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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 non-profit, 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. Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Or is I for the good Dear John and Hank?
It's a comedy podcast where me and my brother John, we answer your questions, give you to be a advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. Hey John, how you doing? I'm doing fantastic because of the news from AFC Wimbledon. I just can't get over it, Hank.
But otherwise I'm well. It's a great cloudy day here in Indianapolis after several beautiful days in a row, but I am happy my heart is singing. How are you? I'm good.
We are having whether it could be described as Taylor Swiftian, and I'm sad that I have to be inside recording a podcast right now because I just want to be romping around in the meadows, potentially just yanking dandelions out of my yard because they are very happy, very happy. Dandelions, I feel like all the rest of the plants must look at the dandelions and feel really lazy. All the plants out there just being like, I'm going to do my thing. I'm going to flower one time and maybe make a seed.
And dandelions are like, hey, by the way, we're going to do that 75 times between the moment there stops being snow on the ground and well into when there starts being snow in the ground in the winter. Dandelions, they make me feel lazy and I think all the rest of the plants probably feel the same way and I feel bad for all the rest of the plants who feel lazy because they're looking at dandelions. I don't think plants have those feelings. I am however impressed with the success of dandelions so much so that I wonder why we have relatively so much plant biodiversity when you think the dandelion would have just taken over completely.
Why are there any other plants? I feel this way about pigeons and dandelions that we kind of like we hate them because of their success. And I just I think that we should I think that we should laud them and be like what remarkable well done adapting to the weird world that we have created as humans with all of our lawns and all our buildings and you know making it work. The wonderful generalist species of dandelions and pigeons and humans.
We have a lot in common. No, I agree. The only reason that we have so many pigeons and dandelions is because we have so many humans. So why do we complain about these species for which we are responsible?
Would you like a short poem for today? Let's do it. Is it about pigeons? It's not about pigeon think but it is about feathers.
Oh, okay. That's close. We've actually had this poem before on the podcast think but I'm in such a good mood and I can't think of a better situation in which to read this poem often known as hope is the thing with feathers by the brilliant Emily Dickinson. Hope is the thing with feathers that purchase in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all.
And sweetest in the gale is herd and sore must be the storm that could abash this little bird that kept so many warm. I've heard it in the chilis land and on the strangest sea yet never in extremity it asked a crumb of me. Hope is the thing with feathers also known as poem 314 by Emily Dickinson. Hank, have you ever noticed how hope really is a thing with feathers?
How just when you think it's been extinguished it flies up and leaps in front of you? I mean that doesn't feel like so much the case for like Dagen Redfans right now. Oh god I do. I do feel terrible for Dagen Redfans.
The recently relegated Dagen-Hem and Red Bridge nobody really knows for sure what Dagen Red stands for. Hank but let's move on to some questions from our listeners before we get to the news from A.C. Wimbledon. But I just have to say really quickly that the fact that you're able to name a league two team, although not going to be a league two team next year, other than A.C.
Wimbledon fills my heart with joy. Well I also want to say that my club, Stephenage, which is because that's where they're working on part of the Mars mission that the ESA is doing, is probably not going to get relegated but only barely. I didn't know that you had a league two team. Are you a confirmed Stephen?
Yeah we talked about it on the pod. Well first off I just want to say thanks for that fantastic draw yesterday against Bristol Rovers that was tremendously important for A.C. Wimbledon's future. Yeah we talked about it on the pod.
Stephenage is the place, is the town where they're working on the ESA ExoMars mission or part of it anyway. And so I decided to have my own league two team and they are I think currently fourth from last. Is that good enough John? That's just good enough to avoid relegation.
Hank this is coming ever closer to me living my true dream which is to have a podcast with you entirely devoted to fourth tier English football. Possibly third tier English football depending on how things go but that's for later in the show for now let's get to some questions from our listeners. All right John we've got a bunch. What do you want to start with?
Do you want to start with this one from Rachel? No it's too stressful. Let's do that one second. Okay what do you want to start with?
Let's start with this question from Dom who asks, Dear John and Hank, John yourself acclaimed Hamilton fan and I am too but I'm conflicted. I feel that history shouldn't be viewed as a narrative composed of great individuals but rather of complex communities, societies and ideologies. Of course some great individuals must be individually highlighted but shouldn't that be as a bigger raindrop in the storm. Although entertaining and educating do you feel that Hamilton is a protagonist dependent view of history and if it is that good or bad love the podcast never missed an episode.
Thank you Dom. Oh Dom Hank this is a great question. I think that what Dom dislikes is stories. We got to have protagonists right?
We got to tell stories about history. Well we do have to have protagonists within within historical narratives but we don't have to hold up the idea that individuals are largely responsible for making history which is something that you know Hamilton does just because you know there could be like a massive chorus of thousands of people singing in the background representing you know some large body politic and there isn't. I don't mind that because the music is so great and also because the way of looking at history while it is sort of great man history feels new and fresh and exit. Right I think that Hamilton is primarily a story not primarily an educational enterprise.
Yeah but I guess the way that we tell our stories or particularly when it comes to history shapes the way that we think about what humans do and why. Yeah I often just think that stories are more shaped by so stories shape but but first stories are shaped and stories are shaped by what the kind of story that people want to hear and those are the stories that we end up celebrating because they are exciting to us and it is a problem that we have as our world gets bigger and and each of us individually starts to feel smaller that we tell these big stories about these big people who have who like have outsized impact on the world or sort of are the only ones who who seem to have any effect on the world in our storytelling and that's I feel like it's the structure of how stories have to work but because we tell these big global stories now like you know Steve Jobs didn't just change you know my life he changed everyone's life and everybody has to use an iPhone and not everybody has to use an iPhone but like but there are iPhones all over the world now and so there's this massive change that has occurred and you can say the same thing about Henry Ford. The this but like by making it global it makes each individual person feel so much less significant because all of our stories become like they're not important unless they're global and even telling a story about a great person who had a tremendous effect on their local community always feels kind of empty and not as sort of epic as it could be because we have these great epic global tales that we can tell now and I feel like it makes all of us I feel like normal me and everyone feels like a little bit less appreciation for the things that they do I and I have I have started to think more and more about the appreciation deficit and how we are worse and worse giving each other credit for the things that we all do to make the world a better place. I agree with you in some ways although I have to say that there are stories written about people who heroically choose to tread lightly upon the earth including for instance the Fault in Our Stars which is pretty much what that book is devoted to in its entirety but sure sure I think go ahead and take some credit there.
I mean my point was more that like that's part of a much larger genre of books that celebrate sort of low impact lives I guess but I don't really buy the argument that we have to be globally appreciated to have enough outside outside appreciation to keep going but I don't know I guess you do and that's okay well I don't I don't think that like I think we get enough appreciation to keep going I just think that there's less appreciation for for the people for all of us who make it work than there used to be and I want to live my life in a way where I do my best to appreciate all of the people who make my life better and who make the world better in my normal life and I feel the more that I appreciate other people the more I feel less the more I feel appreciated because if I see the the work that is done even by someone who isn't there like if I walk in a new park that's just been made and I didn't see the people who made that park and who planted those trees and laid down the grass but I know that those people happened that they were there and they made my life better and I want to appreciate them and that makes me feel better about the world it makes me feel like people are out there appreciating me and that we all work together to make to make the world work on that we agree I just don't think there's anything particularly new about that let's move on to another question okay this one is from Chelsea Hank she writes here john and Hank I was in a meeting this morning with my boss and a bunch of higher-up clients I am but a plebean marketing coordinator and they were all talking about how economists are saying America's debt situation is pointing us toward an economic depression even more severe than the Great Depression around the year 2031 this was the first I'd heard of such a prediction and in addition to furious googling I figured I'd ask the leading experts on the American economy John and Hank Green is this a thing I should be actively worried about should I be saving all my burrito money in preparation for such a cataclysmic event well Chelsea if such a cataclysmic event were to come the good slash bad news is that all of your burrito money would be worth nothing so you might as well just spend it on burritos now I also want to say that Chelsea said the leading experts on the American economy Hank and John Green and yet you even switched it there well I believe that this podcast should be called Dear John and Hank and I believe that when people refer to us they should refer to us as John and Hank by age not by alphabet all right uh yeah I mean this is hilarious to be to a certain extent that like yeah this question is absurd on so many levels yeah there's idea that like a bunch of a bunch of people in a room know what is going to happen to the American economy in 2031 is itself fascinating it really is around the year 2031 I mean it's gonna be amazing when 2031 rolls around and the American economy collapses and everybody can throw this podcast back in our face but like yeah that's ludicrous yeah that's ludicrous I mean for context 15 years ago which is how far away we are from 2031 um I remember saying to my friends why would you ever send a text message you could just call I also remember saying to my friends why would I want my email on my phone I tell the story a lot John about the time we were offered a free camcorder from Sony that we have a record in HD and and that we responded to them no YouTube will never be in HD yeah why would anyone want YouTube videos in widescreen I believe that was the text of our email response ah ah ah ah yeah so yeah to summarize Chelsea no one knows what's going to happen in 2031 the United States has a lot of debt um the amount of debt that we have actually isn't very important um again please bear in mind that Hank and I are not economists but the percentage of our debt to GDP ratio the size of our debt as compared to our GDP our gross domestic product like the total output of the economy that is considered a kind of more important number than the number of dollars of debt itself um and our debt to GDP ratio is is high um it it isn't that that high but most importantly our debt is very inexpensive like right now it's essentially free for the United States to borrow money because people are anxious to buy treasury bonds because they feel that they are very safe investment so we can basically borrow as much money as we want for free now that obviously comes with its own dangers the only real risk to the American economy from our debt is if our debt becomes more expensive to service so like if the interest rate were to go up which can happen very suddenly and can sort of spiral that's what happened in Greece for instance in an Ireland um is that sometimes you're the amount of interest that you have to pay to borrow money starts to rise and then you have to borrow yet more money to pay these higher interest loans that would be a problem for the United States economy there is no evidence whatsoever that that is about to happen or indeed that it will happen in 2031 um you know I think that there are legitimate concerns about our debt to GDP ratio right now um but we don't spend that much to service our debt uh compared to you know what we were spending 10 years ago or 30 years ago so it's not something that I worry about at night yeah um and I don't think that you should either yeah I spent a lot of time looking into this recently because I was thinking about making a video on it and then gave up but the reason I gave up is because I read a bunch of different articles from a bunch of economists that worked at a bunch of large well-known American universities and they all disagreed with each other and that made me feel like oh no one knows how this works and they're trying to figure it out and it's an it's a thing that that experts think about and that people who are good at this will uh will have important discussions about but it is not a thing that uh some some macademucks uh in in a room know better than like the leading economist at Harvard or MIT and both of those people disagree with each other a great deal about whether the American debt whether American debt sovereign debt is a good thing or a bad thing um I got another question done some Rachel Rachel asks in all caps dear Hank and John why does writing in all caps feel so intense like I'm yelling at you right now why Rachel I actually remember uh when all caps became like yelling uh to me so it was a specific time in my life it was the summer of 1993 Hank do you remember was it was it a similar time for you uh uh I don't remember this now so I don't know if there's a history of all caps writing being seen as screaming but certainly when I joined the internet in the summer of 1993 uh was the first time that I'd seen all caps writing being used to uh intonate screaming or intensity and uh and I remember reading it at first and thinking well this is silly they're just writing differently uh it doesn't sound like screaming at all and then slowly over the course of the summer I was part of this huge message board on CompuServe over the course of the summer reading everybody's forum post and writing my own I found myself writing in all caps when I was screaming I found myself reading other people's uh capital letters are screaming so much so that today or even I remember a few years ago Hank before our grandmother died our grandmother only sent emails in all caps she she didn't have the ability to turn off the caps lock on her on her keyboard and so I think that it helped her it helped her see all the words probably yeah so she would write us these very sweet emails but to me it would just be like I'm very proud of you for your book looking for a last guy I think it's wonderful that's my answer I think it's super interesting that we can convey all of this extra information with text and we have to find new ways of doing that like I am the kind of person who constantly puts emojis in my emails because I want it to be very clear when I'm saying when I'm saying something that I think is uh like a sad thing a happy thing a sarcastic thing a winky face thing I'm trying to pack in and load in as much information as possible because when we're talking as people we have lots of different ways of showing how we feel about the words we're saying which we don't have in text and so we've developed all these new cool ways of conveying that information but you know different people read it differently which means you can sometimes have to be careful when you are sending people emails who are different ages than you or have different backgrounds than you because they like the culture of how to use the words how to like how to use the tools that we have on our keyboard which is a limited set of tools to convey information accurately is different so I will often send an email and then I'll get a response back from someone who's uh uh you know significantly older than me that will be kind of defensive and I'll be like oh I did that thing again where I thought that that they were gonna understand what I meant and they didn't these days think I only write emails and emojis I don't use uh the letters on the keyboard anymore I try to only use uh image based things so that people have a good sense of what I mean and with the the variety of emojis available to us um these days you don't even need text anymore text is dead my new novel is going to be written entirely in emoji well uh hope I was gonna be very long oh it's gonna be extremely long are you kidding me yeah no it's gonna be like 700 pages I've been working on it for five years what are you gonna have been doing all this time Hank we've got another question here from Megan who writes Dear John and Hank recently from my college geology class we studied super volcanoes and ever since I've been extremely terrified of the thought of Yellowstone destroying our country and covering it in deadly ash oh Megan truly a woman after my own heart the most alarming thing about this is that Yellowstone's eruption could happen anytime and yet I've never heard of any sort of emergency plan shared with the population of the US regarding what to do in this kind of natural disaster ha ha ha yeah that's because there's nothing you can do you think the US needs to prepare its citizens for the possibility of a super volcano or do you think this would just cause an unnecessary state of panic this is a great question Megan um I don't think it would cause an unnecessary state of panic I think it would cause an appropriate state of panic the problem is telling the citizens of the United States in the event of a Yellowstone super volcano except the sweet embrace of death is not a particularly encouraging message I so first of all I want to take issue with one of Megan's points which is that this could happen at any point it couldn't it couldn't just happen right now a you know a super volcano eruption would have a lot of of serious signs that it was going to occur we couldn't stop it once we knew it was going to happen so we would have years of like data being like it's looking like there is a dramatic increase of geologic activity at Yellowstone uh we wouldn't be able to do anything about that we would just know that suddenly there was a lot more activity there's not a lot of activity at Yellowstone right now what you would see is like what you would see like rising in the ground of like like like quick like like meters per day of the ground rising and that would happen for quite a while before the eruption itself happened um now when you say quite a while do you mean long enough for us to establish a colony on Mars or do you mean like a few weeks I mean like between those two things like probably like if you start to see that level of like and you don't even know you don't know if it's going to happen it could rise and then fall back down again but it but if you did see that you might be thinking like okay there could be something serious that might happen within the next year within the next decade within the next you know hundred years but we're not seeing anything okay if I can just if I can just stop you real quick um would this end all life on earth or would it just end like human life in the United States it would not end all life on earth definitely it probably wouldn't end all human life and probably not all human life in the u.s. um you know it's just one of those situations where you're gonna have a lot of people die you know the carrying capacity of the earth will go way down where should I move in the event that yellowstone starts rising and falling meters per day should I move to Australia should I move to Hawaii I think you're I think you're pretty good where you are I mean well I mean you'd be you'd be better off in Australia okay sure I mean Australia's pretty much the other other side but the problem is that you want to be in a place that's warm well as it happens Australia's lovely so you don't want to be anywhere that's cold yeah but but it's not going to happen uh and and in our you know our guesses are that these things happen you know on the orders of thousands of years uh and so it's very likely that that yellowstone super volcano eruption is is more than 10,000 years away which is we've got other things to worry about in that time oh yeah we're never gonna make it 10,000 years but in general you know dealing with a disaster is pretty much the same with every kind of disaster uh unless you are right on top of the super volcano which I am in which case dealing with the super volcano uh disaster is you know just suffocating in your home yeah it's just a very short term problem yes I got another question from gwen dalen I'm glad that we went to that extremely dark play tank uh it wouldn't have felt appropriate to get through a podcast without it all right what's going to one's question I've known for a while that I would be leaving my job to stay at home but now that it's obvious that I'm pregnant people are starting to ask me if I'm going to come back after the baby which I'm not as this is my second child I'd hope that people would just assume that I was staying around this time and not ask as it is I've panicked and started to lie to my co-workers saying that I'm planning on coming back I haven't yet told my boss that I won't be coming back I'm planning on staying for another three and a half months from now and I don't feel like it would be professional to tell anyone else before I told my boss in the meantime it's also not professional with people to ask by the way yes it is yes uh in the meantime what do I tell people I don't want to lie but it's not time to tell everybody that I'm leaving yet also when is the right time to tell the boss that I'm leaving I know that two weeks is the professional minimum but it doesn't seem like that's nearly enough time to start even thinking about a replacement I'm coming out as a coming at this as a boss not an employee and I don't know your boss and I don't know your work environment um and I don't know your your your your you know co-workers and such but when one of my people is leaving I want to know as soon as possible and I like and I don't see a ton of drawbacks to that you might spend more time training your your replacement and you might get loaded up with some extra work so that they can be like ready for you to leave but I think it's important to uh I think it's important to you know leave on good terms and you know preserve that relationship if ever necessary in the future and to get those good linked in recommendations or whatever so yeah I mean I think that like I don't think there's no reason not to be honest at this point and I'm not sure uh I think there's a reason not to be honest I strongly disagree with it yeah okay you go John if you live in a right to work state and you say I'm not planning to come back after I have this child and I take my 12 weeks of uh FMLA time if you have you know outstanding sick leave or whatever in some states they can just fire you on the spot so that's why you don't say oh so so you're saying that there would be maternity leave that would not get paid because she's not just maternity leave but potentially if you say I'm looking forward to working for another three and a half months before I take my maternity leave and then don't come back to work they could say don't come back tomorrow ah well I that then that would depend on on how much you trust your boss and the relationship you have with them because yeah I would think like the answer my answer would be um when people ask you if you're coming back to work you can say the truth which is that you don't know um because who knows you might not know you think you know but like the future is unpredictable it could be that you have this second child and like you know three weeks after you're like man I can't wait to go back to work so just say you don't know yeah that's what I would and there's nothing wrong with changing your mind and there's nothing wrong with even though now you've made up your mind and you've lied there's nothing wrong with lying again and saying oh I changed my mind I thought that I was going to come back but it turns out that I'm able my husband and I or my partner and I or you know I have figured out that it's feasible for me to to do this to be you know to be not coming to work and I'm gonna do that instead I feel like hey sometimes you have an exceptionally like rosy and optimistic view of work life because you never had a job right and because like the way that I run my office is extraordinarily just like yeah it's weird like yeah it's like uncommon so I think I just think like don't always listen to Hank when it comes to questions about work is is advice can be kind of doubly dubious although it's possible that my advice is dubious too and you're protected by some federal non-discrimination law when it comes to that stuff I'm not I'm not sure I'm not a I'm not an employment attorney but in general I'm a big fan of just saying I don't know um to pretty much any question that I'm asked except that now that I think about it I am a professional um answer of questions on this very podcast we should probably say I almost never say I don't know even when I clearly say I don't know more on the podcast yeah here we go giving that given that dubious advice it would be such it would be a better and also shorter podcast if we just answered every question with huh interesting question I don't know we should probably pick one question for podcast to be like and we can do it in harmony like I don't know today's podcast is brought to you by not knowing not knowing it used to be a popular thing but in the age of the internet apparently everyone knows everything all the time including when the world is going to end 2031 look forward to that greatest depression this podcast is also brought to you by that global economic collapse of 2031 predicted in a room by a bunch of people who are not economists what do you want to bet most of those people were dudes I was gonna say dudes but I didn't today's podcast is also brought to you by the musical Hamilton the musical Hamilton tickets available now just kidding they are definitely not and finally this podcast is brought to you by john's pure emoji next novel yep it's 700 pages and emojis yep and working on it for five years it's going to be a work of blinding genius that will take the world by storm and no one will ever think that he's completely lost his mind truly blinding genius too because it's hard to read that many emojis right in a row I believe oh man I also want to say thanks to our uh in real brought to you by news thanks to our patrons over at patreon patron.com slash dear hank and john where you can go and support um this podcast directly if you want to if you don't want to you can go there and just enjoy some of the content that we put up uh to help you understand more about Mars and AFC Wimbledon mostly 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 like 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 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idea Shopify handles the rest you can start your free trial at Shopify.com slash deer hank start your free trial Shopify.com slash deer hank with new subscription only while supplies last until September 27th 2026. See website for more details. One thing I love about summary 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 in the summer upgrade your rotation needs starting at just 34 dollars their tees are soft enough to leave 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 deer hank for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada too that's qunce.com slash deer hank for free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com slash deer hank this episode of deer 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 gonna do are you gonna get meal delivery that's gonna cost too much and maybe be a bit of a mistake or are you gonna go to the cupboard and just eat several fistfuls of peanuts because 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 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 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 a hundred rotating weekly meals including globally inspired flavors like Mediterranean and Asian factor shops perhaps cooks and delivers straight to your door so you have more time for everything you love this spring head to factor meals dot com slash deer hank 50 off and use the code deer hank 50 off to get 50 off and free daily greens per box with new subscription only wild supplies last until September 27th 2026 see website for more details late all right john we got another question we're going to keep you with that this one's from Beth who asks deer hank and john do you know how I can explain to my cat how inconvenient it is when she goes pee in my backpack that would be super helpful uh you know I I've been waiting to say it Hank and I get to say it right now I have no idea you just you just uh you don't don't make anything in your house look like a litter box can look nothing like a litter box make sure that nothing looks anything like that place and keep the litter box clean and uh and stand your back back up close it put it on a thing this is not going you cannot explain cats how things go but I've had my cat pee in my backpack it's happened but she hasn't been in years because I stopped leaving it open on the ground looking like a litter box uh and I just like I can imagine her like getting in there being like oh this is a nice shape and then like squatting on down doing her thing like looking off like thousand yards there and just letting it letting it fly right into I still use that backpack john I still use that backpack we have another question this one is from Caleb who writes deer john and hank my name is Caleb my arid knew that Caleb was right there in the intro but that's okay um is it Ryan as you first know Ryan some people say Caleb is the new Ryan um my name is Caleb and I call him a Caleb uh feel kind of odd in nerd fighteria because I identify as a republican um that's a weird weird sentence I identify as a republican I think you could just be a republican I don't think it has to be an identity uh and I'm a theist more specifically a Christian uh I don't agree with the views they I guess they is nerd fighteria and a lot of times you have I however really enjoy your work and your drive to promote your beliefs even if they don't line up with me I don't feel like I'm trying to promote atheistic no believe that's specifically hank as I am quite quite a religious Christian and do go to church and stuff anyway I can enjoy it out of the things you create which is why I listen to deer hank and john in the first place dang it I didn't say deer john and hank how do I go on enjoying what I like in a community that is always wanting to set me straight yeah I mean that last part I definitely feel you on um and and I don't know this is the liberating John I love our new podcast I don't know is the great I don't know is the new I don't know either I mean I definitely understand that idea that like anytime you say something you're surrounded by people who are trying to set you straight um and that can be very frustrating I feel that online a lot like whenever I say for instance that I am a Christian um lots of people come in to tell me that the idea of God is ridiculous which I mean obviously I'm aware of that it's not about like it's not like they're breaking news to me um but I do think that uh it's very important to remain open to other people's ideas and it's very important to be able to listen uh and understand where people are coming from so I guess I try to take it as an opportunity to listen to someone who is different from me and learn from them uh and and in that process try to think about how I can have participated in more civil discourse so for instance I have a really good friend who is supporting Donald Trump for president which is something that I totally disagree with right I mean of the people running uh Trump is definitely the person I would vote for last um and possibly of all the people in the United States um and so uh it's a really interesting opportunity for me though to listen to them talk about why they support Trump what they feel uh Trump represents for them or or you know the positions that he represents that reflect their positions and you know of course it turns out to be a lot more complicated than my initial repulsion would have me believe so I think there's some benefit in the act of listening even if sometimes it feels like everyone is trying to uh set you straight right right I mean that's it's hard because this is more than just somebody expressing their opinions it's somebody like apply like trying to tell you why you are wrong so it you know being empathetic in that in that situation is harder but like you we are in such a mess and I don't know that this is unique or anything but it when when a person who is on the internet all day inside their filter bubble here is that like you know that you're a Republican like their thoughts are not going to be accurate because they have spent the last you know like their sort of like whole like life on the internet exposed to only the most extreme viewpoints and only the and like lots of stories that have been you know like that misrepresent that uh that you know are you know sometimes manufactured and uh just to create that you know sharper divide between you know our two our two main political parties and so like I think that a lot of people don't really know what these things represent on either side and it is very frustrating and I and I honestly think that like you know like it's very complicated there is no one thing that I let either of these ideologies represents every person has a different perspective and it's sort of ludicrous that we work so hard to try and put every American into one of two boxes um or three if you count independent uh and four if you count non-voter so the uh yeah I do think this is difficult and I return to the fact that I just don't know I mean the only other thing I would say about this kangaroo is that you you also have to not view the other monolithically right like you can't view uh nerd-fighteria as monolithically liberal when it definitely isn't I mean there you are not the only uh republican in nerd-fighteria you're certainly not the only christian um and you know it there's this habit of saying well everything every community on the internet or every community or every thing fits in one of these two boxes uh especially what an American discourse that has anything to do with politics either the conservative box or the liberal box we even actually do this with sports right like we all know that nascar is republican but what does that even mean right like nascar isn't republican nascar is a matter of cars taking right turns possibly left turns not a very good sense of direction um so it you know we politicized things that have nothing to do uh with with political life in the united states and so I would ask you to try to be careful not to do that and not to apply uh political labels and political readings to every facet of your life we've got another question it's from sam it's a little bit easier I think but maybe not this he's he asks dear hank and john a few years back I fell in love of the tv show now that show is unfortunately finished but I think of it fondly and as such I find myself wanting to own that show but was aghast to find that a dvd release is not planned anytime soon I was devastated devastated to realize that I could never own the show I so love except that I can I can very easily buy and download the entire season legally and watch it whenever I want to but for some reason that doesn't feel to me like owning it there's nothing physical that I can call mine do you have any advice dubious or otherwise as to how I can shake this mentality that I don't own what I can't see or touch. Sam the object is dead there are no more objects let us disavow all objects and we've only in non-physical space let us praise the electrons that make up the things that we own and do not own let us escape our bodies entirely and live only inside of cyber spatial existences the only way to protect ourselves from the scourge of super volcanoes and coming economic collapses of 20-30 right yeah I mean basically basically what sam is saying is I want a dvd so that the american economy can collapse in 2031 and then in 2032 there can be a super volcanic eruption I don't want to over read sam's question but I think that's what sam is saying I mean I go through this a little bit with books like I love physical books I just an absolute sucker for them I understand that there is no way of justifying my love of the physical object but I still love it but we are all going to have to become accustomed over the next few decades to having fewer objects in our lives and I think in the long run that's probably good right I mean there's to me there's something different about a book in a dvd because a dvd is a digital file on a disc and it might as well be on a hard drive somewhere like there's no there's no difference from that well okay I'm gonna back up and I disagree with myself too I have argued myself out of this I will say though this I will change my tack and say that there's a difference in that I'm never not going to be able to read a book so I have a book on myself I'm always going to be able to read that that book unless there's a fire but if if I don't have a dvd player anymore which I literally don't because there are like because it used to be in my laptop but I got a new laptop that doesn't have a dvd player then I can't watch those dvd I like I have a bunch of dvd's and I can't watch them because I don't have the system I know you don't have to spend 19 dollars to acquire a new dvd player the only yeah I mean I guess I kind of agree with that point Hank but I I mean physical books are just digital files that are printed differently so I don't know can we move on to the news from ours and AFC Wimbledon and just accept that dvd's are going to have a declining role in our lives even though I agree but I want to tell Sam like I'm getting to the root of Sam's issue is you got to figure out how to apply ownership to the idea of the thing and not the physical thing itself and to me that's about understanding that owning the thing was never about owning the physical thing it was always about paying people for the work that they did to create it and creating an economy that supports the creation of good things and that doesn't have like like the thing you were buying was never the disc it was always the intellectual property and you're still doing that and I think understanding that is less it's less viscerally human it's an abstraction but it is it was always the case that you were never buying this you know what was probably a 50 cent thing you were buying the thing that existed on it I agree before we get to the news from ours and AFC Wimbledon very quickly one response this is from Jane who writes Dear John and Hank I'm sitting listening to your pod number 43 got to be kitten by the way Hank I do not approve of that title and I do believe you owe me an apology I'm on episode 13 of the first season of Gilmore Girls and you just spoiled the whole thing for me I understand the show is a decade old but I'm 16 I've been to possibly watched understood and or enjoyed the show before now and now you've spoiled it and this is a great tragedy of life please contemplate your contribution to the ruining of my life this will suffice as an apology I love it I love the podcast I've been listening since the first episode thanks for the dubious advice but no more spoilers I'm sorry Jane I'm sorry not least because just now in this very reading of your comment we've probably caused some people to go back and listen to episode 43 more carefully yeah otherwise never would have been spoiled so I'm doubly sorry Jane yeah I I I didn't think I didn't think about it but dubious advice and spoilers in the show I initially wanted that question to for John to not get what the question was and then for it to only be a joke who had seen for people who had seen that but he figured it out and then I forgot to think about the fact that we were doing anyway I do apologize and if we're having ruined your life and I confirm and you know I affirm that I have indeed done that and we are going to have to move on now it's very sad okay what's the news from Mars well you want me to get this over with quick because there's I assume some big news from AFC one that's right all right well the news from Mars is that China who has a very sort of they have a space agency it's that sort of arm of their military and it's very secretive has recently been changing its tack and has instead of just like suddenly launching missions and then people being like to China just launch a space mission they're there being a lot more public and they have confirmed that they are working on a lunar mission a while ago and just recently in an interview the head of China space agency confirmed that they want to be on the surface of Mars with a rover by 2021 and with that launch happening in 2020 which is very exciting to have another another entrant into the into the the exploration of Mars and I'm I'm happy to have China doing that and and sort of feel weird about it because I feel weird about China and how China operates as a country but there is this interesting thing where space exploration for a lot of different reasons that aren't that are mostly on pure is a thing that countries do and and generally they do together and work together on because it's so expensive and and when one country has a problem other countries want to come in and help them out despite any kinds of like you know political disagreements that those countries have so I am excited for that even though I feel peculiar about China as a country um complicated feelings yeah I'm not going to try to get into the the complicated world of uh of Chinese politics I will just note that I'm excited that there's going to be a minivan on Mars um AFC Wimbledon Hank Americans favorite league two football club ahead of Steven probably true probably true AFC Wimbledon the greatest fourth tier football club in the history of not just England but the universe uh since I last shaved Hank AFC Wimbledon has won four consecutive games here at the very tail end of the league two season somebody recently commented on a flab with this video John now has two puffs I do I do I also want to shave I just can't so I've talked in past podcasts about our victory over uh Wickham uh and and Plymouth and then AFC Wimbledon faced Crawley town in the 88th minute it looked like it was going to be a nil-nil-draw the darkness was descending it seemed certain that Wimbledon would slip out of the playoff spots down into eighth or ninth or possibly even tenth place but then substitute Otto bio Akhen Fenwa the largest strongest most beautiful football player alive today scored a looping header of a goal victory was ours and then just yesterday as we're recording this AFC Wimbledon played already relegated Dag and Red Dag and Red will finish at the bottom of league two and we'll spend next season in the semi-professional uh national league out of football league sadly um and AFC Wimbledon scored two goals they won two nil thanks to the hard work and goal scoring boots of that man the Montserratty and Messi Lyle Taylor it was such an exciting game I listened to it on on radio DoN uh it was really great it was really great I'm so thrilled so AFC Wimbledon Hank uh now they have four games remaining almost all the other teams in league two have just three games remaining uh and Wimbledon are uh sitting in seventh the final playoff spot four points ahead of eighth place uh Wickham and five points ahead of ninth place Cambridge united uh also sitting on uh five points back our Exeter City and Layton Orient so it's still a somewhat crowded table um but AFC Wimbledon have a game in hand uh if they win two of their last four games they will definitely qualify for the playoffs I won't lie Hank that means that if they qualify for the playoffs they have a 25% chance of going to lead one but a 50% chance of playing in the playoff final at Wembley Stadium uh and I I have I have I am properly dreaming I have googled airplane tickets I am ready to purchase them by the way you're welcome to come that wasn't a joke I'm not going to okay well it's just as well Stephenage won't be in the playoffs um I am so excited this season it's difficult to describe how unlikely this is because of course this is the first year we've been doing the podcast um but you know just just just two seasons ago Wimbledon had to win on the last day uh to avoid relegation um or I guess three seasons ago so this is it's just a phenomenal situation uh and I'm I'm so so excited uh it's just crazy hope is the thing with feathers I'm very pleased uh and I want to ask I think it's an important question not only for uh you know for AFSC Wimbledon but also for the potentially our careers on YouTube if they go to the playoffs does that mean you're gonna like not shave for like months well Hank if I'm if they don't if they win all four of their final games and end the season with eight consecutive wins are you asking me if I'm going to shave before the playoffs of course I'm not going to shave before the playoffs they will have one eight straight game since I last shaved I will however shave if they lose one of their last four games okay okay well let me just tell you I'm hoping for that but only because I want you to shave and I don't think it will mean that they won't be in the playoffs and I don't think they can get into that top three definite ends up in the in the thing yeah it's very it's gonna be very very hard to get in that top three even if they won out they would only have 80 points and right now the third place team has 77 so yeah it's a year of gold difference so it's probably not gonna happen so but that said I still want them to go go into the playoffs if they make it to the playoffs uh you know on good form and everything having one of one of games so whatever it takes I'm happy not to shave I do have to drive the pace car at the Angie's list Grand Prix here in Indianapolis the big the big road course race on May 14th and in a perfect world I wouldn't have to do all of the press with a massive shaggy beard but whatever I'm happy to do so so is the playoff thing like I can't cut any of these hairs or I can't shave like could you like give you some nicer looking beard is that allowed well think obviously I don't know right so that's the whole problem I don't know which part of my beard is causing AFC Wimbledon to win so I can't mess with any of it okay that makes perfect sense John what are we learned today well we learned that I am a little bit superstitious it's true we did learn that we learned that you are never buying a physical item when you're buying a piece of media and of course we also learned that the world is going to end but we're probably not in our lifetimes because of the Yellowstone super volcano eruption and finally we learned of course that John and Hank Green despite the fact that we answer questions for like an hour every week do not know we don't know essentially nothing God our advice is so dubious especially in this episode I apologize to everyone to whom we gave dubious advice for just the sheer do-be-osity of it all but thank you so much for listening you can write us with your questions at hankandjohn at gmail.com also your corrections your complaints about a spoiling Gilmore Girls for you anything that you want hankandjohn at gmail.com or you can use the hashtag on twitter dear hank and john i'm john green on twitter hank is hank green on our preferred method of social communication snapchat hank is hank gre i am john green snaps our theme music is by gunnarola this podcast is edited by nicholas jankins our hardworking intern is Claudia Morales-Rosianna halserajas helps with questions thank you again for listening and as we stay in our hometown don't forget to be awesome