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Tickets go on sale to the general public June 30th at somethingworthknowing.com. So come build a better world with us on September 16th and experience something worth knowing you can get your ticket at Complexly.info slash something. So Hank, we're going to try something a little different today. You and I have come up with a phrase of the week.
This might not last. This bit might be stupid. But we've come up with a phrase of the week and whoever successfully works the phrase of the week into our conversation without it being obvious that it's the phrase of the week, wins the non-existent prize of the day. Right.
So the idea is know what like if people know that I've done it before you identify it then then you win. But if no one realizes that it's happened and I don't know how we're going to judge that John. Except I think we're going to know in our hearts. I definitely think we're going to know in our hearts.
Hello and welcome to Dear John and Hank. It's called Dear Hank and John. I've got a podcast about death in which me and my brother Hank provide you with duty of advice, answer your questions and bring you all the weeks and you should both Mars and Nancy Wimbledon. But first how you doing Hank?
Oh my god this is really distracting and kind of feels wrong and gross. I would say that it feels just right. It feels like the podcast is always going to feel after we don't get to Mars in 2027. How are you?
Good John and I just want to know everyone to know that this is happening one time and we have 10 more years of me doing it the normal way before we may or may not. Or if we somehow get a person to Mars. So Hank I don't know about you but I just experienced one of the great wonders of the heavens. It was pretty good.
I also did. Yes. And what are you referring to because I think you might be referring to the solar eclipse. I was correct.
I am referring to how it feels when you look directly up into the sky and rain falls into your eye. I looked directly up into the sky and a lot of photons from the sun fell directly into my eye because I am that guy who is like but if you look at it for just a second it's okay. Well I don't want to get into it. Talk about dubious advice.
Thanks dubious advice stare directly at the sun. If you look for a little bit it's fine. It's true. I mean it's true if you look for a little bit it's fine.
And I also had eclipse glasses and I went to the office and we had donuts and everybody had a good time looking at the eclipse. And the thing that I was most surprised by I think this is the closest I've ever gotten to a full eclipse. I was about 90% of the sun was included in Missoula and it got cold. Like it went inside to get their hoodies.
Yeah. Well we had 97% here in Indianapolis. Oh wow. But I would say also 85% cloud cover.
The great thing about our eclipse is that I kind of enjoy mostly cloudy eclipse because it sort of came in and out of view. And then the moment after we were able to enjoy 97% of the sun not being visible it did begin to rain huge drops directly into my open eyes. You got those glasses on John? I know I made a horrible mistake.
Can we answer some questions from our listeners? Well John since you started out the podcast I guess it's on me to do the poem for the day. Oh good. So I've got a short poem.
This is actually an excerpt from a longer poem. Turn around. Every now and then I get a little bit lonely and you're never coming round. Turn around.
Every now and then I get a little bit tired of listening to the sound of my tears. Turn around. Every now and then I get a little bit nervous. That the best of all the years have gone by.
Turn around. Every now and then I get a little bit terrified and then I see the look in your eyes. Turn around. Bright eyes.
But every now and then I fall apart. Turn around. Bright eyes. Every now and then I fall apart.
I mean there has never been a better time to quote the lyrics to total eclipse of the heart. But also I'd like to remind you that you cannot again. This goes for everyone. Quote the lyrics to total eclipse of the heart until the next total eclipse.
Oh my god. So is the United States of America. It's just Bonnie Tyler. Like like what's it called?
A blackout. Yeah. So it's just like a Bonnie Tyler blackout for the next two thousand days. For the next two thousand days.
That's exactly right. Hank we got to get to some questions from our listeners. This first one is about the sky above us. It comes from Brianna who writes Dear John and Hank how much of the sky can I see when I'm standing in a relatively flat part of the earth?
I really think that my brain just assumed I had a 180 degree view but that can't possibly be true. I went to art school and haven't done trigonometry in eight years. Can you please help me figure this out so my brain doesn't explode? Sign cosine and tangents.
Oh, a sign cosine and I like that because I thought it was going to say signed Brianna but it said sign cosine and tangent. Okay John. Do you have a good answer for this one? I have an actual answer.
You do have an actual answer? I have an actual answer. I looked at my assumption as always been that you can see 180 degrees of the sky. You can see half the Earth's sky but I did realize while reading the question that this is not something I've thought very hard about.
So give me the actual answer. Well so the sitch is that the so we're going to assume that you're standing on a like a perfectly flat spot on the Earth's surface which probably would be on a like standing on a canoe in the middle of the ocean. Or you could just go to Indiana. Or you could just go to Indiana where they're like just after the corn harvest.
And yeah so what you're going to see is what it's going to look like a 50% sky and Earth if you look around you but because the Earth curves away from you and the sky does not there is actually more sky than there is Earth and by Earth. So you're seeing like more than 50% of your like if you did like a you know 360 degree picture with a 360 degree camera more than 50% of the picture would be sky. So does that mean Hank that when I look at the sky from Indiana I am looking at literally most of the sky. You are looking at most of the sky yes.
I mean probably like if you're really on a flat spot if you like the closer you get your head to the ground the worse it is so if you're like on top of a building you can definitely see mostly sky or most of the sky and also mostly sky both of those things. If you're on a plane you're see like 53% of what you see is sky and like 47% is land or ground or whatever you'd call that. So but if you're just standing if you're like a five foot six person you're probably see about like 50.04 or 50.03% of what you see is sky but you will be and also but you will be seeing most I will you be seeing most of the sky I don't know if that's actually true I don't know what I can see. You know what I can see.
I can see. Metaphor is the resident so I'm going to stop you right there and we are you can see most of the sky Brianna you can see in fact you can see almost all of the sky if you're just if you're just standing up high and you've got you've got good posture you can see almost all of this guy that came directly from Hank and now we've got another question that comes from Amber who asks Dear Hank and John Wall the 2016 project for awesome is going on I bought a mystery package and got an imperial affliction which I was super excited about so I just started reading it and I have noticed that the entire book except for the very last page is the same few paragraphs but in a different order am I just I'm just wondering if this is a mistake I love my copy and if it's a mistake that's totally cool but I was just curious what actually happens in the story so if it is a mistake could you please tell me thank you very much Amber. Okay Amber I remember when I got interviewed by NPR about this like right when the book came out the NPR guy was like have you talked to Peter van Houten about what you said about him in the book and it was just before he went on air thankfully and I was like okay well no because Peter van Houten is someone I made up and an imperial affliction is a book that does not exist I really like books inside of books because they can be better than real books I mean the great thing about a book that doesn't exist is that it can be infinitely good whereas books that do exist have all of the problems and insufficiencies of having been created by actual humans so when I wanted to write about like you know that one book that you love or in my case I loved in high school I decided to make the book up and then when they were going to make a movie of it they called me one day the producer people called me and they said we need to make an imperial affliction and we're using we're working with this amazing graphics team who did work on Harry Potter stuff and they've made a great cover here's the cover and I thought the cover was amazing and then they were like but we need words inside the book that Hazel can highlight so we need you to include like these quotes from an in the fault in our stars version of an imperial affliction but also write at least like four or five pages that seem legible so that's what I did I wrote like five pages and then they just like mixed and matched those five pages over and over and over again in the proper version of the book and then Fox printed up a bunch of the the propersions of the book for Project Frost and Perks only about I guess a thousand of them or so exist in the whole world and I'm glad that you have one and I'm sorry that it is not a real novel but it is definitely not what what you have read is all that I will ever write of an imperial affliction and now now you now you know so I have two questions John first the last page is different this is a thing I did not know I feel like the last page is an author bio or something I didn't write the last page though okay second question what's your favorite book inside a book oh that's a great question my favorite artwork inside of a book is the infinite jest in an infinite jest gosh I don't know what's your favorite book inside of a book I don't I was thinking my first thought was Esmergan Stern's The Princess Bride Inside of The Princess Bride but that's not actually how it works I've actually I've actually broken it to people that Esmergan Stern isn't real yeah a bunch of yeah it's very believable when you I mean The Princess Bride is such a great movie but it is such a better book it is so wonderful it is such a wonderful reading experience but it is very it is a very believable sort of feeling the abridgement but you know those good old Kilgort or trop books I have always a short or trout place my yeah yeah I was always a big Kilgort drop fan when I was a high school student I loved the idea of there being these pop science fiction books that I couldn't read because they didn't exist but I was reading almost in a way like Vonnegut's fan fiction about Kilgort route I just like I love that meta stuff I know that I shouldn't and I know that it's like a bad habit that I need to break but I can't help but love it and I do think that there's something about it that's that continues to speak effectively to our time there's another question that we have here Hank it's comes from Ryle Fredo who writes this is an actual email that we received I'm going to read it if it's a title good morning I'd like to preorder a copy of John Green's new novel Turtles All The Way Down I'm specifically interested in the signed edition ISBN 978-0-525-5538-4 my name is Ryan Ryanson and the best email to reach me is Ryan's Ryan's Ryan's Ryan's Ryan at Ryan mail and the best contact number for me is I think this is the real phone number please let me know if you need any more information best wishes Ryle Fredo so just a quick response to that that is the correct ISBN for the signed edition of Turtles All The Way Down you can find out more probably sign turtles.com and the book comes out in only 45 days Hank wow wow that is that is very exciting I am so glad that we don't live in a world where you order books by sending an email to someone hello I would like a book I would like a book I would here's the ISBN number please send it to me here's my address or you can call me that would be great well I think the best way to order a signed copy of Turtles All The Way Down is in fact a call your local bookstore but yeah there is something magical about online ordering there's no doubt about it Hank in addition we should say that in addition to our my new book being available in print and online also we you and I are gonna go we're going on tour yeah I've been thinking a lot about what I'm gonna do while while you have given me stage time and it's like okay John Green's book and now it's been he's probably gonna read from the book and he's probably gonna talk about the book and he's about the book and Hank's here what's he gonna do and I'm just gonna be weird John I get to make whatever I get to do whatever I want I don't get to do whatever I want but I pretty much do though because what I want is stuff you want me to do and stuff people want to see I believe that deep in my heart I mean I don't want you to do whatever you want to do and people don't want to see whatever you want to do they want to see you make something for them not something for you so that's what I want to do okay then it's gonna be awesome I'm super excited Hank and I've been on tour together since 2012 I had a great time on that tour I'm really really excited I wish we could announce where we're going but we can't yet but I just think it's gonna be for me magical to be able to spend time like all that like quality time with my brother and it is such a pleasure to see Hank perform and it'll be fun and a little bit scary to talk about the book we're gonna do live versions of Dear Hank and John in every city that we visit which is gonna be super fun we're gonna answer your questions and provide you dubious advice and give you all that day's news from Mars and AOC with it I guess probably not I mean it will be in a bridged version of Dear Hank and John I think sure yeah I mean which to be fair is all anyone ever wants I mean my god who is ever listen to this podcast I thought is there any way it could be longer no they actually I've heard that feedback John I've heard that feedback I have not mostly I've heard can you guys say unless hey we edit out like 90% of the ums you're getting the best of the ums it's true our top quality ums there there are now now I'm stuck all right let's move on let's go to us from Joel who writes Dear John and Hank I started smoking at 13 that was dumb but I quit smoking at 15 well I mean first off Joel congratulations because I also started smoking at 13 and I quit smoking at like 27 and only after six years of chewing knicker at anyway I quit smoking at 15 or so I thought oh wait I graduated him too early at every party I find myself outside with a cigarette in my hand I think it's maybe because I like to take a break from the party itself you know get to step out into the cold Swedish spring or summer or fall or winter Joel is a good sense of humor about the miseries of living in Sweden but you know it's nice about living in Sweden Joel literally everything but the weather I like to have a little time for myself even though I'm at a party with a bunch of people it's also a great way to get some time with one friend but still I want to quit smoking I'm 20 it's starting to feel juvenile do you have any dubious advice on how to get some alone time at a party without a cigarette in Vino Veritas Joel I just go to the bathroom yeah oh my god I can lock myself into the bathroom at any party for at least 20 minutes and just be like oh god I'm in my happy place I really do do that yeah sometimes even in my own house like I've got people over and especially a bunch of people on this like I'm gonna go to the upstairs toilet yeah where it's all mine and then like like 10 minutes later Catherine will text me and she's like okay up there and I'll be like just fine baby just doing all the time of my life there's some jokes on Twitter you want to hear about it exactly you won't believe you won't believe what Donald Trump did in the last 30 minutes um I just saw a really great cat video that's uh no Joel you I mean yeah you got to quit smoking so for years I would go outside with my knicker at and I would chew a piece of knicker at while chatting with someone and just enjoying the smell of their smoke just like just soaking in that second hand I still have second hand smoke like former smokers who are like oh second hand smoke is the worst I just don't understand because to me like I am so grateful whenever someone is doing that horrible work for me oh no gross that's I know it's dark but I was very hard for me to quit smoking because you know Joel here's what I'll say it gets harder every day I think that it will be harder to quit smoking tomorrow than it is today etc for the rest of your life you're right that it's starting to feel juvenile now is the time now is the time just go ahead buy a pack of Swedish knicker at about that they have minty flavors or better yet just quit so you don't get addicted to knicker at for six years like I did and then when you want some alone time at a party head to the bathroom and then other people will start knocking and you'll be like I'm sorry I'm not actually going to the bathroom but I do need to take my time in here to take seven minutes to smoke a cigarette and I'm going to spend seven minutes in here yeah um or just go outside and like look at this guy and be like oh this is nice look at that look at this place look at this Sweden here look at all this great Sweden around just go outside and like smell the smell of like uh you know democracy but still a social safety net yeah and also a king do they have a king I think they have a king king Sweden I googled that would be great if that was his name his name is Carl the 14th Gustave of Sweden I gotta say I think we're all surprised that there's only been 16 carls but how is he Carl the 16th Gustave of Sweden what does that mean I think Gustave is probably his last name maybe maybe King I don't think he's a six-week Carl Gustave I think his name is Carl Gustave but he's nobody knows for sure did you know Hank that Carl Gustave the king's uh 16th the king's father died in 1947 in an airplane crash when Carl Gustave was just nine months old oh what there could have been a war of succession did you know that his grandfather who by the way was named Gustave the sixth Adolf I don't know I have no idea how to explain at this point what is this weird Swedish name and convention yeah the crown princess Victoria is just named the crown princess Victoria there's nothing weird in her name oh but the we okay also uh Gustave the sixth uh Adolf uh became king after Gustave the fifth with a V not with an F yes I'll tell you what they seem to have a huge name shortage in Sweden it's called so much going right but it seems like if you don't have really free and open markets with lots of competition you end up with a huge first name shortage Hank what we're talking about Sweden why are you gonna say now would you believe me if I told you that Sweden has the third most medals ever in one summer Olympic sport and is it Olympic diving it's Olympic diving isn't that a surprise I don't know but I said it first god dang it first off I think they saw it coming so I think you still might have been the loser I think I might have actually I think I might have brilliantly forced your hand by making you say Olympic diving before me even though it was obvious where I was headed but his correct Sweden has had 21 Olympic medals in Olympic diving behind only China and the United States I thought you made that with 18 wow I thought you made that fact up just to wedge it in there no that's very I don't know this is this is your number one source for legitimate Olympic diving news um well John thank you very much for for the update but I'm pleased to say that I won and maybe we should have a poll on Twitter to let people know ask people whether they thought that I was about to drop the word of the day or not speaking of which before we get out of the word of the day can I just tell you that Olympic diving was originally known in the summer Olympics do you know the original name of the sport oh no I would have thought that it would be called diving it was called fancy diving oh because you know it had fanciness in it it wasn't just like oh you're not just diving into a pool you do it's summer salt and other fancy things this was this was back in the days when there was a very like kind of low threshold for the definition of fancy like 1904 1908 just the slightest flourish and people would be like well somebody thinks they're special why didn't you just wear a hat then it's like oh man I wonder if you could have won like the 1908 summer Olympic diving with just like an amazing cannonball if like like was diving the sport at a point yet where you could blow people away with just like check out this full twist yeah yeah that's it's the uh watching the evolution of of gymnastics makes me think that like all Olympic sports in 1908 was basically something that anyone could today could do like we've all drank enough milk and everything yeah anybody could win the 100 meter dash in 1908 yeah we're just we're all super humans we've had all the bovine growth hormone pumped into us uh the winning time was probably like 12 minutes they didn't have food back then they were so hungry they're a different time the air was made of coal you had a 45 chance of breaking your hip if you ran 100 meters yes it's great to be alive today this next question comes from Addy who asks dear Hank and John I just picked up Chinese take out in my small town and when I signed my receipt there was a tip line I didn't tip because I was only picking up the food I would have tipped if I was gonna sit down eat am I supposed to tip when I'm gonna take out from sit down restaurants one pounds an egg rolls Addy yeah I mean this is a hard one this is a hard one and another another problem that Sweden has solved by just not having a real tip take out culture I always tip but to be fair the place that we do take out from all of the people who work there know who I am and talk about me on Twitter and Facebook so you gotta be nice I feel like I they've got me in a corner yeah I mean I think that that I've always thought that like a 10% take out tip is the thing to do that's sort of what I do it's sort of like half of what I would give if I was gonna sit down you only give 20% tips at a sit down restaurant I mean that's that's that's the rule right that's the thing that can make me think that I'm a bad person I give a 500% tip no matter what but it's not your fault that I'm better than you okay no matter what if they serve if I ask for a fish and they serve me like just a saucer like a plate with with like cold coffee on it 500 tip thank you so much I appreciate this I mean I think having worked as a server made me a much better tipper I have never had a job that made me less money in the long run than waiting tables because it has made me a much better tipper although I don't have 500% but yeah Hank and I are believers in the 10% take out tip but I don't think that's universal and I don't think there's an expectation of a tip all right but this question but also you should not turn to Hank and I for etiquette advice my god I mean have you ever seen Hank eat spaghetti I love spaghetti so much it's like watching it's like watching Cthulhu destroy the world you know the best way to eat spaghetti John I was very pleased with that joke I don't know why you didn't like it is to put it on like a hoegy roll oh that's disgusting and why would you carve up your carbs yeah you got to carve up those carbs John that's what you did that's what I mean it's really a carbs in either a hoegy roll or spaghetti without having to eat them together all right speaking of you being weird John here's another question it comes from Dean who asks dear Hank and John so John has shilled for hot tub baths several times over the life of the podcast as a listener who lives in a place where bath tubs are rare and therefore hasn't had any real experience with my half to ask how does one take a bath I know that one fills the tub with water and puts a bath bomb in but then what he's one supposed to exfoliate when is one actually done with a hot tub bath the few times I've had the chance to take one I never feel much cleaner than I did before I got in and I was about the urge to wash down with a quick shower afterward I look forward to being enlightened by John the tub evangelist thanks and love there's always one who kisses and one who offers the cheek oh my dean that's good that reminds me of a great line by Edgar Corret whose name I'm sure I'm pronouncing um you've ever read any of the stories Hank no one of his stories there are two kinds of people in the world the people who sleep next to the wall and the people who sleep next to the people who kick them out of bed oh my goodness not not no oh my we don't have a wall on either side of our bed well I guess you're both sleeping next to the people who kick you with the bed right uh so let me break it down for you Dean um first off I don't want to offend my dear sponsor Lusch or anything but you don't need to use a bath bomb to take an excellent bath the key to an excellent bath is one lighting and two the exact right temperature in the bath itself you also need like an appropriately sized bath tub so that you don't feel like a tiny child taking a bath inside of a tiny little bath tub um you need a bath tub that is designed for a person of your size which is surprisingly hard to find almost as if people don't believe in baths anymore even though for the record they predate showers and if it was good enough for my ancient ancestors it's good enough for me that's my policy on all things except antibiotics okay so the key is the right temperature the right lighting and then you just get in the bath and you slowly soap up and you rinse and you just let yourself calm down and here's my argument Dean if you don't have time for a bath if your life is so rushed that you have to take a shower where basically you're being shot by pellets of water over and over and over again if you don't have time to just soak up the wonder of warm water then why are you alive what is the point the whole point of being alive is to take baths I mean there are lots of people who don't have baths though John well then I guess you have to construct a different meaning for life but to me the meaning of life is bathing oh man that's gonna how I feel about sleep these days I used to go to the Turkish baths um in Chicago where I where there was a nice Turkish bath house right next to my old apartment in Chicago and that was great too because it was like the fun of baths but with random other people well yeah we have sort of a similar thing in Montana because we have a lot of hot springs so you just like sort of walk out of the woods and then you'll suddenly find a bunch of hot pools with strangers in them in various states of undress and you're like hey what's going on man let's I'm gonna get in your tub with you it's a nice reminder of how close heaven is to hell you don't like the sound of that or you don't like I don't like the sound of that I mean it depends it depends on the vibe you know like anything it depends on if I feel safe and happy and I like the vibe like anything on in life one time I was at a hot spring and I was in the tub the pool it was a this was not a developed hot spring it's just like people have put rocks around the actual spring where the hot water is coming out so it's amazing and weird in the middle of nowhere and I was there's some other people in the tub with us in the pool and then a moose appeared and it was super idyllic and there were these people everyone was wearing clothes so it wasn't awkward in the way that that sometimes makes me feel awkward though you do it your way no big deal and so we're like watching this moose and he's like eating this grass that's been you know like lush and like watered by the hot springs and the guy who's in the tub with me he says moose hooves like razors and that was and that was suddenly I had a very different feeling about the entire situation so Catherine and I often will say hooves like razors whatever we see a wild animal that we don't that we don't want to get too close to oh man you know what that makes me think I think it makes me think that during the 1904 olympics you were not allowed to do a double summer salt because it was considered dangerous too fancy no it's too fancy you just have to do one summer salt if one summer salt was good enough for our ancestors it's good enough for the people of 1904 they said this podcast is brought to you by fancy diving it's fancy but not too fancy no never you don't want to go over the top with your fanciness when it comes to dining today's podcast is also brought to you by Bonnie Tyler Bonnie Tyler performing total eclipse with a heart for the last time until 2027 uh this podcast is additionally brought to you by Swedish nikorett Swedish nikorett don't probably find another way to quit because then you'll just be addicted to Swedish nikorett this next question uh asked dear Hank and John my boyfriend and I had an argument about whether humans are radioactive he says that everybody probably has one radioactive atom in them I said it's because a cake has salted it doesn't make it salty then we look at the definition of salty and it said that anything it said that it was anything that contains salt which is more important definition or connotation is cake salty sien to et acse tatum janken han apparently that's the name of this person janken han it's a suspicious name uh cake is not salty and the idea that anything that contains salt anything that contains salt is not salty that is not what salty means that that is nor in fact is that actually what the dictionary says the definition of salty is I'm looking at the definition of salty right now and it says tasting of containing or preserved with salt now I guess you could argue that anything containing salt is salty according to but I think it's mostly tasting of or preserved with that's what defines saltiness I'm really interested in the use graph over time of the word salty which got pretty peaked around 1950 and then lulled off for a little bit and now has shot right back up so I think it's because we used to have like you know people would be like oh well he's a salty dog and now maybe people are starting to say that again you know I'd like to be in a sense of like coarse humor yeah should I am I a salty dog shot no oh no should I be no no I quite like you just the way you are please don't change and start using a bunch of 1950s hips laying it'll be so cringy oh boy this podcast is buffalo oh god it's starting I knew that it was gonna happen I knew there was no way if you asked this question that you weren't going to start saying buffalo and now I'm going to be personally googling 1950s slang trying to think of one of the terms you could use to make a google 1950s slang so the thing I wanted to say is that like so I feel like there are different there are things like salty which is how you experience it and then radioactive was just a property of a thing so like containing salt means that there's salt in it and radioactive means that there is some radioactive decay going on so there like it is emitting particles and we are radioactive we have potassium and potassium has you know radioactive and it's inside you and you emit particles and that's like that that's the whole thing of degrees like you could have something that is very safe and radioactive and something that is very dangerous and also radioactive and so you need more than just that one word to describe how dangerous something is and I think that we often not just in this word but in lots of words get caught up in the idea that if that if you are any amount of one thing that you are that thing and that is a failing of language oh that's a great point and really a surprisingly artful point from that question since you came close to talking about politics and can I ask one political question sure this question comes from samantha who writes do john and hank i've been a nerdfighter for six or seven years now but i've recently become more politically conservative and have greater understanding of politics in my belief and i'm struggling with hearing people in communities like my tumblr friends and in my field of work and study i work in graphic design expressing views about evil republicans in front of me and being afraid to explain my own thoughts on a topic because i would be an evil republican in their eyes this happens a lot around issues like welfare where i'm against government welfare because i don't believe it's the best way to help struggling and impoverished americans not because i don't believe in helping people how do i talk about my political views without being labeled evil and racist and homophobic and islamophobic because my views want me in with a lot of other people that do fit those terms is it worth speaking up at all anxieties and blueberries samantha i don't know john you answer that question because you don't want to ask it well i mean here's the thing i think that anytime people are talking to what they believe to be themselves or preaching to what they believe to be the choir they talk differently than when they're talking to um like trying to talk to a broader public and i think that's i i think that's like a failure of discourse right now that we aren't doing a good job of doing much other than preaching to the choir and and it's converting the converted yeah and we like it we like doing it it's comfortable and it feels good and it's like you know it's easy it's the easy thing to do and then if you uh you know like that there's that concern that like oh is my opinion in this room making everyone have less of a good time because well yeah i mean there's that but i also think actually in samantha's question is a little bit or one solution at least to samantha's problem which is that she writes this happens on issues like welfare because i don't believe it's the best way to help struggling and impoverished americans so let's have a conversation about about policies samantha instead of about ideas like welfare so when we talk about welfare what are we talking about are we talking about unemployment insurance or are we talking about you know which is something that people pay into while they have work and then if you lose your job you receive unemployment benefits for a certain amount of time as long as you're still looking for work does that constitute welfare or is that separate from your definition of welfare what about uh social security disability benefits which go to people with disabilities who are unable to work because of they have a physical or intellectual disability that prevents them from being able to work is that welfare and if so you know it's not really a matter of incentivizing people to work in that case because most of those people can't participate in the workforce what about uh low the low income heating provision that's part of the federal government's benefits where people who live in apartments or houses who can't afford their heating bills in the winter get assistance from the federal government if we talk specifically about programs that are part of the current federal government and what we would like to see instead or what we think the world should look like instead of the way that it looks like now instead of vague kind of ideologically driven ideas like the word welfare i think we get a lot closer to being able to have a real conversation rather than just kind of staking out ideological ground and then sort of throwing rocks at each other yeah and i like john in perfectly honest like i i until you said all those things didn't like couldn't have even articulated a welfare program like a single one well we actually don't have yeah we don't have a ton of welfare programs in the united states i mean we spend a lot of money on social security but most of it is is for people who are retired and have paid into the social security system for most of their working lives and then we spend a ton of money on um providing health care to people through medicare which is for elderly people in medicaid which is for uh certain people who live in poverty not everyone who is in poverty but certain people who live at or near the poverty line uh can get health care through medicaid especially kids and both all of that which are the central sort of like welfare or redistribution payments in the u.s. right now are really popular with both republicans and democrats and so i i actually think if we talked in specifics instead of in kind of ideologically charged language we would find a lot more overlap yeah yeah i agree i agree this next question comes from shamus who asks dear hanken john i learned that in the upcoming reboot of ductails saying he we doing in louis also now refers to their birth order how do you determine the birth order of an animal that hatches from an egg is at which egg comes out first or which egg hatches first also can you have identical twin birds that we might not solve a mystery or rewrite history shamus i've watched the first episode of the new ductails hank yeah it made me extremely nostalgic for the old ductails why would you change something that's already perfect why do we need older and younger brothers when we already had the perfect television program well was where were you doing louis did they used to triplets or something it was never considered because it doesn't matter we don't need sibling rivalry in the ductails universe it's just not necessary oh is there sibling rivalry i haven't watched yet i'm very excited to see it as a star studded cast but i have not it's very good it's very good i just why there's a few things that annoyed me because all i want of course is for to be like the old duct tails i am a i'm a simple person i want fancy diving to contain no more than one-sum result baths for everyone forever no matter what and the regular old ductails i don't even want baths so so as for as for birth order i don't know i think probably it's which egg hatches first but also like there could be two eggs hatching simultaneously so like is it when the little egg tooth first pops out or is it when the chick first gets like like out of the egg completely i don't know that seems complicated to me but i do have an answer to can you have identical twin birds because john do you know how this happens i've i mean absolutely not so uh when you have a bird um and you have to like if you have identical so like in a person you have identical twin they're both hanging out there in the in the the uterus together in a bird they hang out in the egg together oh wow so when you identical or fraternal twins there are two birds that grow inside the same egg and so the vast majority of times those birds do not live because that's too cramped a space to be a bird but it does happen uh there's a study they so they looked at 200 eggs that contained two embryos whether that was a double yolk egg which would be fraternal twins or whether the yolk split early on and that would be identical twins uh and found that only one of the eggs produced uh two happy healthy babies so it does happen but it doesn't happen very often because it's it's biologically constrained in there so you can add a little twin birds and i was very surprised and interested to find that out thank you for asking the question shameless because i did not know i'm also surprised it was weird how you put on your best agatha christy voice at the end of that that little bit there but i liked it okay that's one new thing john when i'm discovering new facts about the universe oh boy man okay i mean i'm very close to mentioning something from your past that i've never mentioned and then i know you don't do it don't do it i'm very close i'm very close i'm like a chris flying toward the sun and i want to just i want to say it but i'm not going to out of respect for you thank thank thank you john for leaving off no one is no one should ever know no one should ever know really it's the rare thing that uh is just it's too much but this much goes from Emma residue john and this weekend i'm going on a date with a lovely girl and i can't contain my excitement however this upcoming date has made me wonder at what point can i say that we are officially dating well not before your first date that's for sure obviously now would be far too soon i wouldn't say far too soon but when can i appropriately tell people that i'm dating someone three dates 10 dates is it after a certain amount of time like a month please answer swiftly as i am in desperate needs reveal our probable love to the world oh wow wow wow is this a rebound oh you're excited ah to montes emma i assume that means i am really in love with this person that i'm going out on a date with the first time in a couple in a couple weeks yes that's the latin for clingy clingy clingy i don't know i don't know exactly what uh that means but i assume it means i am really excited about love yeah yeah um john yeah uh i haven't dated anyone in uh so many years why don't we ever take any messages okay i think that you can say that you're dating when it's obvious to you that you are dating like i think i think if you want there's a few strategies here you can have the conversation but i would not recommend the first date no for that conversation i would recommend like after the third date for that conversation at the earliest yeah assuming weekly dates i think i think that if there is an assumption that you're going to go out on another date and you don't really have to ask then you'd write yes it's when it becomes of course there's no more asking it's just like what are we doing this weekend yeah that's dating i think but like can't it has been some time since i have uh dipped my toes into those waters and i must say i'm not nostalgic for them no no no it means lovers are crazy by the way oh well yeah all right it's cute it's cute good luck Emma we wish you well and since you asked that question six months ago probably you're now married i hope i hope everything has gone well uh john let's do one last question before we get to the news from marzane fc Wimbledon this one comes from a haly who asks dear hank and john long time listener first time potter uh that's not what it says but whatever i have a question about a neighborhood etiquette if my dog poops during a long walk and i secured in a plastic bag am i allowed to throw it away and somebody else's garbage on the side of the road because i hate being rude but i also hate carrying poop feces and fiesta's haly i mean this is why i don't walk my dog just so i'm not presented with these kind of difficult problems i do i do that i did i did i did that i would always pick up the lemon poop but i would occasionally drop it in somebody else's trash i just feel yeah i might swing this bag of poop all the way home if i'm like i know but then you're potentially saying to somebody like you clean the poop out of your garbage bag when this is a plot bleeds theoretically it's the garbage men who clean the poop out of the thing and they're gonna do it at my house they're gonna do it at their house as long as i know i it seems very marginal to me this is why i agree on on several acres of land and willy is allowed to roam free yeah i do have this this feel like i don't like if there's a person standing on the porch i'm not gonna do it so like i know that there's something wrong with that exactly bingo bingo bingo thank before we get to the news from marz and as he will then i need to read one correction which came uh to john uh mostly but also hank trisha writes uh i'd like to write with the correction on the one hundred second episode of the pot john reported that only one model three was delivered in july of this year is a tesla thing my husband works for tesla and every time i see a tesla i inform whoever is nearest hey my husband made that with his bare hands it drives him crazy but i'm very proud of him and the work he does it will also drive him crazy that i took the time to write this correction but he's not the boss of me 30 model threes were delivered in july of 27 in full production on the cars as well underway as i write this now it was still several years past the elon timeline of course but you can't imagine what kind of overtime and struggle the workers endured to get not just one but 30 model three cars out um that's okay i think a 29 car difference is significant enough to write in and i hope you'll give them a shout out trisha trisha thank you to your husband for making such high quality electric vehicles and i'm sorry good job john what's the news for mamsey wivelton hey uh have you ever witnessed a complete solar eclipse no have you ever witnessed a near complete solar eclipse yes so what you will no doubt remember is that a darkness fell over the land and it became cold and barren um not really the bird stopped singing in midair and fell to the ground the goats fainted the gods themselves knelt down and begged reprieve a man who is in the middle of his double fancied sub-resault dive just stopped and he just stopped midair and just run there as the cold descended um yeah and and darkness washed across the land and the crops died and etc um anyway that was better and more fun than afc wivelton's league one season so far oh hank it's very very worrisome it's a very worrisome situation so you still got that just that one goal under your belt we still have just scored the one goal this season on the heels of not scoring a goal in the last like six games of last season i remember um and we've we've had the one one one draw against scunthorp and we lost one nil to shrews berry and now we've lost two nil to fleetwood um i mean i want to like find a silver lining in this this goal scoring drought and this uh plummeting down the table the good news is that while while afc wibbled in r in the relegation spots right now um they are only two points away from being in like 15th place because it's very early in the season right so things have to get worked out things have to get figured out i'm definitely nervous um but i also it's a long season and it was never going to be easy the second season in a new league is always hard in the first season so that's not a bunch of a we did have a new signing we signed somebody from rangers um which is a team in scotland good uh yeah i mean he's a winger and we need some offense so that's good i guess his name's harry forester he um is known as in in scotland i don't want to speak ill of him on the world's second leading afc wibbled in podcast but in scotland he was known as something of a troublemaker but to be fair Neil artley has turned around people with bad reputations in the past so hopefully harry forester is going to score 462 goals over the next 38 weeks and afc wibbled in will rise right to the championship time will tell um good luck and i'm glad to hear that you've at least you're always moving on players and not just sort of sticking with the current squad yeah no it's uh well we'll see life is long and we'll see we'll see uh john so question who owns mars oh i know the answer to that america um well more broadly than that this is a conversation going on around who owns stuff that is mined in outer space because people are looking at the future of mining stuff in outer space and mostly this will be useful for use in outer space so it's uh the first thought is like hey if we found a bunch of gold in space we could bring it back to earth and then there would be gold and you could sell it on earth but really what we like it's expensive to move stuff around in space to get it from space to earth to get earth stuff to space so what we're mostly looking at is taking stuff that's in space and building things with it or using it as fuel to move stuff that's already in space around so you don't have to launch all your water up into space you don't have to watch launch all your hydrogen your oxygen up into space you can go to space mine the water and then use it um now there uh are starting to be enough people looking to do this that governments want to avoid conflicts between companies and countries over resources out in space and uh are starting to have some rules and the u.s is looking at a rule uh that says if you can grab it and take it with you then it becomes your property oh okay well i mean to be fair that is sort of the approach that the u.s has taken to um land management over the last couple centuries so seems reasonable it's not a huge change in policy so if you obtain the resource and bring it with you it becomes your property um so it's not your property while it's on the ground but as soon as you pick it up and bring it with you it becomes yours so it's like this is fine now if you put it back down it's not yours anymore but if you pick it back up it's yours i put it down it's not yours which is i guess the rule that we have for most rocks like uh rock is mine unless i'm holding onto it and i put it back down it's not my rock anymore yeah that's not strictly speaking it's a little bit of an oversimplification of u.s land management but only a little bit i mean i feel like if i go to a river and i pick up a rock that's my rock now if i take it back to my house put it in my house and you steal that rock you stole my rock but if i put it back down on the river bank that's not my rock right i don't know man this is how rock ownership works uh but i could but i couldn't like take a bulldozer and like scoop up a thousand rocks and bring those with me people be like you can't just take those rock but i take one rock i feel like it's okay but it's probably not it's probably illegal i probably shouldn't take those rocks but i'm going to anyway no yeah yeah just from just from all but not a lot of them just a few from areas where people don't usually take rocks so it's just me yeah yeah i mean i i do do you want to take this is complicated interstellar law that we're not really ready for yet and we're gonna have to do it the same way we did it the last time which was just horrifically hopefully well the good news is no there's not people to steal from out there except for each other right but don't worry we will find a way to do it uh inequitably i know it i believe in us a hundred percent um human beings we amaze me i i continue i continue to be astonished by all of the things that humans need to make laws for because of all the weird new stuff we keep doing it's sort of inspirational but also sort of horrifying like uh the internet and most other things uh well i should say that there's also some some uh outer space law confusion and so other people are not quite so sure that it's as simple as i just said but um rules in space good luck enforcing them there's no space cops um yep that's all yeah yeah i mean there you go there's no space cops it's gonna be hard in space without space cops man is there a great space cop science fiction novel link because i love detective fiction and i love like hard-boiled cops but i don't know what these space cops yes yes yes Leviathan wakes Leviathan wakes by James Essay Corey uh the expanse series there's like seven of them uh but Leviathan wakes is uh the one that is from the the perspective of like literally a noir detective who lives in the ass for a day it's so good okay well now i'm excited i'm fired up i'm gonna check it out um hank uh do you remember with my dismachine killstache sticker that is on my laptop and is on in all the crash course videos when it was not a politically charged statement yeah i do remember that oh god okay with that noted thanks to everybody for listening um you can set us questions at hankandjohn at gmail.com or find us on twitter i'm john green hank is hank green and uh we really appreciate you listening and let us know if you like the stupid new bit with the raise of the week i liked it i liked it i think you did it thank you for the good thing john i want to do better next week i'm already looking forward to it this podcast is edited by Nicholas Jenkins it is produced by rosianna hals rojas and sharud and gypson our social media manager is Victoria Bonjourner the music is by the break on rola and as they say in our hometown don't forget to be awesome