Dear Hank & John - 202: Pants Clone

Episode Date: August 12, 2019

Where are the natural wheels? How do I make a conspiracy theorist understand that space exists? What are SEO tools? Should we market climate change better? Why are car horns so primitive? How do I confront my mortality compared to red curry paste? What do I do about the frog in the car? Are Tic Tacs food? John and Hank have answers! If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail]. Join 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. Of course I've heard of it if it's Dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you two B's advice and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wibble then John. Did you know? And I'm not making this up. I saw it on Twitter and then I fact checked it that according to Greek mythology, there was a half horse, half man named Kyron, or possibly Chiron, I don't know how to say Greeks words,

who did like helped heal people and was in charge of like bringing medicine to folks, making this being the centaur for disease control. And it sounds like I made that up and just like convoluted to get to the joke. But this is actually a thing. That's a great, that Hank, that's a great joke. Did you write that?

It's not a joke, one and two. No, I didn't. I've had Malinda Howard tweeted about it. It's people sent it to me on Twitter. Okay, that explains it. So someone else wrote a great joke on Twitter that you then repeated. And it is, else wrote a great joke on Twitter that you then repeated. And it is, that is a great joke.

The Centaur for Disease Control makes me briefly wish that I had Twitter again. Hank, speaking of which, you know what I would have tweeted this week? No. Nothing. That would have been a great call. I would have just stayed clear of the entire service,

which is indeed what I did. Hank, yeah, we record this podcast in the past. We do. Yes. And so it's probably for best for our emotional health. For sure, but people always think that we're responding to like a particular event when we express a level of discouragement or fear or whatever, but we never are responding to that event because we recorded the podcast so distantly in the past that we don't know what happened that people think that we're referring to.

Yeah. So let me just say about whatever happened this week. Oh my god, this is also horrible. I feel very discouraged and I know that I'm not supposed to and I know that like the data tells me that life is getting better in every way, but I can't help myself. I feel a little discouraged. I feel yeah. And there are a number of people who I wish would take your advice, and maybe even me, maybe. But I've had the thought several times this week. How do I keep this person from tweeting?

But of course, that's not my job, and probably shouldn't be, probably shouldn't have that responsibility. But boy, I saw a bunch of zingers recently, and would rather not, and also would rather people not call attention to them oftentimes, and give them even broader audiences. People love bad hot takes, but the only thing they love more than bad hot takes

is the bad hot take, takeown of the bad hot take. Yeah, and it's true. If you want to be the number one trending topic on Twitter, your best strategy is to have a bad hot take that lots of people can then have bad hot takes on. Yeah, that's so true. You're going to hear more about my experience with that on last week's delete this. Great. I also have a podcast.

It's not about Twitter. It's called the Anthropocene Reviewed and the Daily Beast just called it, I want to get this quote correctly because it hurt my feelings. Perfect. Let me read you some good reads reviews in the meantime. Is that what we're doing? They called it deeply weird and nihilistic. I disagree. I think that I know I'm trying so hard not to be nihilistic. Like all of my mental and emotional energy goes into not being a nihilist. One of your recent episodes was one of the topics,

but then you turned it around. That was the whole thing. That was the conceit of the episode. All right, you don't have to, you don't have to make me feel better about my deeply weird nihilism. This first question comes from Ola. Right, steer John and Hank.

The wheel is a superior way to get around, yet evolution hasn't gotten to it yet. Animals move around with feet and fins. There are no natural wheels. Why? Sincerely, maybe you're only Norwegian listener. Hola, not pronounced like cola. Oh crap.

Hola. That's what we, that message was from A-le. Hola. Hola. Hola. Hola. Hola.

Hola. Hola. So you gotta give us more than that. Ola. You can't tell us how it's not pronounced. Ola. Just leave it us in this. I got it.

Don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't, don't need, don't, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't, don't need, don't need, don't need, don't, don't need, don't, don't need, don't, don't need, don't, don't need, don't, don't need, don't need, don't, don't, don't need, don't need, don't need, so first, so there are natural wheels in a sense. What? So there's two senses in which there are natural wheels. One is that when different animals run, the movement of their feet actually, like when a human runs, the movement of the feet actually sort of replicate a piece of a wheel that is coming down and rolling.

We can't get the full wheel, but our body has actually adapted to mechanically simulate a wheel without being a wheel. Secondly, there are actual things that spin in the way that an engine spins. It's very unusual and very cool. It was actually some scientists thought that it was not real and it took a long time to prove and get scientific consensus around this. But bacterial flagella, like the little wiggly things

that E. Coli used to move around, actually function as a rotary engine. And it has like, it's got all the parts that like mechanical rotary engines have. And the flagella actually spins inside and it spins perpetually at like 10,000 RPM, so extremely quickly, though they're very small. So it's easier to do it. And that's how bacteria move around. So there is that one example of a perpetually spinning engine in nature. It's very hard to scale up, of course, because twisting a body part, you have to have all

the nerves and the blood vessels and the things that sort of feed it to make that work, which is why the motor inside of bacteria, like that thing that actually gets spun, isn't connected in any way, except molecular, like through molecular bonds, to the engine part that is doing the spinning. That's pretty fascinating. You can learn more about that while we're promoting our work at Journey to the Microcosmos. Hank's amazing, extremely beautiful new YouTube series

where he speaks to me calmly about the Microcosmos while I get to look at very small organisms and not think about the broader nightmare. Yeah, just the very small nightmare that is the ocean of life that constantly surrounds us. Right, but I'm used to thinking about that. That's nothing new for me. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.

Just next question is from Juliano who asks, dear Hank and John, but mostly Hank, while we're doing me questions, I were going to coffee shop, and one of our regular customers is a conspiracy theorist. He is constantly coming in and telling us about all the lies that the government is feeding us. Seems very like a healthy thing to do

to coffee shop employees. The one that makes me saddest is that he believes that space is a projection and that the stars and planets do not exist. How do I help this man understand that space is a projection and that the stars and planets do not exist. How do I help this man understand that space exists? Only if you have enough life check, it's Juliana. You can't. No, I think that it's pretty likely that this particularly conspiracy theorist is really

excited about believing things that are outside of reality and that that is empowering to them. And so taking that away, it would be perceived as a threat to their power. Yep, I don't think there's much you can do in that situation except serve the coffee and wish that person the best. And yeah.

In my experience anyway, unless it's somebody who's really close to the person, it's really difficult to make a meaningful impact. Yeah, we get, we've got an increasing number of messages about people who are dealing with conspiracy theorists who are more present in their lives than someone who comes into their coffee shop. And it is, it's very hard. And I don't really know how to confront that. I don't even know if you're close with the person I don't know how to confront it. Yeah, we get a lot of questions from kids,

from like 14 or 15-year-old kids whose parents are, you know, believe that space is a projection or that the stars aren't real or that, or whatever, or chem trails, etc., anti-vax stuff. We get a lot of messages about anti-vaccine concerns from kids who are like, how do I deal with this and my parent? And I wish that I knew what to say to them.

It's really difficult because people's beliefs, it's one thing, for instance, I believe that the federal reserve probably should not cut interest rates next quarter, right? That's the thing that I believe, I think that I'm right, but I also understand that I might be wrong, and it's not something that I believe so strongly that it becomes part of my identity. And if somebody disagrees with me,

I say to them, like, what's wrong with you, you idiot. Right? Like, I understand that I might be wrong. Like, this is complicated stuff. There's lots of different cases to be made. But there are some things that I believe that are so central to my identity that when people challenge them,

I do get really upset like that. And when people make, for instance, the idea that vaccines, you know, the MMR vaccine is dangerous or is a threat to the species or whatever, a central part of their identity, it's really, really hard to be able to talk to them about it because any threat to that idea becomes a threat to their understanding of themselves.

And of reality, I think that a lot of these things come from like trying to their understanding of themselves. And of reality. I think that a lot of these things come from trying to make sense of reality and trying to make sense of, you know, like if you are a person who has dealt with gloss and like how sort of terrible and tragic, like just, you know, the fact that we are all mortal is, sometimes people try to make sense of that by putting it on the sort of medical establishment as they might call it and saying that there's some kind of conspiracy there

and that those people can't be trusted when, in kind of a way is seeing them as an authority and wanting to have some agency over that authority. When really what they wanna have agency over is illness and mortality, which we would all love to have agency over those things. And so oftentimes it's like understanding where those things coming from can lead to enough understanding

that will allow you to continue having a relationship with that person and maybe enough understanding to, because I think that it is important to, like, if you can, to keep, you know, your family and your life. But also, maybe enough understanding to, like, see this problem in a way that allows you to speak about it without immediately having those people feel it that need to defend their beliefs and thus themselves,

which only makes those beliefs stronger. Yeah, it's a complicated problem. And I think when it's your parent or somebody who's really close to you, that's a different challenge from when it's someone at the coffee shop who you just think have to wish well and hope that they do the right thing, which is always to leave at least a $1 tip. I guess probably only in the United States, it occurs to me. Like it probably seems very weird to our one Norwegian listener.

Oh, oh, that you would tip coffee shop workers, but yeah, you should. Also, I think coffee shops mean something else. It's this thing especially because Lauren who writes dear John and Hank, I totally just put Norway in the same boat as the Netherlands and I have no regrets. They both start with N and they're both in Europe and whatever. Lauren, right? We're American.

Exactly. They don't pay us to know stuff. I don't know who they is. What are they? Yeah, I have to do. Do they pay us to not know stuff? Is there a way that I can get paid to be ignorant? I mean, other than cable news.

Burn. All right, let's get back at the podcast. We're in a rough spot. We're going to do it. Yeah. This next question comes from Warren, who writes, dear John and Hank, as a frequent listener to the pod,

I'm also a frequent listener to the ads you run before and during the pod. What are SEO tools? Are they side-end option tools? So eternally orange tools? No, you got it right first time, side-end option. It's the different options for what you put your book and lamp on at the side of your bed. Yeah, we want you to have all of the tools that you need to learn about all of the side and options that are available to you. Lauren, you would not believe how many side end tables you can get. If only you follow all of the links in our ads. The other one that she listed that I really

liked was shark eliminating odoriminating odor tools. Which I actually assumed that you had written these and so I added that one myself. Oh, no, I didn't. I didn't write them. I think it's a point of them. Oh, I see, I see. She also signed off simply extrapolating options, Lauren.

Oh, it's very good. So, John, you know how when you go to the beach and you have a problem where your child comes back from the beach and has in every possible area, very small rocks. Well, that is when you need sand enriched offspring tools. It's search engine optimization. So when you Google something or Yahoo something,

but let's face it more likely Google something. The list comes up a certain way because of search engine optimization tools, which are a bit of a dark art in the world of the internet, and I don't understand them very well, but I think they are important, which is why, like, when you read, for instance, the show notes to Dear Hank and John, it's always like Hank Green and John Green discuss, because people search for our names more than they search for Dear Hank and John, et cetera. But the weird thing about search engine optimization is that the idea is that you feed the algorithm the information that it wants, but the algorithm is trying desperately to not respond only to information that it wants, but it can't help itself.

And so we end up with an internet that's optimized for Google.com rather than an internet that's optimized for like the human users of Google.com. Yes, you definitely see this with YouTube where there was a certain period of time where it became really beneficial to not respect your viewer's time. And to just drag out the length of your video as long as possible. And YouTube would be like, hey, people are watching this longer. And I'm like, God, could you just edit it at all?

Yeah, right. Me watching something longer doesn't necessarily mean that I like it more. It just means that I'm willing to sit here. Uh, it's one of my pet peeves as a person who has worked very hard to say a lot of stuff in four minutes. I feel very old.

You're very old. You sound like an old man yelling at the cloud right now. I am. And by the cloud, I don't mean the thing in the sky. I mean, the computer, the computer that lives inside of a server somewhere. Not nearly as loud as the Centaur for Disease Control as dad jokes go. All right, this next question comes from Ariela, who asks, Dear Hank and John, climate change is real.

Agreed. God, we're all on the same page. As a nation and as species, we've mobilized against many lesser issues in much larger ways. Is this a marketing issue? Do we need to market climate change like an aggressive threat? Should all of the Earth's graphic design and rhetorical resources be allocated to this? Glad I'm not under the sea, Aeriella. But if you were under the sea,

you'd have less to worry about, except for the acidification. You know, it just occurred to me. No, I don't. In the little mermaid, when they're like, it's better down here where it's wetter under the sea. Don't they mean in the sea? Like, if you're under the sea, I see what you're saying. Aren't you in the dirt, or whatever it is that's underneath the sea. Don't they mean in the sea? Like, if you're under the sea, I see what you're saying.

Aren't you in the dirt or whatever it is that's underneath the sea? So like the sea ends at the sea floor and then, and then you're under the sea. You don't want to be under the sea. Yeah, because it's not better there. It's not wetter. It's less wet because it's mudier. You want to be above under the sea, but below over the sea. Right, we're over the sea. There's probably some worms and stuff under the sea. Ariel is in between those two places. Yeah, I just want to call attention to what I see as the greatest failure of our time,

Ariel, which is that super little mermaid doesn't use the right preposition when describing her relationship with the sea. Well, there's your question. Oh, right. Yeah, so climate change is real and one of the challenges, but I actually think not the major challenge. One of the challenges is that lots of people don't think

that it's an important development in human history or that it's going to cause big disruptions in the human story. And I think some of that is because the future is unpredictable and people know the future is unpredictable. And so that's an element of it. I do think that some of it is a failure of marketing. And if you look, for instance, at the way that we handle cigarettes smoking in the United States,

it used to be that people just assumed that everyone was going to smoke cigarettes. And there was not much you could do to move the smoking rate because people who smoked really liked smoking and it was really hard to quit because of the physical addiction. But we had this incredible public information campaign that dramatically reduced the percentage of cigarette smokers in the United States

because of that public information campaign. And I think we could do that with climate change. I think we will do it eventually, but we can't do it as like individuals. Or I don't think we can have as big an impact as individuals. I think we need the support of big institutions like nation states. Yeah, I often think about how we could,

like as like get more interest behind issues through good design and rhetoric that we use, we use it mostly to, like, sell tic-tacs, which are fine. Yeah. But, like, that's where most of that energy and those resources go, and I often think, like, if, you know, there's a lot of resources that go to selling bottled water and, like, very little that goes to selling tap water, like no one markets tap water, but as like a good, cool thing that's good. And I think it's part of the reason why bottled water sells well is because tap water

doesn't have a marketing budget. No, absolutely. The incentives are to increase the total amount of consumption, which is good for economic growth in a narrow sense, but is likely very, very bad for the long, long term future of the species. I do think that it's changing. I think more people are concerned, I think more people are concerned correctly about climate change. I don't know that it will change fast enough. Or, I mean, I think the biggest thing is that we've got to accept the reality that in the short run, this is going to involve really significant sacrifice.

And that's a hard thing for people to accept, especially when there are everyday problems, like the problems that are all around us are real. It's just that the climate change problem is also real and has potentially catastrophic consequences. Yeah, and I think that there is sometimes a mistake that the solution is easy, but it does require a scaling back of economic growth to some extent, and that has consequences.

But it's about whether or not we as a species, kind of for the first time ever, can look more than a few years down the road. And that, to the extent that we manage to do it, I think that it will be a something that we as a species have never done before. And it may be already, to some extent, like we are working on a problem beyond the scale of any we have yet faced, which is somewhat inspiring and somewhat hopeful. It's just that we have not gotten anywhere near the amount of action that is necessary, which is hard.

Yeah, I don't think that despair is the correct response, though. No, I think that think that despair is the correct response, though. No, I think that continuing to work is the correct response. Sorry, I was starting to feel despair. I was talking to myself, not to you to be clear. This next question comes from Steven, who writes to your John and Hank, why are car horns so primitive?

Shouldn't we have amazing adjustable, super customizable car horns by now? For example, shouldn't I be able to dial in my aggravation level before sounding my car horn similar to the way I can dial in my sense of how frequently the windshield wipers should do their thing? That's a great point. Like, we have customizable windshield wipers, but we only have one car horn. Imagine the possibilities even, comma, Stephen. Hank, this brings me to my million dollar idea for the week. Okay, it's time for a million dollar idea, John, brought a million dollar idea.

I got one from Twitter as well, but first we're going to start with John. Okay, so you know how everybody has a blood type? Sure. I think that along with the rest of your medical records, you should register a favorite song. And then when the day comes, when you need an ambulance, as the ambulance drives, instead of playing those horrible, blaring sirens. Oh my God.

The ambulance plays your favorite song. So like, you don't have to, like in this time of crisis, be listening to the worst possible sound. Instead, you're just listening to a very loud version of Old Town Road. Yeah, I'm gonna take my horse to the Old Town Road by which I mean my seriously incapacitated body

to the hospital. Exactly. You know, like I just mean, how is this not already happened? It is a clear, unambiguous million dollar idea. So say, I love it so much. What is your Zoltan road? No, probably not, although I mean, so Sarah's argument when I told her this million dollar idea, she had a few concerns. First, she was concerned that

people wouldn't update their favorite song. And so they would end up having the last song that they hear, be like their song with their ex-wife or something. Right, sure. Or the thing that they really loved when they set up their insurance card when they were 16. Totally. But my counter argument to that argument

is that, like, would it actually motivate you to go in and update your medical record more frequently? Yeah. If you knew that you were also setting your awesome ambulance song. Yeah, it's, I like it. I also like it from the external perspective of, like, it humanizes the person in the ambulance. Exactly.

I'm like, oh. I'm like, oh. I want to get out of the way because you're like, oh my god, it's another bar of strizand fan. It's a, it's another barbers' rise and fan. It's a, it's a person in there. Right. It's just a huge B-52s fan. Come and sound the road.

Yeah, exactly. I, so anyway, Steven, I think you're onto something with the car horn business, but I, I don't think you've taken it far enough. Right. Exactly. I mean, I don't know how much time Steven has between like when something occurs and when Steve would, would, would like to honk, because for me that there's no time. It's an instant, I don't have a time to, I don't know how much time Stephen has between like when something occurs and when Steve would like to honk, because for me that there's no time. It's an instant, I don't have time to adjust my windshield wipers in that moment.

No, but I would like my every honk to not be a honk sound. Like I would love it if instead of just a regular honking sound when I hit the car horn, my car said something like, hey, get outta here. Like, well, what I do need is a button that says, the light is green, because that's 90% of times that I honk. Right. No one in this town pays attention when they're stopped at a light. They just sit there. Okay, so my Chevrolet Volt Hink actually has that button.

So, Chevrolet Volt's the perfect car. I got perfect car. I got a comb with an emergency honker that honks like a regular honker. But there's also a button on the side that you can hit that's just like, hey, oh, hey. Just let you know.

Hi. What a, she's in case you're curious. You might want to look up from your phone. So it's a green light. I think my siren song would definitely be I'm alive by ELO. So you could just be going down the road and it's like it's both speaking to me in the ambulance in this moment when I need an ambulance.

Telling me that I am alive, but also everybody around, like the person the ambulance is alive. Right. And also that song is so, it rocks so hard. I might go with that disco hit, I will survive. You know, at first I was afraid I was petrified. Or hold on by Wilson Phillips.

That's another good one. It's just like, yeah. I'm glad, hey, I'm really glad that you agree with me that my million dollar idea is a million dollar idea because it's so good. Yeah, I love it. I don't know how to monetize it. No idea how to monetize it.

Well, I think if we ever known how to monetize anything. No idea how to monetize it. Well, I figured that out. Hey, if we ever known how to monetize anything, no. We'll figure it out. What's the $1,000 idea you got off Twitter? All right. So this is Ian's million dollar idea from Twitter. I was posted earlier today. You know what would be a good idea for a company? You send them your favorite pair of pants,

and they copy them exactly to make you your perfect pants. It's called pants clone. That is the forget about ambulance songs. That is the best idea I've ever heard in my entire life. How has that not already happened? I know. It sounds very expensive, like to deconstruct and reconstruct a pair of pants,

but there are so many rich people in the world. Like, look, it can't cost more than $200 per pair of pants, right? I don't know. I don't know how much labor goes into, like, doing a CT scan of your pants, basically. I would love that. I'm wearing my favorite pants right now, which means that I won't be wearing them five days this week

and it's such a bummer. Ian, I have a solution to that problem, John, which is where your pants for five days in a row, like everyone else. Well, but then they start to get so baggy that they're not my favorite pair of pants anymore. They're a different pair, yes. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. I like my pair of pants to just hug my legs in all the right ways and none of the wrong

ones. I love this idea from Ian and that is an actual million dollar idea I wish I knew how to like I would invest in that company tomorrow if somebody out there is Making a highly customized pants clone pants company hit me up pants clone.com isn't even taking John Oh my god Hank. Maybe we should just do it. You know, like maybe we should just do it. John, this next question comes from Sarah who asks, dear Hank and John, I was cleaning up my fridge today and noticed that my jar of red curry paste doesn't expire for almost 700 years.

This has made me think about, this has made me think a lot about my own mortality as well as that of the earth. Do you think that this red curry paste is going to outlast the human race? And most importantly, how do I get rid of this? I don't want to have a jar of red curry paste until I die. I have to bequeath it to someone in my will. I'm very curious to hear your thoughts, Sarah. PS, I'm looking forward to attending your minotaur in Minneapolis.

John, I think that there's a misprint. Yeah. Just get out ahead of it. Well, I mean, you don't think that there's a misprint. There is a factual misprint. But like, more importantly, there's a very easy way to get rid of red curry paste, and it is to use it in its desired fashion, make it into poop. Yeah.

No, I mean, you should eat the, you should eat the curry paste. We all agree about that. There's no question that you should eat the curry paste. It's fine for years, for as long as you need it. Yeah, I mean, sometimes I do, I mean, I'm guessing that it says that it goes back in 27, 19, which means that it probably goes back in 2019.

So you probably scarf down that red curry paste, not like with a spoon or anything, but, but even if it says it goes bad in 2019, it doesn't really go bad until at least 20, 20, 20. We're talking about curry paste. We're not talking about milk. Right. There's that viral image of Himalayan sea salt that has an expiration date on it. And it's just like, it's a rock. It's rock. Yeah. It's millions, millions of years old rock. Right. I mean, to be fair, it was,

it was from when this Himalaya's were in the ocean. That's how it's gonna be okay. Yeah. I think you can eat the curry paste. And I don't think you need to worry about your own mortality happening before you finish the curry paste, and I don't think you need to worry about your own mortality happening before I finish the curry paste, unless there's something that you know that we don't. Well, it is, it is all often, I think that something that people are a little freaked out by when they realize that like the plastic bottle that you drink your diet, doctor pepper out of is gonna be on the earth for longer than you. That is a little bit upsetting, but there it is. Yep.

It used to it. You're gonna die and plastic lasts forever, so use less of it. It doesn't last forever. It just lasts for hundreds of thousands of years. It will last much longer than our species, that's for sure. And at the moment, we're recycling very little of it. Hank, when you think about where we are in the human story,

like two atara have been around for 250 million years. Humans have been around for 250,000 years. Where do you think we are percentage-wise? Like, are we in the first quarter? We actually did a social video about this, so there's a number of different ways of looking at it, but like the way that you're asking is just like my opinion. Gosh, I really want to be hopeful. I think it's hopeful to say that we're in the third quarter. We might have different definitions of hope. Yeah, I want us to be around for 250 million years, John. If we're in the third quarter, that would mean that there are like a thousand generations

of humans to come after me. Yeah, it's true, but I'd be great if we have the lifespan of a two-atara, but we are a lot more complicated than two-atara in terms of what we can accomplish. So I think it's really hard. but like we are a lot more complicated than Tuatara in terms of like what we can accomplish. So I think it's really hard. It's just really hard to know. Like nothing on Earth has ever happened like us.

We are a unique thing, a unique occurrence in the history of Earth. And so we have no idea. There is no way to get that data. This is like when I asked President Barack Obama if I should name my daughter Eleanor or Alice and he wouldn't bite Yeah, no I just oh gosh I hope that there is less and less suffering every year forever

Well Good news and that's how I answer every question from now on That'd be a great. It's played safe. That'd be a great like presidential answer too, if somebody were like, what's your policy on healthcare spending? And you'd be like, you know what we need to do? Reduce the overall amount of human suffering.

And that's what I'm gonna do when I'm president. I'm gonna reduce human suffering. I've only got one platform. And it's really good to see you in this. I like pie. All right, hey, we have another question. This one's really, I like pie. All right. We have another question. This one's from Abby who writes, dear John and Hank, I caught a frog just for fun.

And now it's in my mom's car and I can't find it. What do I do? Abby. Abby, I just want to say how much I appreciate the fact that your question was short. It contained no extraneous information, but it also didn't contain like too little information. You didn't leave anything out.

It's the perfect question. Yeah, because my first question would be, why did you catch a frog? And you say, just for fun. Yeah. I guess the only reason, you might, for instance, be trying to generate a prince. You might be.

Right, yes, there's that. You might be. Right. Yes, there's that. You remember when we were kids that people believed if you licked the back of a certain toad, you could have a hallucinogenic experience? That is actually true. Those totes don't live in Florida. Oh, boy, I looked a lot of totes for no reason then.

Yeah, only one of them turned into a man. That's not what you were going for at all. Yeah, it could be like post-apocalypse and you are really hungry. That's another reason to catch a frog. There's a bunch of reasons to catch a frog, but we know why Abby caught that frog, which was just for fun.

And now it's in Abby's mom's car and she can't find it, what do I do? I would like to know how big the frog is because there are some very small frogs in the world. Some are so small that they could get into a place in a car that a human cannot get to, but also so small that when that frog dies there, it will not be of consequence. So here's my theory, Abby.

There's a 99% chance that this frog is gonna get out of that car. And let me tell you how I know, I know because just today, a mouse ate some of my peanut M&Ms out of my car. So I know for a fact that mice can get into and out of cars. So so can frogs. That's the end of the story.

Yeah, that's how you lost the frog. The frog is gone. The frog is out. The frog is out. The frog was like, I was just caught just for fun. I am not being a party to this nonsense anymore. By the way, you know who wasn't just having fun? The frog. Yeah, the frog.

Yes. Meanwhile, the frog goes back to like, it's frog family and is like, so I've had a day. I mean, what? So the only, with the only other thing that you can do here is like sneak out at two o'clock in the morning with your iPhone fully charged, turn on that flashlight and go through every inch of this car trying to find a frog.

I don't think that there are frog traps that like are good, like have a good outcome for the frog. So you don't want that. I think you have to search the frog. And then your mom comes out and like, what are you doing with your iPhone in the car and you're like, you got to just say that you're like out there smoking marijuana or something that's intimidating than the actual situation.

I'm just looking at the back of some hallucinogenic toads, mom. No big deal. Definitely not looking for a frog in your car. That wouldn't be like me at all. Yeah, it's just not going to be that big of a deal. Here's what's going to eventually happen, Abby. Your mom's either going to find a frog or a frog carcass and your mom will be like, oh my god, I found a toad in the car today and you'll be like, mom, I'm pretty sure it

was a frog actually. And then that was your mistake. And that's how you're gonna get found out. It's like a cool umbo moment where, Mom's gonna be like, hmm, well then. Oh God, John, which reminds me that this podcast is brought to you by Secret Cartodes. You got that secret carto, you're hoping it gets out of the car,

but maybe it doesn't. Now it's just a secret you have to keep for your whole life. Pretty good name for a band, secret cartoads. I'd lessen't. Today's podcast is also brought to you by Personalized Ambulance Songs, Personalized Ambulance Songs, John's first proper million dollar idea.

And this podcast, of course, is also brought to you by Space! Space! It definitely exists. It does. Not only do we have a bunch of satellites up there, we've sent persons, yeah, human beings. And chimpanzees, a number of species.

Do they think that there's no rover on Mars? I guess they don't think that there's a Mars. Yeah, they know. I mean, there are people who think that the Earth is flat, but the other planets aren't, John. Oh, well, that doesn't hold up to scrutiny. I don't know how else to respond to that. And today's podcast is brought to you by super experimental orchid tools, super experimental orchid tools.

The most important SEO tools available today. Yeah, I mean, how else are you going to get your super experimental orchids happy? We also have a project for us a message from Dan for Etvid. today. Yeah, I mean, how else are you going to get your super experimental orchids happy? We also have a project for awesome message from Dan for Etude. Hey, Dad, I'm on the pod. Well, vicariously anyway, I just wanted to say how glad I am to have the chance to bring you into this weird subculture. It's not often that we share similar tastes, but having this between us has been an amazing experience. And I don't think I say that often enough. Thank you for being the absolute best dad. We'd love Dan. Dan, I'm just going to rewrite the end of your project for Austin message real quick. I love you, dad. Dan. It's so hard to say that to our dad sometimes, Dan, but it's really important.

So I thought that I would just do it. That was really sweet. That was very, I liked it a lot. That is sweet. Thank you both for being part of this community and for sharing it with each other. John, I have another question for you. It comes from Claire who asks, dear Hank and John, I was just at Hank's paperback release show in Austin. Thank you for coming.

It was super fun. And while waiting for the show to start, the mother of a friend of mine that I made in line offered me tick-tax. Only she mentioned that she had that I made in line offered me tic-tacs. Only she mentioned that she had to sneak them in since the vine you didn't allow food. This seemed wrong to me as I do not consider tic-tacs to be food.

They have calories but like soda's dirt. However, everyone there seemed to disagree with me. Please settle this, our tic-tacs food, fly me to the moon, Claire. P.S. thanks for the tic-tac, Tierney's mom. I Claire. P.S. thanks for the Tic Tac Tierney's mom. I think the P.S. was very important. Sorry, yes. That's good. Hank, I think that you will agree with me

that Tic Tacs are not food, Altoid men's are not food, and gum is not food. And so you can bring, in fact, you must bring all of those things into events like, for instance, our mini tour on August 16th and August 18th in respectively Madison and Minneapolis because they are not food. I see where you're going.

And if you want them during the show, you will have no other way to acquire them. I have to posit that mint tick tax are not food, but orange tick tax are. That is the kind of BS that is destroying this country. Did I actually have too much? I can't tell. Yeah, because like a mint, you can just have mints in your, in your pocket.

And that's fine. But an orange tic tac is basically an orange. Hank, do you want to know how many calories are in an orange flavored tic-tac? It's going to blow your mind. One. None. That's not true. So they're not food. End of story. They're rounding. They're not food. They're a rounding error. I so I think that like like tic-tacs are food in that if you eat them, they are dide, they are metabolized like food. They are not foods too.

Oh wait, it's two. They are not foods too. I was wrong. It's two. Let's do. But probably should have researched that before satin is so authoritative. It's 2019, John. You don't have to actually know things to say them.

Hank, before we get to the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, and I mean, our great national nightmare is over, and AFC Wimbledon season has begun again. But before we get there, I need to read you this very important email that we received from Kelly. Hello, brothers, green. Just to help alleviate your grossed out of this, it's saying Ralph Lauren, you were right the first time his name is actually pronounced Lauren, like the woman's name source. I was an executive assistant at LHQ for a while when I first moved to New York and worked with the CFO as well as the EVP of women's design and met Ralph on a number of occasions Mostly regarding bringing him food in lunch meetings. I have not to date Ben in an elevator with him

I'm also getting photographer who photographed both of you in San Francisco on the turtles all the way down to her Thanks to be it all Kelly. Well, thanks for the photo next time I'm also getting photographer who photographed both of you in San Francisco on the turtles all the way down to her. Thanks for being a little bit of a head. Kelly. Well, thanks for the photo. Next time you are in the same room as Ralph Lauren, can you ask him what the joke that Rachel made was? Also, Kelly, I have to say that I very rarely remember anything that happens in my life, but I do remember being photographed by you in San Francisco because you did such a great job and made both Hank and me feel so at ease and happy.

So thank you. It is a really wonderful memory. I hope that we did okay as subjects. All right. Hank, I'll start. I'll start. I'll start. Okay.

You go. AFC Wimbledon are back in league one. Yeah. The third tier of English football we survived on goal difference last season. Our season has started. And you know what Hank? On the morning of August 1st, I woke up

and I saw that AFC Wimbledon was at the tippy tippy top of the league one table in first place. And you know why? Alphabetical order. Alphabetical order. We played our first game against Roth or place. And you know why? Alphabetical order. Alphabetical order. We played our first game against Roth or Ham, and we lost. We did score a goal, which is encouraging.

And it was a good goal. Joe Piggett scored it, which is encouraging too, because it means he still plays for AFC Wimbledon. And has not been sold yet to a club in a higher division. We gave up a really dumb annoying goal in the 29th minute and then we scored a kind of beautiful goal mouth scrambly goal at the start of the second half. And it looked like AFC Wibbleden were on their way to a opening day draw, but then in the 84th minute we gave up a goal.

Clark Robertson scored for Rotherham and they won 21. Now you'll recall that last season, 21 was the exact scoreline that we lost like 30 games by. Hopefully that is not going to be a tradition moving forward this weekend or in the past as people are listening to it. We will be playing Fleetwood, a game that is theoretically much more winnable than our first game. Okay. Even though Fleetwood is currently standing atop League 1, it's only after one game played. I think we can win this one.

We are going to have to start winning games at some point, but Hank, but despite the fact that we did not win our first game, we are out of the relegation zone in 16th place because several teams lost their games by more points. Oh, all right, middle of the pack. There you go. Is that right? Is it the middle of the pack? Middle of the pack. Okay, I was right. Well, John, and news from Mars at the end of July SpaceX got its star hopper to hop. You know about the star hopper, John? Yeah, it is a prototype version of the star ship, the tall stainless steel rocket that SpaceX continuously renders on the surface of Mars, looking very cool.

And SpaceX hopes to use it to send humans to Mars one day before 2028. So scientists at SpaceX wanted to see if the star hopper could actually fly. So they've been trying to make those tests happen that that has been a rocky start. The whole plan was to get the rocket to gently lift off the ground about 60 feet and then to gently touch back down. First, there was a weird fireball on the launch pad that delayed the test a few days, and then the first test ended extremely quickly when the rocket shot flames out of the tip. Oh boy.

And then finally, when they tested it again at the next day, the SpaceX team was able to get the star hopper to do it 60-foot hop. All these tests are just in preparation for the actual rocket that SpaceX hopes to send up. So they've also been working in Florida to create more space for a launchpad that will be used when the Starship is ready for liftoff. So SpaceX, Star Hopper has hopped one hop closer to the Starship being a real thing with real humans into it, really taking people really safely to Mars. That would be really cool after 2028. It doesn't matter what the podcast is called,

John, it matters that we're brothers and that we love each other. Do you think if you had to make a bet today, do you think that it will be a private company, SpaceX, or other that gets the first human to Mars, or do you think it will be a national government? No, I think it's going to be a national government. Yeah. I think that, of course, there will be many private subcontractors, which there were, you know, have always been in the space program. Right. And SpaceX, I'm sure, will be involved in private subcontractors, which there were, you know, have always been in this space program. Right. And SpaceX, I'm sure, will be involved in that one way or another, but no, I don't think

that that, like Elon Musk is going to come up with trillion dollars to send people to Mars. You know what I just found out. I just found out that two of the teams in League one, the third tier of English football, for being naughty or having debt or something. I can't really follow it. Are starting out with negative 12 points. Wow. That's great news. And obviously you never rude against anyone for any reason. Dot, dot, dot. Is it any of the, any of the, what kind of teams are they? It's Bolton and Barry.

I mean, do they, do they kind of like dig out of that whole pretty easily? Not based on the results of their first games. All right. So we'll see. We'll see. Maybe that'll make it a smidge easier for us to, uh, hang around. But who knows who knows? Life is full of life is full of twists and turns in the 2019 2020 EFL league

one season will be no exception. John, thank you for making a podcast with me. It's always good to have you there in my life when the world is a little tattered around the edges. Same. So, thank you. Same. And thank you, everybody, for listening.

This podcast is edited by Joseph Tuneh Mettich. It's produced by Rosiana Halls-Rohas and Sheridan Gibson. Our editorial assistant is Deboki Chakravarti, which is a new name to add to the list. Thanks for helping us find cool stuff to think about and talk about. Our head of community and communication is Victoria Bon Jorno, the music you're hearing now, and the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gunnarola,

and as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪