Dear Hank & John - 367: Sharkface Unicycle Boy

Episode Date: April 10, 2023

Is doing a 180 in a rocket ship hard? Do fish get thirsty? What are some alternatives to "Sun's Out, Guns Out"? How worried should we be about AI? Where do Floridians go for spring break? What's the next big sick? 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

Oh, and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Gorsair preferred to think of it Dear John and Hank. Hold on, my mic stand is weird. What the heck? It's always something with this guy. You know, some of us come to the podcast week after week after week, except for this thing for me to grow. We can't do that.

We can't. There's music playing. You can't. We can't do that. I thought it was, but I adjusted something. Hello and welcome to Dear Hanken John. I'm not doing it again. You didn't ever say your part though.

I did. Not only did I say it, you missed my amazing joke where I said, some people come to this podcast week after week after week prepared, except for the last three weeks when they weren't here. That's a great joke. That's a great joke. That was a great joke. And I was trying to fix this. I was trying to do the intro. There was a lot going on.

Okay. Now the music's over. And John, I would like to tell you a fact, which is that the name Lance isn't very common these days. It's not, but back in the Middle Ages, they used the name Lance a lot. Oh. Mmm. Yes. Mmm. It's not but back in the Middle Ages. I used the name Lancelot. Oh Yes You know when I think it's funny about Sir Lancelot and I just realized this you know like 45 years into my life

Yeah, they called them Sir Lancelot because he used his lance a lot because he used his lance a lot. He was always using the lance because he was such a good night. And he was a good lance guy. Or maybe his like grandpa was really good at you for a lance. And that's something that doesn't have surname lance a lot. But anyway, somewhere. There's a baptism there. God, it's sir lance a lot is a classic nepo baby.

But somewhere, if you dig back deep enough, there was somebody and all the people in town was like, man, Joey cannot put down his lance. Joey sure uses his lance a lot. Wait a second. We just stumbled on into something. It was a Joey lance a lot. He was like, oh, you don't do it that much.

It's like getting a big thing in the ball. Yeah, if you don't do it that much, why don't we go to the LAN slot, hey Joey, yeah, it's not fine, but I'm getting better though. I'm getting really good. It's not that big. Why are we called, why, why, why we call you Johnny Big nose? Because my nose is so little.

Well, that's the other, that's the other possibility, right, is that it was ironic. Oh, that's the other possibility, right, is that it was ironic. Oh, he did. He did. He did. He did. He did. He did.

He did. He did. He did. He did. He did. He did. He did. He did.

He did. He did. He did. He did. He did. He did. He did. He did. He did. He did. He's like, I'm not getting up close to those people. Yeah, he's always like, guys, let's just talk it out. Okay. I mean, no need, we don't need to let this come to violence.

Oh, right, Mr. Lanselot. Mr. Lanselot over here will never let us use our lenses. Gotta be, yeah, they were really ironic back then. Oh, God, they loved, they loved an ironic surname. You know, that's why they called, that's why they called our ancestors green. Yeah, because they owned cold powered plants. No, it's because we're so bad at farming.

I know. I know we must have been bad at farming because you should see me garden. I'm a catastrophe. It is something. It is a sight to behold your garden. It is, it is a lot of plants who are they just like, you know, not supposed to be there, but really well taken care of. Yeah, they're technically big plants. They're technically weeds, but they're incredibly successful weeds.

And I, people are like, oh, it's bad for the pepper plants if they have to like fight it out with these really effective weeds, but I don't agree, man. I think I only want pepper plants that are strong enough to hold up to the reality of Indiana, which is that we're gonna, we got a lot of weeds. That's right, John. And really, it's about what I've learned. Is it's about whether what you say sounds right, so whether it's true. So, and I think that it's like,

they'll get spicier if they have to work harder. That sounds right. That sounds a matter of yeah, absolutely. Here's a question Hank. It's from Ty who writes, dear John and Hank, I was just thinking about the nothingness of space again. And then I thought about how turning a rocket ship, would that be hard or easy? Like if you needed to do a 180, you'd have to totally push against your speed. You probably need to take really wide turns to keep any type of speed up, right? I don't know. I'm going to bed. Turns all the way down. Tie. It depends on what you mean by, look, there's what speed. Everything's relative to something else out there. But yeah, if you were like halfway somewhere and you were like, we gotta go back, it would be very bad, probably impossible, though I don't, yeah, probably impossible.

So yeah, the thing you have to do is like, is just turn your engine off and then you're floating at the speed you're going in the direction you're going, and then you just flip your spacecraft around, and then you just start firing your big engine in the other way and you're in the opted to do a bunch of slow, you have to slow down from your current speed because you don't

got any air to slow you down. No friction to slow you down. And so you've got to blow, mass out the back of your spaceship to slow you down and then eventually, wow, you get back to zero and then you start working your way back up to moving actually toward the place where you want to go. So yeah, with space travel, you really do want to know for sure where you're headed. And that is why they call it rocket science. That's the hard part. So, so you don't actually take a kind of like big

turn. You actually take the smallest turn possible. You just turn 180 degrees. Yeah, you'd want to just, yeah, I mean, you could have your engine on the whole time you're flipping and then you kind of take a turn, but you don't have to. Right. Yeah. Okay. So, you can do it. And then you would just try to get all of that mass going in the opposite direction, which would take a lot of energy probably more than you have. Yeah. It's probably better to just go where you're going and use, like, turn off your engine,

get to where you're going, use the, like, the atmosphere there to slow yourself down with some friction and then get yourself back. But I don't know, maybe not because you got to do the whole orbital injection thing and that's going to be a lot of work. It just, don't you want to just, don't you want to just slingshot it though? Isn't that what they do in the Martian, which is, I believe, is a documentary. I don't know if you just, don't you want to just slingshot it though? Isn't that what they do in the Martian, which is, I believe, is a documentary? I don't know if you just, yeah, you could definitely slingshot. And if you have an option to do a good slingshot, and that's great, but I don't know that you can usually, I don't think that you can slingshot back where you came from.

I think that you slingshot, you can slingshot into a specific direction. But I don't know if you could do a whole 180 slingshot. You could, maybe I might just, I don't know. I like it here. You know, it is simpler. Yeah. It's not just simpler, Hank. This is great.

Earth is amazing. Like sometimes I feel like we get out of touch with how stupidly good Earth is. There's a lot of exploring to do right from here. You know, you put a space tell us go up there. It's doing its stuff and we're like, oh man, we can see that about that. See that? Forget about first you have to go exploring.

No, man, there's a lot of exploring to be done within. It's true. Interior exploring, the depths within the the the the acts to break the frozen sea within us as as Kafka put it. I did once I did recently sign off an email. What a time to be whatever it is we are, Hank. Yeah. Cause I don't know what to even think about us anymore.

I was with a, people talk about consciousness a lot right now cause of AI and I'm like, Oh, this is making me very uncomfortable. Yeah, because I'm not sure I have it. Yeah. You know, people are always like, have AI's achieved consciousness and I'm like, how's that?

What's that? Have you figured that out yet? If you thought hard about whether you've achieved consciousness because I'm just a moth flying to the light. Yeah, if I don't think about it too hard, I'm like, yeah, no, I'm definitely conscious. I know exactly what that is. And then if you think about it too hard,

then when I do start to think about it, I'm like, oh, no. The only time and to add to that, I would argue there are times when I'm not conscious. For sure. Like when I'm on TikTok, when I'm in TikTok, when I'm in the metaverse, I'm not conscious. I'm a dolphin swimming through the water.

Yeah. It feels good, it feels bad. I don't know what it feels like, but it feels like I'm a dolphin swimming through the water. Yeah. It feels good, it feels bad. I don't know what it feels like, but it feels like I'm just doing dolphin stuff. Yeah, my like sort of stamina for doing conscious work is not what it once was. I need some of that time where I just am scrolling now. And maybe this is a problem of too much scrolling

or maybe it's just getting old. But I need that recharge. And boy, are there some companies out there who want me to have it? Oh, yeah, they will provide that service. Yeah, for sure. There's only a couple things they need. And one is the ability to change how you think and feel without you being aware of the change. The main thing that they need to happen is essentially their

job. Hey, Hank, do fish get thirsty? This question comes from Riley age eight parentheses, practically nine. That sounds like a big, big birthday coming up there. I don't know, because I am not and have never been and will never be a fish. So this is, this is, this is, that is presumptuous. Well, well, I kind of am a fish for talking about. More important. Right.

You're a land fish. You're a land fish that carries the that carries the ocean around inside of you. But I'm saying that it's presumptuous because you don't know what you will be. It's true, maybe I'll be a fish someday. I hadn't thought about it. You have no idea. You could become a fish. Yeah.

It's not. Are you kidding? Look at the rest of earth. This whole thing is nuts. Their crabs keep happening independent of other crabs. Yeah. I think fish might have, well, I guess not. But I bet what whales took on a lot of the fish flavors, they figured out a lot of fishy ways to be.

It's not the same, but, you know, so maybe, maybe, what is anything? What I'm saying is we don't know what, like, the subjective experience is a fish. They can't tell us, we don't know what like the subjective experience is a fish. We can't they can't tell us we can't know. What we do know is that mostly fish don't have to think too much about drinking because they're always kind of drinking.

And so probably they're not thirsty, but there is a situation where either a saltwater fish will enter into sort of a more brackish area where there's some fresh water or a fresh water fish will enter into a more brackish area where there's some saltwater. And in those situations, they do have to like carefully balance their salts. And that's really what drinking is. It's so that you can have more ocean in you to carefully make sure your salts are correctly balanced, and they don't get too concentrated in your body, and you have an impulse to do that. And so in those situations where a fish is in,

it's non-native, it's not specialized for the salinity of the environment that it is then in, it has to do things physiologically, and so its body will do things on its own, but also the fish might do like make like make choices to do certain things because it is feeling an impulse to do that because it's salt concentrations are wrong in its body, which to me probably means it's and I hope that this is a good answer.

It feels good to me. Probably answer for an eight year old. that this is a good answer. It feels good to me. Probably. It feels a little bit like thirsty. Would be my guess. Yeah. Yeah, but okay, but is the fish making a choice or is the fish responding the way it was always going to respond to a stimulus? You know, John, I think that if things move toward, if things respond to stimuli, I think that that's, you can't really call that a decision. Maybe you, maybe you can call it wanting just very abstractly, but that does seem not really a choice. No, but do, yeah, but like again, now we're going to be here where I know where I know that the sort of layer on top of that is can we choose what we want as conscious beings. Yeah, and I think sometimes we can sometimes we can't

I'm not convinced that sometimes we can it's the great Shopenhauer quote that begins my novel turtles all the way down. Man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills. Yeah, it's a time to be thinking a lot about that, but I don't know that we're going to come to better conclusions because it's not like we have new, that much new data. I guess we have some new data, but mostly we have have knew that much new data. I guess we have some new data But mostly we have been a bit of new data. We've mostly been consciousnesses aware of our own consciousness the whole time And so we are getting like new experiences of consciousness like we it's always been like this and it's always been really high

I think it's just This whole situation is so weird being inside of a body. I know. So weird. And that's very wet. Oh God, I'm getting kind of panicky. We got to move on. All right.

Well, let's try to do one that's not going to freak you out as much. This one is from Madeline who asks, dear Hank and John, just wondering if John has seen the dancing man with a hammerhead shark mask around Indianapolis lately. Oh, yeah. I saw him going to work and it was quite something. Madeline. Yep. Yep.

I've also seen him. Um, and here's what I'll say about it. Indianapolis as a city is not known for its its eccentricity. Right. Like it's just, it's, it's, it's seen as a practical, you know, like Mitch Daniels called us the state that works. And yeah, I think that's a bit of an exaggeration, you know. But it's the state that wishes to, it worked is what I would, that's how I would describe

it. And so whenever I see a proper, a properly eccentric person, like that person, I'm always like, this is great. This is good. We are becoming more like a city. Like, you know, there's that guy, I think, he's in Miami, who's rollerbladed on the boardwalk every day, or maybe he's out in California,

who's rollerbladed on the boardwalk like every day for 67 years or something. Right, yeah. We don't have anything like that. Nobody has done anything every day for 67 years or something. Right, yeah. We don't have anything like that. Nobody has done anything every day for 67 years in Indianapolis except like Wake Up, Brush the Teeth, go to work, take care of their family, all that boring crap.

Yeah. And so I'm delighted, really delighted when we get a little dose of eccentricity. Maybe that should be a job. Maybe a job. Yes. Yes, well, I think it used to be a job, Hank. I think that, you know, like in a lot of communities, the, you know, like the community

eccentric or the community person who was a little different, instead of like being cast out of the community or being seen as other, they were just like, oh, that's going to be, that person's going to have this job. They're going to be our story to her. They're going to be our dancer. They're going to be our person who interprets the the stars. Yeah. We used to have a guy in a zoolah who had various malpants and he would he was just dancing around everywhere. Mr. small pants. Yeah. We call him the dancing man was what he was called around. Joey small pants. And he I don't know if he went somewhere or if you just sort of danced his last dance, but we don't we don't have

We have a chess champion who walks everywhere in town. He's called the octopus because you can win eight games at at the same time And we've got impressive. There's also a old Greek guy who's like in the family of the people who own the Greek restaurant and he walks everywhere. And so there are like a couple of characters around town still, but I would like, they're aging. So we need some young ones. We need some new young walking around town, or maybe get a unicycle, maybe get a shark mask. I don't know. I really don't like it. I would throw it out that like, I think you'd be great at that job. Yeah, I think I would too. You know, as you get older,

and as you start to think like, well, what does my professional life look like if I'm not the CEO of 17 companies simultaneously? Maybe the answer is, I need to put on a shark mask and ride a unicycle around Mizzoula and bring some joy to the people. And then I'll go to the city council meetings and I'll be like, look, I can't tell you who I am,

but I am definitely a resident of this town and we need more housing. So stop whining about everything. That's what I'll say. I'm Batman. I'm perfect. I'm perfect. Yeah. He's like, it's exactly.

And then Hank Green goes to all the fancy Mizzula parties. And Shark Face unicycle boy. The trolls the streets in the evening. Anybody need anything. This is a little shark sound like. I think it's not what a shark sounds like. It's also not what a bad sounds like though. I will point out if batman was trying to sound like a bat,

he'd be like, What a bad sound like though I will point out if batman was trying to sound like a bat He'd be like Actually, he'd say on that man, but you wouldn't be able to hear him, you know Like the mouth would move and you'd be like what I'm sorry, but like two two two feet behind you like a dog would be like Yeah, God shut up I love that idea Hard science Batman Shut up. I love that idea. Oh God, we have that idea. I love that idea so much. I love that idea. I love that idea.

I love that idea so much. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea.

I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea.

I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love that idea. I love hear you. I come in the night. Ever since my parents left me, I've been a little lonely. But I'm not in touch with my emotions, so I mostly express it through physical violence. I'm just a rich guy with an affinity for bats. I'm not an actual batman. Great. All right. This next question comes from Libby here.

I see a John and Hank. My roommates and I are looking for a fire on him free alternative to the phrase, Suns Out, Guns Out. We wanted to have the same cheeky enthusiasm for revealing your biceps in the summer, but we wanted to be weapon free. And suggestions are appreciated, unarmed and unanswered, Libby. I mean, I have heard Suns Out, Buns Out. For sure. That's good. But that's, I was going to say Suns Out, Suns Out, Buns Out, but that's sort of a British mom's specific one. I like suns out, buns out a lot more. Yeah, we, uh, yeah, we, we, we, we, we, we, suns out, tums out kind of works.

Suns out, tums out. I once said, uh, suns out, guns out to my son and then Catherine said, suns out, mums out. And then orange said, it was very cute. He said, suns out, suns out. That's great. That's a good point. He's got his, there's much funnier

than most of his father's dad, Joe. Okay, let's think of something. Is there anything that rhymes with arms? Anything rhyme with biceps? Yeah. Arms. Muscle words. Yeah, biceps.

Yeah, well, biceps, there's no bicep rhymes. Tri-ceps is an obvious one. That's no bicep rhymes. Tri-ceps is an obvious one. That's the big one they suggest. Tri-ceps. Tri-ceps, biceps. That's not good. Day time, slay time. No, that's still violent.

Proud. What about like, uh, sun's up, fun's up. I don't know. Sun's up, fun's up. Sun's up. Sun's up. Blue sky. Blue sky, this guy. And then you flex. Pointing at yourself with than that. Blue sky. Blue sky this guy.

And then you flex. Pointing at yourself with your thumb. Blue sky. Blue sky. Blue sky. This guy. Yeah. Blue sky this guy.

Yes. Blue sky. Blue sky this guy. We've got. Suns out buns out. Mm-hmm. And the problem with Suns out buns out is that it makes it sound like there's only one

bun. Oh John, wait a while. No, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Solar power bicep power. Oh, there we did it. Okay. Team work makes the dream work. Solar power bicep power everybody.

Suns out, prince about. That's not, it's nothing to do with bicep, but I think solar power, bicep hour is... We're done. Probably as good as we're going to get. You're welcome. I mean, that was on the far edge of what could have happened from that question. 99% of the time, the best one is Suns out, Sunons Out, which is written by your five. Thanks. Actually, which reminds me, Hank, that today's podcast is brought to you by Solar Power,

Bicep Power, the thrilling new renewable energy alternative to Sons Out Guns Out. I think we... I'm remarkably well. This podcast is also brought to you by a probably thirsty fish. A probably thirsty fish. A probably thirsty fish. It is in the wrong salinity and is being physiologically pushed toward doing something about it. And is that a choice? We don't.

We'll never know. The world will never know. And of course today's podcast is brought to you by hard science Batman, hard science, Batman. You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain. And and and

and and and and and and and and and and

and and and and and and and and and and and and

and and and and and I can still hear him. He's got to echo locate. How else is he going to figure out where he is in space? How is he going to drive that Batmobile? Yep. And his podcast is brought to you by a spaceship that has gone halfway in the wrong direction. Everybody going to die on that spaceship. Well, everybody's going to die everywhere. It's just everybody on that spaceship's gonna die sooner.

Well Hank, since we've been talking a lot about consciousness, how about this question from Hannah who writes, dear John and Hank, how worried should we be about artificial intelligence? Like, sometimes it feels like a nightmare dystopia situation, but other times it's kind of buggy and stupid. I want to believe nothing bad will happen, but isn't that how all horror movies about exactly this topic start? How actually realistic is an AI-fueled collapse of society, pumpkins and penguins? Hannah. I think that people... So here's

broadly, I've seen a lot of just just complete steaming piles of poo, uninteresting things be celebrated by the tech world in the last 10 years where it just felt a lot like somebody was like, man, we made the iPhone and then we did the social internet and something's next. So maybe it's this thing and it was just like, obviously wasn't like from my perspective. It was like, that's not gonna be the thing.

You're not understanding. I have no idea what you're referring to. But this definitely seems like a thing. It seems like a thing. So there's like the worries around, I can see directly how this could be useful for people in ways that might change the shape of society. And then there's the, I can see how this could be used by bad people who want to do bad things. And then there's the, when something like this happens, we are bad at predicting what's gonna happen with it.

And what it means. And also, and then there's also the, this seems to be getting better very fast. What does that mean? And where is that going to go? And that last one is the one that I'm least comfortable with because like lots of people seem to have very different opinions on whether you should even use the word

intelligent and all of these things are, they're just tools. It's like saying that a car is smart because it can run faster than a person, almost, but other people who also seem to know what they're talking about are like, we are very close to that being as good at everything cognitive as a person. And that is a totally wild thought. But I do think that it's going to change stuff really fast. And I think that we, I think that they are, they are compared to what they're going to be there, relatively, you know, not, they're not as powerful as they're going to be. So now is kind of the right time to be thinking about it from a regulatory perspective and

also from a society perspective, we really didn't do that when it came to the like many to many nature of the internet, like the regulations around the internet have always been. We didn't do it with the phone either. We did, right? Or with the, you know, if you, we ended up regulating books and radio pretty well,

but it took a long time. It took a long time and they didn't change very fast. So yeah, it was possible. Yeah. I agree with you that any predictive take is it is kind of inherently bad. Like some of those prediction predictions will end up being true and some of those predictions won't end up being true. But the ones that end up being true are not necessarily going to be true because they were like better observed or art. Just because a lot of predictions are being made. Exactly, because of chance mostly. And so I don't, I think anybody who's speaking with a great deal of confidence about artificial intelligence,

even if they're an expert, should be discounted a little bit. Yeah. And I think the people I've seen with the most expertise are speaking a lot of times with the least confidence, which is what I want. Yeah. That said, I agree with you that it's a huge deal. But if you look back at what we thought were going to be the problems that came from smartphones, right? Like, think about the wonderful things that smartphones have given us. They have dramatically reduced the number of people who die from accidents because they can now contact

emergency people. They have on the other hand, increased the number of people who die as a result of distracted driving. They have made it so that we can communicate more efficiently across time. They've made it so that we can communicate more efficiently across space, which is amazing. It means that people can be in touch with their family members in a way that was impossible 10 or 20 years ago. Like, I remember when I was dating my college girlfriend, it cost us 10 cents a minute to talk on the phone, right?

In that sense, things are much better. However, they have also made it so that we have these sort of adult pacifiers with us at all times, that I am not convinced is great for our brains. Yeah, it's like good, good part, but we didn't know any of that when we started out. Right, right. Like in 2006 or 2007, like we started our YouTube channel before the iPhone came out. And when the iPhone came out, I remember people being like, this is going to change everything. And they were right, but they were totally wrong about what it was going to change.

Yeah. So and I think it's really was something big So, and I think it's really, with something big like this, I think it's almost more important to like dissect the kinds of things that we're looking at, just to have like a landscape of how things might change and think about them in sort of silos, where there's like, there's bad actors, and then there's like, how does it change the economy? And then there's like, as it ramps up and gets much better,

that's like the big mystery land. Because I think that, like, how does it change education? How does it change healthcare? And I think it changed our relationship with ourselves and our understanding of consciousness. Like, you said earlier that we don't have any new data points about consciousness, but we are getting some, or at least we're being asked to think about them in a different

way. I think it's a big deal. I heard a great point the other day that humans sort of defined their humaneness by how good they were at more complex and challenging cognitive tasks right up until the moment when it seemed quite clear that computers were going to be good at that. And now we're like, but those aren't, those aren't like people. No, it's really feelings because it's because it's because it's about feelings. And then it's like so the dogs that he for love like the what about yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I'm I'd actually much prefer dogs to be conscious than a programmable artificial

well, it also seems much more likely to me. Yeah, I agree with that. Although on the other, I mean, it depends on I think what it really is to do is the same thing that we're asked to do over and over again, which is to take these things that we've imagined as dichotomies and instead understand them as spectral. And so it used to be that we thought that consciousness was on and off. It used to be that we thought being a mammal was on and off and it turns out that it's

a spectrum. Yeah. Even being a human we thought was on and off and it turns out that like, no,. Yeah. Even being a human, we thought was on and off. And it turns out that like, no, there have been a bunch of human species. Yeah. And parts of some of them are still with us. It's very true. What a wild time to be whatever it is we are.

This next question comes from Darren who asks, dear Hank Adjohn, I am in the heart of Michigan. And whenever spring break comes around, everyone just happily makes their way to some beach in Florida. So this sparked a question in my head, where do Floridians go on spring break? Do they just go to the motel on the other side of town? Or do they swap places with the northerners?

I can't really think of a sign off Darren. You know, I used to live in Florida and I don't know if we're allowed to tell you what we do on spring break. Like if you live in Florida, everyone knows what you do on spring break. But I feel like once you leave, you have to, like, it's a secret when you're there for sure.

But I think even once you leave, you have to continue keeping it a secret. Like, yeah, that's correct. It's private. Yeah. So it's, yeah, it's not really for Misha Ganders to know. Yeah, I mean, it's great. I mean, wow.

The best. I can't, yeah. People often say that living in Florida sucks, and that is correct, but man, one week a year. One week a year. Whoa, the way Florida does spring break, which is a secret. Ooh, oh God. It's really good for your feet too.

Yeah, it's my gosh. Your feet feel so much better afterward. Everything does. I mean, it's almost like you're, it's almost like all of your body we pains go away. Like you're not even totally in a body. Yeah, actually one, this is wild. One year after spring break, I got home and I needed to go back to the optometrist

because my vision got better. Yeah, that's very common. Yeah, that's why there's so many optometrist. I like Florida. Because they like, you got to take it. That's why there's no lasex surgery in Florida. They don't need it. Yeah.

Until you get out of like the spring break cycle because I do know some older Floridians who just don't go on spring break anymore. And then I'm like, why do you live there then? Yeah, you gotta go. Why'd you stay? Yeah, go move to Indianapolis or Mizzoula or something like a regular person.

Yeah, it's really cool. Why am I a benefit of Florida spring break? There's no reason. One of my favorite things about Florida spring break is that if you're on spring break in Florida as a Floridian, you can get a tattoo, but then when break ends the tattoo goes away goes away. Yeah, yeah, I mean, but it's not a temporary tattoo Real tattoo. Yeah, but then like you go to school on Monday after spring break You wake up and it's gone, but it only but it does show up under the black light

Yeah, I went full post Malone and you can still see it under black light. Mm-hmm. Like, I've got like three or four face tattoos. I don't even know how many. Um, but they're really subtle and they're just, they're kind of like, yeah, it looks so cool. Yeah, they look like kind of almost like white line drawings or something underneath your skin. It's really super awesome. It says the bullface tattoo. Yeah.

Kind of have a sparkle to it. Yeah. Do you have any that say anything, or is it just like figures? I did a lot of like, there's supposed to be six shapes that you can see without any visual information, like without any light.

Oh, interested, or sort of like intrinsic to the human eye, like some of them are structural, like you see eye structures. And so I did all six of those shapes. One of them is sort of spirally, one of them is like the sort of splintering of root, or veins, or whatever. I did those six shapes. I've got two, one on each bicep, and one says solar power, and the other says bicep power. Oh, that's, I love that, that's brilliant. I actually have all of Emily Dickinson's hope is the thing with feathers tattooed across my back.

Oh God, I forgot that I did all of Lord of the Rings on my leg. Oh, yeah, because they can get real small. Yeah, it's a special thing. No, it's part of, you know, it's part of the thing. Because you're, you know, you get so big. It's actually not that hard during Florida spring break, like your body is hundreds of times bigger than it currently is. So it's like, you can't tell people that.

Oh God, I'm so hard. I think that's part of the thing. I think that's part of the thing you're not supposed to tell people about. Oh, I don't know where the line is because you told them the tattoo thing and I thought that was part of the tattoo. I did, yeah.

Well, and then we started talking about the tattoo. We need to start talking about the tattoo. Yeah, we need to get in big trouble with the X-Floridian Council, and you do not want to mess with those people. They will ban your books. They will, I mean, they will ban your books, and they can also make one toe disappear every day for the rest of your life from your body.

Yeah, yeah, which you would think would be over after 10 days, but not the way they do it. It's not it's so true. No, it's forever. I had a lot of fun with you there. This next question comes from Julien who writes, Dear John and Hank, if I remember correctly, before COVID, we were aware that we were due for a big sickness and a virus was probable. But what do we think the next one will be? Is a fungal infection capable of causing an apocalypse to type scenario?

Is there another vector for disease besides those in viruses and bacteria? Just trying to prepare, Gillian and or Gillian. Yeah. We don't know in the next one. We don't know in the next one will be a giant. I thought for a second that you were just going to say, yeah.

And then move on. That's kind of that's got to be there. Some other. Yeah. There are some other ways that it could happen. Here's the thing, Jillian. First off, like, this was not an apocalypticly bad. Yeah. disease pandemic. Unfortunately, it was very bad. And obviously, it was extremely destructive to the social order and caused millions of people to die and tens of millions of people to grieve. And I don't want to minimize COVID in any way, but it's nothing like the black death when 50% of all humans in Europe and parts of Asia and North Africa died within a four-year period. It's nothing like even the flu of 1918 where probably around 100 million people died within

24 months. And so this is a pandemic, but it's like nowhere near the worst version of a pandemic. And we do not know when the next one will be, right? Like there was a chance that 10 or 15 years ago, the SARS epidemic that emerged could have become a global pandemic if we hadn't gotten an under control or if it had been slightly better at transmission, or we'd allowed it enough time to get good at transmission as we did with COVID. And so it's not like, oh, these things happen every 100 years. It's like these things happen when they happen. Is that fair to say Hank? Yes, absolutely. And the other worry is, like,

is there something out there that's worse than viruses and bacteria, which are main concerns. viruses and bacteria, which are main concerns. And I think that there is narratively, it's interesting to say, okay, but what about the other things? Because, of course, there are fungal infections. Different things, we're full of great, tasty stuff. And I get that we're a good environment for a lot of things to live inside of. If we didn't have an immune system, like that, we'd just be food, right?

So, so we have that, and things are trying to, you know, are evolving toward being good at taking advantage of the, the sort of nutrientrich environment of our bodies. But virus and bacteria are the things that have been the best at that, and they are going to keep being the things that are the best at that. Oh, they've been so good at it for so long. Yeah, and there are, I think, I don't know if there's reasons why funguses are a little bit worse at, obviously, funguses can infect people and do, but they seem to be a little bit worse at it. So I think probably they will remain a little bit worse at it, but you know, knock on wood.

Yeah, I mean, we just, we cannot predict the future. Yeah, that's, that's exactly correct. But what we can do, what we can definitely do is make the next pandemic less bad and make it more likely that the next epidemic doesn't become a pandemic. And the way that we do that is we get better at identifying novel diseases early, and we have better stronger healthcare systems in the places where those novel diseases are most likely to emerge, which tend to be poor and middle-income countries. And every dollar that we invest in a healthcare system is a dollar that we are investing in our shared human future. Yeah, and it's infuriating to me that, despite the obvious and profound global interconnection

of all people, we act as if some communities deserve a healthcare system and others don't, and like there will never be any consequences, any global consequences to that expression of injustice. Yeah. Yeah, and also that we have a really good reason right now to be thinking about how to strengthen healthcare systems everywhere and also be very conscious of how pandemic start and spread.

And we have a bunch of new data on how that works that we didn't have before. And that's good. And we should be using that to have early warning systems for these things. And there should be a lot of resources that go toward it because we see how much it costs us. It is expensive in every way to have a pandemic. So why not try to have fewer of them? Seems like a pretty whatever. I'm tired of making that argument. I just want to tell you this, Hank, do you know how long humans have had tuberculosis. Has it been the whole time?

Not only has it been the whole time, also we had tuberculosis before we were us. Yeah. You know, that's also true of life. A more rectus had tuberculosis, they also had lice, and we have chosen, and so we had to live with this disease, we being hominids, for 500,000 years. And then, for about 60 years, we've chosen to have this disease. And that is a very interesting choice. So interesting that it makes me wonder,

are we in fact making a choice? Well, I mean, or are we just doing what seems obvious to us, which is to invest resources in diseases that affect the rich world and not diseases that infect other worlds? Well, I mean, so this is a very interesting distinction and a sort of supposition you've made, which is that we make a choice, and so are we as humanity, can humanity make a decision? Or is, because I kind of think it is, I think that we are a collective species.

And I think it can. But in that way, like no one thinks that humanity is conscious. We think that humans are conscious. Right. Right. But we should maybe start thinking about. If you sort of like saw, if you really sort of stepped back and you saw like the way that humanity acts upon Earth in the same way that you might see an artificial intelligence,

I think it might be kind of hard to not ascribe consciousness to that entity. Yeah, if you zoom even 10,000 feet up, right, you don't know the names of any individuals. Like if you're looking down at us and we're just like you're like in a plane 10,000 feet above Earth, and that's the only interaction you have with humans, I don't know that you would conclude that each of them is an individual or like would have a name. I think you might conclude instead look at all these people working together and look like there's the aunt that has that job and there's the aunt that has that job. And I kind of find it helpful to think about us that way because when I stop thinking, when I start to realize that we don't know the names

of anybody who lived before 6,000 years ago, we don't even know for sure if they had names, 8,000 years ago, whatever it is. Then my name, or what I do, is not nearly as important as being part of the connective tissue, which is the really interesting work and an opportunity of being a person. Right. But it's very hard to see it that way.

Very hard, because we are ultimately, you have to be taught about all of that, because otherwise, the experience all comes out of these two eyeballs. Yeah. So, yeah. But yeah, I don't know. I don't think that humanity is conscious. I think that individual humans are conscious, but like, what, how do I know? Well Hank, speaking of beautiful sprawling collaborations, how about AFC Wimbledon?

The fans club. Yeah. Owned by its fans. Mm-hmm. Barred 10 million pounds from its fans to build a beautiful world-class stadium in South London. Yeah. And really, really, really need, not want, need to stay in the football league in order

to not have like a proper crisis. And how's it going? We're bad. Yeah, all your people injured right now. We do have probably a stronger injured starting 11 than a then a then a current healthy starting 11. But we just lost to the worst team in league two at home at Plow Lane. We lost a roachdale or possibly roachdale, only the scientists know for sure. And we were so bad. It was awful. The only thing we've got going for us is that there's seven games left in the league two season. And we are currently 11 points clear of relegation. Surely, surely we should be okay, but we are bad. Do you want a game, though? You beat it. You beat it. Last week, we talked about how you

beat a team that was better than you won the standings. Yeah, we'll solve. Yeah. That one. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks to all the all homity and will night and gale who I would argue are not just our stars of the season. They're kind of a sort of the only real standouts right now that are playing. There have been times when I've been like, you remember when I played middle school soccer? I'm sure I've told the story to you a million times and the coach let me start one game, even though it's terrible.

And I was like, this is amazing, this is my big chance of finally made it as a soccer player. And then at half time, the coach was yelling at all the players and he said, you know why I let green start because at least he tries. And I realized that I'd just been used as a motivational tool to rather than as a soccer player. There have been a couple of games where I felt that way about Will Knight and Gail and

Oli Alhambadi. Like, they're trying and I'm sure everybody's trying. It's just so frustrating right now. It's been really difficult. Oli Alhambadi who joined us in January is an, he's 20 really difficult. Oli Alhamadi, who joined us in January, is an, he's 20 years old. He's an Iraqi refugee who came to the United Kingdom via Jordan after his family had to escape because his father was in prison

for protesting Saddam Hussein's regime. And he is a star. He's an awesome guy. He's gotten so involved in the community. He understands the values of Wimbledon. He's amazing. Like I'm kind of in love with him. I, he's probably the first person I think

about when I wake up most mornings. And then you've got Will Nightingale, who's been playing for us since he was seven years old and who is now 27. And you know, has a real chance of being one of the only one club players in all of English football. He's just, it feels like he was made for us and we were made for him. So, you know, we're two-elevensooth away there.

Yeah, I know. I bet there's a lot of other great players. It's just a bunch of them are going to leave this summer. A bunch of them are going to go to bigger clubs. A bunch of them are going to be out of contract. We've got a real task ahead of us. I'm sorry. I don't know what to do for you. It sounds like it's awful hard to run a soccer team

unless you are Ryan Reynolds. And then it's just all Suntron and Rainbows. Yeah, I mean, I've really enjoyed rooting for Rexam. When they come to League 2, as it appears they will, I will live in terror. They're gonna tear through it. It's gonna be like, goodbye everybody. On our way there.

They're really, they're gonna be a one season, one season one, and one hundred and league two. That's for darn sure. I wish them all the luck in the premiere league because that's where they're headed. Geez. Is that the first one? Is that the top one, the premiere league?

Yeah, I think it's great that you, I think it's great that you know much more about league two than you know about the premiere league. You're like Manchester United I've heard of them, but they're no gilling him. I was in it. Oh man. I don't know where I was, but the no heart will pull. Yeah Somebody somebody recently said like you won't have heard of the soccer club that I root for and I was like I probably will have Try me try me my brother roots for aFC Wimbledon. And he was a British guy. And he was like, what? Yeah. Anyway, that guy's team. Oh, it was one of the ones I've heard

of Manchester United or something. Like literally a Premier League team. It's like some, oh, it's like you want to have the team of support. Yeah. They're called Chelsea. And you're like, I've heard of Chelsea. I've heard of Chelsea. Do you know of their South London rivals, AFC Wimbledon? They're coming up. Not at the moment. Yeah.

One nil up to two one down. That's the way we have a frown. That's exactly right. But hey, guess who is, guess who might be headed our way? I don't know what that means. Down to league two next season. Oh, the franchise currently applying its trade in Milton Keynes.

Yep, they're right on the edge. All right, all right. We just need a couple, they had a couple good games. We just need them to collapse at the end of the season because they don't have any courage or heart, which seems inevitable. Well, in Mars News, this week, good news for fans of Mars and offices. NASA has set up the Moon to Mars program office. So if you like yourself some bureaucracy and some getting to Mars, this is time for you. So NASA's been working on various missions to the moon, including Artemis one, which launched last year. It's also upcoming the

Artemis two, which is planning to send four astronauts to the moon at the end of 2024. This is real, and it's happening. And Artemis three, they're actually, I think, today, as we're recording this, they're announcing the crew that's going to be on that mission. So, wow. Wow. As we're recording this, they're announcing the crew that's gonna be on that mission. So, wow. Wow. And then Artemis III, the goal of that is to explore potential lunar water ice

by the end of 2025. These Artemis missions are part of a bigger plan to hopefully send people to Mars by the late 2030s or early 2040s, which is why this moon seems a little late. Seems a little late. Which is why this lot of good, that's going to do you. When this podcast is named dear John and Hank and you're 70 years old.

Yeah, we'll say it enough and it starts to sound normal and I'll be okay. I think we should name it dear Hank and John again. Yeah. If we ever put people on Mars. Oh, come back. That'll be amazing. Yeah. It will be like so old.

And it will be like, Elon, why have you abandoned us? I haven't heard Elon talk about going to Mars in 2027 when he sees preoccupies. Ha! Ah! Ha! A little bit. I guess bad is that's,

as bad as that whole thing's been for society. It's been really good for my bet with you about whether there will be humans on Mars by 2027. So this office is going to help with various aspects of the Artemis missions, including the spacecraft and space suits and gateway, a small space station that will orbit the moon and is the office. The office is also going to be involved in planning further out projects to make humans on Mars possible.

What a time to be whatever it is we are. You know, humans or whatever we are coming to Mars soon. John, thank you for making a podcast with me. I think that it was maybe some of our best work. Well, we went to graduate. We went to every one. It wasn't as good as the one about the chipmunks. I don't even remember that one. Where the heck did my notes go? Remember, we got really into the creator of the chipmunks. We went way far down a rabbit hole. Eight.

Ross, Ross Bagdotian, something like that. Yeah. The fourth. All right, let's roll the credit tank. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tune of Meta Shits produced by Rosiana Halls-Rohas. Our communication coordinator is Brooke Shotwell. Our editorial assistant is Debuffi Chakravarti.

The music you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gunnarola. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to y'all.