Dear Hank & John - 370: Solving a Space Murder (w/ Sam Reich!)

Episode Date: May 1, 2023

Should cars have two horns? Why are humans the only animal that uses toilet paper? How do cowboys say goodbye? When will the first space murder take place? How do I have a Taskmaster birthday? Was there ever a day when nobody died? Hank Green and Sam Reich 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. Or is I like to call it Dear Sam and Hank? It's a podcast with two brothers and sometimes a brother and a friend. Give you the best advice, bring you all the week's news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon and also something else that I've forgotten. Sam, what is Batman called as a grandmother when he needs something? Well, I couldn't possibly tell you, Hank, but something tells me this isn't a rhetorical question

that you have the answer. Yeah, he said, he says, nananananananananananananananananananananananan. Like that. That's funnier than I thought it was gonna be. Oh, really? Oh, wow. I thought it was not good.

So if you liked that one, tuning to other episodes of Dear Hing and John, where they're even worse. And that's our show. Yeah. So if anybody knows who this man is, this is Sam Ryshe, he's the host of Game Changer, and also a creator executive like me

over at College Hum humor and dropout TV where they do really so many wonderful, amazing things that I love to consume and enjoy. Oh, thank you so much. Your fandom is truly humbling and intimidating every time you put something out into the world that says we're great, I'm like, well, they're razors the bar.

Well, you keep raising your own bar, which seems like a lot. Do you worry about raising your own bar so high that the bar that you cannot get over it? I do. I've, yes, we are whole vultures here. Yeah. And it's fun. What I like like to say is with every season of Game Changer, I, I asked myself, how are we going to top this next season and then every season I tell myself that's next season's problem. Yeah.

That's right. And then you do it, uh, at least so far, so far, so far, you just wait. Yeah. When I first started watching Game Changer, you said to me, don't watch the beginning. And that was totally wrong. Those episodes are so good too. What you need to know, one of the great things about being a vlog brother

is that you make a video every single week. And so you know that you're not gonna get better every time. Like there's gonna be some weeks where it's just like, all right, I'm gonna do a, I'm not totally committed to this idea. I don't, but we're gonna do it. But we're going to do it with this one. Yes, yes. I think that's a part of it.

I mean, for me, that's a part of it. And then what you have to decide is the goal isn't necessarily to strike gold every time. The goal is to create a good album. You have to look at it like the musicians do and say, well, over the course of, you know, 10, I'm going to keep the bar high. Very high. You've got to have a hit in there. Yeah, you want to hit, but you also, you can't like strive for a hit that's like,

you know, looking directly at a star, right, to look somewhere adjacent to the star. Ah, you're striving for it. It hits. You don't think Taylor Swift sits down and is like, well, I know it starts to like feel one and be like, I think this is it. I think this is the one. I think this is the one. If you manage to get her on the top, we could have asked her.

It's true. I did actually say that, didn't I? That I had offered Taylor Swift your time slot, but she hadn't taken it up. You said, I'm going to, if Taylor Swift opposite, I'm going to bump you and I went, honestly, if Taylor Swift shows up, bump me forever. Just like, you know, there is, you can do anything that you can't do anything else if Taylor Swift is going to show up. That's the rules.

It's the rules of 2023 or else you'll lose your whole audience. Like they will also won't forgive you. Oh, for sure. For sure. Taylor Swift could successfully sub in for me in any moment of my life. And do better than her. I would. She could stand in for me in the DMV and just knock it out of the park.

I bet she I bet she's a delight at the DMV. I'm yeah, I'm sure she is. I'm sure she was back when she did that. Do you just California have a special thing for for celebrities to go to the DMV? This is a fantastic question. Yeah. Do celebrities have to go to the DMV? So they're like a special DMV. He right. Yeah. I feel like there's a way. I feel like somebody does it for her. It's gotta be. Yeah. Like there's a VIP section somewhere in the back.

Yeah, DMV FastPass. Yeah. Yeah. I want, now that's like a hot tip. We have that in Missoula. You can schedule ahead of time so you don't have to wait when you're there. Really?

Just like a FastPass. Huh. Look at that. Sometimes it doesn't work. But sometimes it does. What's good to subitze questions for barwisters? Do you want to do some of those? Sure. OK, this first one comes from Michael who asks

Steerhank and Sam. I recently moved to a busier road and discovered that people honked their car horns in my neighborhood a lot more than I previously realized. That made me think, should we have a secondary quieter horn installed on all cars for non-emergencies, like just get off your phone at this green light, please. You can take out any of the targets except for that one. That's Michael. What don't get it. My goal?

You can take out any of the targets. Now I feel like I'm unraveling, like poetry that I read in middle school. Yeah. I think maybe it's my goal. That's my goal. Oh, that's my goal. Oh, that's Michael. Oh, that's Michael. Oh, that's very astute. Where Hank did, anyway.

Michael's definitely created some work for us. This is not the first time that the secondary car horn has been proposed on a podcast. Is that, is that a fact on this podcast? That's my guess. That's my guess. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've listened to some McElroy content about the secondary car horn. Well, the answer to the question is clearly yes.

I, I happen to know, anecdotally, that in Japan, they turn off and on their hazard lights as a way of saying thank you. Oh, which I always thought was like tremendous. It's sort of a big reach to do that. I gotta, I don't know, I always look at when I need to turn the hazards on

I'm like where the heck is this thing? Yeah, for sure. For sure. Well, because we're not in the habit of using them, but I always thought that was like a clever use of existing infrastructure. Yeah, you know, because it doesn't require that we modify anything except our behavior. Well, yeah

Yeah, and it's a it's a it's a thank you and that's not gonna get somebody's attention at the stoplight But like it is gonna achieve a goal Yeah, I don't know about you, but like a positive car etiquette. Yeah, means the world like if I Live on a very narrow street and I have to dodge cars coming my direction all the time. And if I get a little hand, a little thank you hand, it just makes my day. But if I don't, I, my blood boils. That's the end.

I'm telling Taylor Swift about you. Showed she'll revoke my driver's license. She's the ins. The I was in an Uber recently and he had one of these. This is why I want to ask this question. It's because he had a little device that had six buttons on it. this question. It's because he had a little device that had six buttons on it. And when we were stopped at a stoplight and nobody was going, he pushed a button and it made a noise that was not a car horn. And it was just a loud fart sound. It wasn't. It was like, it was like a frink. It was like a frink. Like a little, a little honk. Whoa, but you so you only know what one of those six buttons

is. Yeah, there's five other buttons. At least. Big mystery. Yeah. I should have said, hey buddy, I want you to push that other, I want you to push all those buttons. Show me what your buttons do. I'll do.

I mean, I do really like the idea of a programmable car horn, because I think I'd love the opportunity to make it say human words. How many times have you been driving or just be convenient to be able to say, hey, I guess that's a beep. Yeah. That's what that is. Or, yeah, I guess, thanks. Thanks with the lights is very good.

I used to drive a Honda Civic, which occurs to me as a Japanese car. And the hazard lights was a very big button over the, like, over the, like, or the radio display over the stereo display. So maybe, maybe that's why. Maybe that's why. So easy to get to on it.

Do you know, I do do it. Like if someone allows me to merge, I do because I was so enchanted by this idea, yeah, turn off and on my hands. You're trying to make it happen. But I have no idea if this is registered with anybody. We have a thing like this in Montana. I don't know if people have this other places,

but it's something that I can tell a number of people are trying to make happen, but it doesn't quite, it hasn't quite happened yet, which is that there's a, there's a tunnel in town that goes underneath the railroad tracks. And when you go in that tunnel, people hawk sometimes rarely. And I hawk every time because I'm like, I'm any time that we're going to do something together as a town, I'm like, yes. Or as a species, whatever, as Americans, I don't know if this is like more people do this. But I get in that tunnel, I'm like,

ha, ha, ha, and if anybody else honks, it just makes my day. Or if I hear somebody honk first, then I'm like, ah, this is us. This is us being humans. Look at us. Yeah. Feels good.

Oh, yeah. I mean, that's just tribal mentality right there. That's dancing around the hearth, you know what I mean? Yeah, I wanna do something with a stranger. Something very simple and easy. Yeah, for sure. For sure. That's not the DMV.

Yeah, I mean, I guess to rewind for a moment, the question would be Hank, if you had five car horns or six as the case may be, what would you do with five car horns or six as the case may be. What would you do with five car horns? What would you do? So like, one of them's gotta be sort of like like, low key, can I pet your dog? That's gotta be on there.

I like with that. That's number one. Yeah, that's number two. After like, just like the little honk. Sure, so the little one. Cause I thought you wanna go for a little honk and you get a bigger one than you intended. After, like, just like the little honk. Sure, it's the little one. Sometimes you go for a little honk and you get a bigger one than you intended. Oh, all the time.

Yeah, so I want to, I got definite little honk. And then number three, would be apology and it would be Taylor Swift saying, it's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me. Of, that's the third one. That's me. That's the third one. That's fantastic. Yeah. Fourth one is just a is a dog barking. And that's for when somebody's coming up to your car and you know, would rather them not be there. For sure. It's a way to say there's a big dog in here. The big dog in here.

The fifth is a narwhal barking, which you don't know what that sounds like, but it's very cool. Oh yeah. Oh, yeah. And that one's there just for the novelty of it. Yeah, you want to have that sometimes. Yeah, you just want to be able to show off to friends some strange sounds. Yeah. And then that last one's just going to be the sound of falling rain on a summer day. Oh, that's beautiful.

That's for the rare moments where you want to sleep in your car and you need some good. I want everybody around me to fall asleep because that's what you want when you're driving. I was at 100% Great answer to my question. Thanks. Thanks. What is your seventh deal? My seventh goes hey year seventh to my seventh goes hey. Hey, I think the one that you very in character left out is the angry car horn. And the question is what would that sound like in a world in which it were evolved?

What are you making? Well, the horn is doing its job. Well, you gave us six horns and the first one was a polite meep. Yeah, but I still got the main horn. Oh, I don't know if you did. What I'm saying is I think there's an evolution of the end of the car horn. It just goes, you hurt my feelings. Yeah, that's good. You know, I think everybody used to know

that we're all fragile, we're all human. I'll just try to make it through the world. Yeah. And this, it might look like just like a big ball of steel. But there's a little soft man in here and he's got, he's got, he gets hurt feelings too. That's right, that's right. By taking ownership over your feelings,

you're immediately diffusing the situation. Do you want to ask another question for us? Oh, sure. I'm done with this. This question comes from Anonymous, Dear Hank and Sam. Why is it that humans are the only animal that need to use toilet paper my dog doesn't the cat doesn't I don't see any other animals needing to wipe their butts It's the food we eat right Well certainly not It could be in part the food we eat But sometimes a dog needs to wipe their butt like sometimes a dog gets into something and a dog needs to wipe their butt. Like sometimes a dog gets into something

and there's a whole situation back there. If you've owned a dog, and particularly like me, if you've owned a long haired dog, you know just how not to say that there are any wrong questions, but this is an uninformed question. Yeah, I mean, out in the woods, like you aren't gonna have that service. But I will say cats and dogs,

and many other mammals clean their butts. They just do it in a way that you cannot physically do. Or wouldn't want to. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So that's hype. Yeah. I do also, and correct me if I'm wrong, yeah, for sure. So that's height. Yeah. I do also incorrect me if I'm wrong. I mean, we as humans, we walk upright. Yeah. And this is sort of a thing because we walk upright. Well, I don't know, you know, which is the chicken and the egg here, but we have big butts. We do. That'll cause us to have to, because we walk up right. Yeah. To ascend into the sky, these large butt muscles. Uh-huh. And I think what that means is that we,

unlike a dog or a cat, are going to shave more. Oh, that's true. Because of our, because you want, you want to be clean in there because otherwise there's stuff in there and it's getting rubbed around yeah and that's no good. That is that is a good point but also in there there's an additional detail here which is simply that according to a quote from from a scientist that I'm going to read to you right now because of our vertical posture the area used for releasing urine and feces is compressed between the thighs and buttocks. So we are more likely than other animals to foul ourselves. Wow.

It's just a miracle of evolution that we're the dominant species, isn't it? Yeah. Well, is this one of the sort of filter points where you can't like evolve upright posture and free up your hands, unless and until you're smart enough to use wiping instruments? That sounds, that sounds right. God forbid that animals learned to wipe or it's all uphill for them from there. And downhill for them.

Yeah, downhill for us, uphill for them, but also downhill for them because this is hard hill for us, uphill for them, but also downhill for them, because this is hard. For sure. It's a lot of pressure to be in. Wildly inconvenient. It seems like my cat just licking it is doing fine. Yes, for sure.

It is sad and silly that being a human being involves so many use of different products. We need these products to support us. that being a human being involves so many use of different products. We need these products to support us. It's true. And also we want them. So some of them we need. That's true. And some of them we want.

There was also an additional thought in this article that was simply, we are just a little less happy being disgusting. Yeah, yeah, that is true. And like a dog with a bunch of dingleberry sticking off its butt is not concerned about that. And I can attest to that. Uh, both as far as my dog and my cat is concerned. In fact, to try to get dingleberries off my cat,

you would think my cat wants them there. I've actually had my cat come up to me and like complain. And I'm like, what's wrong with you? You never do this. And I'm like, oh, you got a, you got a whole piece of sh- yank it on your butt hairs. That, that, he doesn't like it. I don't like that. I feel like we learned a lot just now about each other, about our world. Yes. Emma, ask you another question.

This one is from Leah who asks, dear Hank and Sam, if Cowboys say howdy, to say hello, how do they say goodbye? Insert your chosen Cow cowboy farewell here. Leah, this is a fantastic question. Um, I promise I didn't intend for this to be self promotional. There is a season of our D&D actual play show in which I play a cowboy or to be more specific, a pig or Havollina cowboy. And in research for that character, I did do a lot of Sort of studying cowboy isms. I

Think there's a few different answers to this question. Yeah, well, I live in a place where people say howdy Which people don't realize is a thing sometimes like I so I say howdy because I lived here for so long and Really I do and it's not about say y'all People say y'all some. Okay. But people, but like Montana and say howdy. And it's like totally normal. You don't notice it anymore. And I went to Australia and I said howdy to somebody and they looked at me and I was

like, and they were like, you actually do that in America? They looked at you like you were wearing a 10 gallon hat. Yeah, stirrups and carry a wet. That was so charming. And I was like, at at the same time, you say good day. Like it happens all the time when you're over there. People say good day and you're like, all right, good day mate. We're doing this.

We're being our stereotypical selves, howdy, good day. There's something about good day mate in an American accent, which just falls flat. It does. Yeah, but howdy sounds off and nice. But do you have any cowboy goodbyes? Because I don't know what we say here. I think everybody else mostly. I think, and I will do this in dialect. Okay. I think, and I will do this in dialect.

I think that the realistic answers to this question are probably audio-sumigo or so long. But there's also some fun caboyisms. It's so long, so long is good. I wouldn't normally say so long, but it's better if you say so long partner, right? So long. For sure, for sure.

So long partner. There's also some funnyism such as time to hit the dusty trail. Great. Sam Elliott, good to have you on the podcast. Yeah. Taylor Swift was a no, but say well, yes. Yes.

Don't let the door hitch you where the good Lord split you. Oh, wow. That's more like you leave, not I'm leaving. That's true. That's true. I believe there's also one about, let's put the chairs in the wagon. And putting the, yeah.

This is causing me, that's great. Let's put the chairs in. This is causing me a thought, which is I've watched Dimension 20 Affair amount. How much prep do people, do you just got a list of things you're gonna say or is it also, are you scripting it out? There was this really funny momentary

TikTok controversy where people were talking about both dimension 20 and critical role as being scripted, which I thought was really funny because in the words of Zachoyama, one of our cast members, that's right. We script 20 hours of content, and then we just nail it. Yeah.

Outlines, are you like maybe you got an idea? I mean, I think that anybody who plays Dungeons & Dragons maybe sits around and I looking at the ceiling thinking of a monologue, they might go on as their character. I'll be honest and say that for Bucster Dollar Sign Boyd in Mice and Murder, I had a list of cowboyisms pulled up in case I needed to use them. Like I had a, there's this wonderful quote, never grapple with a pig. You'll both get dirty, but the pig likes it. Yeah.

And I wrote that down in advance of the season. I was like, I would love to use that somewhere. And it wasn't until like the final scene. Nice. But I found the opportunity. Wow, wow, wow, that's great. The opportunity for it. That's great.

I have a version of that saying that I came up with because of my job, which is that it's not fun at all. It's just, I think, true. You can't argue with a professional arguer without becoming a professional arguer. And being a professional arguer is like the worst job.

Oh, cold. Hey, you've got some great quotes coming out of that. Yeah, I have a whole ears. Yeah, I think that one was in the first book. But I realized it, but I realized it why after I got into an argument with a professional argueer whose job was to get into arguments so that he could make content around the arguments and getting sucked into that was so easy. Like, he knows exactly what he was doing for sure. I think I see that on social media sometimes.

I see people who sort of in an effort to create content, they are deliberately fanning the flames of heated discourse. And what I realize is that by engaging with them, I'm just creating content for them. Yes. Yeah, and it's very hard to realize that before it happens. But once happens, yeah. Sometimes people are like, yes, I will also be a professional arguer. And I don't think that's the right decision to make. Yeah. Do you see an alternate universe for yourself in

which you became more of a of an arguer? Do you think there's a world in which? Yeah, there's a piece of me that likes it. But it's not, I don't know, because critical thinking temperamentally set up for it. Uh-huh. Yeah. It's stressful for sure. For sure. And I see, I see a lot of people who have my job sort of like,

do science communication, they like sign up to debate things in halls. And I'm like, yes. Oh, no, you already do something that on the internet can be considered a high wire act, which is you make points. Like you were asking. Yeah, make points is tricky. Yeah.

And sometimes I, that's the space I occupy that I could see myself getting more into that business. Yeah. And sometimes I, that's the space I occupy that I could see myself getting more into that business. But I have realized, and I don't know if it's like age or my family, I realize that I do not wanna be going deep on that. And usually I will make a point and one or two things will happen. I will either never touch it again or I will realize that there was something bad about the point and I will delete it

Yeah, I have a friend who who deletes tweets liberally like yeah often I'll see a tweet and then it will be gone within two minutes to look at his Twitter time. I have a brother like that and then it will be gone within two minutes to look at his Twitter time. I have a brother like that. Yeah, it's, and I honestly, I think that's correct. Yeah, that is a correct. You think so need to be forever. We're not Benjamin Franklin.

No, these aren't gonna be aphorisms, these are tweets. Yeah, if Benjamin Franklin had an edit button, he would've used it all the time. Yeah. So long. Partner. Uh, when Montana, we just say see you later, mostly. See you later.

Yeah. Later. Yeah. Yep. I think that's pretty much it. Yeah. In a wild crocodile. Thanks.

Tata for now. We say Tata for now. Oh. Thanks. Ta ta for now, we say. Ta ta for now. Oh, no. Ta ta is fantastic. And I believe the Brits also say ta. Ta. Singular. Yeah, they do say ta.

I've experienced, I've been ta'd. Love the ta. Yeah. It's so efficient. Which reminds me actually that this podcast is brought to you by Being Todd. Being Todd. That's how you know that you're in the great country of the United Kingdom or whatever it is.

And this episode is also brought to you by gentle rain sounds, gentle rain sounds that will lure the entire lane you're in to sleep. This podcast is also brought to you by the Taylor Swift DMV. It's a special DMV just for Taylor Swift, very little, very little's known about it, but if you're friends occasionally, you can get an appointment. This episode is also brought to you by a cat Stingleberry,

a cat Stingleberry. Remove at your own risk. Indeed. We also have a project for awesome message. This is from Julie to Simon. Simon, happy 14th birthday. I love that you love Hank and John reading, rock climbing, adventuring and traveling the world.

You're pretty amazing. As you head into high school and into the person you are becoming, don't forget to be awesome And if you ever do forget I'll be here to remind you just how awesome you are now go charizard this mofo love anti-jewely That's cute. I love the book about reference right the end there. Yeah, that's all joke Well still still got me But still got me. This next question comes from Tyler, who asks, do you think the first murder in space will be done?

Wow. That's great. All the best, Tyler. When's space murder going to start? This is the black mirror portion of the podcast. Yeah, I feel like there's not been space murder so far. I think they couldn't have covered that up. I don't know.

I don't know Hank, very convenient spot to put the body. People notice if it doesn't come back, right? I think what you're saying is people notice if people in space go missing. You're probably, you're probably correct. There's probably a low enough tally. Yeah. That's like, has anybody seen Jeff today?

It's weird because it's not a big space station. Yeah. It's really just for roots. And I feel like I would have seen him And his role was pivotal on board the space As everyone is his day is tightly scheduled by a Large team of professionals It's not as if we've got a lot of understudies up here. Do you think you slept in?

I'm gonna say that if a murder is gonna happen in space, it's gonna be on board a generation ship. Oh yeah, I mean, if you have a generation ship, it will definitely be a murder. I mean, you think so. Can you explain what a generation ship is to people? Absolutely. So I believe a generation ship is a science fiction concept. And the idea is that one day we will have to venture out

from Earth to other planets. And when we do, it will take us so long to get there that an entire generation will be born and die on boardy ship, at least one, if not several. And that just feels like a recipe for resentment to me. Yeah, well, that's that, that's, see you can make that decision for yourself, but you can't really make it for your grandkids.

And they're like, I would have rather lived on a planet, not in a, for sure. Not in this box, for sure. I would rather that my entire existence wasn't merely about the proliferation of my species. Right. And you're not even gonna necessarily, like you can, you could live your whole life on the ship.

Like you might not be the one to arrive or the one to leave. That's, that's a bummer. That's a bummer. That's a big bummer. And you know, I also think anytime you put a bunch, like if you're putting up, even I don't know, 100 people on a ship

for the rest of their lives. Yeah, there's gonna be some bad vibes between some of them. Yeah, what we're talking about here is bad vibes. I'm actually writing a book right now about the first space murder. So this is weird that you asked this question. No kidding, are you really?

Yeah, and there are, it's not like, it's not like a novel ground, there are, there are novel ground. Ah, it is novel ground. But there have been books about the first space murders before. But yeah. But is this, are you actually writing this book? Or is that a joke?

No, it's not. You're actually writing, yeah, I'm like, you know, 15,000 words in. The murder has occurred, the first murder. Is it called a beautiful, foolish space murder? No. I don't have a name. Well, I do have absolutely remarkable space murder. I have a work in progress name that I'm not sharing. I like it though. I'm sure my editor will make me change it, but it's great. Are the words space or murder in the title? No. Seems like

a missed opportunity. It's true. I should put space murder. It's just called space murder. That might, it's that what I feel like that would put an idea in your head that is not really what the book is about. For sure. Which is mostly it is about a bunch of people who are not from the space station being like, holy s**t, these people are weird. Yeah, that's the detective who gets hauled up from earth to solve this space murder being like, you guys got to touch grass. Yeah, for sure. Solving a space murder also feels to me like a really convenient ground for a detective.

Yeah, that a little orient Express vibe. Oh yeah, I mean, talk about like a bottle episode of something, you know, it's like, yeah. Yeah, this is actually a terrific pitch for a television show. They should do a sort of like a NCIS or a CI or SVU or one of those other acronyms. Yeah.

The SNCIS actually stands for space. And so does the C, SN and CSI and SVU also space, space victims unit. I mean, it could. And there lies the pitch. I think I've talked myself into it. Well, you know what? This is much more perfect. I'll write the book and then you can option it.

Perfect. Because I'm going to be done with it in like three or four years. Hank's space murder, HSM. Good thing that my initials aren't BD. That would be fun though. I thought about having my an absolutely remarkable thing. The people who like that book a lot, they created a Discord called fans of an absolutely remarkable thing and it's called fart. Oh, that's great. Yeah. That's really great.

It's almost worth doing just for the acronym. They know the path to my heart, for sure. Yeah. Sometimes when you have the opportunity at a good acronym, it just helps tie a bow on something that you otherwise wouldn't do. And then you're like, well, the acronym's too good. Oh, we got it. Now, or you could be like everyone in science

and just make up an amazing acronym through just truly just will and nothing else. Yes, for sure. I can't wait. I can't wait. I don't use chat GBT for that much. Whenever I've given it a creative assignment, I've been terribly disappointed.

But one thing it's very good at is creating acronyms. Give it the acronym you want in a topic. It'll just go ham. Bam. Now, we don't need will anymore. That's right. Will is just chatGPT's name. This is a name as a William. That's right. I have a question I want to ask you specifically. I can't believe that Bex gets to ask you this question specifically as a game showmaster. The show Taskmaster. It's a different show, but you are also a gamemaster.

It has been the most reliable source of joy in my life since I discovered it about a year ago. It is so good. I am a fan of it. The best. It's so good. Since you're a fan, Hank, I'm hoping that you can help me plan a taskmaster themed party for my 30th birthday. I have so many questions. Should I be Greg? Should I be Alex? Would I have more fun if I get to compete? Oh man, there's a fertile ground, this is fertile ground. You have 10 minutes, your time starts now, simply the becks.

Oh becks. Oh becks. Where are your question becks? So there's that, the place I'm starting is the games that happen at the end when they're on the same room together on stage. Because those are more things that you can do. Yes.

But before we start this, we should say, should be Alex or Greg. You know, that's a really interesting. The task master of the task master's assistant. It's a really interesting question. I think that like obviously Greg has more of the master of ceremony five. That looks like the more fun job. You know, Alex's job is almost like admin.

I mean, that's how they cast all the work. Yeah. It's all the work. It is by the way, and I want to start by saying I'm the biggest taskmaster fan. I absolutely love the show. I started watching it when Game Changer fans were like, you should watch this other cousin show of yours. And started watching it out of a sense of,

I wanna make sure I'm not ripping anyone off accidentally. And have now avoided certain game-changer ideas because I worry they're too similar to Tasmaster ideas. It's funny because the taskmaster intro, which is Greg Davis at a typewriter typing tasks, but he doesn't actually write the show. He doesn't do that, he doesn't do that.

Yeah, that's the best gig. That's the best gig. I mean, it sounds like Bex that you wanna do some work here, though, but it could be that you could just pretend like Greg does the work, because that's excluded with the show is doing. The show is pretending he does the work and do the work. Yes. And then still be the task master.

I think you want to be the task master of your own birthday party. I think so too. I think you probably want an unamalg role. That sort of parts, you know, a host and taskmaster or Greg and Alex. Yeah, and if you can dress up a small dog like Alex, that would be great. It's perfect. Yes, I do, I mean, this is speaking

as someone who is a hosting great, it gets great pleasure out of hosting and providing experiences for people that I think that is an even greater pleasure at playing the game because to play the game is to be immortal, but to run it is to play God. And that's what you want on your birthday. I wouldn't want to be gone on their birthday.

Now, the test master does have a little book that they publish, so you can just like get a book and look at a bunch of tasks that they have there that I think are things that they haven't done on the show. There's a book, there's a board game. There's a two. Okay, wow, yeah. And I think that also looking at those final tasks,

where the people are all on the same, same. Because then you get to do like five people against themselves and then like you can rotate people in and out of games. And that way not everybody's like doing it all at the same time. But it might be good to have like one thing where everybody has to like go do a task at the same time.

But you have to figure out something everybody can all do. It might be something, something as simple as like the first person to bring me a paper clip or something. Sure. Sure. You'd also set up a task in the other room and then everybody like take turns going and doing it. Oh, yeah.

And then come back and share the results that might be fun. That's a good idea. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. And then come back and share the results that might be fun. That's a good idea. I love it. That is such a good idea. And I wish that I had time ever to do fun things like that. I mean, games are great. And games are so good. I do think, you know, it's kind of sad, you know, way that we've lost the parlor game as much in what's that? What do you mean by that? So, like, we have, there's a lot of board games out there. And if you're a board game nerd, you play them and you love them. The parlor game was originally sort of before the board game era.

I think it dates back. I mean, parlor game state back centuries, but I believe the term parlor game was coined, maybe even in the Victorian era. The one I'm thinking of is scissors, which is a game where a pair of scissors is passed around a circle and the host will tell you if you're right or wrong depending on if your scissors are open or closed and it's a puzzle that the group has to solve. In other words, what is correct or incorrect about holding this pair of scissors, certainly. And spoiler alert, it's that if your legs are crossed and the scissors are open,

you are correct if they are uncrossed. You are closed. You are correct. Cool. And that's great. Or Mafia, classic, parlor game, which has now been spun out into werewolf, and all these other versions, some of which are hard games Now reality show by the way the traders on peacock is essentially mafia blown up and done a big mansion. It's fantastic But what's the grave of parlor games is is they don't require much of anything, right? You know a pair of scissors from a desk drawer or nothing. I mean, I gave him mafia requires nothing. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, sometimes I feel like we turn those things

into games you can buy because we feel like a game needs to be, you need to be able to like get it out in order to start playing. Yes, for sure. But like, yeah, I mean, my favorite of these is exquisite corpse where you just, it's just paper and pen, and then you write a sentence, and then you draw the sentence, and then you write what you write a sentence about what was drawn, and it's telephone from text to picture.

And then at the end of it, you have no idea where you're going to end up. And it is fun. And it costs nothing. I think it's, it's, you're right. Hey, it's capitalism run a muck again. That's probably because I think it costs nothing. I think it's, it's, you're right. Hey, it's capitalism run a muck again. That's probably because I think big board game doesn't want you playing parlor games. But big board game shouldn't have that control over me.

I should just do what I wanna do. I think it's big Parker brothers and big Catan and they're coming for your parlor games and you can show it to him. You can stick it to him Yeah, but playing something cheaper free All right, let's do one more question before we get to the all important news from Mars and ASC Wimbledon Ever him asks dear Hank and Sam I just saw a supernatural episode that was called Death Takes a Holiday, and it got me thinking, was there ever a day when nobody died? Upon further research,

Google tells me that there wasn't. But that's with today's population. What are the chances of their existing a day on which nobody died in all human history? Can't stop thinking about death? human history. Can't stop thinking about death. Never here. So like this is definitely the case for some animals, right? Like there are some, like there are days on which no, and it's bad, it's bad sign, but there's days on which like no black rhinos die because there's. You're saying because there's so few of them. Yeah. Yeah. Right. There could be an answer to this question, which is, yes, there will come a day when nobody dies because we will all have died already. That will be, yeah, that will be a very bad sign. Yeah.

That's a very funny answer to this question. You thought that was going to be good. It's not. It's not. So I looked this up just now. And so it's fairly, we have a fairly good idea that humans went through what's called a population bottleneck at one point, where there was a fairly large self-sustaining population of humans, but then almost everybody died. And we very nearly extinct. At some point in our history, like 50,000, 200,000 years ago. Which is not that, like that's well into the existence

of humans, so that's a big deal. And human population sharply decreased to between 3,000 and 10,000 surviving individuals. Now, that 3,000 is probably few enough that with average death rate, you wouldn't have, there would be days with no one dying. Yes, yes. Cause that's like, you know, 3,000 people

is less than, on one day is less than 3,000 days which is like 10 years. For sure. For sure. For sure. But we're also talking about a time, that's a population bottleneck. And population bottlenecks happen because people are dying a lot. Right. And so I feel like it seems to me unlikely that there was ever a day in human history when no humans died.

But if there was, it was right around that time. It seems like you got a look at the very beginning or the very end of humanity. If we're going to flash forward to a future in which it's a really bad out here, and there's like... You know, yeah, when you're the last person left every day of your life is a day that no people died. That's right. And if the Giddest book were around to acknowledge it, you know, it'd be worth celebrating, but unfortunately, it's just you. And maybe it maybe if we look to the very beginning of humanity, which is that's a little mercier because we're in the process of evolving into humans.

And so what are we classifying a human death versus a proto-human death? As I understand it, correct me from wrong, well, I'm not gonna say correct me if I'm wrong and then share this statistic because I Google this just now too. Three hundred and thirty two thousand, six hundred and forty eight people die a day, approximately in 2023.

But that as more people are more as the population of the world grows, that number is just gonna go up. It's not gonna come down. More people means more people dying. It might. So yes, probably, but also right now, it's not just a number of people dying for day. It's like, if they die younger, then more people die per person per year. Interesting. person per year, you know? Oh, interesting. Yeah.

So back in the day, you know, it was on average, most people didn't see their like 25th birthday. And that average was dragged down mostly by people under the age of five. So that's like, by back in the day, I mean, like all of human history until, you know, a thousand or two thousand years ago or agriculture. I don't know. Something like that.

And so that means more deaths per human because they aren't living as many years. That is a weird statistics thing that I hate to throw at you because it's also I'm compounding the bummers now. Yes, sure. Yes. No, as it makes sense, as the world becomes a more difficult place to thrive, one would imagine that the death rate would go up. Yeah. Yeah.

I would guess though. No, it's not. Let's hope that doesn't happen. So far, we've been pretty good at avoiding that. So let's keep doing whatever that is. But in a good way, brought to you by whatever that is. But, but better than what we've been, that whatever that is, but even better. Okay.

More and better. Well, this weekend, Mars News, this is cool. So Mars has two moons. Do you know what they are? Oh, no, I don't. It's fun. Ah, photos and demos. Or what are, however, people pronounce those.

And demos has a difficult to photoside. So because it's because it's tightly locked so one side of it always faces Mars. And the orbiters we have going around Mars are inside of that orbit. So it's easy to photograph the close side of that moon. But hard, just like it's the same with us. It's hard, much harder to photograph the far side of the moon.

And recently- And this is like, please get my goods. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So we had until like this week did not have a anything like high resolution picture of the far side of demos. But now we have it

because the United Airb at Emirates space probe hope on March 10th took this photo and you can see, you can see it with also Mars looming in the background. So it was like, it's got this big wide orbit that comes in really close. It's like, goes out wide and comes in really close to this orbit it does. And it happened to get it like, one of its orbits was like, as it was going by, it was farther away. It crossed over as Demos was sitting there and Mars was right in the background.

So love that, love a new moon photo. And did we, did we see anything unexpected? No, they can get like more data on what Demos is made of, which seems to be Mars stuff, which makes sense. Yeah, I mean, there's been a lot of sort of debate over whether they're captured asteroids or something that got flung off of Mars in an event of sure. So that's a that's an ongoing area of debate for the Mars nerds out there. Mars, Mars, dissect their Mars flotsam and jetsam. Yeah. There's what's been tossed overboard. It is floating in that big, big space void.

That big space void. So it seems that that Demos was formed with Mars, at least according to this data, which is, you know, it's big news. Huh. Sounds to me like it could be a good setting for a space murder. And in this week in AFC Wimbledon news, AFC Wimbledon are staying up and not because they did anything greater or anything just because the teams that are worse than them are really

bad. So that's all I, so if you follow the podcast, you know what that means? It's good news, but they did just lose over and over again in their last game. They went one nil up, which they often do. And then they gave away five straight goals to Swindon Town. So they lost that one to five because you can't, you can't score the four-score if you're a F.C. Well, then that's how you lose a game every single time, apparently. Bummer. I love these updates. They feel to me like what it would be if you hosted an NPR show and were taking a break to do news in the middle.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like instead of the traffic report, we get just a strange soccer team that's just not good at soccer. Yeah. I don't know what they're going to do about this, Sam, but they got to do something. There's got to be a way out of this or not, I guess. They could just keep playing bad soccer.

Yeah. It's hard to be a fourth year English football team. Well, this is kind of what it's like to be a Ted Lasso fan right now, too, is to wonder how they're going to turn this around. Oh, is that happening on the show? Yeah, yeah. They're losing big time. Yeah, but it's narrative.

It's a fictional. So they could just write it on the paper and then he scores a bunch of goals. It's easy to turn that around. It is hard to see from where they are today, how they make that make sense in the story. I don't interest you. They are so screwed.

I should watch this show. I have heard good things. I look forward to it. Sam Rice, thank you very much for joining me on this episode of Dear Hing-John. What an absolute treat. John, I hope I did you justice. I'm sure you got a good job.

John, I hope you feel well represented. It was very good. I had a very good time. If you want to send us questions, you can do that at hankinjohnatgmail.com. We don't have a podcast of that question, so thanks for everybody who does that. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tunamada. It's produced by Rosie Anna Halls-Rohas. Our communications coordinator is Brooke Shotwell.

Our editorial assistant is Deboki 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 be awesome.