470: Which Way is Up?

How do you fall back in love with writing or reading? What causes baby teeth to come in? What are the odds I got a unique signature in my copy of “Hollywood, Ending”? What do YouTubers do when they stop making videos? If a human was teleported to Titan how would they die? …Hank and John Green have answers! If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [email protected] Join us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn Produced for Hank and John Green by Complexly See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:01Hank Green?

  You're listening to a Complexly podcast.

• 0:09Hank Green?

  Good morning, John. Oh, that's not how the podcast starts. Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John.

• 0:14John Green?

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

• 0:16Hank Green?

  It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you dubious advice and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, you know, I used to hate mustaches, but then they started growing on me.

• 0:28John Green?

  That's a little funny.

• 0:29Hank Green?

  Okay, okay. For us, I don't, I don't know when this episode comes out, but for us, it's still Pizzamas.

• 0:35John Green?

  I think it will still be Pizzamas while this episode comes out. We're in a weird moment, Hank, because we're making videos back-

• 0:42Hank Green?

  Oh, really?

• 0:43John Green?

  Well, I mean, yes, broadly speaking, but also on a micro level, because we're making videos back and forth every day, but also I'm on the road for Hollywood Ending.

• 0:52Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 0:53John Green?

  So I'm filming videos in hotel rooms and whatnot, but I have to tell you, I'm in Pittsburgh right now.

• 0:59Hank Green?

  Uh huh.

• 0:59John Green?

  Very excited to perform in Pittsburgh this evening. And I am in a hotel that is a very meta experience for me, because on the first page of Hollywood Ending, Juniper says that Pittsburgh is not a city known for its hotels, but that Matthew Malone had found the good one.

• 1:16Hank Green?

  Uh huh.

• 1:16John Green?

  And I am staying in that hotel.

• 1:18Hank Green?

  You're in the good one.

• 1:19John Green?

  I'm in the good one. I'm in the hotel that I stayed in, in like 2015.

• 1:25Hank Green?

  Wow.

• 1:25John Green?

  And was like, oh, this is a good hotel. Maybe I'll use it in a book someday. And now, and now I'm back.

• 1:30Hank Green?

  For your book tour. I mean, I'm looking at it. It looks fairly typical.

• 1:34John Green?

  Well, I'm not in a suite. So the last time I was here, I was put up in a very nice suite. I believe it was called the Tea Room.

• 1:42Hank Green?

  The Tea Room.

• 1:43John Green?

  And it had a tea theme. And it was very fancy.

• 1:46Hank Green?

  You were just telling me that you were in the, you were in the Watergate Hotel at, and you got upgraded into the Presidential Suite.

• 1:52John Green?

  I stayed in the Presidential Suite in the Watergate Hotel, which is maybe a dubious honor, given what happened at the Watergate Hotel.

• 1:58Hank Green?

  I feel like they shouldn't have one of those. I feel like they-

• 2:00John Green?

  Maybe a Prime Minister Suite.

• 2:03Hank Green?

  Yeah, it's like having a 413. Just don't do it.

• 2:06John Green?

  Yeah.

• 2:07Hank Green?

  You got options?

• 2:08John Green?

  I have stayed in really nice hotels. I've also stayed in some less nice hotels. But I'm enjoying myself on tour very much. I'm so grateful to everyone who's come out to the tour. It's been so special, Hank. I wish that you could be at more than one stop, but it'll be great to see you in San Diego and great to see Los Angeles, great to end the tour in Los Angeles. I'm just really excited. So if you, if you, there are still tickets available to a few cities, so check it out at HollywoodEndingBook.com and also order your book. And go to Pizzamas.com to get all your Pizzamas gear. We've got so much promo to do this week.

• 2:38Hank Green?

  If people are wondering, Hank, why didn't you go to your brother's book release?

• 2:43John Green?

  Yeah.

• 2:43Hank Green?

  Event? That seems like a thing you would do. Why on earth would you not be supporting him in that way? Well, ask yourself why John would schedule his book release for my 20th anniversary with my wife.

• 2:57John Green?

  Oh, it's nice of you to think that I scheduled the book release.

• 3:02Hank Green?

  Yeah. So we were out of, we, we did not have the power to make this work the way that we would have wanted it to, but I had a lovely 20th anniversary with Catherine.

• 3:10John Green?

  Good. I'm really glad you had a great 20th anniversary. I had a good book launch. No, I was, I was like, can we launch it on September 29th? And they were like, no, Grisham. And I was like, what about September 15th? And they were like, nope, Jodi Picoult. And I was like, all right, well, I'll be on Hank's 20th anniversary then.

• 3:29Hank Green?

  Back, back, back in the day, they didn't care when you released your book. You could do it on a Grisham Day.

• 3:34John Green?

  That's true. Back in the day, they did not care one little bit.

• 3:39Hank Green?

  Just do it on a Grisham Day. Lots of people are doing it on Grisham Days.

• 3:43John Green?

  That's right.

• 3:43Hank Green?

  He only, he owns like a fourth of the days already.

• 3:47John Green?

  He, he doesn't have that many books come out. James Patterson owns a fourth of the days.

• 3:50Hank Green?

  That's the one. I get the impression that Patterson might not be writing all those books.

• 3:55John Green?

  Oh, he very openly is not writing all those books. You want to hear a great joke my uncle Bill told me?

• 4:01Hank Green?

  Uh huh.

• 4:02John Green?

  All right. So John Grisham calls up James Patterson and James Patterson's wife answers and says, James can't come to the phone right now. He's writing a book. And John Grisham says, I'll hold.

• 4:17Hank Green?

  Cause he's about to be done.

• 4:19John Green?

  He's always about to be done.

• 4:21Hank Green?

  And then his wife says, I'm sorry to tell you this, but he's actually been dead for 40 years.

• 4:28John Green?

  Is that your idea of a James Patterson plot?

• 4:30Hank Green?

  No, no, that's my idea of, of, as far as I know, that man's, that man's not been writing any books for 40 years.

• 4:37John Green?

  Wait, you think James Patterson is dead and you think he hasn't-

• 4:40Hank Green?

  He might be dead. Michael Crichton had a bunch of books come out after he died.

• 4:43John Green?

  Oh, yeah. No, Tom Clancy too. In fact, it is explicitly stated in my will, and this should be in your will, Hank, since you now have a will, thanks to the hard work and bullying of Dear Hank and John listeners.

• 4:53Hank Green?

  Yes.

• 4:54John Green?

  It is explicitly in my will that you're not allowed to do that.

• 4:58Hank Green?

  Oh, you're not allowed to publish a John Green book after John? But what if there's like, one that's like 90% of the way there?

• 5:03John Green?

  Then you can publish it.

• 5:05Hank Green?

  Oh, okay.

• 5:07John Green?

  But if it's-

• 5:07Hank Green?

  No work though. Just as written.

• 5:09John Green?

  Yeah. Yeah. Like the way I've, you know, I'm-

• 5:12Hank Green?

  You're not gonna, you're not gonna let me do a Last Pass?

• 5:15John Green?

  No, no. I almost compared myself just now to F. Scott Fitzgerald, but then I stopped myself. Um, I want to be clear that in saying this, I'm not comparing myself to F. Scott Fitzgerald, but he wrote The Last Tycoon and it was published unfinished and everything was fine. Hank, we have some questions from our listeners that we need to get to, beginning with this one from Anon, who writes Dear Hank and John, but mostly John, because I just saw you at the Bookmarks Festival, which was amazing. Thank you. And I've been mulling over something you said there. You said you fell out of love with writing fiction and then you fell in love again. How? I'm a librarian for Small Humans and I've fallen out of love with reading of all things. This presents a few professional problems, as you can imagine, but I also miss experiencing in my own life, the excitement that I see little patrons find in books. So how did you find your way back? Pumpkins, Penguins,

• 5:57John Green?

  et cetera, lost in the library. Hank, have you ever fallen out of love with writing fiction?

• 6:03Hank Green?

  Um, I mean, I have been really annoyed by it.

• 6:07John Green?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 6:11Hank Green?

  So I don't know if that's exactly the same thing, but there, there are definitely times where I am doing it out of obligation to my editor or the characters.

• 6:21John Green?

  Right.

• 6:21Hank Green?

  Or my future self, you know? But-

• 6:25John Green?

  Yeah. I think that is actually how we fall back in love is with being quite disciplined.

• 6:32Hank Green?

  Just doing it.

• 6:32John Green?

  And so taking out, taking out our free app Focus Friend, for instance, and saying, I'm gonna set a 45 minute timer here and read for 45 minutes. And that's how you fall back in love with reading. And I found that's how I fell back in love with writing fiction was by doing it. There was no other way. There was no way to think my way back into loving it. There was only working my way back into it.

• 6:51Hank Green?

  I mean, this sounds so egotistical, but one of the ways that I do it is I like read a part of the book that I think is good. And I'm like, well, I did that. And in order for that to get published, I have to keep doing this.

• 7:04John Green?

  Right.

• 7:07John Green?

  It's nice that you have sections that you're happy with. What is that like?

• 7:14John Green?

  Everyone's been so nice about Hollywood Ending, but of course, I'm not hearing anything that they're saying. I'm only looking for the bad things.

• 7:21Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 7:22John Green?

  That, that confirms what I know to be true about myself, which is that I'm a complete imposter. But I am very grateful to everyone who's been so nice.

• 7:29Hank Green?

  Yeah, I haven't seen, I haven't seen any bad reviews myself.

• 7:32John Green?

  Oh, you gotta look carefully, Hank.

• 7:34Hank Green?

  If you're working hard, you can find them, I guess.

• 7:37John Green?

  Yeah, I have a problem with self-esteem. And it goes back to when I was like 11 years old, and it's still a problem. But to get back to this problem of loving reading, I think you have to practice reading to fall back in love with reading. And I've had this experience myself where partly because I needed bifocals, I didn't read as much

• 8:01Hank Green?

  Interesting.

• 8:01John Green?

  Between the ages of like 45 and 47, and partly because I was so obsessed with what was happening inside my phone. And then I fell back in love with it. I'll even give you a book recommendation to help you fall back in love with it.

• 8:15Hank Green?

  Hollywood Ending by John Green.

• 8:17John Green?

  That's a good one, Hank. I've heard good things about it.

• 8:20Hank Green?

  I mean, I also, one, one thing that I've found is I can get like genre stuck, where I'm like, I'm the kind of person who reads this kind of genre. And then I kind of like, I read like my fifth book in that genre in a row. And I'm like, I don't know. That wasn't that great. And it turns out I just need to like read something very different. So I would-

• 8:38John Green?

  Do you think about genre when you're writing? This was my first time thinking about genre when I was writing.

• 8:43Hank Green?

  Not when I'm writing. I mean, I've been trying to, I'm trying to write a mystery, which is like-

• 8:49John Green?

  Yeah.

• 8:49Hank Green?

  Hard as hell.

• 8:50John Green?

  So hard.

• 8:52Hank Green?

  I had no idea. And so I'm thinking about genre when I'm writing that, but I didn't think at all about genre when I was writing my, my first two books.

• 9:00John Green?

  Yeah. I mean, I thought a little bit, when I was writing The Fault in Our Stars, I thought a little bit about the genre of cancer books and how much I was troubled by them.

• 9:07Hank Green?

  Wanted to move outside of that frame. Yeah.

• 9:10John Green?

  Yeah. And you always want to, everyone wants to do that, right? You're writing from inside the confines of a genre, but you're also pushing against those confines. And that's what makes it interesting.

• 9:19Hank Green?

  Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I really had a, I mean, I read obviously a lot of science fiction. So I had a good time writing what I, I felt like was not a science fiction book. That was of course nonetheless, science fiction.

• 9:29John Green?

  It was pretty science fictiony to me.

• 9:31Hank Green?

  Yeah, I bet it was. It's, I've been getting a lot of like notes on A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor lately. People being like, oh, I just read this book and it is relevant. So-

• 9:43John Green?

  Hank?

• 9:44Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 9:44John Green?

  With all the love in the world, we're already promoting Hollywood Ending and Pizzamas. We don't have time for your books right now. Next week. Hank.

• 9:55Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 9:56John Green?

  This question is from Catherine. She asks, what causes baby teeth to come in? Are they ready the whole time and are just waiting for a signal? Why is the timeline so different from baby to baby? My daughter just turned one and it's only hitting me now how bizarre teeth are. I must know the tooth, Catherine. It is so bizarre. How do baby teeth happen, Hank? That is so like of the things that are weird about humans.

• 10:17Hank Green?

  It is.

• 10:17John Green?

  And they are endless. That seems like a very teeth are very weird.

• 10:20Hank Green?

  Yeah, yeah. So baby teeth are like they they're starting to develop even before birth. Um, so they're like up in there. But then they continue, they continue to develop and uh, and we have a pretty good idea of like the biochemical pathways involved here. So like we, we know that there's these growth signals and there's like areas that are doing stuff and like tearing down bone and remodeling bone. And we know that stuff. But as far as how like that is timed and why it happens at different times in different babies, we can look like the, the macro scale and be like, well, if babies are bigger when they're born, their baby teeth tend to come in sooner.

• 10:58John Green?

  Hmm.

• 10:58Hank Green?

  But is, but like, as far as the like genetic and biochemical ways that the, that the actual like all of the stuff is timed for like when it is released, we do not. We do not have a good idea of this. I think that it's important to say, maybe right now more than in the last few years, the human body is like way, way more stuff we don't know than we do.

• 11:27John Green?

  Also, the universe and in general, I think we need to lean in more as a species to, we don't know almost everything rather than we have figured out almost everything.

• 11:38Hank Green?

  Yeah, there's this idea that like we have all the data and if we could just like line it up correctly, we'd have a periodic table of everything. That's not the situation. We are, we have so much more to learn and, and the body is particularly very confusing. Like there's something about like the universe that's confusing at like the root levels, but the body is confusing at every level. And so we, we have a lot to learn and that's, that's not like, it's not things that we haven't thought through. It's data that we don't have. It's experiments we haven't done. So like figuring out all these biochemical pathways that are involved in the, the breaking

• 12:18Hank Green?

  down and remodeling of bone in the baby jaw is all just really hard, slow work that we have done over the last decades. But figuring out how it's all timed and what controls that is just, it's like a couple of levels deeper than our current level of understanding.

• 12:36John Green?

  Right, right. You know, being on the road is such a weird experience because you spend so much time in airports and on airplanes and traveling and you're in a different hotel every night. And it's just sort of like disembodies you in some way. And then also like when you're actually on stage, you don't feel like you're inside of your body at all. You feel like you're, you know, hopefully like connected with the people who are also in the room with you, but like mostly just like, I feel like I'm floating up in the sky.

• 13:01Hank Green?

  Yeah, it's, it's otherworldly.

• 13:03John Green?

  And not in a bad way, just in a specific way.

• 13:06Hank Green?

  There's like no mental resources left to be a being.

• 13:10John Green?

  Yeah, exactly. And so on the road, my mantra uh, has been, you're a mammal.

• 13:18Hank Green?

  Hmm.

• 13:19John Green?

  So I'll be on an airplane and I'll feel a little uncomfortable. I'll be like, of course you feel uncomfortable. You're a mammal who's 35,000 feet above the ground.

• 13:26Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 13:27John Green?

  You're the first mammal ever to be 35,000 feet above the ground. No wonder this feels weird.

• 13:31Hank Green?

  Yeah, you're not supposed to sit this much. You're supposed to be, supposed to be gathering, supposed to be out there walking around, hanging around.

• 13:40John Green?

  On cave walls.

• 13:41Hank Green?

  Talking to people, braiding rope. You know, making cordage. That's what you're really supposed to be doing.

• 13:46John Green?

  Making a lot of cordage and then, you know, grinding up some meal.

• 13:52Hank Green?

  Yeah, you gotta grind for sure. Doing a lot of grinding.

• 13:54John Green?

  A lot of grinding. Yeah, that's what I'm supposed to be doing, Hank, but instead of sitting in a hotel room in Pittsburgh.

• 14:00Hank Green?

  It's a nice hotel. Matthew Malone found it.

• 14:03John Green?

  No wonder I feel weird all the time, right? I'm supposed to be a hunter gatherer for God's sakes and I'm 22 stories above, above the ground right now.

• 14:12Hank Green?

  Things are better in many, many ways.

• 14:15John Green?

  Oh, they're better at all. Aren't they better in every way? Is there a way, I guess like we were a little more socially connected back in the day.

• 14:20Hank Green?

  Yeah, I think, I think the big way is.

• 14:22John Green?

  When we were socially ostracized, it was certain death.

• 14:25Hank Green?

  Uh huh. I don't know that this is true, but I feel like it would be nice to have, to have a like more unquestioned foundational stuff in my life.

• 14:35John Green?

  Well, you, this is why you always, you're desperate to be religious is you think it would give you that.

• 14:39Hank Green?

  Yeah, I do.

• 14:40John Green?

  But it would.

• 14:41Hank Green?

  I don't think that it would. Yeah, but I think that it, it has for many people, especially in the past.

• 14:48John Green?

  I, I guess so. I mean, religion was certainly at the center of being for the vast majority of people who've ever lived.

• 14:55Hank Green?

  Do you think that people actually believed in the divine right of kings? Like, did a serf think to themselves, well, that's the king. He is an arm of God. And so I don't have to, I don't have to worry about whether or not the king's decisions are right and wrong.

• 15:11John Green?

  Well, I think they thought that the world was the way that it was because of God, for sure.

• 15:17Hank Green?

  I think that just sounds, that sounds.

• 15:19John Green?

  I've been thinking a lot about that great Ursula Le Guin line about how in the age of divine right monarchy, divine right monarchy seemed inevitable and natural and permanent.

• 15:31Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 15:31John Green?

  In the same way that our world today feels inevitable and natural and permanent. And it just isn't. It will end. And like the question for us is not whether it will end, but like how and when it will end and what will replace it.

• 15:44Hank Green?

  Yeah, and how that transition occurs.

• 15:46John Green?

  Yeah, and how much do we value the world that we currently share? Which is, you know, been very good in some ways, right? 60% reduction in child mortality in the last 30 years, but is deeply failed in other ways, right? Like we could have reduced child mortality much faster, for one thing. We have to kind of decide together when we're going to say like, maybe this divine right capitalism thing isn't the jam.

• 16:11Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 16:12John Green?

  Anyway, I've just been thinking about that.

• 16:14Hank Green?

  But like, to the moment and like the feeling of like we should have power. You know, there was the, if there was a sense that like, no, this is the way that the world is and we should not have power, there's a simplicity to that. But then there is like the actual progress that comes from people being empowered.

• 16:34John Green?

  Yeah, from, from distributing power to more people, building more inclusive systems, building, you know, the, the structures that allow for more people to thrive, right? Like literacy rates.

• 16:45Hank Green?

  And not perfectly inclusive. We're talking, but we're talking like going, going from having, you know, 0.01% of society having power to somewhere north of that.

• 16:56John Green?

  Well, and I think that it's not a straight line and progression isn't always progression, right? Like, I don't know that we've progressed on that front in the last 30 years very much when it comes to distributing power better. But we are seeing, you know, there, there's higher rates of literacy than there were 30 years ago. Like there are indicating, not necessarily in the US and other rich countries, but there are indications that things are, um, that progress is still possible. That like we, when we work together, we still can make the world safer for vulnerable people.

• 17:25Hank Green?

  Yeah. And the fact that that makes the world more complicated. Some people will bemoan this and in fact, I may have just done it, but like actually it's good. Uh, like things do get more complicated when more people have, are, are, you know, part of the ways that we make decisions.

• 17:40John Green?

  Yeah, it's the great Daniel Biss line, is this hard because um, I'm not a dictator? Because if so, I'm glad it's hard.

• 17:47Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 17:48John Green?

  All right, let's answer this question from Aislinn, who writes, Dear John and Hank, but mostly John, I just got my copy of Hollywood Ending available for order now and my copy signature was in orange with the words, this is the only one signed in orange.

• 18:01Hank Green?

  Wow, I believe it.

• 18:03John Green?

  I'm so glad it ended up with a Dear Hank and John listener, Hank. Because I did this with the Anthropocene Review and it ended up with a random person in North Carolina who had no idea who I was.

• 18:13Hank Green?

  How would you know that it, it went to North Carolina?

• 18:16John Green?

  They posted it on TikTok and said, does everyone's copy look like this?

• 18:24Hank Green?

  Well, that's good. At least it ended with someone.

• 18:27John Green?

  Aislinn also writes, first of all, super cool. I feel beyond honored to have this orange copy and can't wait to read the book. I wanted to know, what were the odds of me getting this book? They were one in 85,000, Aislinn.

• 18:36Hank Green?

  That's pretty good.

• 18:37John Green?

  What were the odds of me getting a unique signature at all? Maybe one in a thousand? Did you do each color of the rainbow? No, I only did orange. Or are you secretly lying and they're all orange? Orangey God I emailed, Aislinn.

• 18:51Hank Green?

  Oh.

• 18:52John Green?

  They're not, they're not all orange.

• 18:53Hank Green?

  This is a legendary message.

• 18:55John Green?

  Legendary, name specific, legendary sign off.

• 18:59Hank Green?

  Yeah, man. That's so cool, John.

• 19:02John Green?

  Yeah, so I signed one in orange at the request of a livestream viewer and wrote, this is the only one signed in orange. I think I also signed one in orange for everything is tuberculosis, but that one I never heard of again. I'm so delighted when the ones that I remember signing pop up somewhere.

• 19:19Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 19:19John Green?

  Like, the other day, somebody posted the last one that I signed, where I said, like, this is the last of the 85,000 copies I signed. And that one went to an independent bookstore, which made me super happy to know. And eventually was found by a nerd fighter. So that's the best is when it goes to the people you want it to go to, you know? Like, obviously, I want anyone who wants a signed book to get a signed book. And I should say that I'm sorry for the distribution challenges, especially with bookshop.org that have been making it difficult for people to get their signed books. And also, Amazon cancelling a bunch of international orders, which they've done before. And I really, really don't like, but.

• 19:56Hank Green?

  It's freaking crazy, man.

• 19:58John Green?

  Don't have a lot of control over it, unfortunately. But it is a poor business practice on their part, anyway.

• 20:04Hank Green?

  Yeah, I, I gotta tell you guys, John has been stressing about this so much. He is, he is, he is a cute little bean.

• 20:12Hank Green?

  No one blames him, but he doesn't, it's not, it's not that he thinks people are gonna blame him. It's just that he thinks he's like really frustrated that.

• 20:19John Green?

  It's happening.

• 20:20Hank Green?

  It's happening, yeah.

• 20:20John Green?

  I'm not worried about blame, I'm worried about fixing the problem. So I think much of the problem has been fixed.

• 20:28John Green?

  The Amazon problem can't be fixed, which is very frustrating. And I, if I were you, I would consider that in the future when you make your ecommerce purchases, he said as delicately as he could.

• 20:43John Green?

  But yeah, it delights me, Aislinn, that you have received this book. I'm so happy. And I wish that I had signed more uniquely, but boy, does my arm hurt.

• 20:55Hank Green?

  I saw that somebody got the final, the final signed one, too.

• 20:58John Green?

  Yeah, that's, that was somebody at an independent bookstore in the US, which is great.

• 21:02Hank Green?

  Nice. So they just like opened a book in the bookstore and were like, oh, a special one.

• 21:06John Green?

  Uh huh.

• 21:07Hank Green?

  Is it a problem for bookstores if people wanna, like, they got like 20 copies and people are like, pulling down the stack, trying to find a good one?

• 21:14John Green?

  I don't think that's a problem for bookstores. I think bookstores are divided deaf customers. This is something we forget sometimes, Hank. Like, when you call the pizza place and you're nervous to, this doesn't really exist anymore because of DoorDash, but it used to be when you called the pizza place, I would be very nervous to call the pizza place. I would be like, oh, my God, I don't wanna inconvenience these people. But of course, they're waiting for your call.

• 21:35Hank Green?

  They, they need the work. That's why they're there.

• 21:37John Green?

  By the prospect.

• 21:39Hank Green?

  Oh, man, pizza.

• 21:42John Green?

  Mess.

• 21:43Hank Green?

  It's, it's good stuff, pizza. I just, I just made, I made almost every board, four by three board for the next two weeks. Pizza board.

• 21:54John Green?

  Nice.

• 21:54Hank Green?

  Something, something peripherally to do with pizza.

• 21:57John Green?

  Nice, I love it.

• 21:58Hank Green?

  Good times.

• 21:59John Green?

  All right, let's answer this question from Alex. He writes, Dear John and Hank, I started watching your videos in 2009. And for the first few years, I kept up with lots of YouTubers before life got in the way. I've always wondered what YouTubers do when they stop making videos. Some obviously make it big or transition to other public facing roles, but others disappear from public life. People with millions of views may have made a decent chunk of change, but lots of early YouTubers never became household names and must have been too young or to comfortably retire. So one must assume they've taken up some other career or vocation in a private capacity. Without asking you to name drop people, I assume you might have some insight into where YouTubers who quietly retreat go to. What kind of careers have you come across? What's the strangest transition? Do they get taken to a farm to live upstate for free? Pretty great, Alex.

• 22:42John Green?

  Alex, there's something you should know about the dog that went to the farm.

• 22:47Hank Green?

  For free. Yeah. That's, and luckily, this is not what happens to YouTubers. They don't put us on the pasture.

• 22:56John Green?

  No, but I have terrible news about your childhood dog.

• 22:59Hank Green?

  Yeah, and ours as well.

• 23:04Hank Green?

  So I, yeah, I mean, they are, they're in all kinds of careers. So like, probably the most common career I know for former YouTubers is they work in social media. They like work at a company that makes video games, like designing their YouTube strategy or doing social media stuff or doing marketing or PR. That's, that tends to be, like, they just have like knowledge of, of how audiences work.

• 23:28John Green?

  But we also have friends who work in publishing, who used to make YouTube videos. And we have friends who work in the private sector, who used to make YouTube videos, you know, just doing a regular corporate kind of gig, a management gig. And there's all kinds of ways you can do it. I mean, it's not dissimilar from professional athletes who tend to have very short careers.

• 23:51John Green?

  Careers that are often associated with, with being very lucrative, but functionally sometimes aren't. Like, if you have a three year career in the NFL, for instance, you may not have enough money to live on for the rest of your life. And so you're gonna have to get a job. And it's hard because a lot of YouTubers, like a lot of professional athletes, didn't graduate from college, especially if they started doing it really young. And it can be a difficult transition. So we've seen it be a difficult transition, we've seen it be an easy transition. It, it depends on the person. I, you know, was a novelist before I was a YouTuber and Hank was a blogger before he was a YouTuber. And we were both making a living making our stuff.

• 24:34John Green?

  And that has been really helpful for us because we've never been dependent on the algorithm for revenue. We've been dependent on the algorithm for community, which is extremely important to us, but never as our jobs. And I think that's given us a level of freedom that very few online creators have.

• 24:52Hank Green?

  Yeah, I mean, I have a weird, this is not the question, but I have this weird thing where I, I always wanna be doing the thing that YouTubers are doing because I feel like part of my job is understanding the YouTube platform and advocating for YouTubers. And so like, sometimes I'll do a bunch of brand deals and like, the money is great. But like, I'm, I'm kind of doing it because I wanna see like what the landscape of brand deals is like and what the, what the work is like.

• 25:25John Green?

  That makes one of us.

• 25:26Hank Green?

  And, and when TikTok was happening, I remember like initially being like, I just have to understand this platform so I can understand what it's like to be a TikTok creator. And that, that was really like part of the reason I started. And then 100% all of the tools and tricks it uses to addict creators was working, were working on me.

• 25:44John Green?

  Yeah, they really gamify content creation now, especially TikTok and Meta. Really gamify it and try to make it so that it's hard to stop making videos.

• 25:56Hank Green?

  And yeah, yeah, like Instagram's way of monetizing for many years was that it would, it would assign you a random amount you could make this month if you hit certain goals. And it'd be different every month. And sometimes it'd be like really big and then it'd be like 10 times less than that two months later. And so it was like being in a fricking casino. It's crazy.

• 26:16John Green?

  Well, it is exactly like being in a casino in the sense that it's randomized rewards and the only person who reliably makes money is the house.

• 26:25Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 26:27Hank Green?

  Really messed up. YouTube is a, not the healthiest place, but when you see the places, how, how the competitors act.

• 26:35John Green?

  Places work.

• 26:36Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 26:36John Green?

  It reminds me, Hank, of the hit new book Hollywood Ending, which is about all this stuff.

• 26:42Hank Green?

  And this podcast is by chance, definitely actually brought to you by Hollywood Ending.

• 26:49John Green?

  I wish we could get Fangled Random House to actually sponsor this podcast. That'd be amazing. It's one of the only brand deals I would definitely do, is a brand deal for myself.

• 26:59Hank Green?

  This podcast is also brought to you by your local bookstore, where you can get Hollywood Ending without any of this weird stuff going on.

• 27:07John Green?

  And this podcast is brought to you by Pizzamas, Pizzamas.

• 27:11Hank Green?

  Oh, no.

• 27:12John Green?

  Pizzamas.com.

• 27:13Hank Green?

  Pizzamas.com, it's a weird time of year where John and I make videos like we did back in 2007, and it's lots of fun. This podcast is also brought to you by mammals. Mammals, you are one.

• 27:24John Green?

  The reason you feel anxious on that plane is that no mammal has ever been that far from the ground, ever.

• 27:30Hank Green?

  Yeah, super weird looking out of that window. Seeing all that, seeing all that agriculture made by mammals.

• 27:38John Green?

  And all that turf grass. There might be more turf grass than there is agriculture.

• 27:43Hank Green?

  And in terms of water consumption, almost definitely. This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by Wayfair. There are a number of objects in my home that I have been extraordinarily well-served by, maybe for 15 or 20 years. Like a pair of fake leather upholstered stools that I've had forever, but they've seen better days. They maybe need a little bit of a refresh. Good news, Wayfair helps you create a home that stands up to real life with quality products, great value and trusted reviews. Wayfair verified products are hand vetted by product specialists using a 10 point quality inspection. You can use filters, customer photos and more than 20 million verified five star reviews to confidently find the right fit for your home.

• 28:26Hank Green?

  And now those stools that I had 15 or 20 years ago, I don't have those. I have different stools that are very comfortable and look, let's just say, better. Find pieces made for real life and get even more value with Wayfair Rewards. Join Wayfair Rewards today to get 5% back on every purchase. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W A Y F A I R dot com.

• 28:54Hank Green?

  This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by Quince. I do very much like opening up my closet and finding an item that I know is going to 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 have 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. I went downstairs and Catherine was like,

• 29:39Hank Green?

  "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.

• 30:28Hank Green?

  This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by Factor. Factor makes chef-crafted, dietitian-designed, ready-to-eat meals, so you don't have to choose between real food and convenience. You can have both, real food and convenience, which is good, because I will choose convenience every time, even if convenience is just peanuts again. Literally. I eat a lot of peanuts. Factor meals are ready in two minutes. And I'm not joking there. They are ready in two minutes, and they require no prep and no cleanup. So even the days when your schedule is completely out of control, eating well is still achievable. But here's a secret I have for you. Sometimes, I actually do introduce cleanup artificially. I will move it from the Factor container onto a plate, so I can feel like I'm having

• 31:12Hank Green?

  a real meal. And that's fine. And then I have one plate to clean. I don't have a bunch of pots and pans to clean, though. Every week, you will find over 100 nutrient-dense menu items to choose from, and new options like salmon burgers, shredded pork, collard greens, and more. Plus add-ons you'll crave, like pumpkin-flavored cheesecake and protein shakes. 97% of users agree that Factor meals help them live a healthier life. So you can feel confident that you're doing something good for yourself with every meal. True story, right now, I do not have any Factor meals in my fridge, and I am hungry, and I'm about to go inside and absolutely rummage for something, and I'm sad about it. Some current Factor meals include chicken taco bowl with corn salsa and cilantro crema. This is making

• 31:57Hank Green?

  me so hungry. Onion portobello burger with potatoes and white cheddar. That's right, they can help you go vegetarian or eat less meat. You can also have golden corn and shrimp risotto with Brussels, cabbage, and pepper medley. But I can't, because I'm allergic to shrimp. Let's eat real. Head to factormeals.com/dearthank50off and use code DEARHANK50OFF to get 50% off and one free breakfast item per box for one year, while supplies last until October 31, 2026. That's code DEARHANK50OFF at factormeals.com. Dear Hank, 5-0, off at factormeals.com. See the website for more details.

• 32:40John Green?

  All right, Hank, we got a question from Kai, who writes, "Dear John and Hank, if a human was instantly teleported to Titan intact, how would they die? Everything about Titan seems very lethal, but what would kill them first, Planets and Penguins, Kai?" Kai, that's the name of the kid in the book. What a great name. I picked it. I could've picked any name, Kai, and I picked yours.

• 33:04Hank Green?

  It is gonna be a race, you know, to what kills you first on Titan. One of the cool things about Titan is it has a totally livable atmospheric pressure. So that's barely gonna affect you at all. Your ears are gonna pop. That's about it. But what's gonna get you is almost definitely suffocation, so there's no oxygen. It's extremely cold. No, no oxygen at all.

• 33:26John Green?

  There's no oxygen and it's extremely cold.

• 33:28Hank Green?

  Oxygen atoms, but there's no oxygen gas. So there's no breathable oxygen.

• 33:33John Green?

  You're gonna die of suffocation almost immediately.

• 33:36Hank Green?

  Yeah, so like, if a human that breathes, so like, here's a weird thing. If you hold your breath, you like, live longer than if you breathe like a pure nitrogen atmosphere. Or you stay conscious longer. Because when you hold your breath, you're actually holding a bunch of air in your lungs that has oxygen in it that your body can continue to use. But if you're breathing in a pure nitrogen or other methane, in the case of Titan, atmosphere, you're breathing out all of that oxygen and breathing in no oxygen and breathing out whatever leftover oxygen is in the lungs. So a very few breaths later, you have no oxygen in the lungs. Something like, less than 30 seconds, you're unconscious. And

• 34:19Hank Green?

  then, from then, you know, nothing matters to you, but you're not gonna come back. So great news. Which is honestly, like, how I would prefer it to go. Because another thing is that you don't actually feel like you're suffocating, because the sensation of suffocation comes from an increase in carbon dioxide concentration in your blood. But you're able to continue breathing out carbon dioxide, and so you don't have that buildup. And so you just feel dizzy, and like, a little loopy, and you, and yeah, you don't have any oxygen, but you don't get the suffocation signal. So you just feel weird until you fall unconscious. Now, as that's happening on Titan, you will be extremely painfully uncomfortable due

• 35:01Hank Green?

  to the cold. So not just, is there a lot of cold? Like, there's not a lot of heat. There's also a lot of stuff. So there's a lot of air. You know, there's a lot of molecules in the atmosphere that are able to carry the heat away from you. So there's gonna be wind. You're gonna, like, on Mars, actually, weirdly, it's cold, but there's not as much stuff to carry the heat away from you. So you would get colder or less quickly. And in this situation, you would get cold quite quickly. This is, for example, why you get cold so quick when you're in water, because there's more molecules to carry the heat away from you. So not that much, but similarly, there's plenty of stuff to carry the heat away from you on Titan. And so you're gonna be getting cold really quick, and it's gonna

• 35:43Hank Green?

  be very painful and uncomfortable, but you will be unconscious within 30 seconds. So that will not be the thing that kills you.

• 35:49John Green?

  It'll just be miserable.

• 35:51Hank Green?

  Yeah, it'll be, yeah, yeah. You're not gonna die painlessly, is what I'm saying.

• 35:55John Green?

  Sure. I mean, I'm aware of that. That's one of my big fears.

• 35:58Hank Green?

  I'd rather suffocate on Titan than, like, in water. Because...

• 36:04John Green?

  Thanks for coming to our party, everybody.

• 36:07Hank Green?

  I think suffocation would be really bad.

• 36:10John Green?

  Well, yeah. I mean, there are no great ways. And I know a lot of little kids listen to this podcast, because we're a hit podcast for teens and tweens, and also tykes. And the big three, those are our big three demographics, Hank. You know, like, kids who use big wheels, big-wheel kids, teenagers.

• 36:34Hank Green?

  That's not a thing anymore, by the way, but okay.

• 36:36John Green?

  Oh, it very much is. It very much is. It's coming back. You don't know a lot of three-year-olds, Hank, not like I do. I've been studying the demographics. I've been watching what they watch. Like, you being obsessed with wanting to understand YouTube. I'm trying to understand content for three-year-olds, podcasts for three-year-olds. That's the future, Hank. You gotta catch 'em young. That way, they grow up with you. You'll be like Steve from Blue's Clues.

• 36:58Hank Green?

  Yeah, he's doing great, seems like.

• 37:00John Green?

  He's doing great. What a lovely man. Anyway, point being, we're a hit podcast for very young people, and I wanna be conscious of that, while also acknowledging to the very young people that everything that we know of in the universe dies.

• 37:16Hank Green?

  That's right. And there's this problem, where all of the things that evolved, like the living things, they only were able to survive because they had that built-in want. Evolution selects for wanting to be alive. It's one of the first things it selects for. And so it makes things that make you not alive really undesirable. And that's where we get suffering.

• 37:42John Green?

  Only creatures that want to be are.

• 37:46Hank Green?

  Yeah, isn't that crazy?

• 37:47John Green?

  It's crazy.

• 37:48Hank Green?

  I mean, it might not be entirely true. Like, there's definitely a spectrum of consciousness, you know, the little silly-its. I don't know how much they want, but they certainly

• 37:57Hank Green?

  act one way.

• 37:57John Green?

  They wanna be alive.

• 37:58Hank Green?

  They go towards the things that keep them alive and away from the things that kill them.

• 38:02John Green?

  Now, Hank, I'm gonna push back on something you just said.

• 38:06Hank Green?

  Okay.

• 38:07John Green?

  That's not where all of suffering comes from, because much of suffering comes from love and attachment and other things that are not primarily about survival.

• 38:16Hank Green?

  You don't think that love is about survival?

• 38:18John Green?

  I think it's a bummer that you're gonna construct it that way. I can tell, I can see what you're about to do, and I don't like it.

• 38:26Hank Green?

  Okay, well, let's move on. No, I mean, I, like, I'm not, that doesn't make it less beautiful to me.

• 38:33John Green?

  Yeah. I guess it is a little less beautiful if it's purely functional.

• 38:37Hank Green?

  Last night, I was putting Orin to bed. It was like 10 o'clock. It was way too late for me to be putting him to bed, but we had had a number of fun activities that we were doing. And he said, "What happens after you die?" And I was like, "Are we being for real right now?" And he was like, "Yeah." And I was like, "Oh, boy."

• 38:56John Green?

  Wow.

• 38:58Hank Green?

  I feel, I don't know, I feel like we've talked about this in advergions, you know, picked at the sides of it, but never, never have I gotten it flat out.

• 39:08John Green?

  Did you use the standard Hank Green answer of, "We are in the same place that we were before we were born"?

• 39:14Hank Green?

  The first thing I said was, "The people who love us will miss us."

• 39:19John Green?

  No, great Keanu Reeves line.

• 39:21Hank Green?

  And then, and then he said, "Dad, I mean, what happens to me when I die?"

• 39:33John Green?

  Well, the people who love you will miss you.

• 39:36Hank Green?

  And then, yeah, I, well, what I said was, there's many different schools of thought. And he said, tell me all of them. And I was like, well, I don't know all of them.

• 39:45John Green?

  Yeah.

• 39:46Hank Green?

  But I gave him the sort of big divide between, you know, it's what it's like, exactly as you say. I think that it's like what it was like before you were born.

• 39:56John Green?

  Right.

• 39:56Hank Green?

  And, uh, and then there's the, the other side of the big divide, which is it's like something else.

• 40:05Hank Green?

  Yeah, that's what, that's what we went into.

• 40:07John Green?

  There's this theologian who writes about, um, some conceptions of heaven as heaven for goats. That like, if you were a goat, you would picture and, and with field of really thick grass. And that would be your goat heaven.

• 40:21Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 40:21John Green?

  And that like some conceptions of heaven are goat heavens. And that like they're sort of, they sort of maybe don't hold up to scrutiny because of course, wouldn't you want a mansion in the sky? And wouldn't it make sense that that's how you would construct it?

• 40:36Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 40:37John Green?

  But I quite like my goat heavens.

• 40:41Hank Green?

  Yeah, we talked about that as well. I was like, it's, it's always seemed a little bit too perfect to me that we, we believe these stories. That would be very lovely if they were true.

• 40:54John Green?

  Yeah, although we also believe, believe other things about the afterlife that are less lovely and less like a goat heaven.

• 41:02John Green?

  I believe in an afterlife that isn't much like a goat heaven. I think what, you know, most people in the world, uh, do not believe in that kind of afterlife. I think because in fact, like a huge percentage of people in the world believe in some version of reincarnation.

• 41:18Hank Green?

  Right.

• 41:18John Green?

  And that's a very different way of thinking about what comes after life than, you know, seeing it in, in cycles is very different than seeing it as a beginning, a middle and an end. And quite attractive to me, to be honest, like, like a lot of things that seem linear are in fact pretty circular and spectral. And I kind of like that idea. But ultimately Hank, um, I don't believe anybody who says they know.

• 41:49Hank Green?

  I like the idea that reincarnation is real, but is not limited to earth. And so the reality that there are probably in the universe, um, infinite thinking beings. You just end up, you, you never end up on the same planet twice.

• 42:04John Green?

  You could be a crab person next time.

• 42:06Hank Green?

  Clack, clack.

• 42:07John Green?

  Yeah. And then you could be up in an airplane and be like, I am a crab. No wonder I feel anxious. I'm not supposed to be up here.

• 42:16Hank Green?

  I bet, I bet it's nice being a crab. I bet their backs don't hurt because they don't have backs.

• 42:22John Green?

  Huge advantage, structural benefit.

• 42:25Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 42:25John Green?

  All right, Hank, before we get to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, I got to read this email we got from Ray. It's one of the kindest emails I've ever received in my life. Dear John and Hank, I'm listening to episode 468 and John mentioned the vulnerable nature of creating art. Once I made a painting depicting the most raw heartbreak of my life, I was nervous to take it to the frame shop because the piece was so vulnerable. Now I was certain that people working at the shop would look at the painting and know everything that had happened to me in the preceding weeks. I continually put it off. Finally, I took the art to get framed. When I handed over the artwork, all they said was, which way is up?

• 42:59John Green?

  Anyway, I loved Hollywood ending. We're both looking at the same book, but as a reader, I don't know what John's most vulnerable moments were. I see a book with feeling and depth, but I don't know which way is up.

• 43:10Hank Green?

  Wow.

• 43:11John Green?

  Not gamma, not sting, Ray.

• 43:15Hank Green?

  I, I'm crying.

• 43:18John Green?

  It's a beautiful email.

• 43:22Hank Green?

  That got me.

• 43:23John Green?

  Yeah. Well, Hank does know which way is up, but, um, but the reader doesn't, of course.

• 43:28Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 43:29John Green?

  And that is, uh, just what I needed to hear today, Ray.

• 43:34Hank Green?

  What an amazing, uh, like ability to see in.

• 43:38John Green?

  I know.

• 43:39Hank Green?

  Good job, Ray. Jeez, I hope I, I can see him like that sometimes.

• 43:44John Green?

  Keep painting, keep making art, Ray. Uh, and thank you to everybody who makes art in this broken world. We also have to read this email from, uh, Katie, because remember we talked about vintage thank you cards, like sending a thank you card 10 or 15 years later? Is that still good? Katie writes, Dear John and Hank, while I haven't sent one in a while, my husband gets several vintage thank you cards a year, as do most of his colleagues, because he's a middle school writing teacher. And while some students write him cards while they are in his class, many don't realize the impact he had on them until later. Now there are more emails, but he will still get cards sent to the school from students he had four or 10 or even 20 years ago. He keeps every single card he's gotten. Half are in a file at school and half are in one at home. Whenever things are really hard with his work and he's wondering why he bothers, which

• 44:29John Green?

  is sadly more often now, he opens those cards and remembers why he has dedicated his life to this work. Thank you for everything you do and support, your support of all the teachers fighting the good fight, Katie.

• 44:41Hank Green?

  You guys.

• 44:42John Green?

  I know, they're making us cry, Hank.

• 44:47John Green?

  They're out here choking us up.

• 44:49Hank Green?

  Yeah, I feel bad for every thank you card I haven't written now.

• 44:52John Green?

  I know, write thank you cards to your teachers because it's harder to be, to be a classroom teacher than ever. They need the encouragement.

• 44:58Hank Green?

  Oh my God, we gotta make this, this situation easier, man. I keep, ah, keep running into things that I'm, that are making me real annoyed with the state of things.

• 45:10John Green?

  Yeah, no, it's, it's, uh, it is correct. The correct response to the outrages that abound in every direction is, uh, at a minimum annoyance.

• 45:20Hank Green?

  Yeah, well, I'm annoyed by it because I like see all the structures that result in it. And I'm like, I don't know what to do about any of this. I know too much to think that it's even caused by evil. I think it's caused by a bunch of intersecting systems that aren't good at each other.

• 45:36John Green?

  Yeah, no, it's, uh.

• 45:37Hank Green?

  And, and also like a lack of trust, like a huge amount of lack of trust is, is I think especially when it comes to school teachers.

• 45:45John Green?

  Education.

• 45:45Hank Green?

  Like, yeah, we have this huge, huge problem right now where we've lost trust in everything. And so, uh, it just makes, it makes life so, so much harder.

• 45:56John Green?

  It does.

• 45:57Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 45:58John Green?

  I mean, for teachers as well as for parents, because parents feel like they can't trust teachers and teachers feel like, uh, it's really hard to do your job when you're not trusted. And it's, it's, I think you're right to say it's intersecting systems and the ways that they're intersecting now is leading to the impoverishment of education in the U.S. I would like to tell you the news from AFC Wimbledon.

• 46:24Hank Green?

  Okay, you, it seemed like you're getting ready for something.

• 46:29John Green?

  Hank, AFC Wimbledon is good? Question mark, question mark, question mark?

• 46:38John Green?

  Once again, we're in a stop the count scenario, Hank, where AFC Wimbledon is currently eighth in League One.

• 46:45Hank Green?

  Oh.

• 46:47John Green?

  We have a hilariously bad goal difference for being eighth in League One. We have a negative two goal difference. We've, we've scored fewer goals than we've given up, but we've scored those goals at the right time. Our most recent game should have been a victory, even though we were outplayed in every sense of the game. But we were winning until the last minute of the game against, uh, Cambridge United. But then they came back and tied 1-1, which was a deserved score. And before that, we played the franchise currently plying its trade in Milton Keynes, which was a 0-0 draw.

• 47:15Hank Green?

  Ah.

• 47:17John Green?

  Well, I'm just happy, I'm happy to get out of that with all of our limbs intact, frankly.

• 47:25Hank Green?

  I mean, the Dons, they could go down.

• 47:29John Green?

  Or they could go up. Oh, you mean the MK?

• 47:32Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 47:33John Green?

  Uh, we call, we don't call them the Dons.

• 47:34Hank Green?

  The franchise, they could go down.

• 47:37John Green?

  They could go down. That would feel very good. That's where they deserve to be. They should not be in the football league. They should not exist. So if they go down, that's great. That's a step on the road to the right outcome, which is them not existing.

• 47:51Hank Green?

  Okay.

• 47:53Hank Green?

  They, they don't look like they're winning many games at all. They're down there with Wigan.

• 47:58John Green?

  Poor Wigan. Wigan, a few years ago, Wigan won the FA Cup, like the biggest competition in, in, in England that involves all the teams in England. And now they're sitting at the very bottom of League One, down there with the franchise currently plying its trade in Milton Keynes. I believe the franchise currently plying its trade in Milton Keynes, and this is my favorite fact about them this season, uh, they haven't won a game, but they've drawn six of them. They've drawn six of their seven games.

• 48:32Hank Green?

  Wow.

• 48:33John Green?

  And that's why they're down there in 22nd place. I love to see it.

• 48:37Hank Green?

  Weird, weird to have the same goal differential as AFC Wimbledon.

• 48:41John Green?

  They do, but look at them. They're in 22nd place and we're in eighth.

• 48:45Hank Green?

  It all matters. It matters where, it matters where the goals go.

• 48:49John Green?

  What's the news from Mars, Hank?

• 48:51Hank Green?

  And news from Mars, NASA has awarded $300,000 to Chiniere Ukij in what is called the Deep Space Food Challenge, Mars to Table Edition. So this is a contest that launched in January. There have been similar challenges over the years run by NASA and the Canadian Space Agency. And the, uh, this version was, uh, get teams to envision a complete food production system in space that can make a variety of foods while not having it be like the only thing that the crew spend time on. So basically help future missions that, uh, don't, that want to pack as little food as possible because you, that's all, that's all mass that you have to carry.

• 49:34Hank Green?

  So if you're going to Mars for a long period of time, basically, and contestants were asked specifically to create a system that could feed a 15-person astronaut crew for 513 Earth days or 500 Mars days. And the winning design combined agriculture, fermentation and fungus cultivation with closed loop nutrient recycling to help the hypothetical crew grow 50% of the food that they need when they are away from Earth.

• 50:01John Green?

  Oh, I thought it was going to be just like buy baby chickens and wait till they get big, but no, it's fungus production.

• 50:06Hank Green?

  Well, fungus is fine. You don't like fungus?

• 50:09John Green?

  I'm not a huge fungi guy.

• 50:13Hank Green?

  I love.

• 50:13John Green?

  Of course, I'm not also, I'm also not a very fun guy.

• 50:16Hank Green?

  No, that's, you know, I mean, you're fun.

• 50:19John Green?

  Eh, medium fun.

• 50:21Hank Green?

  It's not like the first attribute someone's gonna ask.

• 50:24John Green?

  No, nobody like, nobody who knows me well is like, you want a good time? Hang out with that guy.

• 50:28Hank Green?

  It's a different, different goals.

• 50:30John Green?

  Different kind of good time, you know?

• 50:32Hank Green?

  Yeah.

• 50:32John Green?

  I have a different friendship love language, if you will.

• 50:35Hank Green?

  Yes.

• 50:36John Green?

  I am, and so I guess that's like mushrooms and stuff?

• 50:42Hank Green?

  Yeah, mushrooms and stuff. I think that it's, my guess is that it's all, it's all mushrooms. I don't know, it might be other things. Sometimes you can make like weird stuff from other, other fungi, but mostly mushrooms.

• 50:54John Green?

  Man, that sounds like hard work farming in space.

• 51:00John Green?

  I'll tell you what.

• 51:00Hank Green?

  And scary too.

• 51:02John Green?

  My mom and I have a little quarter acre garden in, in Indianapolis, and that's hard enough.

• 51:06Hank Green?

  Yeah, I feel like stuff starts going wrong with your, with your spaceship garden.

• 51:11John Green?

  Yeah.

• 51:11Hank Green?

  That's, that's tense. That gets tense.

• 51:13John Green?

  Hard to fix, yeah. That's tense. That's, it's not like, it's not like when you're like, oh, I think we got some, uh, I think we got some emissions. No, it's a, it's a proper emergency.

• 51:23Hank Green?

  Yeah. Oh man, I just, I just opened up our YouTube channel and that thumbnail for your first Pizzamas video is intense, John.

• 51:32John Green?

  I didn't see it.

• 51:33Hank Green?

  Ah, it's real good.

• 51:35John Green?

  It was chosen by the YouTube algorithm.

• 51:37Hank Green?

  They picked the perfect one.

• 51:39John Green?

  Good, I'm glad to hear it. Well, Hank, thank you for podding with me. Thanks to everybody for being part of Nerd Fighteria and Pizzamas. Thanks for coming out on tour. Thanks for your support of Hollywood ending. It means the world to us. Um, we're just so grateful and yeah, thank you. You can email us your questions at [email protected].

• 51:59Hank Green?

  This podcast is edited by Linus Obenhaus. It's mixed by Joseph Tuna Metish. Our marketing specialist is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosiana Halsrojas and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Tabuki Chakravarti. The music you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gonna Roll Up, as they say in our hometown.

• 52:17John Green?

  Don't forget to be awesome.