.

• 13:33John Green?

  All right. So if you were on on the moon, just to take it away from consciousness.

• 13:38Hank Green?

  We're doing surface stuff now.

• 13:40John Green?

  We're okay. If you're on our moon, if you're on our moon.

• 13:43Hank Green?

  You could totally figure it out. It is. It is extremely figure outable. It would not be the first thing that occurred to you. But if if you got into the science game and you were doing a lot of transmission of information between each other and you were making your data available and you were trying to disprove each other, you'd figure it out on the order of after like that's that system started, you'd figure it out on the order of a couple hundred years.

• 14:05John Green?

  Okay, so you would figure it out pretty fast. Once you were able to share information.

• 14:10Hank Green?

  Yeah, but I feel like getting to that point like.

• 14:12John Green?

  Oh, yeah, it's very hard. Look, it took us 275,000 years and we've only been doing it for like 400, 500 years.

• 14:19Hank Green?

  What do you think most of that was?

• 14:22John Green?

  Most of it was hanging out, Hank. Most of it was hanging out and eating. Most of it was making culture.

• 14:26Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:28John Green?

  And we had very different ways of making cultures. So we had like

• 14:31Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 14:31John Green?

  Communities that enslaved people and we had other communities that were extremely egalitarian. And we had all kinds of different communities. But what we didn't have was a system for sharing information across time and space like we do now with writing and reading.

• 14:46Hank Green?

  Yeah, I think more than that.

• 14:47John Green?

  And increasingly other things.

• 14:48Hank Green?

  Here's here's my pet theory.

• 14:51John Green?

  Okay.

• 14:51Hank Green?

  That the 275,000 years is what we needed to to go from no language to language. And that at any point in that time, there would have been a thing that we would recognize as communication, but it would be much different from language, but it would be taking steps toward it the whole time. I think that we deeply underestimate how complex.

• 15:15Hank Green?

  Talking is.

• 15:17John Green?

  I don't disagree with that, except that I think we were talking pretty early on. And my evidence for the fact that we were talking pretty early on is we were making art. We were making art 40,000 years ago. That was pretty good, pretty good art.

• 15:29Hank Green?

  I think that you can communicate with, and I think that there's like versions of talking that are just very different from what we're doing now and less good. And I also think that you can, you can make art without talking.

• 15:40John Green?

  So what you're saying is?

• 15:43Hank Green?

  Talking, art is a kind of talking, for clarity.

• 15:46John Green?

  Beowulf is not as good as The Fault in Our Stars because it was written so early when language wasn't as good.

• 15:54Hank Green?

  The only thing Beowulf has going forward is being first.

• 15:58John Green?

  Like Vlogbrothers.

• 16:06John Green?

  I mean, that is a-

• 16:08Hank Green?

  Am I gonna get in like Timothy Chalamet trouble for that?

• 16:10John Green?

  Yes, yes. You are gonna get in Timothy Chalamet, nobody watches ballet level trouble. Your Oscar campaign has been doomed by a single misstep, Green. Yes, you're going to get in trouble. I mean, first off, clearly you've never read Beowulf.

• 16:25Hank Green?

  I have read Beowulf in college.

• 16:27John Green?

  And secondly, I, I just don't, I just don't agree that language didn't get good until 500 years ago. I just don't agree with that.

• 16:35Hank Green?

  No, I mean, I mean 50,000, 100,000.

• 16:38John Green?

  Okay, yeah.

• 16:39Hank Green?

  Throughout the process, it's taken, it's taken a long time.

• 16:42John Green?

  Yeah. Well, and language must have evolved separately in separate places and separate ways.

• 16:46Hank Green?

  And it wasn't a binary. It wasn't like we flipped a switch and suddenly there was language. It was, it's like, language is changing, not just in form, but in functionality. Still.

• 16:56John Green?

  Yeah, for sure. Language is still changing in functionality. But I don't think that language is quite as important as you think it is. I do think that it's very, very important. I think it's one of the great gifts that we have as a species. And I think that The Fault in Our Stars is better than Beowulf to, to crash my own Oscars campaign.

• 17:19Hank Green?

  The only Oscar we care about lives in a trash can. What's the next question?

• 17:28John Green?

  I mean, $1,000 cash if you win an Oscar and give that as your acceptance speech.

• 17:36Hank Green?

  And that's where this one's going.

• 17:39John Green?

  All right, we're gonna, we're gonna stay on prehistory, Hank.

• 17:43Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 17:44John Green?

  By the way, linguists, who are the people I fear the most in the world.

• 17:47Hank Green?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. With, with.

• 17:49John Green?

  Are going to have an absolute.

• 17:51Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 17:51John Green?

  Field day.

• 17:52Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 17:53John Green?

  With your totally unjustified theory about language.

• 17:57Hank Green?

  Well, I don't know. I'd be interested to hear their thoughts, but I, I do appreciate you pointing out that it's totally unjustified.

• 18:03John Green?

  Well, you, we.

• 18:04Hank Green?

  I don't want people, I don't want people to walk away thinking that I'm an expert on this topic.

• 18:07John Green?

  Thank you.

• 18:08Hank Green?

  I'm a man with a cold.

• 18:10John Green?

  There you go. All right.

• 18:10Hank Green?

  My inhibitions are lowered by my lack of sleep.

• 18:13John Green?

  This question comes from Stella, who says, Dear John and Hank, I've been pondering an important question. We have all different dreams and situations that we dream about. What do you think cavemen dreamt about? Did they dream about hunting, decorating their caves, fire, what new fun painting they were going to put on their walls? I genuinely don't know. I think you guys have the answer. Thanks, King. Sincerely, Stella. First off, Stella, the first thing I'd say is that we have to remember that what we see of the life of prehistoric humans is inevitably biases us toward thinking about what they were doing. But like, they may have been doing lots of things that just happened to decay other than painting, right?

• 18:49Hank Green?

  Oh, yeah.

• 18:49John Green?

  There was a lot that they were doing.

• 18:51Hank Green?

  They were definitely, they were definitely making rope.

• 18:53John Green?

  They were making.

• 18:54Hank Green?

  Huge part of it.

• 18:55John Green?

  They were, they were, they were.

• 18:56Hank Green?

  Cordage.

• 18:57John Green?

  Cordage. There was a ton of braiding of various objects.

• 19:02Hank Green?

  Very useful, very useful tool. That's another, that's another one. The language is more important than cordage.

• 19:07John Green?

  I think they would dream about what they did during the day. And like, also, I think they would dream about like their kids being safe or not safe. And I think they would, I, I, you know what? I bet they had, I bet they had dreams about their teeth falling out, just like we do.

• 19:20Hank Green?

  Oh, boy. Yeah, that's definitely deep down in there.

• 19:23John Green?

  Yeah, that's pretty rooted. That's pretty, pretty Jungian.

• 19:27Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 19:27John Green?

  Rooted.

• 19:28Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 19:29John Green?

  Not as good as Hank Brown, but it's not terrible.

• 19:32Hank Green?

  I feel like I have those dreams, like I would have, like, I would have dreams about my teeth falling out. If, even if I'd never heard of a tooth falling out.

• 19:40John Green?

  Yep. I agree with you. I think there are some weird, I mean, there's some weird stuff in the wiring that goes all the way down.

• 19:50Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 19:51John Green?

  You can't grab it with a tweezer, but it's there.

• 19:54Hank Green?

  It's, it's in there. It's in the connections.

• 19:56John Green?

  Yeah, that's what I love so much about your book, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, when everyone had the same dream on the same night.

• 20:02Hank Green?

  Oh, that was a good moment.

• 20:04John Green?

  That was such a cool moment. That was like one of those brain-expanding moments for me.

• 20:08Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 20:08John Green?

  I'm glad that you also enjoyed it. We're obviously in our I celebrate myself and I sing myself era.

• 20:14John Green?

  I feel like I need to go back to the-

• 20:15Hank Green?

  If you lower my inhibitions.

• 20:17John Green?

  I feel like I need to go back to the previous question and make it clear that I do not actually think The Fault in Our Stars is better than Beowulf. Let somebody like cut it up and be like, this is a jerk.

• 20:26Hank Green?

  Look, Beowulf is way better than the books around it than The Fault in Our Stars is than the books around it.

• 20:34John Green?

  Yeah, agreed.

• 20:38Hank Green?

  Um, and, but, but I just, I just think that we could do more now. There's, uh, look.

• 20:44John Green?

  Yeah.

• 20:45Hank Green?

  I don't know. Maybe I need to give Beowulf a second chance.

• 20:48John Green?

  I mean, in, in Old English, it's almost unreadable, but that doesn't mean that language didn't exist or wasn't rich or wasn't complex.

• 20:56Hank Green?

  That's not what I said!

• 20:57John Green?

  Okay. All right.

• 20:59Hank Green?

  I think we have, I think we have more complicated ideas now than we did back then.

• 21:03John Green?

  Well, it depends on when you define back then. If you define back then as 100,000 years ago, I agree.

• 21:08Hank Green?

  No, I mean-

• 21:09John Green?

  If you define back then as 1,000 years ago, I don't agree at all.

• 21:11Hank Green?

  Okay.

• 21:12John Green?

  And I, I think that the, a huge body of evidence is on my side.

• 21:16Hank Green?

  Didn't even know what the moon was!

• 21:18John Green?

  They didn't know what the moon was, but they knew what love was, not to get too cheesy about it. Like, they, they, they knew what, they knew all kinds of complex ideas about interhuman relations and they knew all kinds of, you know, like, they had, they had-

• 21:30Hank Green?

  They knew about beer, they knew about-

• 21:32John Green?

  Yeah, they knew about the big grief, they knew about all the big stuff. And they knew about, you know, that we have obligations to ourselves and to our families and to our communities that are sometimes in conflict, and they knew about honor and sacrifice, and they knew about all the stuff that we do. Uh, they just didn't know about the moon, which is okay.

• 21:51John Green?

  Like, whatever people are like-

• 21:53Hank Green?

  I'm saying, I'm saying if you, if Beowulf didn't exist-

• 21:55John Green?

  Yeah.

• 21:56Hank Green?

  Hear me out, John. If Beowulf didn't exist and you wrote it now-

• 21:59John Green?

  Yeah.

• 22:00Hank Green?

  Would it be a critical success?

• 22:03John Green?

  Well, no, of course not. Although, I will follow that up by saying that my friend Paige Lewis has just written a non-binary epic called Canon, C-A-N-O-N- That is an epic, like, is, is Beowulfian in certain respects- And is brilliant, because it's not attempting to recreate a thousand years ago, it's its own thing.

• 22:25Hank Green?

  Sure.

• 22:26John Green?

  Um-

• 22:26Hank Green?

  I bet it's better than Beowulf.

• 22:29John Green?

  Well, I had more fun.

• 22:31Hank Green?

  Paige, you want me to blurb it? You want me to blurb it? Better than Beowulf.

• 22:36John Green?

  I had a- I had a better time reading it, that is for sure. But, uh, that is not the same thing as being better.

• 22:42Hank Green?

  Which reminds me, John, that this book is brought to you by Canon, by Paige Lewis. It's better than Beowulf.

• 22:48John Green?

  Okay. Well, I mean, it is really good. Y'all should read it. I don't think it's out yet, so I think we're kind of prematurely celebrating it. But, we'll get back to it when it comes out, too. Uh, today's podcast is also, of course, brought to you by Hank's Linguistics. Hank's Linguistics, questionable.

• 23:04Hank Green?

  And this podcast is brought to you by Cordage. Cordage, it literally tied the world together.

• 23:11John Green?

  Uh, and of course, this podcast is brought to you by Transparent Skin. Transparent Skin, a nightmare of its own making.

• 23:18Hank Green?

  Yeah, just shine that light.

• 23:20John Green?

  You know who's invisible?

• 23:21Hank Green?

  Who? Hank Brown.

• 23:24John Green?

  Well, he's invisible for now. But maybe Elon Musk will make him a body someday and he can walk around and talk to you while you poop.

• 23:31Hank Green?

  No, he has to stay in the bathroom.

• 23:35Hank Green?

  He's a little guy and he's on the shelf.

• 23:38John Green?

  He's like Elf on the Shelf, but he's an AI that can be with you while you poop.

• 23:42Hank Green?

  Right, and he's also like-

• 23:43John Green?

  Cause God knows, there's no room for any form-

• 23:46Hank Green?

  You can't be alone.

• 23:47John Green?

  Of, of, of being alone with your thoughts for even three seconds in the future.

• 23:52Hank Green?

  He's also, he's gonna, he's gonna be great for your anxiety, cause he'll, he'll smell the poop and he'll be like, that smells so healthy. Oh, that is, that's good.

• 24:00John Green?

  He's gonna be a diagnostic tool.

• 24:02Hank Green?

  He's diagnostic, he's also very, he's very relaxing. He's very chill, though when he does say, actually, I think I need to go to the doctor, that will be pretty freaky.

• 24:11John Green?

  Yeah, but you know, you need to go to the doctor.

• 24:14Hank Green?

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

• 24:58Hank Green?

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

• 25:48Hank Green?

  Dear Hank and John is brought to you by NoCD. So you may know that I've had obsessive-compulsive disorder since I was a kid, but I was only diagnosed as an adult. I lived with intrusive thoughts and the compulsive behaviors I used to manage those intrusive thoughts for many years without treatment. OCD is not just anxiety.

• 26:07John Green?

  If you have those what-if intrusive thoughts and you cannot close the loop on them and you find yourself in thought spirals, you might have OCD. And it's not the organizing stereotype you've heard. It's a persistent, unwanted series of intrusive thoughts that feel totally out of character, along with mental or physical behaviors that you feel driven to, to get relief, even when that relief never actually comes. The good news is that OCD is highly treatable with the right kind of specialized therapy. It needs ERP, Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy, which has proven to be the most effective treatment and it has transformed my life. NOCD is the world's leading provider of OCD treatment, covered by insurance for over 138 million Americans.

• 26:49John Green?

  There are licensed therapists who specialize in ERP therapy, who meet you in live, face-to-face, virtual sessions with support between sessions, so you're never facing OCD alone. So if you're struggling with OCD or unrelenting intrusive thoughts, NOCD can help. Book a free 15-minute call to get started at nocd.com. That's nocd.com.

• 27:14John Green?

  All right, let's answer this question from Melissa who writes, "Dear John and Hank, I'm a fan of Good Store." I'm a fan of you, Melissa!

• 27:21John Green?

  "Recently, I've been getting Sunbase and Soap from y'all, and I had a thought the other day while using it in the shower. With the products that are awesome socks, which you make in-house, all the proceeds go to your work with Partners in Health, but with products like Sunbase and Soap that are partnerships with other companies, how does that work? Are those groups making money off the partnership? Does that generate less money for the projects it's fundraising for? How's it all work? Socks and Soap subscriptions, Melissa." Well, first off, Melissa, thank you for subscribing to both our socks and our soap. All the profit goes to charity. But to be clear, that's all our profit. Yeah, well, but to be clear, to be clear, Sunbase and Soap is our brand. We invented it. Yeah, we invented Sunbase and Soap. But we do work with a company in Montana that makes soap. In the same way that we don't actually have a sock construction machine. Sure. That makes socks.

• 28:06John Green?

  So yeah, we, uh, there's a company in Montana that's run by a friend of mine. He didn't used to run it. He only recently became the CEO. And he was one of the first people I met in town because I went and volunteered at the nonprofit that he worked at.

• 28:18Hank Green?

  And so old Bud, good to have another reason to talk to him sometimes. And but but there are actually products that are like we for our eco-friendly cleaning products line.

• 28:31John Green?

  Yeah.

• 28:31Hank Green?

  So Meliora is a company that is not ours. Sheetz Laundry Club is a company that is not ours. And we basically buy their wholesale price. We get, we negotiate the lowest wholesale price we can figure out how to negotiate. And so that that still super works. And you might even notice that those products are quite inexpensive, even though we're buying them wholesale and selling them retail.

• 28:57John Green?

  Yeah, so we have multiple business strategies for each of our different businesses. But what it boils down to is that we don't do something unless the

• 29:08Hank Green?

  It's gonna have a margin.

• 29:09John Green?

  The margins are good enough to raise money for Partners in Health, or in the case of Eco Geek Products, the Coral Reef Alliance.

• 29:16Hank Green?

  Yeah, basically, we're just trying to run a sales like a normal business. You always got a little bit of margin and then that margin is going to go to your owners and our owners don't get the money.

• 29:26John Green?

  Our owners are essentially, I mean, this is how I think about it. Our owners are fragile communities and ecosystems, not shareholders. And that's great because shareholders get plenty of profit. So basically, here's what the deal is. I have a brother who could talk a dog off a meat wagon, right? Like Hank could sell anything to anyone.

• 29:49Hank Green?

  That's not, that's not true.

• 29:51John Green?

  And I

• 29:51Hank Green?

  Sell good products.

• 29:54John Green?

  Yep, and I try

• 29:55Hank Green?

  I can't sell a bad product.

• 29:57John Green?

  You can't, but you can sell a lot of good products. And I try very hard to orient that ability to sell and to talk a dog off a meat wagon toward Partners in Health. That is my personal goal in life is to just Just distract Hank in the direction of P I H. All right, Hank, it's time to take one of those typical Dear Hank and John turns toward the bummers.

• 30:20Hank Green?

  Oh, boy.

• 30:21John Green?

  This next email is from Nicole, who writes, Dear John and Hank, I'm writing after the bummer episode and I realize I may have messed up my timing because you've already done bummers. I'm 41 and my dad is about a year into losing his memory. It's painful. He's not himself anymore. I keep finding myself trying to be grateful that I've had him in my life as long as I have, but I'm not sure it's that helpful. How have you both dealt with grief at different stages of your life? Do you ever grapple with the limited number of weekends you have left with your parents? I often hear you speak about how much time you have left on earth, but I worry more about how much time I have left with my loved ones. A nickel for your thoughts, Nicole.

• 30:54Hank Green?

  Well, isn't that a stab?

• 30:57John Green?

  I.

• 30:58Hank Green?

  Sometimes I feel like I am more worried about me than than my own experiences, you know?

• 31:04John Green?

  What do you mean?

• 31:05Hank Green?

  I'm just worried about like the continuity of self rather than like what what that will actually bring.

• 31:11John Green?

  Like your own death or the death of people you love?

• 31:13Hank Green?

  I'm worried about like, I'm worried about like me dying. I'm not worried about like the limited amount of of like experience I have left and optimizing for it and, you know.

• 31:24John Green?

  I'm certainly not worried about optimizing for it because I think a huge part of being in relation with people is just doing nothing, you know?

• 31:32Hank Green?

  Yeah, I don't like what this is one of the great lies is like, well, you know, we have to have quality time. And I'm like, quality time is quality time.

• 31:41John Green?

  Yeah.

• 31:42Hank Green?

  You don't have to put a qualifier on that. It's all good. It's all quality.

• 31:46John Green?

  Yeah, it is. Quantity time is underrated, I think. And I say that as somebody who traveled 110 days last year and missed a lot of quantity time and.

• 31:54Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 31:54John Green?

  Has some regrets about it, but I I do think about the fact that I only have a limited amount of time left with my parents. I mean, they're older and my wife's parents are also older and that'll be a very painful time in my life when it when it comes. And I'm sorry that you're going through this. My friend Luna, who's now 16, my best friend's kid, has lost two grandparents to dementia. And she told me once, with dementia, you do a lot of your grieving in advance. And I think that's true because you lose a person piece by piece instead of all at once. And that's really hard.

• 32:40John Green?

  But then there is also the final grief, which remains, I think, super intense. So there's no easy way to go through this stuff. I think the way to go through it is, is not alone. You know, I'm a big supporter of the Alzheimer's Foundation here in the US because they do such a great job with support groups. So Nicole, I would, if you, if you can, I'd look into the opportunity to be with other caregivers because caregiving is sacred work, but it's also really, really hard work. And being able to talk through that with other people who know the experience from the inside is pretty valuable in my experience.

• 33:19Hank Green?

  This is interesting because when I, you know, of course, I've looked at what various cancer charities do as I've gotten more versed in that world. And it, uh, it's so important that they aren't just, it isn't just about someday we will, we will beat this thing.

• 33:38John Green?

  Mm hmm.

• 33:39Hank Green?

  It is also very much about right now, we are living with this thing.

• 33:43John Green?

  Yeah. That's true for tuberculosis too, man. I mean, you know, TB support groups can be so important and like having a patient advocate or a survivor advocate who knows the experience and knows how to navigate the system. Like studies show that just dramatically increases not just the quality of, of life after tuberculosis, but also like the experience of going through it because cancer, any serious life altering disease can be so stigmatizing in addition to everything else, you know, like people say dumb crap and they

• 34:16Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 34:17John Green?

  are dismissive of your experience or they tell you that you just need to take ivermectin or they tell you whatever they tell you and like, that's, that, that is its own form of exhausting.

• 34:30John Green?

  God. What just happened?

• 34:33Hank Green?

  It's knee, oh.

• 34:37John Green?

  Well, that wasn't normal.

• 34:38Hank Green?

  Oh, my bad. I don't know. Yeah, I think one of the great, one of the great wins of this podcast was having a thing that happens to people, not like every day, but many days.

• 34:50John Green?

  Yeah, frequently enough that you think about the podcast every time you sneeze.

• 34:53Hank Green?

  I like, I'll like, I'll like look out at the world after sneezing and be like, what the hell was that?

• 35:03John Green?

  I think about Dr. Never Sneezer Scrooge all the time because it can't be that that was only one person he spoke to, right? So like Dr. Never Sneezer Scrooge has been telling thousands of patients over dozens of years, I never sneeze, sneezing isn't normal.

• 35:24Hank Green?

  Weird thing to be able to do if it's not normal.

• 35:29John Green?

  Yeah. Anyway, Nicole, we wish you all the best and it's such a hard thing to go through and I hope that you don't have to go through it alone. Hank, before we get to the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, I have to let you know something, which is that we received about a million emails from our elderly listeners. Turns out we have many elderly listeners. Gillian, for instance, wrote and said, "You are a top podcast for the elderly. I'm 78. I've listened since Roman Mars ran an episode of Dear Hank and John on 99% Invisible. You're both a joy and it's my favorite podcast. Everyone else becomes predictable over time and I stopped listening. I don't have a question. Thank you, pumpkins and penguins." Gillian, or Gillian. I pronounce it like my aunt pronounces

• 36:09John Green?

  it, but you could pronounce it Gillian, which is fine. We also got a great email from Royce that talked me out of ever going skiing again. Royce said, "In the latest episode of the pod, you talked about skiing and snowboarding. I say this from personal experience. You are right to fear it."

• 36:27Hank Green?

  Uh oh.

• 36:28John Green?

  Royce broke their collarbone in seven different places.

• 36:33Hank Green?

  Oh, Royce is bionic now.

• 36:35John Green?

  While, while snowboarding and says, "I strongly recommend you both take your 'and so I haven't done it again' mindset to and 'and so I will never do it again' mindset, lest you end up with a lifelong thing to deal with."

• 36:47Hank Green?

  Yeah. Man, I tell you what.

• 36:49John Green?

  Wait, I have to tell you how, I have to tell you how Royce signs off here.

• 36:53Hank Green?

  Okay.

• 36:53John Green?

  You do not have to ski or snowboard, especially as middle-aged men who aren't, comma, like, comma, in the Olympics.

• 37:05Hank Green?

  Yeah, I don't. I don't. I have so many friends who have plates in their collarbones because of mountain biking that I'm like, why would I mountain bike?

• 37:13John Green?

  Yeah.

• 37:14Hank Green?

  I've seen what it does.

• 37:15John Green?

  Seems to have a 100% collarbone break record. Yeah. Yeah, well, we are middle aged men who aren't comma like comma in the Olympics. So that is worth bearing in mind as we age, Hank.

• 37:29Hank Green?

  Gosh, thank you to our elderly listeners. I hope that you enjoyed Hank Brown as much as the 10 year olds.

• 37:37John Green?

  All right, Hank, it's time for the news from AFC Wimbledon. And I can't say this with enough joy. AFC Wimbledon have won a football game again.

• 37:46Hank Green?

  They're good again.

• 37:47John Green?

  We're good again. We're, I mean, I don't know if we're good again exactly, but we're, we tied Mansfield Town 2-2. We beat Bradford City 3-1, and then we beat Northampton Town 1-0. And so AFC Wimbledon are now not safe, but we only need to win two of our last 12 games to survive.

• 38:06Hank Green?

  That seems doable. That seems doable, especially with this recent record.

• 38:09John Green?

  If you, I mean, it's two, we're in 14th place right now, dead mid table. If we win two games out of our last 12, we're basically guaranteed to stay up. I will say, I took a cheeky little peek at the top of the table yesterday.

• 38:26Hank Green?

  Uh huh.

• 38:26John Green?

  And we're only nine points out of fifth. So.

• 38:30Hank Green?

  Okay.

• 38:31John Green?

  I mean, could we go to the playoffs? No, no.

• 38:34Hank Green?

  But keep that in the, in your sights. Cause remember, there's a reason why those teams down at the bottom are down at the bottom. You're not going to be down there. You don't need to worry about that. You need to be headed for the top.

• 38:44John Green?

  That's right.

• 38:45Hank Green?

  That's what I'm saying to the boys. Are you listening, boys?

• 38:47John Green?

  I know you listen, fellas. Marcus, Isaac, I know you're listening. The, they've been playing great in general, and I've been really happy with the quality of, of the football. We did play Northampton Town, who were down in 23rd place. And as we were playing them, I, and their fans were booing them. I was like, yeah, I mean, they are bad. Like, like League One football in general isn't great, so it can be hard to differentiate between the good teams and the bad teams. But like, when we were playing them, I was like, they're pretty bad. And when we were playing Cardiff City, who are in second place, I was like, they're pretty good. So there is some, there is some rage.

• 39:24Hank Green?

  This is actually different.

• 39:26John Green?

  Yeah.

• 39:27Hank Green?

  Well, John, a news from Mars. Scientists have finally done the thing that we have been waiting for them to do.

• 39:32John Green?

  Oh.

• 39:33Hank Green?

  They have figured out what happens to tardigrades on Mars.

• 39:36John Green?

  Ooh.

• 39:36Hank Green?

  How are you gonna do that?

• 39:38John Green?

  How do they know what happens to tardigrades on Mars?

• 39:40Hank Green?

  Well, we do all this like creation of synthetic Martian dirt. Uh, regolith.

• 39:48John Green?

  Yeah.

• 39:48Hank Green?

  You call it regolith because it's dead. And, uh, and so that's what other planets that don't have life in them call their dirt. And, uh, and so they got samples from the Curiosity Rover. They've like, looked at this stuff. They, they like know what it looks like, what it's made of ish. And so they made it and then they added tardigrades to it to see if they would tolerate the simulated Martian soil.

• 40:09John Green?

  Yes.

• 40:09Hank Green?

  Despite their hardy reputation.

• 40:11John Green?

  Yeah.

• 40:11Hank Green?

  The tardigrades did not do great.

• 40:14John Green?

  Oh, really?

• 40:15Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 40:16John Green?

  They died.

• 40:17Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah. Within two days of being in one of the soils, uh, and this is, I think with water added to them, the tardigrades stopped being active. But when the scientists rinsed the soil with water, freshly added tardigrades tolerated, tolerated the soil a lot better. So they like had to get a bunch of the stuff out of it that's in there. And so there is probably something in the soil that needs to be washed out before you use it, which makes sense because Martian soil, really bad for you. Mark Watney definitely would have died.

• 40:45John Green?

  Mark Watney definitely would have died.

• 40:47Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 40:47John Green?

  That's your position.

• 40:49Hank Green?

  Oh, for sure.

• 40:50John Green?

  Because of the grossness of the soil, even though, even like, even though like the potatoes never would have grown in the first place.

• 40:56Hank Green?

  The potatoes would not have grown, yeah.

• 40:57John Green?

  I see.

• 40:59Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 40:59John Green?

  I see.

• 40:59Hank Green?

  Though they didn't know that. He didn't know, they, we did not know this when they, when they, when he wrote the book. So.

• 41:04John Green?

  Okay.

• 41:04Hank Green?

  I give him a pass.

• 41:05John Green?

  All right. So he's in the clear.

• 41:07Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 41:08John Green?

  All right. Well, Hank, it has been an absolute joy to podcast with you despite your illness, which it always is.

• 41:14Hank Green?

  Sorry for making gross noises sometimes during this one, you guys.

• 41:17John Green?

  No, that's all right. People understand.

• 41:19Hank Green?

  Especially because I.

• 41:20John Green?

  They're just happy you're here.

• 41:21Hank Green?

  I know all the gross noises you guys make. I'm there on your bathroom shelf.

• 41:25John Green?

  Oh, God. This is, I mean, someone someday is going to use this podcast as like, listen, he wanted it to happen.

• 41:34Hank Green?

  To create a marketable product.

• 41:36John Green?

  Yeah, he wanted it to happen and like, we don't have to, we don't have to pay his descendants for it.

• 41:40Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 41:40John Green?

  Uh, we're making a.

• 41:41Hank Green?

  Every spoosh you get a science fact.

• 41:44John Green?

  Every spoosh you get a science fact.

• 41:48John Green?

  Ay yi yi. All right. Thank you for podding with me. Thanks to everybody for listening. This podcast is edited by Linus Obenhouse. We're mixed by Joseph Tuna-Medish. Our marketing specialist is Brooke Shotwell. We're produced by Rosiana Halsrojas and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Devoki Chakravarti. And the music you're hearing now and is beginning of the podcast is by the great Gunarola. Finally, as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.