212: The Billionaire Cactus Ghost

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I don't know if you missed me, but I wasn't around quite as much over the last six weeks because I've been working on some other things, which is the other reason for the Cold Open. Most notably, we are doing a big project with Partners in Health Sierra Leone to strengthen the healthcare system, every facet of the healthcare system from community health workers to primary care centers to the Cuydoo government hospital in the center of the Kono district to prove that it is possible even in places like Sierra Leone with extremely fragile systems to radically reduce maternal and child mortality. Sierra Leone has the highest maternal mortality rate in the world. One in 17 women in Sierra Leone will die in pregnancy or childbirth.

That is an emergency. It is a crisis, but because it's a crisis that's been unfolding for a long time, we haven't been treating it like a crisis. Please join us over the next five years as we follow the story of what can happen in a community when real lasting long-term investment is made to address the long-term systemic problems that people face. And if you go to pih.org slash Hank and John, is that right, John?

Is that the correct link? Yeah, although pih.org slash John and Hank also works at Forest Partners in Health to do that joke. So it will work either way. Okay.

Also, while we're called opening, though looking for Alaska show, the adaptation of my first novel is out on Hulu now in the United States and other places in other ways and let it snow a movie that is adapted from a story that Warren Miracle, Maureen Johnson and I wrote many years ago is coming to Netflix on November 8th. So that is also exciting. Congratulations, John. I know that you've been waiting a long time to see looking for Alaska be something else and people like it.

I'm so pleased. It's over 90% fresh on rotten tomatoes. That's the freshest I've ever been on rotten tomatoes. All right, John, let's make a podcast.

Let's do it. Oh, and welcome to dear, Hank and John. Or is that for think with your John and Hank? It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you some advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon John.

What do you call a truck that has four wheels and flies? What what a garbage truck? What? Oh, yeah, no, I got it.

The only thing I didn't miss about making this podcast with you was this bit, but I understand from the emails that we've received that this is a beloved bit. And so we're keeping it. There's only one thing I would have tweeted over the last six weeks, despite getting lots and lots of pressure to tweet about various things. And that is that I would have tweeted, please join us by making a monthly donation right now at pih.org slash Hank and John.

Why don't you you should set up like an auto tweeter. You should become a bot. John Green the bot. No, I don't want to do that.

Yes. No, because as you know, Hank, I genuinely believe that Twitter is making the social order worse and I don't want to participate in it. And anyway, I really don't. I feel yeah.

I don't want to be hyperbolic, Hank, but it's a little bit like if somebody said, I know that murder is bad and we should murder people, but it would really help us in this particular situation. If you would just murder this one person one time, just a little bit, just a touch of murder. And then I would be like, I just I really don't feel comfortable murdering people. I think it's bad for the social order.

And they would be like, well, of course, it's bad for the social order. But wouldn't it bring a lot of attention to your work if you just murdered this one person? Well, I will abandon it eventually, I'm sure I'll come around to your perspective. But at the moment, I'm having too much fun making potato jokes as long as your position isn't that Twitter is making the social order better because I think that's a tough position to hold right now.

Certainly not. This first question comes from Sarah who has steer Hank and John. Last Halloween, I was a cactus. Awesome.

When Christmas came around and I couldn't find my Christmas sweater, I taped ornaments to my cactus costume and I became a Christmas cactus. Really? Good. It's now my mission in life to see how many times I can tweak and reuse this costume.

So far, all I have for Halloween this year is porcupine that fell in green paint. Any dubious ideas to add? Prickly, Pera, Sarah. Well, first of all, I got to say that you've used your cactus costume for Halloween and for Christmas.

But what you didn't do is use it for anything in between Christmas and this Halloween. I know you had a chance to have a birthday cactus. You had a chance to have like an Easter cactus. Yeah, you had an Arbor day cactus, which I mean, essentially really lends itself to the holiday.

Yeah, you have to be a Valentine's day cactus. You love me, but don't touch too much. That's right. Keep your distance, but also be affectionate.

It's a complicated thing. Yeah, I did have some ideas. Okay, you got do you have Halloween costume ideas specifically? Well, I've had six weeks to think about this question.

So I do have some ideas. Okay, I think the right strategy here, Sarah, is to go fairly political, but I don't know how political you want to go. So here's one take on it. You could be the only vegetation that's left after the desertification of planet Earth.

I don't know if that's political so much as just a big old downer. Isn't that what Halloween is supposed to be though? Like it's supposed to be downer costumes like death. Yeah, yeah, I don't know if you've got a great grasp of how spooky works.

I mean, what is spookier than the end of complex life on Earth? Ah, I mean, just on the spooky vibes. Yeah. Could you just be a spooky cactus?

Could you like the ghost of a cactus? That's a great idea. Or some like a cactus that was murdered in a Victorian mansion? Yes, yes, I used to be a cactus.

But now I am the ghost of a cactus and like I'm at Hogwarts and the nearly headless cactus. The whole ghost situation at Hogwarts fascinates me, because it's very clear that J.K. Rowling has no idea how people become ghosts until like book six. Yeah, but I think what gets established is that like you become a ghost if you hang on too much to life and you're not ready to become dead.

So that's what you have to be. Like you have to be like a desperately ambitious cactus that will do anything to survive that died anyway. I don't know how much backstory you need, Sarah. But what I'm thinking is like you had an incredibly long cactus life.

You live life for like two, I don't know how long cactus is lived cactus. You live for like 200 years. And then like the cactus God came to you and was like, it's time, you know, it's been a good run. And you're like, no, I'll do anything.

And they're like, you can become a cactus ghost. And you're like, all right. And now you're stuck here perpetually. You're stuck in the middle.

You wanted to be the last life form left on Earth, but you died like everything else. You wanted it too badly. Which is the story as far as I can tell of every billionaire right now. I mean, I know I mentioned this to you before, but they know, right?

I am totally fascinated by billionaire psychology because like somehow they convinced themselves that because they were good at one thing, they will be good at going to Mars, or they will be good at building a moon base. Or good at living forever and bounding their brains into computers because once you have all the things you start to think, well, how do I? So here's your spooky costume. You have to be a billionaire in a cactus costume because they've convinced themselves that this is the way to live forever.

And it doesn't make any sense. But that's the point. But neither do any of their other ideas. It never does.

Yeah. Now that is a properly politically convoluted Halloween costume. That's what 2019 is crying out for a Halloween costume that when you go to the Halloween party, it takes 45 minutes to explain it. Yeah.

And then at the end of it, half the people are mad at you and half the people, your best friends. Yeah, you're like, I'm sorry. What are you dressed up as? And you literally hand them a novella.

And you're like, here it is. You had to print out a bunch of seeds. The ballad of the billionaire who became a cactus ghost. Well, we did it, Hank, we're back.

I think everybody's like, Oh, I miss the guest notes. This next question comes from Arthur who writes Dear John and Hank, I've recently become very active in my local community and politics. As a result, more people are recognizing me. However, today was the first time someone I don't know recognized me.

They knew me and started a conversation with me. But I don't know them. How do you act around people who know you, but you don't know them. My table is circular, Arthur.

Boy, it's this is almost as if you have actually come to the right person. Yeah, this actually, as opposed to spooky Halloween costumes, this is something that we're relatively experienced with. Yeah, I say hello, and I shake their hands. I introduce myself so that they will tell me their name.

And then I ask them questions about themselves because that's what people want to talk about. So you ask them, Oh, how do you know who I am? Oh, what's your favorite kind of bridge? Oh, what was the last time you swam in a river?

And then they're, then they're your best friend forever. Or they've done the socially appropriate thing after you've been asked those three questions, which is made as much space between you and them as possible. Yeah, which is also a good outcome. I had a very interesting fan encounter this morning.

I was walking back from dropping Alice off at school, and someone came up to me and said, I've heard that you hate meeting fans. I was like, no, I don't. I really don't. I really, I want to meet you.

It's nice. I'm very, I think it's just that I'm so freaking awkward. Yeah, because I have a lot of social anxiety, like a lot of people with social anxiety, when I'm in a situation that's even like more heightened than a usual social situation, I respond late, like, to social cues. So like if somebody tells me a joke, like it'll take me a little bit extra time for the joke to penetrate through all of the worries that I'm having while having this conversation.

And so I'll laugh late. And that seems really, it seems really weird. It makes people super uncomfortable. And then I become conscious of the fact that it's happening and then it gets worse.

So anyway, I explained all of that to this person who was like, I am just walking on the sidewalk. And I did not know that today was the day of the dissertation, but this is all very helpful. Thank you. And then I said, what's your favorite bridge?

And they walked away. Good. Perfect. I had one at the, at the airport just yesterday, a guy came up to me and he said, are you the YouTube guys?

And he was like, my friend met you and he got a picture. And I was very jealous. So now I'm going to get one and send it to him. And I was like, well, I have 100% on this friend duo now.

Good job. Lucky couple of guys. Yeah. So are there we started this question by bragging about what experts we are in this field, only to learn through answering it that we have absolutely no idea what we're doing.

Just try to be polite and grateful for the fact that people care about your work. This next question comes from Sam who asks, Dear Hank and John, why are all the ghosts so old? Are there no 21st century entities? Right.

What's a modern demonic spirit like? Do they text you instead of jumping out of the old wardrobe? Or is it just my bank account? That's the real modern horror dubious advice appreciated.

Green eggs and emails, spam, Sam. So my theory about this, Hank, is that ghosts are always about as old as your great grandparents. And so in like 1800, there were a lot of like 1700, 1680 kind of ghosts. And now we've got these like Victorian or increasingly, you know, like early 20th century ghosts.

And I am very excited for like in the year 2190 or whenever I start haunting people, ghosts will be like a, you know, like a slightly schlubby guy wearing a polo shirt who's like using this ancient device that could only act as a magic wand in like seven or eight ways, as opposed to like the current device, which is implanted inside of your brain and acts as a magic wand in like 5000 ways. But before that, before that happens, there will be people being haunted by teens and very large jinko jeans, nirvana shirts and weird swoopy hair, singing Marilyn Banson would be great. By the way, all of that is back. The number of nirvana shirts that you see on the streets of America today has never been higher.

It is a little distressing to me. Like I looked this up recently because I was like, why are all these teenagers into nirvana? It doesn't make any sense. So current day is further away from the album, never mind, nirvana's seminal album, then you and I in high school were away from the fricking beach boys.

I don't like that. I don't like that. So that's why it's because like their relationship with nirvana is like our relationship with the Beatles. Oh, god.

Do they care about the Beatles? You know, probably not. Did we care about big band music? Like sort of?

I think there was a time in college when I got into big band music, John, but I think it was just because I really needed to find myself in opposition to everyone else. Yes. The funny thing about people when they're going through that phase of life is that they don't know that they're in that phase of life. No, yeah, no.

John, is it possible that I have ever just for clarity? Because it's true that like maybe ghosts will find different ways of haunting. It's completely possible that I've gotten an email from a ghost and I just didn't notice because I get lots of emails from people who are not in my inbox and they just get classified away. Google needs to do an analysis to figure out how many emails are being sent by ghosts of the things that you've gotten really passionate and raised your voice about.

That is the one that I think is the worst idea. John, they're the only ones with the data. Right. Yeah.

Forget about storming area 51. What we need to do. We need the ghost data. Is storm the Google headquarters?

Find out the truth about ghosts or, alternately, storm the Google headquarters and find out why when I ask my Google home, hey, Google, where is Sarah? It tells me. There's a ghost in there. God, please God, can we move on to another question?

This question comes from Nick who writes, dear John and Hank, my girlfriend and I recently moved into our first house together and found we had a question. We can't answer. Where do grownups keep their potatoes? Growing up, both of us lived in farmhouses with antique handmade wooden potato bins.

I think Nick is a ghost from the 18th century. What? We see ghost emails. They're coming in all the time.

Or maybe that's just a regional thing. I don't know. But anyway, I haven't found an antique handmade wooden potato bin at Meyer. I bet you haven't.

So we just have like our bag of potato on our counter for three months and we need to put them somewhere. Any doobies and vice on potato storage is appreciated. You say potato. I say potato.

Nick, where do you keep your potatoes, John? I keep them in a bag on the counter for three months, just like Nick and every other normal person who doesn't have an antique handmade wooden potato bin. Yeah. Well, how many potatoes are you getting at a time, Nick?

I think it's a big question. Yeah. Is this like an 18th century European peasant thing where you're eating like eight to 10 pounds of potatoes per day? Or is this more of like a regular contemporary person who eats like say five potatoes a month?

Well, it also maybe seems like you're really stockpiling. Like you need a lot of potatoes. Like is there a season when the potatoes are only available that season because one of the glories of modern life is that potatoes are at the grocery store all year round. I don't know how they do it, but they seem to be able to.

I bet it's super carbon neutral. So I keep my potatoes. I actually mix it up. I keep some of them out.

Sometimes if I know I'm going to use them soon, I'll keep them out with like my fruits over there and the fruit and onion and you don't refrigerate your fruits. Not like my bananas and my apples. Oh, okay. All right.

I refrigerate my apples just so I can really enjoy them crisp. And my teeth are too sensitive for that. But I don't refrigerate bananas because I love America and I'm not a bad person. Right.

You keep them on the countertop, right? You keep them on the countertop next to the onions, next to the bananas, like corner of the counter area where all the non-refrigerated plants go. Yeah. And maybe if you want to get like a nice decorative bowl that can be sort of your version of an antique handmade wooden potato bin, that's fine.

But like you don't have to. They're fine on the counter. They like to be dark. They'll think that it's time to become a plant if they get light on them.

So you can keep them if you're going to have them around for a while, which it seems like you will three months. It's good to make a make a dark put them in the paper bag. You could also throw them in the cellar. That's where they traditionally are kept.

Oh, they love a cellar. Don't put them in the fridge because cold potatoes can produce a chemical that then when I heat it up can become a carcinogen. Apparently, according to an article, I just read a good housekeeping magazine. Yeah.

I think like a lot of things that risk might be slightly exaggerated and the potato has to be quite, quite cold for that to happen. But still, why take a risk? Nick, look, it sounds like you live in 1875. So just throw it in the root cellar with the rest of your cellar items.

Yes. Hank, do you remember when our dad lived alone in the woods in wintertime for like four months? Yeah. And he lived like entirely from food that was inside of his root cellar.

And once a month of five pound Hershey's chocolate bar. Like sometimes I think about the life that our dad has had. And I think about my life. And I'm like, I have done nothing.

Is it possible that our dad is a ghost? I mean, that he lived like, it seems like before you were born, that lived 15 lifetimes. Totally. It was all before we were born.

So he did all like, did you ever work in Alaska on a fishing boat? Of course I did. Did you ever like hike the Appalachian Trail? Yeah.

Sure. On a way, New York City cab driver? Yes. I did that too.

I think it wasn't a Boston cab driver, but regardless. Yeah, dad was a cab driver. Dad had every job between like 1967 and 1977. Our dad worked every job and then would spend the winter mushing dogs or whatever.

Who knows how it worked, but he definitely read Lauren Peace in three days. He did. And he definitely woke up one morning with a mouse on his shoulder, which is just Tom Bombadil. Like, I think I could do the rest of living in the woods in New Hampshire in, you know, an eight by eight cabin with a root cellar, but not the mouse part.

This next question comes from Jess who asks Dear Hank and John, if there was once a civilization on Mars, is it possible that there could be ghosts there now? And yes, all of my questions are about ghosts. Maybe the whole planet is haunted and that's why it's so cold. It might be a mess, but I would guess most definitely yes, Jess.

Yeah, no. I love it. Is that why it's so cold? Because you can't like chili when there's a ghost that goes by.

It's like, you do a draft. Yeah, ghosts are a little bit colder than regular people. So it makes sense that a planet occupied by ghosts would be cold. There is another explanation for why Mars might be cold, which is that it's further from the sun than the Earth is.

But yeah, I like Jess's explanation. Here's the issue. Jess, I've spent a ton of time thinking about this because one of the things I've always wanted to do is come into the Mars news one week with like a really lock tight theory about an ancient Martian civilization and like lay it on Hank and have him just be shocked. And so I've read some articles that are pretty deep down in the internet about ancient Martian civilizations.

And I just don't think it's possible. Yeah, seems pretty unlikely. It's not, no, it's not unlikely. You scientists, Hank, you're always talking in probabilities and in what we know now and etcetera.

It's no, no, as a novelist, let me tell you how to say it. There was never a civilization on Mars. It's impossible. There was never a civilization on Mars.

It's impossible. And also ghosts don't exist. For the record, I think that ghosts do exist, even if their existence might be contingent upon human consciousness. There was never a civilization on Mars, though, although that would be awesome.

Jupiter, on the other hand, that to me is 50-50. It's just ghosts. You just jump in there and you just fall through 10,000 miles of ghosts. This next question comes from Emily who writes, Dear John and Hank, I'm in my second year of college and I'm finally realizing what I want to do.

I'm majoring in environmental science and management. When I explain that I want to work in environmental policy, people seem to think that I want to do research for the government. And that sounds boring. How do I tell people that I do want to be a pencil pushing bureaucrat without sounding like super boring?

Just like a simile, Emily. I think this is so great. And I don't think we need to justify ourselves and our career choices and our passions. But I guess we do anyway.

I mean, Emily, you don't have to justify what you want to do. But also, if we've learned anything in the last five years, it's that the world desperately needs competent pencil pushing bureaucrats. Like that is a huge, huge need on Earth right now, especially when it comes to solving the big, big problems of which climate change is the biggest. So to me, being part of shaping environmental policy when we know that governments have to be the center of how this gets fixed, like it's the most important job.

It is. And you never know which person it's going to be, whatever their job is, who finds the ghosts. I'm about to take another six weeks off. Semi related question, Hank, from Lily who writes, Dear John and Hank, basically, I believe in climate change, but I've now had two reputable science teachers tell me that it's not completely true.

I'm confused. What is not completely true me? Yeah, also. I get into that.

I would like to talk to these science teachers about the phrase not completely true. Anyway, I'm confused. How do we know for sure that climate change is a thing and that it's a thing to be worried about, not a rose lily? So those are two separate questions, Hank, but I think they're both very important.

And I can only answer the first one, which is that we know climate change is a thing because it's happening. Yeah. And it's been happening for decades. And we know that it will accelerate because it has been accelerated.

Yeah. So this is obviously a big question. There are lots of pieces. But the biggest reason why we know climate change is a thing is that like we understand the physics of how the earth works, of how energy enters the system and leaves the system.

And one thing that we know is that energy leaves earth, it's radiated away as infrared radiation. It enters earth mostly as visible light. And there are certain compounds that do not absorb visible light, but do absorb infrared radiation, carbon dioxide, methane are two of the big ones. And so we know that if you have more of those things in the atmosphere, that less energy will leave and the same amount of energy will come in.

And if that continues to happen, there will be more energy in the system. And that's a physical thing that's occurring. We know the physics of that and we've understood the physics of that for 150 years. That's like, you know, physics.

But there's also like data. We just can like measure the temperature of the oceans and the temperature of the air, and we can see that the earth has gotten hotter. And you know, there are some people who are like, well, maybe the earth just got hotter because of something that we don't understand. But we also have this extremely good system for explaining it.

And in science, we talk about the explanatory power of a theory. And a theory that is very good at explaining things has a lot of explanatory power. And the idea of how the greenhouse effect works has a huge amount of explanatory power and has been very good at predicting sort of exactly how the earth would warm if we did what we have done. And we have seen the results of this sort of single experiment that we are running on the planet, not intentionally, but because of our desire to have more energy with which to fly around and get to work and see our families and warmer houses and stuff.

So that's part of it. Now, there's also the why should we be worried about this thing? And I think that ultimately, there is room to disagree about what we should do in the face of climate change. And this might be what your teachers are saying.

I don't really know what not completely true means. Digging into that would be very like, I think that that's going to come down to whatever that teacher meant by that. But ultimately, some people say that we have to like basically turn off all the lights. And I like, I don't believe that I don't believe that turning off every coal fired power plant in the world right now would be a good thing.

Because I think that a lot of people would die. You know, a lot of people would die of being cold or not being able to get the food that they needed. And that would ultimately be like a super destructive path that would not lead to a good ecological outcome, regardless of whether it would lead to a good human outcome. And I do care a lot about humans.

And so I think that it's important to note that there is good faith disagreement about the best paths forward. Some people think that there should be a carbon tax and that it should be implemented right now and it should be steep. But other people say a carbon tax would adversely impact the most disadvantaged because those are the people who don't have the extra money to spend and have a hard enough time paying their energy bills as it is. And so you have to do things that are more complicated and you have to have solutions that are more complicated.

And that complexity leaves room for a lot of bad faith actors to sort of prevent any action from being taken at all. But I think that is the central thing, Hank, is yes, there is complexity when it comes to what we should do. But we know that not making any choice is much, much worse than making the second or third best choice. And the reason that no choice in so many cases is being made is because of bad faith actors who are intentionally or borderline intentionally at least misleading people about what the data says or presenting the data in ways that is ultimately misleading or simplifying in ways that lead to distortion.

And it's really important to understand that. Like, I agree with you, we can have a debate about whether or not we need to turn off every coal-fired power plant, not tomorrow, but in the next 60 months, we cannot have a debate about whether we need to turn off every coal-fired power plant eventually. Yeah, that is absolutely true. People don't want change because it influences how much money they're able to make right now.

And that's very discouraging and has been for a long time for me. But I've also seen a lot of progress and I continue to see the enthusiasm and the awareness for a sustainable future growing. And I maintain hope that we will be able to mitigate this. Yeah, but there will be bad effects from climate change.

There are already, but they will get much worse and they will disproportionately affect the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world. Oh, yes. I think it's important to say that over and over again, because it's not just that this is going to have very serious effects for humans. It's also that it's going to be unjustly distributed in a way that most affects the people who are least responsible for what's happened.

Yeah, and that is the story of every environmental crisis, as is the case with most justice. Yeah, which reminds me that Jay Spock has brought to you by Pih Sierra Leone, which is working to build a healthcare system that serves the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable people in Sierra Leone. This podcast is also brought to you by emails sent to you by ghosts. They might be curious about potatoes.

They might want you to invest in their pyramid scheme, but it's definitely a ghost and they're definitely out there and Google isn't telling us about it. The podcast, of course, is also brought to you by the newest biggest hit Halloween costume that the world has seen in decades. The billionaire that got turned into a cactus in attempting to live forever, colon a novella. I would buy this scene.

Actually, like the more we talk about it, the more I think like, you know, it's not a bad idea for a graphic novel. It's a pretty it's potentially a pretty rich world, right? Like, it's a real bummer to be a ghost. It's a double bummer to be a cactus ghost.

And it's a triple bummer to have been one of the most powerful people in the world. And now it's not just that you're a ghost and you're a cactus ghost. And finally, this podcast is brought to you by the area of your kitchen where you keep your plant parts, the area of the kitchen where you keep your plant parts. This episode of your Hank and John is brought to you by Shompify.

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What are you going to do? Are you going to get meal delivery that's going to cost too much and maybe be a bit of a mistake or are you going to go to the cupboard and just eat several fistfuls of peanuts? Those are my two choices unless I have a factor in the fridge. You can get smoky barbecue chicken breasts with potato mash, cream corn and peppers.

You can get creamy lemon pepper chicken with veggie rice peel off broccoli and carrots. This has the fiber I need, it has the protein I need, and it has the deliciousness I need. What about garlic herb roasted barramundi with potato zucchini and burr blanc sauce? I don't really know what that means but it sounds delicious.

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Hank, before we totally exit this portion of the podcast, I feel that it is extremely important to acknowledge that as this podcast is being uploaded, it is the beginning of a two-week holiday in our community of Nerdfighteria known as Pizzamas. Oh my gosh. Yeah, Pizzamas is happening now. You can go to youtube.com slash vlogbrothers to learn more or you can go to dftba.com if you just want to go directly to the crazy Pizzamas merch.

All our profits go to charity. Hank, yes. Before we get to the important news for Mars and AFC Wimbledon, I just need to acknowledge a couple things. Okay.

First off, thank you to everybody for their patience as I was gone for six weeks. Nobody seemed to notice. Secondly, Caitlin wrote in to say that there are organizations that are trying to market tap water, including in New York City. And I have to say New York City has some of the best tap water in the world.

They also have some of the best tap water marketing in the world. Because the tap water is always named after the mayor. I don't know if they still do this, but they did it when I was there. So like the tap water when I was there was known either as Bloomberg water or as De Blasio water.

And so when you would order water, people would be like, you want like sparkling water, do you want bottled water or do you want Bloomberg water? And I'd always be like, Bloomberg water. And that sounds great. Like that guy's rich.

I want some of what he's having. Super weird. All right. Listen, we got to get to the important news for Mars and AFC Wimbledon.

I'll start. I have a lot of news. It's been, you know, every six weeks is important in the history of AFC Wimbledon because it's the world's, you know, most important organized activity. But this six weeks in particular has been just incredible.

Everything has happened. So first AFC Wimbledon you'll recall we're at the bottom of the league one table. Well, almost at the bottom because there were two teams that started with negative 12 points, one of which unfortunately has already exited league one. So there are only three relegation spots this year.

And Bolton is very likely to get one of them because after 11 games, they have negative eight points, which is not good. So they start with negative 12. They did, which is, I agree with you, it's worrisome that they've been able to accumulate four points. It's still not great.

I know. So I feel very bad for them. They're a wonderful club with a great history and just horrible, horrible ownership, which, you know, something AFC Wimbledon knows a lot about and has been through. Then in 22nd place is South End United, which after 13 games has five points, also not great.

So they would seem at least at the moment to be two of the three likely candidates for relegation. Very likely. So AFC Wimbledon won none of their first nine games. It was extremely, it was very distressing.

Then to make matters worse, AFC Wimbledon's manager Wally Downs was charged by the English Football Association with gambling on football, which is both illegal and obviously not good. Right. Yeah. No, don't do that.

Wally. So he was suspended. And then while he was suspended, assistant manager Gwyn Hodges came in and we won three straight games. All right.

We've won three games in League One. You heard me right. Three Hank. We've gotten nine points from three games after getting three points from 11 games.

That's so I don't like to get ahead of myself, but assuming that we win the rest of our games. Just keep the streak alive. We're going to the second tier of English football. We're going to be a championship team.

We're one promotion away from the preview week. I've gone from being totally hopeless to being like, I mean, I don't see why we can't win. Yeah. So we are still in the relegation zone, but looking good.

Yeah. I mean, I will say, I will say for like statistical purposes, the games you won were against South End to the team with five points. They were, oh boy, and I watched that game. We scored four goals.

They scored one. They looked awful. It wasn't away from home. It was out South End.

I mean, I felt bad. And the other games you won were against Portsmouth and 18th place in Roachdale and 14th. So it wasn't like you were playing top tier teams, but it's good to win some. Yes.

Okay. Counter argument. We have not yet played Bolton that has negative eight points and 11 different teams have. So that's that's a potential pickup for us.

Right. But yeah, look, obviously it's still early in the season, but we have 12 points after 14 games when after 11 games, we had three points. So you will forgive me if I am feeling enthusiastic. Congratulations.

The news from Mars is also great. Yes. So as you will have heard, if you listen to this section of the podcast, and I appreciate those who do, the Mars Insight Lander had this little thing that was going to hammer itself down five meters down into the surface of Mars. Right.

But then it stopped. It stopped. And so they were wondering why I got stopped. Did it run into a rock, which was a thing that might have happened, or which it turns out this is the thing.

It's when it hammers itself, it bounces back up because the sides of the hole aren't dense enough to hold it down. So instead of like hammering and sticking and hammering and sticking, it hammers and bounces up and hammers and bounces up. And so it never actually goes down. So they use the robotic arm to pin like this little scoop thing to pin the mole against the side of the hole, hoping that they could give it that friction.

And in the past two weeks, using that technique, they have managed to get the mole to dig down two more centimeters, which is not a lot compared to the five meters they want to go. But it's actually a very good distance because it's showing this is working and getting anything to work when it's on a planet that's very far away is not easy. And they think that maybe now that the mole is all the waste of merged, that it might have enough friction around it to keep going on its own. And also they can then use the scoop to push the dirt around it.

So like like pushed down next to the hole that the mole is digging, does increase the friction so it can continue to dig. And the mole is digging away still and the team seems optimistic that there's no rock in the way and they're still doing tests here on earth to come with backup plans. So as of this week, I just got an update that they are still hammering this thing and it is still driving itself into the ground. And so it seemed kind of like very similarly, all hope was lost for the mole.

But then now that it seems like they fixed it maybe we'll see. We don't know for sure just like you don't, but the news is looking way, way up. I think that is amazing. And by the way, I should add that the old manager, Walli Downs has left now for good.

And Glenn Hodges is going to be the manager for the time being. But to go back to Mars, I just love the ingenuity necessary for the solution, like to figure that out and to find a workaround even though we are very, very far away and we have a very limited set of tools. It's just amazing. That does give me hope when we talk about the big problems that humans are facing.

We are also full of ingenuity like you made a video about this recently about crises and about how we never know how we're going to solve the big, big problems until we start to solve them. And we should be alarmed, deeply alarmed. We should feel dread and fear and overwelbittiness that we have not solved the big climate problem that threatens all of us and everything. But we should also remember that we have solved problems in the past that struck us when they began as totally unsolvable.

Yeah, we did those things. But we didn't do them by ignoring the problems. Exactly. I think that's very important.

All right. Hank, thank you for pausing with me. It's a pleasure to be back. Thanks to everybody for your patience while I was going.

I'm back for good. I'm not leaving again until I quit. Okay, John's never leaving again. I look forward to taking a hiatus someday.

You should. Maybe when they're making something out of one of my things. That'd be great. Although I recommend taking a sabbatical that's actually a sabbatical instead of taking a sabbatical where you just work on different things.

This podcast is a co-production of Complexly and WNYC Studios. It's produced by Rosie Anna Hals-Rohass and Sheridan Gibson. Our editor is Joseph Tuna-Medish, our head of community and communications in Victoria Bonjourno. The music you're hearing now and the beginning of the podcast is by the great gonna roll that in as they say in our hometown.

Don't forget to be awesome.