Pod Insights Dear Hank & John 445: Bring Me My Favorites About this episode Can I get an MRI or go through TSA without setting off alarms after getting a knee replacement? Would chugging a hardcore energy drink kill a medieval peasant? What was the go-to mini-break activity before doom-scrolling? What happened to Soggy Pitch? Where should I bring my parents in Amsterdam? Did you have to face excruciating conversations with your parents when you were teens? How do things survive in the deepest parts of the ocean? …Hank and John Green have answers!
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Hank Green? You're listening to a Complexly podcast.
0:09 Hank Green? Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John.
0:11 John Green? Yours, I prefer to think of it Dear John and Hank.
0:14 Hank Green? It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you abuse advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFS Wimbledon. John, do you know why they call it Chickenpox?
0:22 John Green? No, why?
0:24 Hank Green? Actually, nobody does.
0:26 John Green? Really?
0:27 Hank Green? Yeah, it is up for debate. We're not sure. It might, the most likely reason, and this is the silliest and worst reason, is that the French, at some point, called it Chickenpox after chickpeas, and they would call it their version of Chickpox. Because they looked kind of like chickpeas, but they don't.
0:47 John Green? They don't really look like chickpeas. They're red, for one thing.
0:51 Hank Green? There's also the idea that they look like maybe a chicken pecked you. And there's also the idea, and this is my favorite one, but it's almost certainly not it. It's like smallpox, but it's a chicken.
1:02 John Green? Huh?
1:02 Hank Green? Like it's the wussy version of smallpox.
1:05 John Green? Oh, it's like the chicken version of smallpox. Okay, I can get into that. I, like, they call cowpox cowpox because you got it from cows. They didn't think in the past that you got it from chickens?
1:17 Hank Green? No, no, no, no, they never thought you got it from chickens. That was never a thing.
1:20 John Green? Wow, well.
1:21 Hank Green? Yeah, there is no animal reservoir for Chickenpox, which means it is eradicable.
1:25 John Green? And indeed will be eradicated in the fullness of time because...
1:29 Hank Green? Yeah, I think it will be.
1:30 John Green? We've got a good vaccine for it now, which means that in the future, if you get the Chickenpox vaccine, you won't have to get shingles, which Hank currently has, which is basically a Chickenpox reactivation.
1:40 Hank Green? There is a small chance that you would still get shingles, but it is much less likely. And then, and in the fullness of time, no one will ever get shingles again, because we will get everybody vaccinated and people won't get Chickenpox anymore. And we'll have better and better vaccines and better and better technologies. And we're going to keep doing better things by learning more about our world.
2:00 John Green? And in the fullness of full time, there won't be people. So.
2:06 Hank Green? There will not be no people left to get chickenpox. There will be no chickens left to remember.
2:11 John Green? We'll definitely eradicate chickenpox. It's just the big question is whether we eradicate humans first.
2:16 Hank Green? John, did you know that there are more chickens on earth right now than there have ever been birds?
2:22 John Green? What?
2:23 Hank Green? If you don't count the chickens.
2:25 John Green? Yeah.
2:26 Hank Green? There are, there are fewer birds than there used to be. But if you do count the chickens, just the chickens is more birds than there have ever been.
2:35 John Green? Oh, like 100 years ago? There weren't that many, there weren't as many birds as there currently are chickens?
2:41 Hank Green? There are more chickens right now on the earth than there were dinosaurs at any moment of the reign of the dinosaurs.
2:49 John Green? So on one level, chickens are incredibly successful, but it depends on how you judge success.
2:55 Hank Green? Yes, on a pure population-based assessment, yes.
3:00 John Green? Wow.
3:01 Hank Green? And it is because we, uh, we capture a great deal of energy very efficiently, uh, through agriculture and then put it into chickens.
3:08 John Green? Yeah. Did you know that of all the people who have ever been born,
3:15 John Green? there's only about 16 for each of us who are alive?
3:19 Hank Green? Wow. You know, there was that fact that went around that there are more people alive today than who have, than have ever lived. And that was of course, false. But the fact that there's one of us for every 16, that's pretty good.
3:31 John Green? Yeah. I feel like we spend a lot of time talking about the one and not that much time talking about the 16. This is one of my longstanding problems with humans is that we're incredibly biased toward people who are living. Like we almost exclusively listen to people who are living.
3:43 Hank Green? Yeah, they're the ones who are currently suffering.
3:46 John Green? Whereas we have lots of information about the dead, like we could be listening to Billie Holiday records and reading Shakespeare. But instead we mostly listen to Taylor Swift and read John Green. And I just think that's a mistake.
3:59 Hank Green? There's this idea that I have heard from certain circles and I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on it, John.
4:04 John Green? Yeah.
4:05 Hank Green? That because there are more people alive today, we are doing more, achieving more, accomplishing more, discovering more.
4:11 John Green? Yeah.
4:12 Hank Green? And, and that if our population shrinks in the future, that it will be a big problem because we will not be able to progress as fast because we will be, we will do less, we will discover more, we will achieve more. I have thoughts on this.
4:24 John Green? Well, so the idea then would be that the golden age of humanity is right now when we're at like max innovation.
4:31 Hank Green? Max human population.
4:33 John Green? Yeah. Yeah, I don't buy that at all. I mean, there's, there's a lot of, there's a lot of evidence that that's not true. And like, I think you can see it in artistic, I, yeah, I don't buy that at all.
4:46 Hank Green? That.
4:47 John Green? Yeah. That, that, that, that turns human expression into merely a numbers game, which seems like something that AI people would love.
4:53 Hank Green? And look, if they're worried about the number of thinking entities, I guess they're headed in the right direction where they're just going to create.
5:01 John Green? An infinite number.
5:02 Hank Green? A data center full of, a country full of geniuses in a data center is the phrase that they.
5:09 John Green? Right.
5:10 Hank Green? That they use. Hi-yai. But what, what I will say is it feels, I don't know, like Renaissance Florence had a population of 70,000 people.
5:22 John Green? Yeah, but they killed it.
5:24 Hank Green? And they killed it. So maybe it isn't just a numbers game. Maybe there's something more to it than that. Maybe we aren't allowing people to achieve their full potential.
5:34 John Green? There you go. There's a reason Edmund Halley and Isaac Newton lived in approximately the same place at approximately the same time and it wasn't something in the water.
5:41 Hank Green? No.
5:42 John Green? Yeah, I feel like we should probably answer questions from our listeners since that is ostensibly the point of this podcast, beginning with this one from Nancy who writes, Dear John and Hank, I had a total knee replacement. I now have questions that I'm a little embarrassed to ask the doctor, like, can I have an MRI? And will I set off alarms at the TSA if I fall and break my leg? Is it more likely to break right by the new joint? I'm 63 years old, so I know I'm a bit older than many of your listeners, but hopefully someone else will find this information interesting. Not very fancy, Nancy.
6:11 Hank Green? Nancy.
6:12 John Green? Yeah.
6:12 Hank Green? First of all, thank you for helping us understand that we are a top podcast for all age groups.
6:18 John Green? All age groups.
6:19 Hank Green? Not just for teens. Second, don't, I'm gonna, I'm gonna answer these questions for you.
6:25 John Green? Yeah.
6:25 Hank Green? But these are exactly the kinds of questions you should ask your doctor.
6:30 John Green? Yeah, yeah, I agree.
6:31 Hank Green? Yeah, yeah, there's like really no reason to be at all embarrassed to say, hey, should I be able to get an MRI in the future?
6:37 John Green? Yeah, I mean, this person's seen the inside of your knee joint, for God's sakes. Like, there's nothing to be embarrassed about with them.
6:43 Hank Green? Once, once they've been inside of your knee, that the saying goes.
6:47 John Green? Yep.
6:48 Hank Green? Be free.
6:53 Hank Green? With, with your questions, you shall be free. Um, so, so, so all of these questions are legitimate, good medical questions for a doctor. And I'm sorry that you feel nervous to ask them to your doctor and instead are returning to a top podcast for teens and the elderly. But, uh, I will answer them for you.
7:11 John Green? Whoa, whoa, whoa.
7:13 Hank Green? I'm not saying, I'm not saying that Nancy is the elderly.
7:16 John Green? 63 years old. She is at least two years away from being elderly.
7:22 Hank Green? In addition to teens and in addition to Nancy, also the elderly.
7:27 John Green? Right.
7:29 Hank Green? First of all, you can still get an MRI. Now, you can mention at the MRI tech, there may be some things that they will do because it might mess up the MRI.
7:37 John Green? Yeah, there's some artifacts.
7:39 Hank Green? They've used kind of metal in your knee that that is not going to get like sucked into the MRI. But do mention it and, and you might also feel it a little bit. So I felt it in my teeth. So the, the fillings can feel it a little bit. Uh, that sounds terrible, but was not, it was just a noticeable phenomenon. You might feel it a little bit, it might be a little warm even, which is very strange. Question number two, yes, you will need to let the TSA people know because you may set off the metal detector. And as far as broken bones in the future, really, this is a doctor question.
8:15 John Green? Yeah, I appreciate Hank bowing out on that one.
8:21 John Green? Chat GPT would never, Chat GPT would barrel in confidently.
8:27 John Green? But Hank Green has the humility, just, just.
8:31 Hank Green? Yeah.
8:31 John Green? To say that's a question for your doctor.
8:33 Hank Green? I, I have thoughts on it that I almost said.
8:38 John Green? Now, Hank, we've got a history question from Addie.
8:40 Hank Green? Oh, I'm so excited about this one.
8:43 John Green? Brothers Green. Last night, my partner did an overnight film shoot and decided to drink an energy drink, something they would not normally do. They are really not enjoying their post-energy drink experiences. They, quote, "feel as if someone is holding their eyes open and are just generally jittery and anxious." All this led me to make a joke about how an energy drink would probably kill a medieval peasant. But the more we talk about it, the more we're wondering if it actually might. If an average, healthy, average-sized medieval peasant, who I'm guessing would never have had any kind of caffeine before, chugged a hardcore energy drink, would they be okay? Caffeinated pumpkins and artificial penguins, Addie.
9:22 Hank Green? So, our lovely editorial assistant, Deboki Chakravarti, got on the phone with a medieval historian.
9:31 John Green? Wow.
9:32 Hank Green? To see what the situation would be. And indeed, if this was the medieval period in a number of different countries, people had caffeine. So there's lots of places where caffeine was a thing. But in medieval Europe, during the medieval period, a peasant would have never had caffeine.
9:49 John Green? No exposure to caffeine. They didn't get coffee, if I'm not mistaken, until like 1600. And they didn't get tea until even later than that. And so in this, before the Colombian exchange, before, you know, coffee made its way from Yemen to Europe, there was no caffeine. There was no chocolate. There was no energy drinks. There was no caffeine in Europe.
10:16 Hank Green? Yes. There were, like, royals were starting to get access to it way before a peasant would also. So there were some teas, but it was all luxury goods. So this is not something a peasant would have had access to. Now, our medieval historian emphasized that they would have had access to mind-altering substances, particularly alcohol, plenty in their life, and likely would have been drunk a number of times.
10:42 John Green? But I wouldn't say medieval ale is a stimulant.
10:47 John Green? You know?
10:47 Hank Green? No. Yeah, exact opposite. So they probably would have never had any kind of stimulant. Like, there's no tobacco at this point. Really, it would have been just an alcohol, an alcohol-based or and and or, you know, uh, sensory deprivation, not eating, spinning around, self-flagellation kind of stuff, but also probably not for the medieval peasants. That's a different kind of class of person.
11:13 John Green? Sensory deprivation tanks, that sort of thing. But other than that, there was nothing. To feel something in medieval Europe, you had to spin around 12 times and then try to run in a straight line. That was the only way to feel anything.
11:29 Hank Green? I do like the idea that that getting dizzy is is kind of like drugs for little kids.
11:34 John Green? Yeah.
11:35 Hank Green? And they love it. They're just like, I just want to spin around.
11:38 John Green? And and also like drugs for medieval peasants. It's all they had other than alcohol.
11:43 Hank Green? But this would not have been like a lethal event. It just would have been very emotionally significant. It would have been, it would be, it would be psychologically shocking.
11:56 John Green? It would definitely be the most interesting and surprising day of that medieval peasant's little life.
12:02 Hank Green? Yeah.
12:03 John Green? To just like chug a monster and then just like feel something for like 10 hours.
12:09 Hank Green? Be like, wow. I like I like monster as an emotionally significant event, you know? You don't really think of it that way. But I think I think even upon the first taste, it would be emotionally significant. You know, like having a Coca-Cola even without the caffeine.
12:26 John Green? Yeah, remember, they had very little sugar. And so the sweetness would be a shock. And then the effect, not only have you never had caffeine, none of your community members have ever had caffeine. And so in addition to having this incredibly strange, unprecedented experience, you couldn't explain it to anyone?
12:46 Hank Green? Yeah.
12:47 John Green? Because no one else could ever have it.
12:48 Hank Green? They'd be like, he's been inhabited.
12:51 John Green? Yeah.
12:51 Hank Green? Also, I think that it would be very difficult to get a medieval peasant to drink more than the first sip of a monster. I think they would try it and they would be like, this is gross.
13:04 John Green? They would, they would be so overwhelmed by the sweetness. Again, they, there would be nothing in their, nothing in their lives that was sweeter than honey.
13:11 Hank Green? Like a monster tastes very weird. Like, I just feel like they'd be like, this is like a, like some kind of potion. It tastes bitter, too. There's like a bitterness to a monster. Obviously very sour and very sweet. That, I don't know. I've only had a couple. How many Monster Energy Drinks have you had, John?
13:29 John Green? I'm gonna, I think the over under would be set at one, and I'm not sure who would win.
13:36 Hank Green? I feel like every Monster I've ever had is for a YouTube video.
13:40 John Green? Oh, sacrifices you're willing to make for that career truly impress and horrify me.
13:47 Hank Green? Yeah.
13:47 John Green? So this medieval peasant would not die, but they would have unquestionably the weirdest day of their lives.
13:53 Hank Green? If they got it in them, I think that they would be sweaty and I think that they would be uncomfortable and I think they would be unhappy.
13:59 John Green? Or maybe they would be like, man, I can get so much farming done now.
14:04 Hank Green? Yeah. And, and also I've seen Jesus.
14:10 Hank Green? This next question comes from Emily, who asks, Dear Hank of John, whenever myself or my peers go on their 10 or 15 at work, that's usually the designated doom scrolling time, like immediately phone and hand faces green. What was the go-to mini break activity before this? Was it smoking on a 30 minute 15? Emily. And I'll get back to work. No, sorry.
14:30 John Green? Oh, wow. Yikes.
14:35 John Green? Somebody just put himself on the wrong side of history.
14:40 Hank Green? Do you remember what you did on your 15s, John?
14:43 John Green? Yeah, I smoked. I smoked. I quit smoking, let's see, I quit smoking in 2003 and I quit working in 2005. So I mostly smoked.
14:57 Hank Green? Do you want to know what I remember very specifically? And I don't know how we're all going to feel about this, but I read books.
15:04 John Green? Yep.
15:04 Hank Green? But they were not my books. They were the books that I grabbed from the Walmart where I worked and took into the break room with me.
15:11 John Green? Oh, yeah, you would borrow a book from Walmart. I would often borrow a book. Yeah, as long as you give it back. I would often borrow a book from book list because I was surrounded by books because I worked at a book review journal. And I would read the acknowledgements. So I knew that I didn't have time to like read a whole book on a 15 minute break, but I would read the acknowledgements of a book. And so over the years, I read the, I must have read the acknowledgements of 500 books. When it came time to write the acknowledgements for Looking for Alaska, I was so prepared.
15:42 Hank Green? Wow.
15:43 John Green? And I still think, I mean, I'm not going to say that they're the best part of Looking for Alaska, but I still think there's some good sentences in there.
15:53 Hank Green? Good for you. I do not put enough attention toward the acknowledgements, I'm sure.
15:58 John Green? I don't think I'm going to do them this time.
16:00 Hank Green? No, you acknowledge no one.
16:02 John Green? I think you either have to acknowledge so many people or you acknowledge no one. Because the truth is, writing a book is such a wildly massively collaborative process. There are so many hundreds of people who participate in it. There's no way to thank everyone properly, so I'm thinking of thanking no one.
16:19 Hank Green? Well, I tell you what, I gotta, I'm gonna have some acknowledgements.
16:22 John Green? Oh, yeah, because you're writing a nonfiction book, those require acknowledgements.
16:26 Hank Green? Yeah. I remember very specifically in the break room at Walmart, reading the novelization of The Phantom Menace.
16:35 John Green? Oh, yeah.
16:36 Hank Green? And thinking, I could have done this.
16:40 John Green? Come on now. Those novelizations are not easy work. There's, there's some, there's some difficulty.
16:46 Hank Green? Maybe I wasn't seeing all the craft in there.
16:48 John Green? I don't think you were seeing all the craft.
16:49 Hank Green? I'll tell you what, they were really squeezing out the page number for that book to make it look book length. Like, there was like a hundred words a page.
17:00 John Green? I think Kurt Vonnegut said the best thing about his books was the white space, and I kind of agree with that. White space can go a long way in a book. I think white space is a little underrated these days.
17:10 Hank Green? Man, I would love to, to start some kind of future career of writing really good, short books. There's so many good ones.
17:20 John Green? Like 80 pagers?
17:22 Hank Green? I don't know if, maybe.
17:24 John Green? Yeah. I'm part of a hundred page book club that only reads books that are fewer than a hundred pages.
17:29 Hank Green? Wow, that's cool. I love that.
17:31 John Green? Yeah, we have a great time.
17:33 Hank Green? I want to write one of those. It's hard.
17:36 John Green? Yeah.
17:37 Hank Green? Every time I've ever tried, I, I, I'm, I'm like halfway through the introduction when, when I hit, when I realized like, well, nope, this is gonna be a big old boy.
17:49 John Green? Yeah. I don't have the gift for writing very short books. Looking for Alaska is fairly short, but only because I was so young that I didn't know how to make it any longer.
18:01 Hank Green? Yeah.
18:03 John Green? I was so young when I, that book is 21, Hank. It's old enough to drink.
18:08 Hank Green? Oh, my God.
18:09 John Green? I know.
18:10 Hank Green? We're so old.
18:11 John Green? My most recent novel is nine years old. I haven't written a novel in nine years.
18:16 Hank Green? I'm gonna tell you who I think I should read more of.
18:19 John Green? Okay.
18:20 Hank Green? To get me in this direction and, and then I want you to have your thoughts. But I think I should read like a bunch of Stephen Jay Gould, which I've done. But I don't like done it like in a sort of dedicated, like try and understand what he was really good at kind of way.
18:34 John Green? Yeah. I think you should read Mark Twain. Mark Twain had a great gift for 100 pagers.
18:39 Hank Green? Yeah, yeah. And he wrote a lot of good nonfiction, too.
18:43 John Green? He did.
18:43 Hank Green? Famously very funny guy.
18:45 John Green? He also wrote some bad nonfiction, but he was funny. He was always funny. At the end of his life, Mark Twain was asked, why do you think all the other humorists kind of fell by the wayside and you stayed relevant? And he said, I wasn't kidding. I was preaching. All right, let's move on to this question from Daniel. I think we answered that one. Dear John and Hank, throughout the last year or so of the pod, I have felt that a key character has been missing from the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. And yes, there are folks who listen to the very end. Missing has been one omnipresent companion of AFC Wimbledon's rise to glory. Soggy pitch. Is soggy pitch still making its presence known among third tier English football? Or is John and John is just not talking about it when it happens? Or has the move from Kings Meadow to Plough Lane come with improved drainage capacities? Up the dawns, Daniel, Daniel, great question.
19:31 John Green? So I think it's more the move from the fourth tier of English football to the third tier of English football results in fewer soggy pitches.
19:40 John Green? There have been a couple of soggy pitches this year in the third tier, but none of them, I don't think have affected AFC Wimbledon. There was one game I remember watching where the ball had to be hit very, very hard because it was so wet that the, that the ball just sort of stopped instead of rolling.
19:59 Hank Green? They do do that.
20:00 John Green? It would go as far as it could in the air and then just sort of land with a thud.
20:05 Hank Green? Yep.
20:07 John Green? But they still played that game. You've got to have a really, a properly sogged out pitch to, to get the game canceled. And that's mostly a fourth tier English soccer problem.
20:17 Hank Green? Gotcha. So your pitch is too nice now.
20:20 John Green? Our pitch is pretty nice, although you'll recall that last season it got flooded and turned into like a golf course with a sand trap. So that wasn't great, but yeah, it can still flood.
20:30 Hank Green? That's more than a soggy pitch.
20:32 John Green? That was, that was a proper problem. Yeah, that was, that was a proper issue, but we dealt with it.
20:38 Hank Green? And I'll tell you what, if soggy pitch ever appears in the news from Mars, that'll be a win for everybody.
20:43 John Green? That's great news.
20:44 Hank Green? It's gonna be a big news day.
20:46 John Green? Incredible.
20:48 John Green? Not only have we terraformed Mars, it's raining.
20:50 Hank Green? Yeah, we're playing soccer on it. This next question comes from Emily, who asks, Dear Hank and John, is there a place in Amsterdam that you recommend, like you recommend that hot dog place in Reykjavik? I'm taking my parents there in April, and I need the Icelandic hot dog of Amsterdam. This trip will mark my second night ever spent away from my 1.5 year old. Excited to sleep past 6 a.m., Emily.
21:14 John Green? Emily, I think the most important thing you can do is go to the Faulkner Stars bench.
21:18 Hank Green? Tiffios bench!
21:20 John Green? People say it's the, it's like the Reichs Museum of public benches. Is what people say. It's the Van Dohm Museum of canal-based benches.
21:33 Hank Green? You know, you know, some people might say, how do I know if I found the Tiffios bench? You'll know.
21:38 John Green? You will know.
21:41 Hank Green? It's not, it's, it's not subtle.
21:44 John Green? No, it doesn't, it doesn't look like the other benches of Amsterdam. Because it's extensively graffitied.
21:51 Hank Green? Yeah, it's got like locks locked to it for people's loves.
21:55 John Green? And that's people's eternal love. I wonder how many of those eternal love locks actually work out.
22:00 Hank Green? Some of them, you know?
22:02 John Green? Some of them.
22:02 Hank Green? That's all, that's all that matters.
22:04 John Green? Yeah.
22:04 Hank Green? You know, the, do you think, how long do you think that the Tiffios bench stays the Tiffios bench? Do you think like 100 years?
22:13 John Green? No, not even close. That would be, that would be a massively good outcome.
22:19 Hank Green? I think that there's a chance that the Tiffios bench outlives Tiffios.
22:26 John Green? Oh, that's interesting that like it becomes just the bench where people go to write their little love messages to each other.
22:34 Hank Green? It's a little love bench and like that tradition has a kind of staying power that no media can?
22:41 John Green? Yeah, that's a lovely thought that the last vestige of the Faulkner Stars would be that bench being a place where people express love for each other. That actually really makes me happy to imagine.
22:53 Hank Green? So let's imagine it, but we won't be here to know. I think the Tiffios bench will certainly outlast John Green. He's only got a couple decades left, max.
23:06 John Green? Four, four max. I mean, four, four would be an incredibly good outcome.
23:12 Hank Green? Oh, if we're talking about max, John, you gotta allow for the possibility that the crazies are right.
23:18 John Green? Oh, yeah. And that we end up living for 500 years. I mean, you might end up living for 500 years. Ain't gonna be me, buddy.
23:23 Hank Green? God, no. I, I mean, which one of us is the sickly one, John? Well, not you.
23:30 John Green? I mean, you say that you're not the sickly one, but I am pretty sickly. It's just that you got cancer one time and shingles thrice. That's all. Other than that, you're not that sickly.
23:40 Hank Green? I'm so sickly. I know I'm not sick all the time, but when you're sick, it feels like you're sick all the time.
23:45 John Green? Yeah, it is. It's all encompassing.
23:47 Hank Green? When you've been sick for like, for like 10 days, it's just like, I guess, I guess I'm just like a terrible, useless downstairs bed man. Cause I'm sleeping in the downstairs bed.
23:59 John Green? Yeah. Which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by terrible, useless downstairs bed man. Terrible, useless downstairs bed man. He doesn't get enough love.
24:09 Hank Green? Why would you even let him in your house? This podcast is also brought to you by being afraid of your doctor. Being afraid of your doctor, normal, but surmountable.
24:19 John Green? And today's podcast is brought to you by that medieval peasant who just drank a monster.
24:27 John Green? Dang, they're feeling good and bad at the same time.
24:33 Hank Green? And also this podcast is brought to you by the novelization of Star Wars, The Phantom Menace. The novelization of the Star Wars Phantom Menace movie. Somebody did that and then somebody took it to the Walmart break room with them. This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by Quince. I do very much like opening up my closet and finding an item that I know is gonna be both comfortable and I'm just gonna look good in it. It's gonna go well with my khakis or my jeans or my third kind of pant that I, I have like a, or like a pair of orange pants. Just things that make getting dressed easier. And that's what Quince does best. Quince focuses on high quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cash. Organic cotton and merino wool.
25:17 Hank Green? 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. 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.
26:02 Hank Green? 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.
26:20 John Green? Dear Hank and John is brought to you by NoCD. So you may know that I've had obsessive compulsive disorder since I was a kid, but I was only diagnosed as an adult. I lived with intrusive thoughts and the compulsive behaviors I used to manage those intrusive thoughts for many years without treatment. OCD is not just anxiety. If you have those what-if intrusive thoughts and you cannot close the loop on them and you find yourself in thought spirals, you might have OCD. And it's not the organizing stereotype you've heard. It's a persistent, unwanted series of intrusive thoughts that feel totally out of character along with mental or physical behaviors that you feel driven to to get relief, even when that relief never actually comes.
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27:46 John Green? All right, let's answer this question from Amber who writes, Dear John and Hank, I'm an 18-year-old driver who recently received my first parking ticket. My meter expired. It was totally my fault, and now I have to pay $107. Jesus. That's some meter.
28:00 Hank Green? They should stop making the meters out of gold.
28:02 John Green? Yeah, when I was a kid, if you got a parking ticket in Gambier, Ohio, where I went to college, it was $5. And then parking itself was like a dollar. And so you could almost take the risk, but $107, you can't take the risk. Anyway, I've been dreading telling my parents, as I know they'll be furious. Well, hopefully, they won't be furious. I'm weighing whether I should bribe them with baked goods beforehand to soften the blow or just rip the Band-Aid off. Anyway, my question is, did either of you have to face similarly excruciating conversations as teens? And do you have any advice for facing my own pumpkins and parking violations? Amber?
28:35 Hank Green? Oh, my gosh. Okay, I have two things I want to say. First, do you know how much a parking ticket is in Missoula, Montana?
28:41 John Green? How much?
28:42 Hank Green? $0 for your first one.
28:44 John Green? Whoa.
28:45 Hank Green? How much do you think the second one is?
28:48 John Green? $25.
28:49 Hank Green? $5.
28:53 John Green? Amber, you gotta move to Missoula.
28:56 Hank Green? And it is. It's a dollar an hour.
28:59 John Green? Right.
29:00 Hank Green? Which is, which is like, when I moved here, it was 25 cents an hour.
29:03 John Green? Yeah.
29:04 Hank Green? So crazy, crazy times. Second, I did something so much worse. And I will say, as a dad, being, having my child bribe me with baked goods would be so delightful.
29:20 John Green? Oh, it would go so far.
29:21 Hank Green? It would go so far. I would never have thought this as a child, that this would matter. But as an adult, as a parent, I'm like, yeah, yeah, bring me my favorites.
29:33 John Green? Yeah, and then you can like, sit them down in front of banana bread or whatever and say, I know, I know you've been wondering why this banana bread is here. It's because I got a $107 parking ticket. I'm really sorry.
29:46 Hank Green? And it's gonna be so much less scary than what it might otherwise have been.
29:52 John Green? Yeah, I agree. I agree. I definitely did stuff like this as a kid. I mean, first off, my parents would have been thrilled if the worst thing I did when I was 18 was get a parking ticket. They would have been thrilled.
30:07 Hank Green? I sped through a school zone. I got pulled over.
30:10 John Green? You sped in a school zone?
30:12 Hank Green? Got pulled over. It's a double ticket. See, so in the school zone, you get times two in Orlando. Back then it was $637.
30:19 John Green? Oh my god.
30:21 Hank Green? In the 90s.
30:23 John Green? Yeah.
30:24 Hank Green? It was that, it was, it was more money than I had ever had in my bank account at that time.
30:32 John Green? It was like, what, what a Nintendo cost.
30:34 Hank Green? Yeah, and all way more.
30:36 John Green? With several games.
30:37 Hank Green? Wow. And, and I had to have that conversation with mom and dad and I was in a lot of trouble. And I was so scared the whole time, like from the moment the lights went on.
30:53 John Green? Right.
30:53 Hank Green? Behind the car to like days later.
30:57 John Green? Yeah.
30:58 Hank Green? Yeah. It was so much money.
31:01 John Green? That's a tough one. That's a tough conversation to have. But the thing is, your parents will hopefully be supportive.
31:06 Hank Green? Mom was much more angry when me and a girl ran out of gas and I had to call her in like, at like 11 o'clock at night to come rescue us and I was wearing makeup.
31:17 John Green? She still tells that story. I don't think the issue was the wearing of the makeup. I think it was that it was 11 o'clock. Probably didn't help, but it was 11 o'clock at night on like a Friday. And you run out of gas, which is, is an amateur move unless you are truly broke.
31:32 Hank Green? Oh man, it is the kind of, the kind of amateur move. I was making a lot. I was a really a $5 a time kind of gas guy.
31:40 John Green? Yeah, but maybe that's fine if it's because you're broke. It's not if fine if you're like, oh, I'd like to save time and I'm getting bored pumping gas, so I'm gonna stop at $5.
31:49 Hank Green? It was, it was in my head about saving, about like not wanting to have a lower amount of money in the account, but. I don't know, man.
31:58 John Green? I don't know. At any rate, you're gonna be okay, Ember, but do bribe them with baked goods. That feels like a bad idea, but it's actually a good idea.
32:05 Hank Green? Yes, you can do this. You've made one small mistake and everybody forgets to pay for parking sometimes.
32:12 John Green? All right, Hank, I have a question for you from Nevada who writes, Dear John and Hank, how are there fish and other creatures that can survive in the deepest parts of the ocean? Like, how are they moving around with all that pressure? If humans can't even travel down there with all the technology we have without being crushed to death by the pressure, how are there fish literally swimming around? Are they made of jello and they're jiggling so freely eight kilometers down in the water? What's happening? Shrimply confused, Nevada.
32:37 Hank Green? John.
32:38 John Green? Yeah.
32:39 Hank Green? This is one of my favorite facts and I'm so glad that it came up organically.
32:42 John Green? I know. I highlighted this question because I knew it would give you a chance to tell me your favorite fact that you've told me a million times before, but tell it to me again.
32:50 Hank Green? The ocean is too deep for fish.
32:52 John Green? It's too deep for fish.
32:54 Hank Green? The fish cannot go all the way down.
32:56 John Green? The fish cannot even go most of the way down in some places.
32:59 Hank Green? The fish can go most of the way down.
33:01 John Green? Oh, how far down can they go?
33:04 Hank Green? So the deepest a fish can go, I think, let me make sure with my numbers here, 8,000 meters. And I think that the deepest spot in the ocean is 11,000 meters. Now I have to check that number. Yes, I was right.
33:18 John Green? So there's 3,000 meters of ocean, like the Marianas Trench or whatever.
33:23 Hank Green? Yeah.
33:24 John Green? That cannot be inhabited by fish because of water pressure?
33:28 Hank Green? Because of water pressure, yeah.
33:29 John Green? Wow.
33:30 Hank Green? But not in the way that you would think. So the reason that they can go down to 8,000 feet is because they don't, they just have water in them and water outside of them. And so the water pressure on the inside is very high, the water pressure on the outside is very high to a fish. That's the same. Now for us, that's not the case because we have a bunch of air inside of us. It's got air in our heads, it's got sinuses, we've got air in our lungs. Obviously, this creates a lot of problems at depth where that, that air is used to having air pushing on it a certain amount. And if you're pushing more on it, then it's squeezing that and it's very compressible. Water is not very compressible. In fact, you might think that it's not compressible at all, which is a thing that we say.
34:11 John Green? Yeah.
34:11 Hank Green? That water is not compressible because it mostly isn't, but eventually it becomes kind of compressible and water, like the water changes shape.
34:20 John Green? No.
34:22 Hank Green? Yeah, and this is when it becomes a problem for fish. So proteins expect water to act a certain way. But but at increasingly high pressures, the water starts to behave differently. And thus, the proteins do not behave correctly. The they like fold incorrectly. And this is why like it isn't just a fish problem. It's it's, you know, fish are sort of tap out earlier than than some more complicated animals. But like, there's no complicated animals low down because like the protein chemistry just doesn't work correctly. And you kind of can't have, as far as we can tell, like nobody, nobody, they had a lot of time to try and evolve to live down there.
35:05 John Green? Yeah.
35:06 Hank Green? And and complex life has not, like, big multicellular life has not figured out how to live at the full depth of the ocean, which is crazy.
35:17 John Green? Yeah.
35:18 Hank Green? So so it's it's less really, from what I understand, it's less about the actual pressure, and it is more that the pressure causes water to behave differently. So proteins kind of can't do their job right.
35:30 John Green? All right, Hank, before we get to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, I need to read this response from Pablo, who writes, Dear John and Hank, I hate to be that guy, but even though the overall explanation given by Hank of the water cycle was correct, I would be remiss, and frankly, I'm surprised this did not come up, if I did not mention that since Jesus's birth and the current day, there is not the exact same amount of water, because somewhere around 100 to 150 gallons of water are missing because they were turned into wine. I understand why Hank missed this.
36:06 John Green? But John? Anyway, I enjoy your top podcasts for guys roughly about your age and encourage you to keep up the good work, not Picasso, Naruto, or Escobar. Pablo. Pablo, this is such a good point, and I can't believe that I failed to note it.
36:25 John Green? Hank was about to jump in with a scientific explanation, but there is no scientific explanation for that plain, unambiguous miracle.
36:32 Hank Green? What do you think wine is?
36:35 John Green? I think wine is mostly water, but not entirely.
36:38 Hank Green? That's right. So it's not that many gallons.
36:42 John Green? It's true. It's not 150 gallons. It's-
36:44 Hank Green? A fraction of the 150 gallons was turned into tannins and alcohols and esters and all the stuff that wine is.
36:51 John Green? Yeah. Yeah. But some water was turned into some stuff that isn't water. And that changed the amount of water in the atmosphere.
37:00 Hank Green? You know, I think that-
37:02 John Green? And we missed it.
37:03 Hank Green? I think that stuff, honestly, if I'm understanding the chemistry of Jesus's miracles correctly, I bet that stuff didn't come from the water. It probably came from the, probably came from the, the container or the air or something like that.
37:20 John Green? Well, Hank, the Bible's pretty specific that he turned water into wine, not the container of water into wine.
37:27 Hank Green? Now, here's a question. If I put Gatorade powder into water, did I turn water into Gatorade? Yes.
37:35 John Green? I guess he did. I guess he did. All right. Well, AFC Wimbledon lost.
37:41 Hank Green? So not only am I comparing myself to Mark Twain.
37:44 John Green? You're now comparing yourself to Jesus.
37:46 Hank Green? Cause I commit Gatorade.
37:49 John Green? Oh, AFC Wimbledon lost, Hank. We lost 4-2, but there were two goals from 18-year-old Starboy Junior in Kang, who looks to be-
37:57 Hank Green? Say those words again? Starboy Junior in Kang?
38:00 John Green? Starboy Junior in Kang. His, his name is not Starboy. That would be amazing.
38:06 John Green? His name is Junior in Kang.
38:08 Hank Green? He's a star boy?
38:10 John Green? Oh, he is a star. He is an absolute star. Every time he's on the ball, I, I hold my breath because his dribbling ability, his ability to find space, it's just amazing. And he's only 18. And I just hope we have him on a long-term contract.
38:24 Hank Green? Why, why the word boy? Is that a thing that people say in soccer?
38:29 John Green? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You say that like really promising young players are star boys.
38:32 Hank Green? Star boys.
38:33 John Green? Star boys? Now that you say it, it sounds weird.
38:36 Hank Green? I wanna read that manga.
38:38 John Green? Well, yeah, now that you say it, it sounds weird, but when I say it, it sounds fine. Anyway.
38:43 Hank Green? I like the idea that he just had a lot of names and the first one was Starboy, but-
38:47 John Green? Yeah, Starboy Junior in Kang.
38:50 Hank Green? It implies that his dad is also named Starboy and he's Starboy Junior.
38:53 John Green? Starboy Senior in Kang, yeah. I mean, he is incredible, though, and we lost 4-2. We defended terribly. I mean, in general, we played not a very good game, but Junior and Kang looked so good. And that gives me hope. We have 49 points. We need probably, I mean, that's, that's probably enough. But to guarantee survival, we need one more win and we have 12 games in which to get it.
39:18 Hank Green? I feel good about that.
39:20 John Green? That should be doable.
39:22 Hank Green? Are you playing any of the bad teams?
39:24 John Green? We're playing a few of the bad teams.
39:25 Hank Green? That sounds great.
39:26 John Green? We've still got to play the worst team at home and so surely we can beat them and then we'll be good.
39:33 Hank Green? Yeah, you should go to that game.
39:34 John Green? Now, the question is, can, is there any way we can still make the playoffs and become a second tier English soccer team? And the answer is yes, but only if we win all of our remaining games, which is a stretch, but you never, a kid can dream.
39:48 Hank Green? And he will.
39:49 John Green? And he will. What's the news from Mars?
39:52 Hank Green? This, not a lot.
39:55 John Green? Oh, not much going on.
39:57 Hank Green? We're starting to suffer from the, uh, the, the, everything is not going the same speed as it once was because we've scaled back on some things as a country.
40:09 John Green? Investments, yeah.
40:12 Hank Green? So I guess, Artemis update, we're on track for an April 1st launch. Now, should we be doing that? Should, should we schedule launches for the, the Fool's Day? I don't know. That seems a little bit asking for it, but.
40:28 John Green? But we're going to the moon on April 1st or going around the moon.
40:31 Hank Green? We're gonna start our journey to the moon on April 1st theoretically. And these poor astronauts, hopefully we'll get to stop waiting and launch and do the thing.
40:42 John Green? I would find that so stressful.
40:44 Hank Green? I would also. I would be pooping the whole time.
40:47 John Green? I would find it so stressful when they're like, hey, uh, there's a little problem with the rocket fuel. But, so you're not going to get in this ship today, but you're going to get in the ship in six weeks. That's the kind of uncertainty that this brain doesn't love.
41:04 Hank Green? Yeah, yeah. It's like, uh, it's like emceeing an event on steroids. You know, you're like always ready to go on. He's like, ah, this is the part that I like the least is being always ready.
41:17 John Green? Yep. Yep. It's like you're backstage the entire time.
41:20 Hank Green? But I've met astronauts and they're not like us.
41:23 John Green? No, no, indeed. I had an astronaut tell me a story pretty calmly of the time that she basically had to like go through the emergency protocols. And I was like, how do you handle that? And she was like, oh, you just go through it. And I'm like, yeah, but there's the, there's the feeling of dread and the surge of adrenaline. And she was like, well, you just, you don't let that control you. And I'm like, maybe you don't.
41:50 Hank Green? I mean, there is really something to be said. And I say this to all people who have been through, uh, true terrors of uncertainty for following a procedure. If someone can give me a procedure, it is very helpful. And yeah, just sort of like, tell me what the path is and I'll stay on the path. And they're and, and like, and also tell me that the parts where I'm doing nothing is part of the path. Because like, right. Oh, I'm doing the thing I'm supposed to be doing, which is nothing. I'm just waiting. This is the waiting part where we wait.
42:20 John Green? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I'm a big believer in checklists. Like, I think that there's a reason why checklists are so effective. Yeah, NASA is a big believer in them. Commercial aviation is a big believer in them.
42:34 Hank Green? Oh, yeah.
42:35 John Green? And I'm a big fan of those industries because they do a good job of quality control because the stakes are high. So, yeah, I'm a big believer in checklists, big believer in getting an itinerary. And sometimes you're right. Sometimes it's just waiting. Some that's part of it.
42:53 Hank Green? It's part of it.
42:55 John Green? All right. Well, Hank, thank you for podding with me. Thanks to everybody for listening. We appreciate your questions so much. You can email us at [email protected] .
43:05 John Green? Oh, that was good. It's like, uh, [email protected] . I think I can do it too.
43:13 Hank Green? So, so I'm done. You'll hear it.
43:15 John Green? [email protected] .
43:18 Hank Green? See? It's just like that.
43:19 John Green? People listening to us on 2XV just had a hell of an experience.
43:25 Hank Green? Who would do that?
43:28 John Green? Who would speed up this magnificent oral experience?
43:34 Hank Green? Well, you're not, you're not trying to like get the information.
43:39 Hank Green? Nonfiction audiobook.
43:43 Hank Green? Hopefully you're just having a nice little time.
43:45 John Green? Yeah, yeah.
43:47 Hank Green? Top podcasts for people who want to just have a nice little time. This podcast is edited by Bridget Kennison. It's mixed by Joseph Tunametish. Our marketing specialist is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosyana Halsrojas and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Deboki Chakravarti. The music you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gunarola. And as they say in our hometown.
44:08 John Green? Don't forget to be awesome.
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