Dear Hank & John - 395: Your One Wild and Precious Corpse

Episode Date: August 14, 2024

When will people be buried on the moon or mars? How do I not feel lonely and like a social failure? Do we not have anything interesting to say to ants? At what point is it socially acceptable to refer to how long your business has been open? What’s the deal with art galleries?  Where do ocean creatures go during a storm? Where does the sun get its energy? Hank and John Green have answers!If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohnFollow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn

You're listening to a Complexly Podcast. Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Or as I prefer to think of it, Dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you the best advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, how are you doing? How is the Olympics? How are the good, good people of the Olympics? The Olympics are so great. The Olympics is, it's the best thing that we do as a species. I don't want to overplay it, but I think it is the single greatest accomplishment in human history. That and eradicating smallpox. I just want to see a man pommel a horse. By the way, that guy knows who we

are. He seems like he would, I have to say. Yeah, Steve and his girlfriend Tess are familiar with our work. In fact, Tess follows at Sports with John on Twitter, which is pretty deep cut. Anyway, big fan of Steve, Steve, the guy who pommeled that horse. He pommeled it so good. There was no question. At the end of it, the horse, I don't know if you saw it live, Hank, but I was watching it live. I watched the entire Olympics live. I wake up at six o'clock in the morning. I don't start my work day until noon, right? Then I just work in the evenings until it's time for Olympics prime time coverage. The best part about this, of course, is that by the time this podcast comes out, the Olympics will be over. It'll be more of a recap, but it feels present tense.

You'll remember. You remember the Olympics. Anyway, I was watching live and I literally had to watch Steve, the pommel horse guy, like this. I had to, I guess this is a podcast, so I actually have to explain what I'm doing. I had to cover my eyes, except I left one little opening between my fingers through which I could watch Steve. I was like, but Steve has to pommel a horse right now. He's probably even more nervous

than I am and he has to go do the thing. Incredible. He did the thing. It's been awesome to watch the Olympics. There's been so many wonderful stories. So proud of noted vertical video sensation Alana Mar on getting a bronze medal in women's team rugby. It's been so many wonderful stories. So proud of noted vertical video sensation, Alana Mar on getting a bronze medal in women's team rugby. It's just been awesome. Awesome. I mean, what a game. Oh my God. I watched that live too. And Sarah was like talking to me about logistics. Like, on Wednesday night, we got to have these people over and Alice is going to this house. And I was like, respectfully, these games only last 14 minutes.

I just, I need a minute here. That is the thing I did not understand about Rugby Sevens. You cannot show up late. No, no, no, no. You can't show up for the, if you show up for the second half, it's over. Yeah. It was so thrilling. It was, yeah. I mean, I was not watching live, so I knew with the outcome. But I was like, how is it going to get to the outcome that I am expecting when the situation is what it is right now? Yeah. Oh, it was so thrilling. I just love... What I love about sports is it's theater,

but it's theater where neither the competitor nor the audience knows what the play is about. audience knows what the play is about. You know? Then at the end, we're all like, oh my god, it was a tragedy or oh my god, it was a farce or oh my god, it was a wonderful comedy. Sometimes it's a romantic comedy. Sometimes, I don't know if you saw this today, but one of the Chinese table tennis players won a gold medal, very impressive, and then was immediately asked for their hand in marriage by their longtime partner. And so then it was a romantic comedy. At the Olympics. I've heard that the Olympics. I mean, I would watch a hundred percent like a love island that takes place at the Olympics or a romantic comedy that takes place at the Olympics

a romantic comedy that takes place at the Olympics or like a manga about that, there's got to be, it's got to be a love pentagragicon drama. Oh yeah. Yeah. No, I'm sure there's a lot of, I mean, look, it's young people, right? And young people are always getting into kind of crazy romantic situations. They are. Oh God, I don't miss it. I do not miss being young. Do you know where pommel horse came from? Yeah, of course. It's a horse, Hank. That's why at the end of it, the horse very kindly lowered its head and congratulated Steven on his incredible. You didn't tell me about that part. It lowered its head lightly?

Yeah, dude. It was a real horse that he was pommeling, okay? And they put two pommels on top of the horse and he was moving all around it and then the horse has to stay very still. That's one of the rules. If the horse doesn't stay still, the score doesn't count. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the horse stays very still and he was doing like, he did a one hand 360 around the horse and then he was like, you thought that was good. I can do it with my other hand too. And that's when I was like, oh my God, Steve. Oh my God. Stop showing off. At some point it becomes a little bit over the top. That's right, Steve. Anyway, it was beautiful to watch. And then Steve dismounted off the horse and the horse

lowered its head as a sign of honor that he had been pommelled successfully. And then the horse gets a carrot to say thank you for. Yeah, of course. Steve gave the horse the carrot. That's the last thing. You bow to the judges, then you give the horse a carrot and that's the end of your routine. It was originally a fake horse that the Romans would use to train people for getting on and off horses. And then they got all fancy. Oh, that's great.

I love it. To be fair, that actually gives me a sense of how hard pommel horse is, because I have gotten on a horse before and it ain't easy. Just that part, just the getting on. Just the, I wonder if I could get on a pommel horse. Just that just that part just getting on just that just I Wonder if I could get on a pommel horse, you know, like I wonder if I could successfully just get up there Yeah, yeah, yeah get up there and maybe do like a couple of those tricep bends, you know

Yeah, you know what I like I could do it but I would need like they have with the high bar someone to give me up He's sure need like they have with the high bar someone to give me uppies. Sure, of course. Can I get a quick uppie? Then they'd be like, hey, it's time for the gymnast to use the pommel horse, Hank, and you'd be like, no, I'm good up here. I'm just riding the horse. Yeah. Actually, I don't know how I get off. I need reverse uppies. I'm going to need some downsies. All right. Let's answer some questions from our listeners. This first one comes from Mustafa who says, Dear John and Hank, how far are we from the possibility of people's dying wishes being

that they want to be buried on the moon or Mars instead of at sea? Bodies are far. Mustafa. Are you allowed to get buried at sea still? Is that a thing? I don't think they can stop you. Are you allowed to get buried at sea still? Is that a thing? I don't think they can stop you. Yeah, if you have a boat and you can get out far enough. Yeah, if you get to international waters, I think it's your business.

Yeah, yeah. Yep, I'd agree. And you're not making it back. If you're that far out, you're not making it back. There's lots of stuff that would happily take care of you. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, point being, that actually is a problem on the moon and Mars would be my argument.

Right, right. You don't have a bunch of sharks on the moon to eat your dead body. Things happen. Like, I think that American flag is still up there looking approximately like an American flag. It's probably been pretty sun bleached at this point, but yeah. Point being, I think it might still be there. Sure, still there.

Is it still there? Yeah, it's still there. It's probably not red, white and blue anymore is all I'm saying. Where would it have gone, John? There's nowhere to go. It's the moon. This is a problem.

If in space, you just keep being forever. Yeah. The only thing to degrade you is the Sun. All right. Well, you're right. Lunar images have proven that the American flag planted during the Apollo missions are still standing on the Moon. Take that, Moon denialists. And Russia. Outlasted the Soviet Union, baby. I think we're a ways away just because it takes a lot of time. It's a lot of work to get the ashes to the moon. But I bet by the time I die, assuming the policy genius actuarial tables are correct, by the time I die, assuming the policy genius actuarial tables are correct, by the time I die, I bet you can get shot to the moon. Yeah, I mean a whole body hard. Some ashes.

No, no, no, just your ashes, ashes, ashes. Yeah, and also like ashes are weird because like at what point is it enough ashes to count as you anyway? You're not gonna get all of you. So if you just like a thimble full of like a bunch of different people, easy peasy. We could, I mean, moon is hard. Space easy. We, like we could now probably get like start launching like fractions of people into space. No, I think we have done that. We have done that.

That's not the hard part. The hard part is getting it all the way to a surface. Moon's hard. Yeah, moon's a long way away. And then you got to- Mars almost impossible with current technology. Not really on that. Unless you're real sneaky and you work at NASA. You get sort of like a stick of ash in there. Yeah, but not till 2028. I don't think that's a 2028. Oh, God. At this point, I'll let it count. I will tell you right now, Hank, if we get Human Ashes to the Moon by 2028, we can keep the podcast named Dear Hank and John. But if we don't get any form of

humans to the Moon, it's Dear John and Hank forever. Forever. I am never taking a bet with you that would revert the name back to Dear Hank and John. I feel like you already did or somebody did on your behalf. No, I didn't. I would never. It's too high stakes for me. I'd rather make financial bets with you. Dear John and Hank, I'm going to have to get used to that. Did you see my video today where I talk about how the world's going to be like in 100 years? Yeah, I thought it was great. I really enjoyed it, except there were a couple things I completely disagreed with. So first off, you said that in 100 years, people won't get colds, which is the most ludicrous,

unbelievably- Oh, it's coming. Hank, respectfully, I will rename the podcast Dear John and Hank if in 100 years, people don't get colds. Let me give you a sense of like, I just don't think you have a historical sense of medical, of how medical progress works, okay? Okay. I think what you fail to understand is how much time passes between something happening and something being widely implemented. I also think you underestimate the actual challenge a little bit. So tuberculosis, I'll give you an example, my special interest. Tuberculosis says- I think in a hundred years, people will still get tuberculosis, though I don't think that they will die of it very much.

Oh, so your argument is that people won't get colds, they'll just still get tuberculosis. Yeah. They won't get viral illnesses, they'll just still get bacterial infections by the billion. I didn't say billions, but I think that the kind of thing that causes a rhinovirus is actually a solvable problem with nasal vaccines, and we will get broad spectrum nasal vaccines, and people with healthy immune systems will not get Colts.

That's what I think. But they'll still get the flu. I think that they probably also won't get the flu. I think that flu will also be unusual. They'll still get strep throat. I think they might still get strep throat. Yeah, I think that virus will be easier than bacteria. HIV will be cured.

HIV will probably not be cured. I think that like. Okay, all right, I'm actually coming around to your position now. If your position is just like people in the rich world won't get as many colds in a hundred years, I agree. And I was very specific. I was talking about America. I'm not talking about the world. Yeah. In the video, you were like,

people aren't going to get sick in a hundred years. And I was like, yes, they are. They're still going to get sick. And that's that. I also disagree with you and we have to get back to what you want done with your body because I think that's very important and we've never discussed it before and I'm fascinated to learn. But just the other thing that I thought you what you want done with your body because I think that's very important and we've never discussed it before and I'm fascinated to learn. But just the other thing that I thought you definitely got wrong was that I think in a hundred years, the biggest thing people will think is they will be astonished by the level of global inequity. That's my hope anyway, that they will be absolutely astonished that there was a 40-year delta in life expectancy, depending

on where you were born. My argument against that is that we don't think that about 100 years ago. The average person doesn't think, oh my God, I can't believe- We didn't have it 100 years ago. There wasn't a 40-year delta 100 years ago. There wasn't. Yes. There was a 27-year delta.

Because everybody died. It has gotten worse. The delta has gotten worse, but the average age of death has gone up. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, Mr. Pollyanna, everything's beautiful. Of course, the average age of death has gone up. Now let's get back. Now that I've made my two points,

I'm not gonna allow you a rebuttal, and instead we're gonna get back to what you want done with your one wild and precious corpse. I think, you know, for a long time, I was a real believer in the fact that my wild and precious corpse should be scattered in some place that was special to me. But I think at this point, I think my,

I've come around to the idea that I should have the gravestone. Just so all your adoring fans have a place to visit. Well, I mean, especially if I die younger, which, you know, is sort of the thing that I'm worried about right now. Oh, Jesus Christ. God, Mr. I had cancer and I can't, I mean, talk about making cancer your whole identity, Hank.

Now it's like, oh, I had cancer your whole identity Hank now. It's like oh I had cancer you brought it up All right, go ahead then I like if I have a lot if there's a lot if I have like a lot of People who I feel like that it'd be nice to give them a place to go to. But you didn't feel that about your family, apparently. No, no, no. That's what I mean. My family and my friends. Okay. All right. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's how I've always felt is like, I like having a place to go to visit my ancestors, and I would like to have a place for my descendants to go to visit me as an ancestor.

But I used to be such a Pollyanna that I believed that by the time I died, everyone who I loved would already have died. That's hilarious. Yeah, I assume, I think correctly that I'll go before everyone else in my nuclear fan. I mean, I freaking hope so. Yeah. I mean, for a long time, I didn't have a child, so there was that. But I think there is, there actually is an element of as being a sort of, like, I like the idea that Missoula would get me, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's where Hank Green is buried. Yeah, and that'll probably be- Like if I'm mad enough.

It's good press for like 20 years, usually. Yeah, yeah. That's why it's so important to me to be buried at the very top of Crown Hill Cemetery on top of the grave of James Whitcomb Riley. James Whitcomb Riley right here at the top of the hill until they fill in that hill a little, make it the even taller hill, hilliest hill in Indianapolis. Yep.

And boom, right there, right on top of his corpse, my corpse. What if you were just like, like, like at the very end, but alive enough that you could just sort of like dig your way in, sneak in, die in there, filling it after you. And then everybody like, no one knows where John Green is. And everybody would though, because they listen to the podcast. You know what my will actually says? Does it say? Oh yeah. Yours doesn't? I don't think so. Oh, I got a highly specific will. I get into all kinds of stuff. I don't leave you anything, by the way, in case you're wondering. I don't need anything.

I know. That's what I figured. I might come over and take some stuff. There's probably some, I'd like the beer sword. Anything of sentimental value you're welcome to, other than the beer sword, that's Henry's. No, I'm just kidding. You can take the beer sword if it's important to you. But no, I say it's so James Whitcomb Riley of James Whitcomb Riley to be buried at the very top of the crown hill. Whoa, so fancy. Oh, he's on the hill with the fancy people and the billionaires. Don't do that with me. Bury me with the people because I'm a man of the people. Bury me down in the valley with the people. They had the hilltop, right?

They had it and they were like, somebody's gonna go at the top of the hill. And then they were like, I guess this guy. I think you underestimate, James Wickham Riley was massively famous. He wrote Little Orphan Annie, the Little Orphan Annie. I've heard of that. I've heard of that. He was a huge deal.

He was like, he was so beloved. Some weird things about James Wickham Riley. He never owned a home, even though he was a wealthy man. He lived with a German couple. Dot, dot, dot. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. He was a beloved Hoosier author. He was so loved here that like it totally made sense at the time to bury him at the top of

the hill. But it just goes to show you that nothing lasts forever, including your reputation. Yeah. I don't know. We think, oh, famous people, they insure themselves hundreds or thousands of years of memories. Yeah. I was just thinking about how like how when we were kids Thomas Edison was like a pretty huge deal and like my son still hasn't learned about Thomas Edison

and and then like but his son just won't if he has a kid it's just like not a relevant mythology anymore that's the thing is that the as stories change, the people who exemplify those stories change. Yeah. So this happens all the time in history. The person that you think is going to be at the bottom of the pile, the Nikola Tesla, I certainly never learned about Nikola Tesla in school, but the Nikola Tesla turns out to be like the famous one that the famous cars are named after. You never know. Also, it's not just that. It's that it doesn't matter. You can't live your life for a legacy because your legacy

outside of the lives you impact while you're here, it's just not very important. Mark Twain, probably the most important American novelist, somebody whose work I wrote my college thesis about, I think about all the time. That's great. But Mark Twain's only been dead for 100 years. The most famous American novelist only extended his life by 100 years out of 300,000 years. We're not going to remember Mark Twain. We're not going to remember Hank Green. We're not going to remember anybody. So get buried the way that you want to get buried, not for all the people who will come after you, but for your direct descendants who need an ancestor to look to. If you get to the moon, your body will last forever.

All right, this next question comes from Jill who writes, Dear John and Hank, how do I not feel lonely and like I'm a social failure? I'm a recent high school graduate who's attending college out of state in the fall and I've always struggled to make friends. I'm not afraid of social interaction or even how to socially interact like I used to struggle with. My issue is the feeling afterwards when I realized that everyone is closer to each other than I am. I feel outcast all the time. I just don't know how to leave a hangout not feeling sad or how to make and trust friends. Best wishes, Jill. Jill. Jill. Jill. Jill. Jill. Jill. Jill.

You're not alone. Me either. I think almost everyone leaves those parties and thinks like, oh God, I said this, I said that. I was on the outside of this circle. I tried to wean, weasel my way into this circle and it didn't work. I mean, that's all I think about after a party, Jill. Overwhelmingly, I think about everything I said and why did I say that? Why did I say it that way? I think that some people are comfortable, but they aren't actually any more interior to the social fabric. They just are less in their mind as humans. Because I I felt both of these ways.

And that is, to me, as a person who has felt both of the ways, it is never about how actually involved I am in the social circle. It is about where my mind is at on the way home from the party, either because I made some social mistakes or some kind of faux pas, or like that's just where I was at the moment. Like my brain was just in that, that like spending a lot of time in itself phase. Yeah. But I, which is why, which is why I've used modern technology to prevent me from ever having time to spend in my own mind. I just pop in, pop in a hard fork, pop in my bim bam, and I'm just gone.

Yeah. Okay. We have to get back to Joe's problem, but briefly on that topic, I was just on the Wikipedia page for boredom just to check it out. Oh. And do you know what the first two words of the Wikipedia page for boredom are? No, that's interesting. Is it, your support for Wikipedia makes this possible? It's boredom is. And I find that very interesting because boredom no longer exists. It does.

I got bored last night. And you want to know how I got bored last night? How? I went on Twitter and I found it uninteresting and there wasn't much to look at. When I went on threads and I found uninteresting and there wasn't much to look at. It was sort of the same boring uninteresting controversies. And then I went on TikTok and I was like, I also none of this is ringing my bell right now.

And then I looked at the lock screen of my phone and I was like, wow, you have nothing for me right now. It was weird. What's it like to snort five different powders and it turns out they're all baking soda? It's a little bit surprising. Yeah. I was like, what's happening right now? Is there something wrong with me?

So Jill, the good news is that when you go to college, everyone else is gonna be in the same boat. That's true. And you're not gonna be alone and there are gonna be hopefully, and there should be structures built in to help you get to know your neighbors, your roommate, your suitemates, whatever it is, however your school is organized. That is going to be very helpful to you. But the main thing you

have to tell yourself after a social interaction, the thing that I try to tell myself is I am not alone in walking away from that social interaction feeling like I didn't crush it or feeling like I'm not as connected to people as I'd like to be. Right. That's a normal thing. That's a normal thing and it's also something that builds up over a long period of time. So long a period of time in many cases that you can't possibly imagine it because you literally aren't old enough to. The other thing, this is a separate piece of advice, which is, if you can, be less interested in yourself and more interested in the people.

And so as you leave the event, be thinking about how other people experienced that, or about that thing that that person said to you. To me, the greatest asset, the greatest tool I have for making friends is being interested in them. So like discovering my own interest and the interests that my friends have. Without that, I kind of can't be their friends.

And with it, I become sort of more curious and fascinated by like the whole world, but including them. And people love, love when people are interested at them. That's like, and that's how you learn about people is you display interest in them and their thoughts and their ideas and you ask more about that. This next question comes from Shashi who asks,

Dear John and Hank, a biologist once told my boss, if we met ants, we wouldn't have anything interesting to say to them. True, true, true. Is that true? Yes. Really? If we met ants, we – Well, first off, I feel like I regularly do meet ants and I have nothing interesting to say to them. That's one way of imagining the question.

How else would you imagine the question? Sometimes I say to an ant, why are you here? That's basically the extent of the conversation. I thought the agreement that we'd made was that I live inside of this very contained interior space. This is mine. And then you have all of outside. All of outside belongs to you.

Sometimes I see ants outside and I'm like, what are you doing? I don't. We've got weird swarming behaviors in Montana. Ants were like, sometimes they just like, all leave the nest and they run around on the sidewalk. It's very weird. Yeah, it's weird, but it's their business, right? It is their business.

It's true, but I'm curious. It's like the way that I feel when somebody's reading a book I don't love on the bus. Gosh, I wish that you hadn't brought that onto the bus. The Art of the Deal was published in 1987. I don't think it has that much to tell you about the present moment, but whatever. That's your business. Then there's another way to imagine this, which is if ants could talk and they could tell you about their experience of the world and sort of what they're up to, we wouldn't have anything to say to each other because they would not care about the election. They would not care about your dislocated

shoulder. They would not care about your son and his experience with Hot Wheels. But wouldn't they care about the Olympics? I mean, I feel like they would not care about the Olympics. They would not. They, so, and this is, this is, they couldn't even see the Olympics. This is the thing. No, but if they could speak, I could explain it to them. They have a completely different.

I could be like, Alona Mar and the other six women of the rugby sevens US team were down to their last possession and then they scored a miracle try. I learned that. I learned that for a word. I'm into Olympics. Yeah. It's not called a touchdown even though in football you don't touch it down and in rugby, you do. You do. They scored a miracle try and won a bronze medal. You don't touch it down and in rugby you do. You do. They scored a miracle try and won a bronze medal. You don't think an ant would be moved by that story? No, I definitely don't. And also I think the cool thing here,

and this is what I think your professor means, is that ants have a totally different sensorium. Like they communicate and are influenced almost entirely by sense. So the way that the chemical signals that affect an ant's experience of the world are so much more deeply tied into their nervous system than smells are to us. They are, they live in a world of smell

and smells control everything that they do. And they would be talking to us in smell. Like they wouldn't even, even if we could figure out how to like translate their smells into speech, it would not make sense to us. They live in such a different universe than we do. And I think this is a fascinating thing about different species.

Even somewhat closely related species, they just have like the senses that we have are different from species to species. And as you get more distant, they get more different. And it's like vision, yes, is all sort of detecting electromagnetic waves, but oftentimes it's doing it in very different ways. You've got different pupil shapes,

you've got different cones, you've got different rods, you've got different like abilities to, like different rods, you've got different abilities to... Some things can see things that are outside of our visual range, some things can't see things inside of our visual range. Everything looks different. And some animals have eyes on the sides of their head. Can you even imagine what it would be like to be able to see behind you right now? No.

No. It's so weird to have a whole other, like every species gets to experience the universe in a different way, in a way that to me makes it almost like they are in a different universe. It's not just that though. It's also that like the literal interests, desires, fascinations of ants would be utterly unrelatable to us. Yeah, I also, I think that interests might be a little

outside of the capability of an ant, but who knows? Nerves are weird. That reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by the Ants Nervous System, the Ants Nervous System running on smells. This podcast is also brought to you by Pommelling a Horse. Pommelling a Horse, Pommeling a Horse. Surprisingly fine. It's just so impressive. In fact,

I've got to have one more sponsorship related to it. Today's podcast is brought to you by noted American nerdfighter, Steve. Steve. Steve. Steve. I'm so proud of you, man. This podcast is also brought to you by Feeling Like a Social Failure. That's going to happen. This podcast is also brought to you by Feeling Like A Social Failure. That's going to happen. Yeah, it's okay. It will get better. It will also get worse, but it will get better.

It's like a sine wave. We also have Project for Awesome messages to read. I'll read the first one. It's from Jennifer Ratcliffe in Santa Rosa, California to Eva Ratcliffe in San Diego. Eva, my happy little squidly. You're the best daughter any mom could ever hope for. You're brilliant, fun, fearless, and empathetic. Your radiant power knows no bounds. I'm proud to be your mother every single day. Love you to the moon and back.

We've also got a message from Connor to Anne who says, as someone who has listened to the entire backlog of Dear Hank and John, I know you will appreciate this. That is impressive. Impressive. I forget sometimes that appreciate this. That is impressive. I forget sometimes that people like us, this podcast. It's nice. Thanks for liking the podcast, y'all. So I, I'm so glad to have you as a partner and fellow nerdfighter. We moved across the Midwest together from Iowa to Indy to Chicago, listening to the Greens. And I'm looking forward to a lot more nerdiness together. Maybe we will even find out why Indy has so few streetlights. Love you lots. It is true. This is a great American city. Some would say the greatest. Some would say the greatest American city that ever was or ever

will be. Yet, we do have very few streetlights. In fact, there's a streetlight at the intersection near my home. The way that I explained to Uber drivers where to turn is I say turn at the street light. I can say that a mile before we get to the street light because there are no other street lights. To me, that says that it's not a very dense city. Well, that is certainly the case. We're more interested in width, breadth, length. We didn't want to be the biggest city by population. We wanted to be the biggest city by geography and just, gosh darn it, we did it. This next question comes from Leah who writes, Dear John and Hank, at what point is it socially acceptable to refer to how long your business has been open? A restaurant or fast food place I recently went to was very good,

but said it had been family owned since 1989. Is that too recent to brag about? How old are you, Leo? How long ago do you think 1989 was? That's definitely long enough to brag about. I mean, 1989. I almost feel like- How was 40 years ago? I feel like Vlogbrothers established in 2007 doesn't sound bad. By the way, it's not 40 years ago. It's 35 years ago. It's almost. Yeah. It will be 40 years in just four or five short years. Yeah. No. I mean, if there was a business that I went to as a child in 1984 and it said open since 1944.

I would have been like that's a good – you've had a great run. That's the war. Yeah. You saw the war. This business survived a war. Yeah, it's impressive. You know what the business that's been open since 1989 has survived, like the personal computer, the internet, YouTube, TikTok. A pandemic? Vine. It actually-

Outlived Vine? It's been open for 31 vines. I don't know about that. I think if you're on your sixth president, you could definitely – Yeah. DFTBA started in 2008 and I'm like, it says on the website, established 2008. I think that's impressive. But for an internet company, that is impressive.

I agree. I think if you're an internet company or a YouTube channel, Vlogbrothers could definitely say established in 2007, right? I think that any internet company that's been around for, let's say, three presidents, US presidents, is allowed to say established in, right? Because then you made it through Biden, you made it through Trump, and you at least reach back to the Obama years. Vlogbrothers reaches back to the George W. Bush administration. Yeah. Yeah.

Hank and I- We were together when Obama won his first election. Yeah, John saw Obama speak at the big breakout Obama speech. No, even before that. I was recording something for WBEZ back when I wrote commentaries for the Chicago Public Radio. And we were recording something. WBEZ back when I wrote commentaries for the Chicago Public Radio. We were recording something and when you record in the WBEZ studios, when you walk in, they're playing whatever WBEZ is playing, right?

Then you turn that off and you record your little piece or whatever. What was playing was an interview with State Senator Barack Obama. My producer and I just sat there transfixed for like 10 minutes and then finally the interview ended and my producer like cut the audio and he looked at me and he said, why is that guy a state senator? He should be president. It wasn't that long before he was. No, it wasn't that long before he was. So shout out Justin Kaufman, long time Chicago media guy for nailing that one. All right,

Hank, we got another question from Melissa who writes, dear John and Hank, what's the deal with art galleries? Can I go in even if I have no intention, like the money to buy anything? Melissa, I'm about to blow your mind. Can I wander around like it's a free museum? Is there an etiquette for declaring that I can't buy anything so the staff doesn't waste their time thinking I might purchase something? Or are art galleries for potentially paying customers only? I constantly see articles about great collections being shown at galleries in my city and I would love to see them, but I don't know if I'm allowed. Nothing rhymes with Melissa.

This never even occurred to me. Many years before Catherine and I could even consider buying a painting at a gallery we would go in and look. They would, on first Friday, they'd give you free wine. That's what I'm going to blow your mind with, Melissa. Not only are you allowed to go, go in and look. On first Friday, they'd give you free wine. That's what I'm going to blow your mind with, Melissa. Not only are you allowed to go, they'll give you free cheese and alcohol and some Triscuits if you're careful. Yeah. Sometimes little fruits. I remember when I first was interested in Sarah, we went

out to lunch or something and then she was like, you should come by the gallery sometime. We have an opening on this day. And I did a ton of research about the artist, which was a huge mistake. I should have just asked Sarah instead of like pretending to be an expert. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you need to like leave conversation topics open for them to tell you things. Don't just think I'm going to tell you stuff. Yes. Oh, I know that you have a degree in art history, but have you ever had a man explain to you your own art show? Anyway, I go to this art opening in Chicago, and not only does that gallery have an opening, but a bunch of other galleries in nearby buildings also have openings and they're all really interesting. And there's free wine at all of them and cheese and in a few cases, Triscuits. And I was like, how have I lived

in the city for five years and not known this incredible life hack? I don't understand how art galleries work and I don't really need to, but they seem to. Like, the gallery that Catherine and I went into before we could ever even consider affording a single piece of art from that gallery, and we ate their cheese and drank their wine, and so did many other people, it is still open, it is still doing great. So like, whatever they're doing is working. I will say at the big New York galleries, they have literally intimidating looking doors.

And a lot of times there are no windows. And it requires a measure of moral courage to open that door. But then you open that door and there's like $300 million of paintings that have been incredibly well organized by a professional gallerist. And it's an amazing museum style show, except that it's free. You do not have to do or say anything. 99.9% of the time, not only do you have to say,

I'm sorry, I can't afford the artwork, no one will even look up at you. I walk into a fancy gallery in New York City, and if I do wanna buy art, that's what's hard. Like, it's much harder. Then you've gotta like go up, you go to the desk, and you're like, hey, do you have a list of the prices? Which is an uncomfortable thing to ask, and they give you the list of the prices without looking at you.

At no point in this process do they look at you. And then you look through. This is not the biggest experience in Missoula. In Missoula, like the moment a 44-year-old man walks in, they're like, hey! You look like you might be able to afford an art. Well, but Sarah always tells the story of like you never, because she worked at a gallery

for years and of course, it was very welcoming and anybody can go to these things and you should, it's an amazing way to experience art. But she would be like, you never make judgments because the minute you make a judgment is the minute you make a mistake. She said, the most expensive painting I ever sold was this contemporary Chinese artist who, by the way, his work has increased in value by a factor of a thousand. So this guy made a brilliant decision. But this guy shows up in bike shorts and an actual bike uniform. I don't know what you call those. The shirts. Shows up wearing that, buys a $35,000 painting and then walks out the door.

So you never know. Did they have to ship it to him? Did he have it with him? No, Hank, they ship it to you. If you buy a painting for $35,000, you can afford the shipping. I don't know. It seems like it'd be expensive to ship a painting. It is expensive. They have to insure it in everything. But the point is- It's in that margin. There's probably a fairly wide margin on a $35,000 painting sold at a gallery.

No, no, no, no, no, no. They make you pay for the shipping. Oh, okay. But the point is that you can afford the shipping. There's not like a sign that's like free shipping. No, not usually. Like on the bottom of the $35,000 painting. Oh, God. Actually, maybe Hank shouldn't go to art galleries. If you spend $35,000, shipping is free. No.

It's not. It's not. You can sometimes ask for a 10% discount. This is something that I do, and it makes me so physically uncomfortable, but you can say like, hey, is there any room for a 10% discount? And a lot of times they'll give it to you and that usually covers the cost of shipping. But the point is, if you can't afford to buy art, go to art galleries because basically somebody has bought art for you and it's amazing. And the artist likes that you're visiting, everybody's happy that you're there. John, this next question is from Moira, who asks Stierhange and John, where do whales and other ocean creatures go when there's a big storm or a hurricane? Do they dive below where the water does storm stuff?

Or do they just ride out the waves like a whale theme park? Whether in Wales, Moira. I actually have no idea, but I do know that it probably doesn't bother them. It might affect where the food is, and so that might affect where they end up going. But the thing about 10 feet under the waves is there's nothing going on. It's just normal down there. Really? Really?

Yeah. But if you're a whale, you still got to come up for air now and again, and you're like, oh, it's pretty choppy up here. It's true. I wouldn't want to get a splash in my blowhole. I think it's a little bit like, and of course we have nothing to say to ants. I think we would have something to say to whales, but I get that there's going to be a communication challenge there. But my guess is that it's like when it's a hot day instead of a warm day or a cold day instead of a cool day. I bet it's a bit of a bummer. I bet they're like, I like it a little bit better when

it's not like this. Yeah. But maybe the waves like a theme park. I bet they know how to avoid it. They don't even know how to get to wherever they want to go. Whales are pretty fast. The thing about these giant animals is you see them and they always look like they're moving very slowly, but they're giant and so they are moving quite quick. It's one of my big complaints about the Olympics and I think the Olympics is almost perfect. There's no whales? It's very anthropocentric. I mean it's extremely, you know what I mean? Like literally everything competing at the Olympics,

including the horses in dressage, are mammals. It's all mammals. So you're not just saying that it's anthropocentric, it's mammal-centric, so we need to get some fish involved. We need tuna. Falconry? Falcons. Yeah, frogs, frog jump.

Tunas. Tuna is a great idea, actually, because I would be genuinely fascinated to see if you gave a tuna lane eight in the finals of the 800 meters. I think this is a 50-50. And you said to the tuna and Katie Ledecky, listen, you're both going to swim 800 meters. You got to go down and back and touch the wall 16 total times. I think it's 50-50 who wins. I think if you could explain to the tuna what it needed to do. Yeah, then it's 100% that the tuna wins. But the point is you can't explain it's a tuna. Yeah.

And so you get the tuna there, you put it in the water and maybe just in the course of its panicking, it touches the wall 16 times. I would be very afraid for Katie Ledecky, I think is an important thing to- No, no, no, no, no. The lane goes all the way down. It's a plexiglass thing. At no point can Katie Ledecky be attacked by a tuna. That would be crazy. She's a national treasure, Hank. by a tuna. That would be crazy. She's a national treasure, Hank. I'm saying that you put a big fish tank that's the length of the pool basically and you say to the tuna, go as fast as you can for as long as you can. The tuna is not going to hear you. It doesn't understand. But it might just coincidentally do 800 meters faster than Katie Ledecky, but it might not. Yeah. I'd love to see it. I'd love to see it.

I would pay good money for that and I would bet on it too. If you could, would you put a human brain into a tuna? Not like just put it in there. If I could make a tuna. If I could make a human brain in what? That was as smart as a person. It was just like a person, but in a tuna body. Oh. Of course not, Hank. I'm not looking to create competition for where we're at. No. Okay. I think we got it hard enough without-

It's not like an ethical question. It's just like, no, no, no, no, no, no. We don't need to share right now. Yeah. I mean, what, we think like they're gonna have better ideas about global warming? No. Good point. Good point.

Good point. I don't trust this tuna, not for one second. You know what the first thing they'd say is? What the hell's up with pescatarianism? Yeah. You think that that's okay? Yeah. They'd be like pesca.

Huh. How about landatarianism? be like pesca huh how about land a tarion ism I mean for clarity tuna are also pescatarian it's a really good point it's a really good point they eat exactly one thing and it's fish oh boy before we get to the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, I want to ask one more question, Hank. It's from Callum and Callum is four. Callum writes, hi, I'm Callum and I'm four. I like tuna sandwiches.

Callum, I have amazing news. You're a four-year-old human and you can eat a whole tuna. Not a whole tuna, but you- Yeah, give it enough time. Very impressive. We're proud of you, Callum. Callum also says- Take on those top predators. I like SpongeBob popsicles and grapes. Several of my favorite things. The trees eat energy from the sun to grow and make air drops. That is a really good summary of how it works. That's cool. Where does the sun get its energy? My mom doesn't know. Sincerely, Calum. Oh, wait.

Sun, sun, searly, Calum. Good job, Calum. That's a great pun. I don't know if your mom wrote that, but if she didn't, you're very impressive. Yeah. Okay. Hank, where does the sun get its energy? It's not super simple, but it gets its energy from its mass. So as Einstein told us all, energy and mass are equivalent, and there are ways to turn one into the other. And one of the ways that you get energy from mass is through fusion. And the sun is so big and there is so much stuff there that the gravity of all of the

stuff is squishing everything down together to the point where two hydrogens can get pushed together so tightly that the electrons will move out of the way and the protons will stick together and then the electrons will make a new cloud and instead of having two hydrogens you will have one helium and as part of that process, two hydrogen atoms weigh more than one helium atom and the place where that mass went, because you can't destroy mass, the place where that mass went is it got converted into energy. And that is the energy, it is not all of where the sort of heat of the energy of the sun comes from, but that's where the vast majority of the heat of the sun comes from.

And so to try to summarize that for a four year old, Catlin. Right, and that energy comes off as two things. Well, really one thing, it comes off mostly as light. So either infrared light, which we feel as heat, or the kind of light that plants absorb after it passes through our atmosphere and hits them. And so Those photons,

those high energy photons from the sun are actually captured by the plant to do the chemistry that makes the plant and the air drops and everything else. Callum, I'm going to try to explain that for you as if you were an actual four-year-old, not as if you were in 11th grade. Okay, go. I don't think I would have understood that in 11th grade by the way. Okay. Calum, when you drop an apple, the apple falls down out of your hand onto the ground. The reason that happens is because of a force that goes all throughout the universe called gravity. That same force that makes the apple fall to the ground makes all the stuff that's inside of the

sun be held together very, very tightly. And in fact, it's held together so tightly that some of the stuff merges. And when it merges, stuff comes out of the merger. And what explodes out of the merger is light, which is why we can see the world and why we can see the apple that just fell from your hand, and also other kinds of energy. And that is the kind of energy that heats the world, and that lights the world, and that then trees use to create those airdrops that make us possible.

All right. Callum, let us know how we did. Yeah, Callum, I need to know, I need both of our scores ranked on a scale of one to five. Who did a better job and how well do you understand it now? This is what happens to John, by the way, when he does Crash Course the Universe. Now he's the science guy. Oh, yeah. Big time. So sciencey. Hank, before we get to the news from Mars and ASU Wimbledon, real quick, about 17,000 German listeners,

we love you all. Thank you so much for listening and also for writing in, wrote in to say that I understand absolutely nothing about the word Schadenfreude and its German roots. I apologize for even trying, but yeah, my bad, my bad, my bad. Schadenfreude. Hank, what's the news from Mars? There's, I mean, I feel like we haven't done this in a while. There's a lot of news from Mars. I don't even know exactly where to start.

I think I will just do, and I'll save this for, like maybe we'll have more information on the other interesting thing that happened, which is a potentially bigger deal, but it's always gonna be a maybe. But curiosity, the good old Curiosity, the one that's been on there forever, over 10 years now, it drove over a rock, which it does, but this rock broke,

and then we were able to see the inside of the rock. So usually we get into the rocks on Mars by drilling into the rocks, the rovers the brovers have drills but crushing a whole rock That's fun. That's nice because you could see all the all the way through it and they found on the inside just a tremendous amount of like elemental sulfur, so Not like bound up but like sulfur crystals very pretty very weird to see on the surface of Mars and very sulfur crystals, very pretty, very weird to see on the surface of Mars, and very, you know, like lots of sort of thoughts about how it could have been created, whether that

was sort of a volcanic thing or a hydrothermal vent thing or just a riverbed thing. And so this is very exciting. They like looked back behind the rover and were like, what the heck happened there? And this crushed rock had all of this exposed bright yellow sulfur. And so they are studying it and they're trying to figure out exactly how it might have been created. But what we are finding is that Mars is very geologically complicated. It has had a very active past, volcanically, and also had, volcanically and also had, you know, a lot of water on it for a long time. I don't know. I'm starting, like, I am increasingly of the opinion that I will probably live to find, to hear that life has existed on other planets, at least at some point in the past.

And Mars might be part of that story, might not. Venus might be part of that story. Jupiter Mars might be part of that story, it might not. Venus might be part of that story. Jupiter moons might be part of that story. Exoplanets might be part of that story. But it is seeming, I don't know, it's exciting for me. Because I think that if life is sort of just a thing that happens when you have, and this is a big active area of both research and science philosophy. If life is just a thing that happens in a world, in a universe of chemistry, then that's pretty dang cool. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we just made an episode of Crash Course the Universe that's about the astrophysics of

life and the question of whether life is routine, whether life naturally emerges from places where there's an energy source and opportunities to do chemistry. It's pretty mind blowing. The thought that we could live to see other ways that life has formed, potentially even non-DNA ways that life has formed or non-RNA ways that life has formed is absolutely thrilling to me. It would be the biggest discovery, not just of my lifetime, but the biggest discovery in human history, I think. Yeah. We would know that we're not alone, and then we could extrapolate out from there with much more clarity about how not alone we probably are.

It would be a very clarifying thing, though at the same time, I am increasingly of the belief that the thing that makes us so unusual is that you need a planet to remain stable for many billions of years to get to where we are now. I mean, think about it this way. Eukaryotic life only evolved once so far as we know, and certainly species as smart as us only evolved once. Yep. Dr. Mack made the point in the podcast that we made that birds in New Zealand had hundreds of millions of years to make it happen and they didn't. Yep. Well, Hank, the news from AFC Wimbledon is slightly less mind blowing. Our new season's about to start. We're in League Two. We'll be

taking on in our first two games Colchester on August 10th and Bromley on August 17th. I'll be going to the Bromley game, Bromley away. You're welcome to come if you'd like if you're looking for a weekend away from the fam. Bromley away. It's everybody's dream to go to Bromley. I mean, the great thing about following AFC Wimbledon Hank is that it takes me to wonderful places like Mansfield and Bromley. Other people want to go to Stratford-upon-Avon and see Shakespeare's second best bed, but not me, buddy. I want to go to Bromley in the south suburbs of London. You go to the Trip Advisor for Bromley. I'm not making this up. The two things they recommend above all else are two different cemeteries. Then the third thing they recommend is Charles Darwin's home,

which is 40 minutes away. Not in Bromley. I just went to Google Maps to find Bromley, and it brought me to a place that is not, it brought me to Bromley. But it's not telling me exactly what it is. There's no word on the map that says Bromley. No, I wouldn't describe it as a place with a word so much as a place that's a series

of ideas. Yeah, it does seem like they just sort of drew a line around a suburb, but it continues to be suburbs in all directions. Right, yeah. It's like a mid-level, it's a suburb. But it continues to be suburbs in all directions. Right. Yeah. It's like a mid-level. It's a suburb. It's not in London, but it's also in greater London. It's Bromley. I, for one, can't wait to find all of its many charms. They have a travel lodge. That's got a Yankee candle. They have a Yankee candle. I'm going to make a whole Thoughts from Places video from Bromley. I'm going to- Oh, I miss the Thoughts from Places.

I'm going to explore it in all of its metaphorical depths. If you're from Bromley, just take John in and do one of those things where he's like, how much do you pay for rent? And then you say, and then you get to look at through a little house tour. Yeah. If you are from Bromley, by the way, go to the Bromley game, sit in the Bromley stands. I don't mind. I'll be excited to meet you. You can park here for 95p an hour. That seems like a pretty good deal to me. I'm not an expert. Yeah. Okay. Bromley. Looking forward to visiting Bromley in a couple of weeks and seeing the new look AFC Wimbledon. Woo. Yeah, they got new pants.

New pants, new DFTBA logo. Sorry, John, I'm just looking at Bromley. New pants, new DFTBA logo. It's a whole new season full of love and joy and opportunity. Hank, thank you for potting with me. Thanks to everybody for listening. You can email us your questions at hankandjohnatgmail.com. This podcast is edited by Linus Obenhaus.

It was mixed by Joseph Tunamettish. Our communications coordinator is Brooke Shotwell. It was produced by Rosianna Hals-Rohas and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Taboki Trogravarti. The music you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast by The Great Gunnarolla. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.

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