Skip to content
428: Hard Pivot to Balls episode artwork

Oct 15, 2025 44 min

428: Hard Pivot to Balls

from Dear Hank & John

If humanity is around long enough, could another species evolve to look like us to deter predators? What did people do when they woke up before the existence of phones? What’s your favorite replacement for a swear word? How do purple baby carrots exist? How do I cope with the end of childhood? …Hank and John Green have answers! If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [email protected]. Join us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.

Episode details come from the podcast's RSS feed.

Embed this episode

Ready to play

428: Hard Pivot to Balls

0:00 44:07
of matches

Transcript Auto-generated, may contain errors

Hey, so something worth knowing is a benefit for the nonprofit organization that makes Crash Course and SciShow Complexly. It's September 16th, 2026 in Los Angeles, California at the Wilshire Ebell Theater. Please join us. It's going to be incredible.

Friends have complexity like Mark Rober, Katie Max, Simone Yetch, and more will share inspiring talks about what makes them hopeful and join Hank Green on stage for fun interactive discussions. Complexly has been creating free educational content like SciShow and PBS Eons and Crash Course in Bizarre Beasts for nearly 15 years and 6 billion views. But this year, we have become a 501c3 nonprofit and we're doing something worth knowing as an in-person event that benefits Complexly and our impactful educational media. It's the first ever Complexly in-person event and it's a fundraiser to support our mission of inspiring curiosity and lowering barriers to knowledge building because curiosity builds understanding and understanding builds a better world.

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. You're listening to a Complexly podcast. Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John.

You always I prefer to think of it to your John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions give you advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, I had a police officer knock on my door. Oh, I opened it up and I said, oh my gosh, what's going on?

And he said, we're looking for a man with one eye and I said, we should probably use two. How's life? I've been in four states in the last five days and two countries in the last seven days. So I'm a little jet-lagged but not in the technical sense, just in the soul sense.

But I'm trying to embrace travel because I'm going to be doing a lot of it. So I'm just I'm just I'm just living my life. This is my life and I love my life and I'm very grateful to be able to travel and to have my job. I miss my family a little bit but I'm home right now.

I'm in my office. So life is good. How are you? I'm good.

I'm about to do some traveling myself. When I booked this thing, I was feeling really bad and I was like, I have to believe I might be feeling better by the time this comes around and I was right. And that is huge news. It's just it's very good because it's going to be like a 12 hour shoot that I'm going to get there at 7.30 at night.

You don't be like a stylist waiting for me at my hotel room to like do my styling and I get it next morning and I like go from like eight to I don't know. Can you say what this shoot is for Hank? I cannot right now. Is it for something hilarious?

It is for something very dumb. Yeah. It is not it's not something that like you're excited that I'm going to be doing. No.

Oh, Hank did that. No. Some tiny percentage of people will be excited that you're doing it. But it is pretty small.

I know what it is. And it is in my opinion, actively hilarious. But listen, man, get your bag in a minimally unethical way. Is my feeling about that shoot?

Yeah. When I got the email, I was like, is this a bad thing? And then I got the thing. I was like, I got to make sure this isn't like evil.

You got the mobile game because it's for mobile. Yeah. I got the app and then I was like, oh, no, this is fun. Yeah.

It's pretty fun. It's a fun mobile game. My son has it. I don't allow him to make it and have purchases, but he has it.

So he was like, he was actually really excited when I was like, so Uncle Hank's going to do this thing for this mobile game. Have you ever heard of it? And he was like, have I heard of it? Like, it's all the rage.

It's a failure. It's all the rage. It's a bit of a slog when you don't pay. I'll say that as they all are.

Yes. No. I mean, look, I'm not saying that it's the most ethical bag you've ever gotten. I'm just saying that as bags go, it's not the worst one, right?

Like, it's not like your keynoting for the NRA conference or something. Yeah. The other thing is I just kind of like, want to do it to see what it's like, because it's going to be like a real shoot. Yeah.

Fancy. You're essentially going to be in a movie, a real movie. It's just a movie that appears on people's six inch screens on the phone. I have honestly have no idea how it will appear for anyone.

That wasn't part of my negotiation. I did recently. This is so frustrating to me. I get these deals.

Like I get these emails and they're like, we'd like to pay you. Oh, that sounds so frustrating. So far, so far, I'm so frustrated on your behalf. To promote a social change of some kind that you, in fact, would like to see in the world.

Sure. And I'm like, I can't take money for that. Yeah, I try to donate the money back in that situation. But it's awkward because like, I don't actually want to do it for free.

Yeah, exactly. Like, I actually wouldn't make the video if you didn't pay me. But at the same time, I can't make a video that's about like what I believe you paid before. Do you ever do get deals like this where they're like, hey, we like this, you know, solar power or something like that, where it's just like, like, yeah, I like solar power, but I like can't be paid for that because then people will be like, you only like solar power because you paid for it.

Yeah, definitely had that before. In fact, I've only ever done one brand deal Hank. So I don't really know that much about this world. I'm pretty actively envious of you and your constant fount of brand deals just showering in that rocket money money.

That rocket money money. I'm just saying, they didn't ask me to star in one of the premier mobile game ads of our time. Anyway, that's what I'm getting ready for in my life. And I think it's gonna be weird.

John, I have a question from one of our listeners. It's from Tegan who asks, hello brothers green. I was watching a video about biological mimicry. And it got me wondering if humanity hangs around long enough, could another species evolve to look like us in order to deter predators?

What a great question. Another reason. How is really good? How close do you think they'd have to get an appearance or behavior for that to work?

Imagine if they got really good and they were just walking around and you didn't know if it was a butterfly or a person? Yeah. I'm imagining. I don't know why I went straight to butterflies because butterflies are a long way from biologically mimicking us.

I guess tricky. I guess the easiest one would be some kind of primate. But I love this idea because we are the ultimate like, well, steer clear of them. They're really weird animal.

I guess I feel more that way about a mountain lion. I feel like we used to be pretty scary. But now like pigeons and squirrels are like, yeah, those guys are no problem. They're not a big deal.

That seems to be more. They stop eating this. They hate us now. They just find us vaguely annoying.

You should be close by. Sometimes they give you food. Yeah, that's true. Oh, that would mean that would be the thing called aggressive mimicry.

I think or aggression mimicry where you mimic something that is non threatening. And then it turns out that you are threatening. So what if mountain lions evolved to look like us and then squirrels and pigeons were like, that's no big deal. And they're like, or humans, right?

Like imagine like a very human shaped mountain lion walking down the street and then it's like, I would not like that. No, I wouldn't like that at all. I feel like they'd give it away pretty quick, you know? Yeah, you only you only get one snack that way before the humans are like, actually, Steve's not a good guy.

I would not like he called for a reference and be like, don't hire Steve. No, that's not a lion. Steve is one of those. Steve is one of those mountain lions masquerading as a human.

He eats warm flesh of humans. It's not a human. Yeah, no, it's allowed. It's just not cool.

Yeah. It's not socially. It's not socially frowned upon. This is a good point.

Mount lions aren't really breaking the law when they eat a person, but they are not allowed to do it. We do tend to stop them if we can. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely frowned upon, but I'm saying you don't send them to jail, but you don't send them to mountain lion prison. I believe that instead you send them to Valhalla.

Oh, is that where they go? I believe so. They definitely go to a place where you're no longer alive. Yeah, they go to where they were before they were born.

No, the Hank Green theory of where we go when we die to where we were before we were born. Oh, man, it never gets old. You like to bring this up over and over again as we're torturing me and I don't like it. Okay, I can go to a new exciting place where there are no mountain lions.

Zero mountain lions. It's actually kind of the definition of heaven. Yeah, nothing can eat you there. Unless you're into that.

Evan, we're nothing can eat you unless you know, you know, because in heaven, we don't judge. The question, yes, I thought the vocation I looked into this and there's this weird, very weird, kind of example of this called, called Hakey crabs. There's this like legend that the Hakey people were attacked and they're samurai were thrown into the sea and their ghosts turned into these crabs and the more like a samurai the crab looks like the more fishermen would toss them back into the sea when they were harvesting. So they'd be like, oh, this one of those samurai I'll put him back.

And I like this because there's like a vibe of like, you know, you keep the sustainable population by selecting some and not taking all the crabs. Sure. But then over time, what you do is you select for crabs that look more and more like samurai and eventually the crabs really look like samurai. This is probably fake, which is a shame.

Oh, that's disappointing Hank. I know. But it was like a really big thing. Carl Sagan talked about it and like he really popularized the story of the Hakey crabs.

So it became a big thing. It totally could be and also they do sometimes really look like samurai and sometimes they don't. But the biggest reason why it's probably fake is that in fact they are not good eaten. So they would probably be thrown back regardless.

But I don't know. So we could artificially select. I could see that. But I can't really see a raccoon slowly move into a person.

It would be awesome. It would be really great if you would be like, I mean, forget about the mountain line. The raccoon is better, right? Because then Steve's not a threat.

Steve's just a raccoon. They just like artificially select for being like, kind of good at a job. Like pretty good at their job. And you know, and then he gets paid a salary and then he gets food that he can buy at the store instead of having to eat out of the garbage.

And then Steve is like, I can't believe I have to pay rent. How did I do this to myself? I was even good as a raccoon. And now I've got rent.

They're like, oh, man, now we've got metabolic disorder because I can get a Coke whenever I want. And like, we've got all the diseases of old age to deal with it instead of just dying exposed in the cold. Right? Yeah.

Yeah. No, it's ups and downsides. Wings and roundabouts, Hank. That's absolutely the case.

All right. We got another question from Kurt. You're right. Dear John and Hank is professional cigarettes, but also human beings going before the year 2000.

I really like identifying as professional cigarettes. Oh, God. We are unfortunately professional cigarettes. Now we try to be the good, healthy kind of cigarettes.

Yeah, we've got really big filters and it's like organic tobacco. You get almost no tar. I mean, from us. I get the tar.

I'm a filter. That's all in here. That's all. That's the reason why I wake up at 530 every morning, a panic.

In a blind panic. All right. As professional cigarettes, but also human beings born before the year 2000. I must ask of you, before the advent of waking up in the morning to the alarm on your phone and then scrolling social media for 10 minutes to two hours, what did you do after you woke up?

Did you just lie there staring at the ceiling? Did you read a book? Some other bed related activity I'm not aware of. Surely you didn't just immediately get out of bed.

The sweet sirens call of blankie and pillow is too strong for that. Please respond with advice. Short, but hopefully not rude. Kurt.

That's good. I like that. Yeah, that is good. I think that I remember what I did.

So, listen, I remember the last day I woke up, went to work, and didn't look at the news because it was September 11th, 2001. That was the last day I didn't use the internet before going to work. So there must have been a number of years there between 1977 and 2001 where I did something. I know exactly why that.

What did you do? I got up. Immediately, I got up. Unless there was someone else on the bed with me.

What else is there to do? I don't stare into the middle distance and contemplate the problem. I maybe did that, I think I had to pee. The problem, of course, being that we are temporary beings that can conceive of infinity.

But yeah, that's what I did, I think. But I must have gotten up and brushed my teeth and started the day a little earlier, which also meant that I could sleep in a little more because I didn't have that 10 minutes to two hours of social media time before I got to work. That's right. This morning, I was, I was out of a hard time sleeping and I finally went in and out of sleep until around 6.30 and then I just looked at my phone for 40 minutes.

Why? Oof. How did that feel? Did it work?

Yeah, it worked. Depending on what it works is. Yeah, it's just like waking up in the morning and smoking a bunch of cigarettes, which actually is what I used to do between the years of 1994 and 2001 for sure. That's the thing you do.

Oh, I would wake up and smoke a cigarette every day, which is so gross. So gross. Well, for so much of my life, I had designed my life so that I could sleep in as much as possible. Yes.

So that like when I woke up, I didn't immediately get up. I was not going to be at work in time or at school in time. Yes, I would wake up at 7.40 so that I could get on the train at 7.52. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I optimized that length to be as short as possible. Right. I think that's the answer to what we did.

We swept instead of going social media, which by the way is better for you. Oh boy. Sure is. This is really become an antisocial media podcast.

I was looking back at like my body of work over the last couple of years because I have been feeling bad about my engagement with the system that I have increasingly believed to not be good. Yeah. And like, so I have this bad feeling that I'm like, well, but like when we wrote the book of good times, that's what it was about. It was about here's a book.

Right. Stuff to do that's not on the internet. And that's not like publicly like spoken of what it's about. And then it's like me and Bria made this app that's like, here's an app that like you can tell yourself that you will make the bean said if you go on Twitter.

Yeah. No, you had been working on it. You have been working on ways to combat internet addiction. The problem is that internet addiction is so intense.

It's so overwhelming for me anyway, that like it's really hard to find ways to fight it. But you have been we have both been interested in projects that involve some form of like engaging with physical space in the real world. So we are doing we are doing something that isn't cigarettes. You know what I thought I had this morning and tell me how done this is?

No, pitch it to me. The guy who owns the biggest ball of paint. Yeah, Mike Michael Carmichael. He was not super north of you.

He was not too far from me. I think we should just buy that paint. And that's what he wants. You want to buy the world's largest ball of paint from Michael Michael Carmichael.

Yeah, I want to buy his whole house and farm and ball. Okay, you just want to you just want to inhabit his life. You sit at the world's largest ball of paint and people come by throughout the day and you get to talk to them in real life instead of on social media. Where like by the way, I've been traveling a lot but I've also been because I'm traveling a lot.

I'm like visiting with college students and high school students and reading everything as tuberculosis and other people who are reading everything as tuberculosis and I'm visiting with them in real life and I'm reminded that like people in real life are actually usually very nice. Yeah. Yeah. And that actually we're capable of being incredibly kind to strangers and self sacrificial and compassionate and empathetic and everything.

But I kind of forget that when I'm online a lot. Anyway, beyond this, I think that the world is lacking for roadside attractions. And I think that we should just we should please everybody send us in the email ideas for roadside attraction. So there's like the thing I don't know if you've been to see the thing but the thing is a fake mummy that they tried to convince everybody was a real mummy.

It's all right. It's not great. It's not great. You want a world's largest in general.

You want the world's largest ball of twine. You want the world's largest ball of stamps. You want something in that field. The thing about the paint is that like and stamps is the same way.

I assume. Is that like everybody gets to add to it themselves? Like you go see the paint and you go paint. You paint the ball.

And not only are you making the world's largest ball of paint. You're making it permanently different because the next person will respond to your color bites with their color and so on forever. And so your participation affects ripples out through the next 10,000 layers of the ball of paint. It is a very beautiful metaphor.

And I think Mike Carmichael is an amazing guy. And I think that we should consider living in rural Indiana and getting offline. And just if people want to come hang out with us, they have to come paint the world's largest ball of paint. There's just like a piece of me that's like, what if Nerdfighteria is the thing that like as the aging roadside attraction community nears retirement or death.

Yeah. We're like, not only are we going to keep this going, we're going to take it up another level. And like, this is this is a thing in the real world. Send just some ideas for roadside attractions is what I'm saying.

First let us know what world's largest balls you would like us to get involved in. If I get paid to do a brand deal, I want to kick some of that towards big balls. What'd you do with all your rocket money money? Oh, well, big balls.

I mean, the world's largest ball of rubber bands. I mean, worth it. That's what I want to tithe for. You know, I want to tithe the balls.

Yeah, I want you to tithe the partners and health person. That too. That's my AFC Wimbledon. I need an AFC Wimbledon.

One that's not. You need an AFC Wimbledon. And maybe that's the world's largest balls. You being deeply involved.

And then like, that'll be a great section of your Wikipedia page where it's like his hard pivot to balls. Because you have one that's like hard pivot to global health 2020 to 2025. Yeah, yeah, I do have a section where it's like hard pivot to global health resulting in a book about global health. And you could have one that's like hard pivot to balls, like just got really into worlds large balls.

Instead of getting into global health, you're just like balls. Yeah, but it makes sense. It's about real life community, man. And it's about people contributing to something bigger than themselves.

Like, I realize that this is a bit, but it's not a bad bit. I agree. All right. Let's answer another question.

I think we got to the bottom of that one what we did before 2000. This one's from Joe who says, Dear John and Hank, what's your favorite replacement for a sware? I have two young children and I try not to swear around them. So I started incorporating swears from the TV shows they watch as biscuits and cheese and crackers and oopsie kitty.

But I'm looking for more phrases to incorporate Joe. I'm a big poop on a stick guy for a long time stick. Like that means like I'm very frustrated or something. I'm going to stick.

I'm going to stick because like a lot of like traditional swears are things that we have made taboo that probably shouldn't be that taboo. You know, yeah. Body parts, you know, acts of love, compassion, and then and then the poop on a stick actually bad. Right.

That's a weapon. Yeah, exactly. Somebody's waving a poop on a stick. A stick of you.

That's a problem. Yeah, poop is, you know, that's not great. But like, it's part of life poop on a stick. That's that's a problem.

That's a problem. Mine is shut the front door. Nice. Shut the front door.

Come on now. Surely you can't be serious. Surely you can't be serious. I am serious and don't call me surely.

I also just the regular ones, you know, they're kids. They're not like we just like there's grown up or just like there's grown up drinks. Sure. Dang it.

Darn it. Yeah. What are the real those? This where we're talking.

I never use the real ones. I don't like to defile my mouth that way. I tell you what I put on a song the other day. Yeah.

Unbeknownst to me, it was a Tom Cardi song and you know, some of Tom Cardi stuff is very child-friendly and some of it definitely isn't. And Orrin gave me this look like we're doing something bad, aren't we? And I was like, I guess that's where we're at now with the stage of development you are at. We're engaged in some naughtiness.

We are doing a naughty with Tom Cardi. Which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by cursing in front of your kids. Hank does it. This podcast is also brought to you by Steve the Mountain Lion.

Don't hire that guy. No, he's a big trouble. And of course today's podcast is brought to you by Hank's Hard Pivot to Balls. Hank's Hard Pivot to Balls.

It's happening. And this podcast is brought to you by science fact myths, science fact myths. I try so hard not to engage in them, but it's hard out there. Yeah, because they're so good, right?

Like that's the thing about a science fact myth is that it is attained mythical status for a reason, which is that it has tremendous explanatory power. It just happens to not be true. This episode of your Hank and John is brought to you by Shopify. There are a lot of things that stand between I have an idea and this is an idea that actually exists in the world and people are buying things from me.

And that is what Shopify makes easier. When you start with Shopify, the tools, to design and launch and take payments, they're all there from day one. You don't have to build a whole machine before you can start building the business. And this is important because you also have to look good and with Shopify's templates, you could get a site set up really quick that looks credible and professional without needing to code or duct tape a bunch of different tools together.

And when things look real, that works on my brain to be like, I'm doing a real thing. It also works on other people's brains to be like, this is legitimate. Shopify also has one of the best checkout systems on the internet. It's built to help customers finish the purchase effectively and efficiently without a bunch of roadblocks.

Returning customers can check out with a single click. That means less friction and fewer abandoned carts and a smoother experience for everybody. That stuff gives you confidence early on and it gives other people confidence in what you're doing. You're not wondering whether the payment system is going to work.

You're not wondering whether customers can get through the process. Shopify handles that foundation so you can focus on the thing that you're actually trying to do. It's really kind of amazing to me that Shopify is a tool that works from the first day your store launches when you're just starting to get customers all the way up to being the size of good.store or dftv.com or being the size of like Mattel and Gymshark. When you build a Shopify, you're building with tools that already work at every scale.

All you need is the idea Shopify handles the rest. You can start your free trial at Shopify.com slash deerhank. Start your free trial at Shopify.com slash deerhank. With new subscription only, while supplies last until September 27th, 2026.

See website for more details. One thing I love about summer is how easy everything feels. The days are a little more relaxed. My kids don't have to wake up at five in the morning and I find myself reaching for the same comfortable go anywhere pieces again and again which is why I keep coming back to quince.

I often wear either a long sleeve or a short sleeve button down from quince and it fits well and I never have any complaints. In fact sometimes I get compliments about it. I was at the airport a couple days ago. I often find myself in airports and someone said I like your shirt and I said thanks.

It's from quince. Quince is 100% European linen pants and shirts are breathable, easy to throw on and the summer upgrade your rotation needs starting at just $34. Their tees are soft enough to live in all day and the lightweight cotton sweaters are exactly what you want when those summer nights cool down. So that's why I'm wearing quince this summer and you can make your summer wardrobe easier by going to quince.com slash deerhank for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns.

Now available in Canada too. That's qunce.com slash deerhank for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash deerhank. This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by Factor.

Imagine for a moment that you are absolutely immersed in some work where you're creating something beautiful or useful or useless and ugly but you love it anyway and you look up and suddenly you have a feeling and that feeling is that it is 2.30 pm and you did not eat lunch. 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 breast with potato mash, cream corn and peppers. You can get creamy lemon pepper chicken with veggie rice peal 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. What about a black bean taco bowl with corn salsa and cilantro crema? A delicious high fiber high protein meal that no animals had to die for.

Any of those can be ready in two minutes. Fresh, never frozen, over 100 rotating weekly meals including globally inspired flavors like Mediterranean and Asian, factor shops, preps, cooks and delivers straight to your door so you have more time for everything you love this spring. Head to factormills.com slash deerhank.50 off and use the code deerhank.50 off to get 50% off and free daily greens per box with new subscription only while supplies last until September 27th, 2026. See website for more details.

Speaking of John, this is from Abby who says, since baby carrots are just whittled down regular carrots, how do multi-colored baby carrots work? Yesterday at the farmer's market I bought purple carrots that are still like normal carrots. I got them home and beneath the purple skin it was orange carrot. So how do purple baby carrots exist?

Mm-hmm. Purple pumpkins and orange penguins. Abby, great. Sign off.

There's so many different kinds of carrots to answer that question. But first, since before the ad we were talking about fake science facts, there's this fake fact that William of Orange is the reason carrots are orange. Oh, I love this fake fact. I've almost repeated it several times in a variety of media.

Yeah. So to honor William of Orange's coronation or birthday or something, all of the Dutch farmers were like, let's make all the carrots orange and that's how it happened. But it's actually, like, that might be a thing that happened. But the sort of orangification of carrots is very unclear exactly what happened there and probably have more to do with taste and the bigness of the carrots.

But carrots were originally not orange. They were mostly yellow and purple, which is cool. From Eurasia generally, but the first cultivation of carrots based in and around like Iran, Afghanistan, Ariane. And the, it turns out there's just like a tremendous variety of kinds of carrots.

And we tried to cross-breed them and like get better carrots for one reason or another. It turns out purple carrots are like more resistant to some soil nematodes, but orange carrots tend to be sweeter. Yeah, I think orange carrots taste better. We grow purple carrots and orange carrots in my garden.

And I think that orange carrots just taste a little bit better. But some purple carrots become orange when you start to peel them, but not all. Some are purple all the way down. Correct.

And I think that is why the baby carrots are sometimes purple. Yes, because they use that cultivar. I have always found though that when they put a bunch of like yellow and pink and purple and orange baby carrots altogether, that still the orange ones are better. It's just like they're the only reason that you buy the rainbow pack of carrots is that like there's something sort of compelling about it.

It's not taste-based. It's marketing-based. I mean, I say this, I'm growing purple carrots right now because I have myself bought in to the purple carrot legend that they just look kind of cool. Yeah, I think but also like it can be good to have a variety, you know?

It could be like even if it's not about taste, it could be about like the chemicals you're ingesting. They might have more more antioxidants or they might have, you know, there might be some advantage there. And maybe sometimes going for sweet all the time isn't ideal. I'm going to put ranch on those babies anyway.

That's true you are. Which I find just reprehensible. I could live in a world without ranch. No problem.

Wow. Wow. We're living in a world without no raccoon. You're not a raccoon.

That's one of the ways you can tell. Wait, wait, wait, wait. In the future. What if they're already walking among us?

That's just the ranch people. No raccoons. Yeah, yeah. If you ever see a person with ranch on their fingers, that's a raccoon.

Especially if you look closely at those fingers and they're like, those are raccoons hands. Hold on a second. Those fingernails are very thin. Wow.

I just did something visual. It's just for Hank and the patreon supporters. Yeah. Yeah.

No, it could be. It could be it's hard. It's hard to tell with people these days. It is hard to tell.

I mean, we are so confident. We always talk about how, you know, we're just we're just one species out here. But are we or are we in fact one species plus raccoons pretending to be that one species? Another thing Nerdfighteria lacks is conspiracy theories.

Oh my God. That's such a good point. We have and it's really hard to be an internet community these days without a conspiracy theory. Really, it's the fuel for most of it.

That's right. That's what that's the sort of that's the Elmer's glue behind the whole thing. Yeah. Donald Trump is a raccoon.

I don't know about Donald Trump. He seems very human to me. It's like one of the most human humans going off instinct a lot of the time. Just made out of id, man.

Just just a walking, breathing, slobbering id. Oh my God. Did you imagine having that much power in that little worry? No, no, no.

I can't even imagine having no power in that little worry. Yeah. I saw a little kid walking down the street with his parent and sort of yanked on the parent's hand because he wanted to look at a flower. And I was like, man, that kid knows the purpose of life.

Yeah. And the purpose of life is to be. And I'm like, so jealous of that kid right now. The purpose of life is to be.

Well, the world is rich and full. And I am. And the reason I am is so that I am so that I can be. Yes.

I don't disagree with that. But I would add one thing, which is that I think the I know I know this is going to bug you. But I don't think you're going to I don't think you're going to hate it. This will be interesting to see if you can get yourself behind this one.

Because it is it's not theological, I promise. But I think the reason to be is to be and observe. Well, yeah. Can you be without observing what that kid was doing was both being and paying attention?

And I think there's something in the paying attention that's actually important. I think that kid was being according to his psychology, according to his biology. Like, you know, we are directed by what has been selected for as a communal species, you know, and that means like community and paying attention and interaction and seeking sensations and figuring out figuring out figuring out that we're also going to be raccoon people. Yeah, I ask him the question.

I ask him questions. I'm just asking the question, is Martha Stewart a raccoon? Yeah, it's just a question. Her hands are always dirty and they're always hidden.

You never see your hands. I never seen your hands. I never seen your hands. I've never seen your hands.

I've seen a bunch of pictures of her hands emerging here. Like, well, I mean, with AI, you never know. You never know. You never know.

All right, let's answer another question. This is a more serious one from Maya Luna who writes, dear John and Hank, my name is Maya Luna. We get a lot of questions along this line. I'm 17 and from Los Angeles, California.

I just started senior year of high school and I'm struggling with the uncertainty of where I will be a year from now. And with this chapter of life coming to an end, how do we cope with the end of childhood and the uncertainty of the future? How do I get excited about college and everything else that's coming despite all the unknowns? Thanks, Maya Luna.

I love the things. What do you think, Hank? I mean, we're just here with the Maya Luna. We just saw this little kid walk it down this street with his parents, fold on the parents' arm and just wanted to look at a flower.

And was like, stop walking. I got to look at this flower. Like that. But there is a feeling, I think that Maya Luna has captured of time passing and sort of there's something, there's something wondrous about time passing and also something almost unbearable about it, about losing that part of your life and then losing the next part of your life and the next part after that.

And you go through these chapters and it's hard to leave them behind. But of course, it's also essential to leave them behind. I was just, I was like, I asked, or I like to ask him what he's thinking about when he's just staring at the wall. He's one of the best parts of parenthood.

Is there like this stuff going on in there? Tell me what it is. And he never does. Very rarely.

And I pushed him on it. And finally, he said nostalgia. And I was like, what for? And he was like, you know, years ago.

And I was like, oh, tell me more about your, you're okay, you're eight, but okay. Yeah. I guess like you're thinking two years ago, that's like a quarter of your life away. Right.

And I was like, what about it? And he was like, all the books we used to read. And I was like, yeah. And I think it sounds as an important human emotion.

It's like a grief, almost. It's a grief. And what my lunas experiencing is an anticipatory grief, a feeling of like this precious moment is slipping away and will inevitably slip away. And that's that's true.

It will slip away. It will be replaced by something that will be also valuable and also, you know, interesting and rich and fulfilling in some way. But not just not just replaced, also layered on, you know, like it's not gone. That's your building on top of that.

You're a lasagna. You're a lasagna. You're a lasagna and you're gonna put another layer of lasagna on that. And nobody wants a lasagna that has a one layer.

No, no, you want you want to be able to look back on being six when you're eight and to look back on being, you know, 17 when you're 20 and so on. And I still look back at that time of my life with not mere fondness as a friend of mine said about high school that place saved my life, but it also did lots of other things. But I look back on it with a lot of interest and I look back on it with, you know, a feeling that that person is deeply traceable to the person I am now. The last thing I'll say here, things like this, it's so easy for the thing you're imagining to be everything where it's like, it's like, this is like, what's about to happen is four years of school and social interaction and, you know, leaving stuff behind and learning, like how to do my own, like doing all my own laundry and having all these responsibilities and making mistakes and having people, other people make mistakes that affect me.

All that stuff, like, if you imagine it all at once, like, there's no way to not hate that. So, so shrink the frame. Like, what's today about for making tomorrow easier and better? Right.

That's very more fun. And like, you know, what am I doing today? Yeah. That's not even dubious.

That's, that's high quality. Hank, we have to get to some corrections before we get to the all important news from Mars and AFRON. We had a number of mistakes recently. Okay.

I'm going to catch the flack for this crab thing probably, too. Well, not as much flack as we can for this from Hope. Dear John and Hank, I'm right to let you know that a keg of bubbly water is very possible. As my neighbor has one in his garage, he says that the soda maker did not provide him with enough soda water per day, so instead he has it on tap.

I'm not positive this would be a saving since you'll still have to employ a person to sit a room away and yell pomple moose whenever you take a sip, but it is definitely a reduction in aluminum waste. Hope this helps from Hope and Ru writes, as an IT professional, if you'll compel the corrector statement about printers, we may know them deeply, but it is certainly not as friends. Rather, we know their every weakness, like a mortal enemy. I haven't met a single person in this industry that doesn't despise those demon machines, best Andrew.

Oh my goodness. It's like I'm mortal, and it's like the sun's super printers. Yes. The art of war.

Ashley says, Dear John and Hank, I was recently listening to your newest episode and noticed you talk about muscles pulling and pushing, but did you know that muscles only pull? I did actually know that. I'm a freshly licensed occupational therapist and was once an undergraduate kinesiology major, and I found it mind blowing to one of my education that your muscles can only pull. They can also not pull, which is important.

Right. They can pull or not pull. Those are two main vibes. They can pull or do nothing.

That's why you have both a tricep and a bicep. All right. You know what? Like kinesiologists have tried to explain to me, how do my fingers move, but the muscles controlling them are all down here.

That's wild. I mean, I get it. I don't get it. Like this bending.

I'm bending my fingers now and I'm completely, my mind is completely blown by it. Bending. Now, how is this bend? But there's no muscle in the whole hand that controls this bend.

Is that true? The muscles are not in the hand. There's only the thumb muscle. The thumb muscles.

The finger muscles are all the forearm. All the finger muscles are in the forearm. Whoa, man. I know.

It's really upsetting. I haven't gone to the most important correction, by the way. Okay. Is it the next one?

Yeah, it's from Alex. He writes, Dearest Brothers Green in a recent episode while deciding whether John should be queen his name to a pea plant or a corn plant. You assume that multiple corn plants are needed for pollination, despite my strongest efforts at restraint against pedantry as a former agricultural worker and the grandchild of a professional corn breeder. I find myself unable to resist correcting your frankly understandable misunderstanding on corn reproduction.

Each corn plant has two reproductive parts, the tassel and the chute, which develops into the cob. The tassel sheds pollen, which went in large fields of corn is spread by pollinators in the wind to silks of chutes to pollinate the ear of corn. Since each plant has both male and female parts, corn plants have no problems pollinating themselves. So there you go.

Well, that, I mean, I will say some plants have both male and female parts and still can't pollinate themselves. But well, I mean, according to this person, whose grandparent is a professional corn, corn definitely can pollinator. It's possible. So I apologize to my friends, my family and the entire community for being wrong about that and so much else in my life.

You think you call yourself a Hoosier? You don't know how corn does sex. I really don't know how corn does. I don't know how corn does anything.

I don't grow corn in my garden because if I find it very intimidating and also because there's no way I can compete with that sweet sweet Indiana sweet corn. Oh my god. Indiana sweet corn is as good as corn. Yancey all people can talk all the smack they want about Indiana, but we've got you beat on corn.

I don't know. Montana's got great corn because it's like, it's cold. I don't know something about the cold sweetens it up. Oh sweet.

Well, our corn is better. Hard stop. Hey, it's time for the all important news for Mars and AFC Wimbledon. What's the news for Mars this week?

Oh gosh, it's cool. So tumbleweeds is the news for Mars. They found tumbleweeds on now. So there's a new happy first second.

I was like, that seems possible. That seems possible. I also big. I should have heard about that.

But there's a group that's trying to design weird ideas for rovers. So people are always doing this. I've met people at colleges who are part of your robotics program is like, let's try to design something new for a Mars rover design. But there's a group of international scientists working on a new quote rover design that involves just a spherical wireframe that has sails that would be about 16 feet in diameter.

And the idea is that these tumbleweeds rovers would be able to cover a lot of ground using the winds of Mars. So they'd be like wind powered rovers. It's not been adopted by any space or anything. It's just people working on ideas.

But they have been testing out smaller prototypes. In a quarry, in another one, or at the planetary environmental facility in Denmark. These tests have kind of helped them figure out how that rover might perform on different surfaces, different wind conditions. And they're planning to head to the Ottercoma desert and chilli soon for further testing of their weird tumbleweed rover design.

That is a really cool idea that you just sort of tumble your way across the entirety of Mars. You could circumnavigate the place if you waited long enough. You have to put a bunch of them down there and let them go wherever. I love it.

I love it. Well, the news from ASC Wimbledon is equally exciting. If not even more so, ASC Wimbledon cannot stop winning. I will remind you, we have the lowest budget in League 1 in the third tier of English football.

And yet somehow we can't stop winning. You know what it is, John? It's the power of you of that DFTBA on the back of the shorts. It might be.

It might be. There is something magical happening at ASC Wimbledon. I actually went to this game with a bunch of my friends. So I flew over to London to see AFC Wimbledon beat Wickham Wanderers who have three times our budget, two to one.

It was a game of two halves. We scored two brilliant first half goals, one squared by Omar Bougiel, the other squared by Steve Seton. And they were both high class. As I said to Omar Bougiel after the game, you played like you were on, like actually on fire.

You played so angry and brilliantly. He was like, I know, thank you. It was incredible. It was an incredible game to watch.

And then in the second half, we had to defend for our lives and barely escaped with a 2-1 win. But it was absolutely magical. The stadium was rollicking, absolutely rollicking. And the vibes were immaculate.

And in general, it was just awesome. I had so much freaking fun. And I hope my friends did too. I mean, I'm in completely in love with the AFC Wimbledon team.

Hey, we're in sixth place, which is a playoff spot. I looked at the League 1 table and I was like, I can't find AFC Wimbledon on the list. I was like, oh, I thought that's like near the top. I haven't been looking for them there.

Yeah, well, it's just astonishing. I don't even know what to say about it. We just can't stop playing brilliantly. Even when we lose, we're playing well.

Frequently asked questions

How long is this episode of Dear Hank & John?

This episode is 44 minutes long.

When was this Dear Hank & John episode published?

This episode was published on October 15, 2025.

Is there a transcript available for this episode?

Yes, a full transcript is available for this episode. You can read the complete transcript on the episode page.

Can I download this Dear Hank & John episode?

Yes. Use the download control on the episode player to save the publisher-provided media file.