Dear Hank & John - 357: Who Should Come But The News

Episode Date: December 26, 2022

Which uncle is most likely to underpay you? How do eyes wear a sundress? What are your New Year's Hot Takes? Hank and John Green have answers! If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] us for monthly livestreams and an exclusive weekly podcast at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John, whereas I prefer to think of it dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you dubious advice, and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and the AFC Wimbledon. Although in this case, it's a very special episode, and there's only one brother. That's right, it's a one man band spectacular. The rarest and also lowest quality variety of Dear Hank and John episode. We're trying things a little differently today.

I'm going to insofar as possible do this live. It is the end of 2022. It is a time for experimentation and rebirth and growth. And also my brother is unavailable because he is the busiest person I have ever known. I don't know how he does it all, and then some weeks he doesn't. He isn't able to do it all.

And in those weeks, I'm like, well, at least he's human. So we're going to try our best to get through this together. I do have some questions identified that you have sent me at Hank and John at gmail.com, which I very much appreciate. Also, lots of you have sent me emails that aren't questions, which have also been lovely. We're going to begin today with a question about Hank, my brother. Since he's not here, I feel like there's never been a better time to discuss him. This question comes from Angela, who writes, Dear John and Hank. Last night, I dreamt that during his college days,

Hank programmed a desktop app of a stick figure named Little Stimulus, or Will Stim, for short, Will Stim is a pretty good rap name. Slightly off topic, but I feel like Will Stim wouldn't be in my top 10 YouTube music listens, but might be in my top 30. Anyway, Will Stim was a program where this little stick figure would mosh to any music being played on your computer. Unfortunately, Hank could no longer remember

the code of the file, and the original hard copy was being held hostage by your uncle. John eventually got the disc back. Thank you, Angela, for making me the hero of your dream, and also discovered that your uncle had been woefully underpaying you all these years, for will stim, presumably. Now, is a great question, Angela, particularly because it contains no question marks. My friend Amy Cross-Rosenthal used to say that nothing was more boring than other people's dreams. And that's really true, except when other people's dreams

are about you. And then suddenly you perk up and you're like, oh, what now? That sounds like a really interesting metaphor. I wonder what that could be about. It's probably about how great I am and how I'm always saving the day for Hank. Coming through at the last second with the disc

that contains the hit web application will stim. And so thank you, Angela, for that really interesting dream. the hit web application will stim. And so thank you, Angela, for that really interesting dream. I have to say if that dream was about someone other than me, I think I would still like it, but like, of course I think I would. By the way, if you hear an extremely loud clunking that appears to be coming from above, I want you to know that it is an extremely loud clunking

coming from above. I recorded my basement and my son broke his foot. And so he has a cast and he's always been a bit of a heavy stepper. But with this cast, you may hear it. So the main thing that I thought about with regards to your dream is two things. That's an example of not needing to edit every time you make a mistake. The main thing is two things, Angela. The first main thing is that this is all so in character,

right, like Hank making a program called Will Stim in college is very in character. That program becoming unexpectedly and inexplicably popular is very in character, that program becoming unexpectedly and inexplicably popular is very in character. And then like, it's somehow making a bunch of money, even though Hank doesn't care that much about money is very in character. Also, I think it's very in character that I came and saved the day at the end. But the second thing it makes me think is which uncle, which uncle Angela, which uncle was woefully underpaying us all these

years. There's two main candidates. First, we have my uncle Bill, I love all of my uncles for the record. And then we have my uncle Mike. They're both great, wonderful fathers and husbands and grandfathers. They're both talented business people. So there's no reason why they couldn't, for instance, take a little stim and turn it into a bunch of money somehow. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought it's not a biological uncle, is it? It's like an uncle figure who we call uncle.

Like good old uncle Joe, always look at out for us in the business realm where we don't really, you know, have a lot of talent or a particular aptitude. Thank God for good old uncle Joe. And so it's a metaphorical uncle, isn't it, Angela? And then I was like, who's the metaphorical uncle who's been underpaying us all these years?

And Angela, I don't know who it is. I think you might have to have another dream. I think you might need to be in an inception situation where you have a second dream report back to us on who Oh, Hank says I would love to record if you still can. Amazing. What guys, it's going from a one man band band episode to a two-person band episode. All right. Incredible news, everybody. No, I'm already in.

We're already in. It's already started. I know. I don't know how else to do with this job. Hank is here. He sent me an unexpected text message saying, I'd like to record the podcast with you now. And I was like, but your team informed me me that you would be available for a podcast. I do you want to know something that's kind of kind of gross. Yeah. I wasn't recording the podcast and

I was like, I'd really like to talk to my brother. Yeah. So you weren't actually thinking I'd like to record the podcast. You were thinking like, how can I talk to John about some stuff that's important to me? And then you were like, oh, God, are we supposed to record the podcast right now? No, no, I was, well, one of the things, I don't know what you've been up to. But like, there's a year coming. There's a, there's like a world changing. There's a lot.

There's, I don't know if this, maybe it has always and will always feel like this, it just feels like there's a lot that's changing and a lot that's hard. And I did, and I was thinking about how I'd like to talk about it with you. And great. And also answer questions from our listeners if you're doing that. But yeah, we are doing that. So real quick, Hank, I just need to bring you up to date

on how things have been going so far. Okay. I'm actually recording a live show while I'm recording the podcast. You don't record live shows. Are you actually live? Okay. I'm streaming a live show while I'm recording the podcast.

I don't understand how the stuff works. But they're all really mad that they can't hear you. Yeah. But the reason they can't hear you is because this is a one-man band episode of Dear Hanken John, where a second member of the band unexpectedly entered halfway through. I'm that's what I play. It's like I'm Huey Lewis, and I think I'm playing a solo acoustic show, you know, harkening back to the old days when it was just me and a guitar.

And then the drummer just shows up and it was like, pop, techa, techa, techa, techa, techa, techa, techa, techa, who should come but the news? Yeah, it's suddenly it's Huey Lewis and the news. The news is here. The whole band is back together. Oh man. So this is the news, the real things for it.

Like if we're gonna make the metaphor into a real thing, I'd rather avoid it. Huey Lewis and the news. No, I just wanna I'd rather avoid it. Pili Lewis in the news? No, I just wanna, I don't wanna do anything that's in the news right now. Oh, you just don't wanna discuss the news. I have to feel like the news has been really good lately. Argentina won the World Cup.

If there's other news, I'm literally unaware of it. I gotta tell you, that was nuts. I, you know, I think it's great that so many people really enjoyed the World Cup final. I don't know if I think it's great that so many people really enjoyed the World Cup final. I don't know if I would say that I enjoyed it, but it was very stressful. It was a, it was an experience. It was an experience. And there is something magical about the fact that, you know, in the neighborhood of one-third of all humans were watching the same thing at the same time, participating in the... Emotions.

I feel like... Yeah, participating in the... It's the greatest shared emotional experience among humans, the World Cup. You know what I really... I really tense. Can I tell you something I really appreciate about the World Cup? Yes.

When the announcers were like, yes, that was the correct decisions by the officials, because I had no idea. That was no idea. I was like, that was... I don't know, that, I don't, like, was that right? But they all seem to think it was, they were, I, I have appreciated that effect because that matter, like those things mattered a lot, turns out. Yep.

The decisions made by the officials. Yep. I would just like to say for the record that if you enjoyed the World Cup final, wait until you find out about fourth tier English football. If you thought if you thought Morocco's upset was headline news, wait until you find out about AFC Wimbledon taking on Charlton Athletic, okay? Okay. The World Cup was great, but you know what result you never saw once in the entire World Cup 64 games, and you did not see this result once match abandoned due to frozen pitch, which is what happened to AFC Wimbledon this week.

Not a single match in the entire World Cup was abandoned because of frozen pitch. And we've had it happen 40 or 50 times just in the last week in English football. What's the concern with the frozen pitch? Is it that you don't want to like hit it? It's like playing on concrete. I've never totally understood why frozen pitch and waterlogged pitch are the two, kind of, I would say like leading protagonists. They're sort of the imbappe and messy of fourth tier English football. I've never quite understood why they're given such centrality. It's a team game, you know, like a lot of a lot of things matter. Fine.

Frozen pitch gets a lot of, it's just a big deal. The energy is so much different now that you're here. I bet. I've done one man band podcasts as well. And it's interesting. It's a different dynamic. It's got a hard to be that person. I don't know. It's beautiful to have you with me. Can you tell me what the emotion I experienced during the World Cup was? I mean, here's the thing, Hank, that's the emotion I feel every Saturday. So you're starting to glimpse. Hank is on a journey of mean. And part of his journey of meeting is that he's starting to glimpse that football contains all of the human emotions

and all of the human experiences. And that it rewards your attention unlike so many other things. It rewards your attention in exact, what is it called, correlation? Yeah. Like to the size of your feelings is exactly correlated to the size of your attention and investment.

It's, you know, like the first time, the first time you like drink like a bunch of cold water on an empty stomach in your life, you're like, my stomach can feel cold. That's what watching that game felt like. It was like, I have experienced a new sense, I'm 42 years old. And for the, like, it's been a while since I had a new feeling.

This one's new. I love it. I love it. I love it. Hey, I don't know that I liked it though. Yeah, I'll get you an I follow membership. And, um, and then you can have it every Saturday while you watch ANC Wimbledon. I, I forced my kids to watch the penalty shootout.

And at one point, I said, I said, this is unbearable, and Henry said, that's how I feel all the time watching soccer in this episode, but one of them is maybe, I don't want to over-hype it, the greatest question I've ever come across in the history of Dear Hank and John. Okay. And you missed a whole conversation about Will Stim. But this question,

I saw that question. This question from Grace is unbelievable. Okay. Dear John and Hank, I really like country music, but there's this one song that's been haunting my dreams. It's called Five Foot Nine. Now, I have also heard this song. It's a hit. It's on radio. And it has, I agree with grace. It has the weirdest chorus that has never been addressed so far as I know. This is a country song. I don't know how familiar you are with contemporary country music Hank, but a lot of contemporary country music sort of grounds itself in vivid images that are

slightly seen through a rose tinted filter of nostalgia, you know, like finding ways to take rural life and make it at once like hyper specific and universal. Like the best swing is a tire swing, is a kind of, you know, or like the best car is a pickup truck and the best kind of road is a dirt road. And so, okay. So, there's this one song that's been hunting my dreams. It's called Five Foot Nine. And I think the chorus goes, God made five foot nine brown eyes in a sundress.

Now, there seem to be some people who think that the chorus is God made five foot nine brown eyes and a sundress, but I actually, I have listened to the song several times since reading this question, and I think that you can certainly make a case for five foot nine brown eyes in a sundress. But either way, there's actually the same problem. Grace says, I can't get this terrifying image out of my head. My question is, if five foot nine brown eyes were to wear a sundress, how would that sundress stay up?

Eyes are round, so could straps hold it? Would it need some kind of anti-slip material used for strapless dresses? You guys answered the question about a person made of lemons so well that I thought you could surely handle this one. Bonus if a listener can draw this monstrosity. I'm all about that grace, no trouble. Good. Nice.

It's a great name, specific, so I don't know. So of course, I keep having to turn myself down because being in your company is making me so excited compared to the experience I thought I was gonna have. So I apologize to tuna and everyone listening if my wevels keep changing a little bit, but I'm trying not to bottom out. I of course went to the website, Genius.com,

which is where you learn about the interpretation of lyrics. But there is no information. The only information I've learned is that this man's wife is in fact five foot 10, but he didn't realize that when he wrote the song. Wow. He had to, and it was too late to correct it. His wow.

So he played the song for his wife for the first time, and she was good. This is about the end of it. He was like, what do you think? And she was like, I mean, I thought it was all right. How could, I mean, forget about how tall I am. I would be like, I don't wanna be overly critical. And I know that you're like in your creative mode and that you're very vulnerable in that time and everything.

But how can an eyeball be five foot nine inches tall? And then more to the point. Okay, more to the point, how could this five foot nine inch eyeball wear a sundress? Because almost by definition, wouldn't that sundress cover up the seeing part of the eye and kind of the one thing that the five foot nine inch eyeball could be good at is take it away from it.

Well, John, you have so two things. First, this is not the first time, I may be this month that we have talked about giant eyeballs because you talked about that poem that you that you like. Oh, it's just like I can you visualize it as a eyeball rolling around the forest collecting dirt and this so mark on it. I've learned a lot more about the transparent eyeballs since last we spoke. Okay, more about the transparent eyeball since we last we spoke. Okay. But you also need to remember that it's five foot nine brown eyes in a sundress. Yeah. So it's, I don't know. There's two of them in there. They're stacked on top of each other. They have to be right. It sounds like they're

going to be five feet nine inches tall, Hank. Be reasonable. Well, the problem is that they're balls, so they are spherical. And so if they're five feet nine, high, and there's two of them, and then they're nine wide. Well, no, they're 10 foot 18 wide. Oh, you're imagining that they're two, two eyeballs. You're imagining that they're right next to each other. Yeah. Well, that's how eyes are. Well, first off, eyes aren't five feet, nine inches tall

in a sundress, at least not any eyes I've ever seen. But I was imagining that they're stacked on top of each other. Yeah, I guess I could see that. Like two kids in a trench coat acting like an adult. No one takes us seriously if we're just walking around like our city just normally, you know, when we're like two and a half feet is tall. Exactly. Yeah.

Exactly. If they're just, if they're just a two and a half foot tall eyeball walking around next to another two and a half foot tall eyeball, I don't see in that in the sun dresses is very disorienting. But if you see a five foot nine inch tall, two eyeball situation in a sundress, you're like, I, you know, like one of the eyeballs, I don't even see it's under the sundress.

It's got a very narrow waist where they come together. Actually, I was very close to the platonic ideal of real hourglass shape there. Literally. Yeah. Where it's just like the rare hourglass body that is actually hourglass shape.

Yeah. Yeah. So I, I mean, there's a lot to unpack here. Does the bottom one roll like BB8? And the top one stays stable. Right. Do they have feet? This is a big question about Emerson's transparent eyeball actually, which is this idea that the

philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, philosopher slash writer Ralph Waldo Emerson had in his essay Nature, where he talks about walking through the forest and just wanting to be an eyeball. Can I read the, you the relevant part, Hank? Because I think it does impact our discussion of this popular song. We return to reason and faith. There, I feel that nothing can befall me. No disgrace, no calamity leaving me my eyes,

which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite spaces. Jesus Christ, Ralph Waldo Emerson, loved an adjective. That's a bad bit much, but okay. My head bathed by the blithe air, all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball.

I am nothing. I see all the currents of the universal being circulate through me. I am part or particle of God. And so the idea is that like instead of reflecting back meaning that you just soak it in, that instead of not, you know, just take in nature rather than trying to reflect it or make meaning of it or whatever. I actually like the transparent eyeball part, but you can't just use the word

blythe. Oh, I completely agree with you. Nor can you describe egotism as mean. You should just say egotism, right? We know what you mean. And then there's the fact that I thought it was in the wrong. I thought he meant like the mean like the average. Oh, I don't think so. But again, why did he introduce that ambiguity needlessly? We're not here to criticize Ralph Waldo Emerson's pro, which is frankly better than either of ours. We're here to talk about the fact that the most famous image of this, and I need you to

Google it, Hank. I need you to Google Transparent Ival was made by Christopher Pierce, cranch in the 1830s. And it pictures an eyeball, a top very long set of legs. And the eyeball was like wearing a straw hat of some kind. And I'll put the tail legs. Yeah, the legs are where it's a coat with tails. So, like, this is a dressed up transparent eyeball walking through the wilderness in what amounts to a tuxedo. This is not, by the way, anatomically correct. Like, I don't like, if that's the optic nerve that it's walking on, if its legs have turned into the optic nerve, it's coming out the wrong part of the eyeball.

Well, first off, I don't think that that's the concept. The point is, we do have an image thanks to Christopher Pierce-Cranch of five foot nine brown eyeballs in a coat. Oh, I see. Which I didn't do it. Oh, I see. Which I didn't do it. Right, I think that we're on the path looking at this image together. Oh, so maybe it's two eyes.

Yeah. That are just bit like there's no head, but there is kind of, so there is a real legitimate biological question about where the eye ends. You can make the case that the eye is in fact, just part of the brain. So it's very closely connected.

The optic nerve does, there's processing that goes on before and after it. And so it's where you draw the line for the brain. So you can kind of maybe make the case that like you can lump in some nervous tissue with the eye, in which case you have two eyes with two stocks coming down. And maybe you'll like break together a little bit before branching out again. And then that's like, that's a, that you could have legs. You could have a full body.

Maybe you don't have legs, but maybe you just have sort of a pogo stick that is your optic nerves and related materials. There's two eyes. They kind of intertwine. But then at the end, they can break apart so you can have legs. I don't see why not. Well, why do you need legs?

I want to be honest with you. Why can't you be honest with me? The image that you showed me, I wanted to be walking around. Okay. All right, but I'm just gonna tell you that if we have two eggs and a five-foot nine eyeball We are I pair of eyeballs actually. I worry that we are journeying away from Emerson toward

Mike Wazowski And that's a concern to me. Well, that's what I think. Because I don't think this country song is about Mike Wazowski, except with Brown on it. I think that the author of this poem that is this country music song wants us to to picture something that is in vaguely the form of a woman, but is made out of eyeballs. And so I think it has to be a little bit like not Mike Wazowski shaped. I think it has to be more like the image you've shown me here where there's like legs and it's wearing a sundress.

And then there's no face, no head, just eyeballs. Right, right. Okay. All right. I think we're there. I think we've settled on a description, but unfortunately there is another critical level to this lyric. Oh no. Which is not that Emerson or Hank or John or this country musician made five foot nine brown eyes in a sundress,

but that God did. This is a theological statement that God made. Oh I forgot. I didn't notice that part of the chorus. Five foot nine brown eyes in a sundress. God, that for me is the biggest surprise, because, well, I just, I feel like I've been around for a while. I'm 45 years old, and I'll tell you one thing that I've never seen on God's green earth.

Five foot nine brown eyes in a sundress. God, it really doesn't make it sound like the eyes themselves are five foot nine, and including the optic nerve is a stretch. But look, I don't know how this might interest me. We would have to consult with him to understand the full authorial intent. But as you know, Hank, I believe that books and art and country songs all belong to their readers or listeners. And so the meaning is there for us to break.

So, but like, I mean, who else made it? I mean, I could get it. I was a really good point. That doesn't really surprise me. Yeah. Yeah. And then at the end of the chorus, he says, God makes the good stuff.

So he makes the good stuff. Which is maybe the part I have the most trouble with. That is, that's a weird way to settle the problem of evil in the world, but I kind of like it. It's very simple and straightforward. It's like, oh no, God just makes the good stuff. Well, but it does. But nine inch tall.

Yeah, it brown eyes in a sun. It retroactively applies to the eyes, which that's not my first sense. And I don't want to judge. Right, right. But it's different. And I and I don't want to judge. Right, right. But it's different than I thought. If I saw, I think I would be worried about, it's good or evilness. If I saw two, three-foot tall brown eyes in a trench coat, in a sundress, I'm not sure

I would, my first reaction would be, now that's the good stuff. But we've been told. We know that it is. Oh, maybe God does make the good stuff. That's the good stuff right there. You're welcome. You're welcome, God says. All this trial and travail, but I did give you five foot nine inch brown eyes and his sundress. You know what I'd like to do? And I don't often

maybe I'll pull this off. Okay. Because I got a lot to do before the Christmas break, which we're recording before that. I'd like to record a version of this song having never heard it. That's a great idea. And you just, I mean, is it crazy to try, just try to do it now, just work, just workshop it with me? Well, I don't know what the rhyme scheme is yet. I have not looked at it at all. Jack makes good whiskey.

Yeah. Red dirt makes good whiskey. Good writing roads. Yep. Country makes good music for kicking up dust in the tail like, well, okay, I'm getting the flow here. Dry wood makes good fires. Good years makes good music for kicking up dust in the tail like well. Okay, I'm getting the flow here. Dry wood makes good fires. Good years makes good swings.

Ooh! Nice, because it's tires. I thought it was going to be tires. It's clever. See, there's an inversion of expectation there. And that's all good, but for me, God makes five- foot nine brown eyes in a sundress loves that's good. And a small town accent.

Yes. No way that me in this truck made her fall in love. Jack makes good whiskey, but God makes good stuff. Whoa. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, I think country music is trying to be inclusive of people who live north of the Mason Dixon line, but still. Well, we love it out here in Montana. Right. And so do we in Indiana, rural Indiana,

country music's blasting everywhere. And so that's an interesting shift, right? Away from a sort of regionalism, toward identifying based on your proximity to an urban center. Yes, correct. That's an interesting cultural shift. And then the other thing I want to call attention to,

Hank, is that this is a pretty short song. And yet there's two different kinds of road surfaces in this song. I mean, there's a lot. There's a lot. You can learn a lot from her. There's a lot of different kinds of road surfaces, John. It's a big part of life.

We've got, like, I feel like if you gave this song to chat GPT, chat GPT would be like interesting. I've just learned something new about humans. They're very intrigued by their road surfaces. There are three things that people care about. Large eyes. Road surfaces. And pick up drugs. I don't know.

God, I think the third thing might be God. Ha, ha, ha. I love the idea. I love the idea that, okay, okay, new, all right, new concept. Five foot nine is the only thing that travels from earth to an alien civilization. They're gonna be so confident.

They're gonna like come visit earth and they're gonna be like, well, that's a surprise and we'll be like, what? And they'll be like, well, first off that you have bodies. So we were pretty sure that you were all five feet nine inches tall. And just eyeballs. And just eyeballs in sundresses.

So this is the this is magnificent. It's the other road surface, I can't find it. Red dirt makes for good riding roads. That's red dirt roads. And then later in the song, when I pull up in the gravel drive, the way she dances with the raindrops, like she's the reason why they fall from the sky.

And I thank him every time I close my eyes. That's Emerson. No. fall from the sky and I thank him every time I close my eyes. That's Emerson. No. First off Emerson can't close his eye, he's a transparent eyeball. There's no blinking. There's no blinking allowed. The thing about the drawing of the eyeball and the soup coat is that the eyeball is supposed to be invisible.

It's a transparent eyeball. I think that this man whose name is Tyler Hubbard was imagining an invisible set of five foot nine. They're transparent. You can't see that. It's just a sundress that moves around. It's like a ghost sundress. Yeah. That's, that's, I think we got there. And I think we got there. Tyler Hubbard was taking Emerson's transparent eye deep into his heart. And what came out was Emerson's transparent eye wearing a sundress, but the eye is transparent. But they are two. And there are two of them. And one, the bottom one rolls around like BB8, but you can't see it. Done. Okay. Thanks for potting with me. It's been a pleasure. John, this podcast was brought to you by the line Jack makes good whiskey, but God loves

the good stuff. It's one of the lines of the song. Today's podcast, of course, was also brought to you by Good Year's Make Good Swings, an unexpected anti-ribe. And this podcast is also brought to you by the way she dances with the raindrops, like she's the reason why they fall from the sky. Actually, I think that's quite nice. Yeah, it's not bad.

And of course today's podcast is brought to you by five foot nine brown eyes in a sundress. Five foot nine brown eyes in a sundress. Transparent, so it's not weird. It's just a ghost. It's just a ghost. It's really, it's just a mobile sundress as far as you can see. So I'm so glad I showed up today, John, so that I can provide this level of insight

into our future as we head into 2023 in collaboration with both time and space and our own bodies. I really love your new emphasis on collaborating with time and space and your body. I do. This is how I feel. I think it's beautiful trying, I'm trying to imagine it, even as I lie on the floor of my bathroom with food poisoning. So Hank, that's your big goal for 2023.

And I talked jokingly in the last episode about my big goals for 2023, but I do have some serious goals as well. Okay. I would like to get off of the parts of the social internet that are really, really bad for me, and I know they're bad for me. And I think they're also probably bad for the social order, but that's irrelevant because they're bad for me. Yeah. But I can't stop using them.

I would like to stop using the things that are clearly making my life worse. That's one. I can do one. I do want to write. Yeah, yeah, you do. You do. You go. Okay. Well, I don't know.

Maybe I thought I had one, but I guess I don't. Oh, you were so confident. Ha, ha, ha, ha. The other thing I really want to do in 2023 is go to Sierra Leone. I really want to see the progress that's happened over the last three and a half years since we've been working with partners in health to radically reduce maternal mortality in Sierra Leone.

I'm really excited to see the changes that are happening there. So hopefully I'll get to go this year. That's so exciting. That would be amazing. Yeah. I've still never gotten to go. Well, we'd love to have you. Yes. I'm sure. I hope that you get to show lots of important people around. I want to know, do you have any feeling of confidence of a thing about the next year that you think might happen that people would be surprised by.

Like a prediction. Yeah. You want my unexpected hot take prediction for 2023? Sure. This is piping hot. Okay. I think at the end of 2023, Elon Musk will be the CEO of Twitter. That's really, that's an interesting one.

So like, he will be on CEO, but then he will receive. I don't even know if he's going to on CEO, but I think that he will be the CEO of a much diminished Twitter, like, like my space Tom overseeing his empire of empty accounts, I think that he will be the CEO of Twitter. I know my space Tom sold my space. And it's now just live in the dream. But I'm trying, I'm trying to make a point here, people. That's what I think that I was just trying to think of what would be the spiciest take I can have. You want to have it very spicy. You want to take a risky one that's going to look really amazing if you get it right.

Yeah, and then if I get it wrong, it'll just be like whatever. No, that. But I love taking a risk with my takes. Okay, what's yours? I think we've got to be on Mars, but no. We got it. We're going to get there. I think it makes sense that our thoughts on this are going to be based in the parts of the world that we spend so much time and that are sort of our homes in a weird way, which

is the social internet. And so my sort of social internet take is that this will feel as if it were the last year of TikTok's dominance. Like, 2022 was. And now there are so many headwinds. And there will also be, there will start to be a kind of larger scale understanding that this larger scale understanding that this is like a little bit less cool than it once was. And maybe the new cool thing will start to be seen. And in general, that the cohesion of the social internet, where there was a sense that there was Instagram, Twitter, there was a sense that there was Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook, like that cohesion will continue to fracture.

And there will be more and more places where people spend time. And ultimately, I think that might be healthy, where there are different places for folks instead of everybody trying to occupy the exact same space as each other. Yeah, because then in some ways it becomes a battle for territory within the limited space that is Twitter discourse or that is Reddit discourse instead of becoming a place for conversation. Like the the internet places that I'm most drawn to at the moment are places that are well-moderated and that encourage and reward and incentivize kindness and a hermeneutic of generosity, like a way of looking at others and assuming the best in them. And the places that I am drawn to, but that make me less happy are the places where that make me less happy are the places where everybody's fighting to own the space. Yeah, to win.

To win. To win to space. To win to win to space. To win to win to space. To win to win to space. To win to win to space. To win to win to space. To win to win to space.

To win to win to space. To win to win to space. To win to win to space. To win to space. To win to space. To win to win to space. To win to win to win to win to space. To win to win to space. To win to win to space. To win to win to space. To win to win to win to space. but we're thinking about the internet right now, who looks at it in an internet space and thinks, we must win over them, or we are losing. I think that everybody who looks at it through those lens,

and I think that there's currently somebody who's owning Twitter who looks at it that way, is really wrong about how progress gets made, and about how humanity moves forward. Because I don't think that much was ever accomplished through winning. I think that almost everything good has been accomplished through working together.

Yeah, I think that's a relief. Reading is such an opposite thing to working together. Right. Yeah. Winning is much more narratively compelling. But when you look at what actually made change, it's almost always people working together. The whole idea that held the world back for so, so long was that for me to have more

you must have less, for, you know, that in order for one community, the way for one community to thrive is to take another community's resources through looting and pillaging and carving up space, winning territory, those kinds of straightforward, simple ways of thinking about resource allocation. And that is, of course, the wrong way. And the way that almost universally we've grown as a species is through collaboration and cooperation. That said, I don't see those places on the internet yet. Like, I see them in little ways. I see them in NerdViteria. I see them in certain discord communities. I see them in certain subreddits. But I don't see them in the kind of internet mainstream. And I do worry sometimes that we're so extremely online. We don't see it as much.

Because the thing is different. Yeah. Whenever you're in and as bigger, the number of like if there is some edge of the bell curve, who is just like, you know, 10 people who are going to figure out how to interpret your words in the worst possible light, they will. And you will see all 10 of those people. And then, and you know, and then they can make that case and, and like, it convinced others of that or whatever. But I have started to see signs that there are ways in which that's starting to feel a little

cringy for folks. I think Rebecca Jennings had a piece on how all of the worst discourse kind of has the same flavor. And once you mentioned, she mentioned me in it. Once, yeah, once you can smell it, you know the smell. And you're like, oh, I don't like that smell. Right, right. But you, you have to be exposed to a lot of it to know the smell. And I guess my worry is that there's a huge percentage

of the internet that still has so, it's so different from our internet. It has not developed that sense of smell yet. Yeah, yeah. But I see signs that we kind of are moving away from that a little bit, but it's very hard to know for sure. Yeah, agreed. Well, here's hoping that in 2023, the internet gets not worse. And here is also hoping that the world gets better. The other thing that 2023

could very well be if we do a good job of working together is the last year in human history when more than five million children die before the age of five. Wow. So that would represent some serious progress. But we need to get down to a world where fewer than a million children died before the age of five every year. And we can do that easily with existing technologies if we just distribute resources better. So here at the end of the year, Hank,

I'm very grateful to you for supporting PAH and other organizations that are working to bring about that world and also to everybody in our community who does whether through the Awesome Sox Club, the Awesome Coffee Club or just direct donations at pah.org slash hank and john or wherever you are seeking to decrease the overall worldwide level of suck or the product for awesome which is coming up I'm very excited it'll be in said you can count down on my phone going. So I can see far away we are from the product for awesome. It's going to be fun this year.

Yeah, for sure. So here at the end of the year, we're going to skip the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, not least because the news from AFC Wimbledon is all about frozen pitches and just say thank you. If you want to send us an email, we're at hankinjohn.gmail.com. Oh, and if you haven't filled out the survey, you can do that. The Nerdfighteria Census for 2022 is out and you can find a link to it on the vlog

brothers channel. If you want to check that out, I don't know what it is exactly. Let go and click and tell us what's up. Yeah, you can just Google it. I don't know if you can, but you got the vlogger this time. It's linked on one of my videos. We believe in you. Um, or on the community tab. And if you want to send us an email or at hankajonatgmail.com, you can answer your question. Sorry we didn't get to a lot today. I don't know how many you did

before I got here, but one we got a little over interested in eyeballs. It was the topic to sure. And this podcast is edited by Joseph T. Namedich. It's produced by Rosie Honhaal Srollhoss. Our communications coordinator is Brooke Shotwell, our editorial assistant is the Boogie Chocolate Party. The music you're hearing now, and at the beginning of the podcast, it's by the great Gunnar Rola.

And as they say, in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome. Jack makes good whiskey, yeah, and a red dirt makes good ride in rules. And country makes good music, and for kicking up dust and until I glow. Who would dry wood makes good fires, and good years make good swings, and that's all good. Look for me. God makes five foot nine brown eyes and a sundress loves to the grind

a small town accent ain't no way that mean this truck made her fall in love Jack makes good whiskey, but God makes the good stuff full God makes the good stuff full, yeah Jack makes good whiskey, but God makes the good stuff full God makes the good stuff, oh, God makes the good stuff