Dear Hank & John - 21: Who Am I?

Episode Date: October 26, 2015

Halloween costume advice. Does John think people are evil? Misunderstanding Risk. Advice for referees of kids soccer games. Would the Bat Signal actually work? How does the stock market work? And, of course, a very brief discussion of the self.

Shhh! Listen or support it. W NYC Studios. Hello and welcome to Dear Hank in John. Or as I've heard a thing of it, Dear John and Hank. It's a podcast, a comedy podcast, where me and my brother John talk about death, and we answer people's questions and give them dubious advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Rimbledon.

How you do a John? Oh I'm doing alright, I'm surrounded by darkness. Yeah, well I'm surrounded by light. I'm not really, I'm actually doing fine, I don't know why I said I was surrounded by darkness. In an astonishing development, what I've now referred to as the long improbable summer of Taylor Swift in Indianapolis continues. It's perhaps...

It's actually really lovely here in Mizzoula too. I don't know if she played there this week, but it's 74 degrees outside right now, and it rained briefly, and I was like, okay, it's ended. It's finally ended. The autumn has arrived, but though the leaves are changing and it could not be more beautiful to watch the yellow and red appear throughout the trees of Indianapolis, the weather itself remains just blissfully sunny. Well I'm glad we get to talk about the weather here on the podcast, John.

I had my customary post convention wave of depression crash on me yesterday. That's just something that happens. And so, you know, you're ready for it, you know, it's gonna happen. Cause I, for those of you who don't know, I run a company that runs conventions. It's very like you work really hard to make this thing happen and then it happens and then it ideally goes well.

And then you feel real good until you don't anymore. It's very strange and it happens every time. ideally goes well, and then you feel real good until you don't anymore. It's very strange, and it happens every time. And so that happened yesterday. It was still a little bit reeling from it. Did you take the day off? What do you do in that situation? Well, I tend to not realize it's happening for a while. And so no, I just did my normal thing, which is good.

Like, the normal thing sort of like carry you through, but then what happened is I had this period of not having anything to do, and then I immediately went in search of people who might be on the internet trying to make me angry. I don't know, that's the thing I do when I'm depressed, but I do. I go on the internet and I look for people who dislike me. Well, and to be clear, you mean sad, more than depressed.

You don't mean that there's some like, crushing pathological problem, just that there's a sadness that descends upon you. Yeah, well, yeah, like a mood that I am not in control of and that is unpleasant. Right, yeah, no, that's no fun. And then I myself have also been known to, in those times, go on to the internet

and try to find people who hate me so that I can um yeah feel bad about myself and be confirmed in the knowledge that everything I fear about myself is true and that the world knows it. All right. You want to short poem? Yeah let's do it. God this is a funny podcast. Okay Hank here's our poem for today it's called The Skylight by Shamus H Heaney. It's actually a recommendation by Jeremy. You were the one for Skylights. I opposed cutting into the seasoned tongue and groove of pitch pine. I liked it low and closed. It's claustrophobic nest up in the roof effect. I like the snuff dry feeling, the perfect trunk-wid fit of the old ceiling. Under there, it was all

hutch and hatch. The blue slates kept the heat like midnight thatch. But when the slates came off, extravagant sky entered and held surprise wide open. For days I felt like an inhabitant of that house where the man sick of the palsy was lowered through the roof, had his sins forgiven, was healed, took up his bed, and walked away. This highlight by Sheamus Heaney, a funny poem to start our comedy podcast. I was just thinking the other day about how I like enclosed spaces and how my bedroom is very large, it has a large, high ceiling, it's not very large, but it has a very high ceiling.

And sometimes I'm like, I just want to be in the closet. I love glass and steel homes. I believe my favorite house is Philip Johnson's glass house, and I would be very happy living in a house with no walls at all just so long as I had extreme privacy. Nope, that's not how I feel. I, I, I used to when I was a kid, just make little nests in the closet and, and pack myself in there. Uh, and, and spend time there. And my parents thought it was super weird. Our

parents, yeah, they were more of my parents as well. Henry does that now. So maybe he got that from his uncle Hank. Let's answer a question from our readers. Uh, this is an important one, Hank. And it's, it's kind of breaking news. It's seasonally appropriate. It's from Abyshe writes Dear John and Hank as Halloween is approaching. I have a question. What are your favorite costumes you've made? Oh I was Jane from Firefly once last year. I was hiccup and Catherine was from Firefly once. Last year I was hiccup and Catherine was the dragon. What's the dragon's name?

I mean, our friendship is in danger right now. I mean, I obviously know this. My wife was the dragon for Halloween. The dragon is a night fury. I know what kind of dragon it is. Why is the thing not in my head? Does he have any tooths? Does he have any tooths?

Oh, it's toothless. It's toothless. The dragon. Tooth right. So we were toothless and hiccup. And once we were Napoleon and Deb from Napoleon Dynamite, which I think was my favorite of all time. Yeah, you've always been better at costuming than I have. Sarah and I never really dressed up. We went to one costume party together. I can't remember what I dressed up as, but she dressed up as a cowgirl and it was unconvincing. I should say also when I was Jane, Katherine was Kaylee.

So we like to do the couple thing. Kaylee is my favorite. She's adorable. Oh, she's totally in favorite, yeah. So the only costume I can remember properly loving is when I was a little kid, my mom made me a robot costume that I wore like three or four Halloween's in a row,

because it was just- That robot costume was awesome. It was magnificent. Yeah, it was just amazing. I remember that. I felt like a robot. I was so jealous of it. Yeah.

I mean, when I was inside of it, I felt like, this is it, man. I did it. I've become an artificial intelligence. It was great. Plus I got candy. What a great, what an underrated holiday. I, as an adult, I find it very strange.

Here's the thing I like about Halloween. I like that we send our children to strangers' houses. I think that that's a good thing that we should do more often. Now, like too much more often, as an adult, I don't want too many strangers coming to my house. Right, right, right. I like that we send children to strangers' houses.

I don't really like that they send them to my house. But I like that I'm willing to accept it because I like the institution of just like, OK, let's have faith in humanity for a day. What I don't really like is that the pay off is just like, okay, let's have faith in humanity for a day. What I don't really like is that the pay off is just awful, awful food that is very bad for children. Oh, I don't know. It seems like a strange thing to celebrate.

I think it's fine. By the way, do you know how many children have died in the United States from Poisoned Halloween candy? I believe it's zero. It is zero. How many times there's been a razor blade inside an apple? That's also a zero. Also a zero.

Yes. This is a great example of the sort of disparity between actual data and our perceptions. It just seems dangerous to send our kids out and allow them to accept candy from strangers. But in fact, it isn't. Yeah, we are bad at understanding danger as humans. Oh, terrible at it. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've risked my life by applying hand sanitizer while driving a car.

Yeah, that is definitely a great example of misunderstanding risk. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha are inherently evil while Hank, as a scientist, believes humans aren't inherently good. Do you agree with this viewpoint? No, John doesn't believe humans are inherently evil, do you? No, I just believe humans are inherently hungry. Oh, well, I mean, for at least part of the day. No, I don't mean like physically hungry. I mean, hungry. I mean ambitious.

I mean that when necessary, you know, homo-hominy- lupus because you're hungry and ambitious and you know, the heart wants what it wants kind of thing. I don't think people are bad, I think, that they're hungry. Right, well, I think that there is also a lot of, like in addition to the hunger, there are other motivations that are good. And like And of course, what is good and bad? But the distinction between the author and the scientist is interesting here that if you take an objective point of view, people look like good people, and if you take a more

imagining possibilities possibilities maybe, then humans look more dastardly? I don't know. I think that's an interesting point of view. I don't think that, I have to say, I don't think humans are good or bad. I think that they're good and bad. Henry is obsessed.

I have a five and a half year old son for new listeners to the podcast. My five and a half year old son is obsessed with good and evil and most of the stories that really resonate with him, whether it's Star Wars or Ninjago or Penguins of Madagascar, like most of those stories have good guys and bad guys. The good guys are pretty darn good and the bad guys are pretty darn bad. And then there are the characters that Henry calls complicated. And I remember one time he said, he said, Daddy, Hulk smash is complicated. And I was like, is he? And he said, yeah, Hulk smash is complicated. He's good and bad. And I think this is not just Hulk smash.

I think in fact, almost everyone is good and bad. And I also think that in trying to do good, you can do horrible, horrible, evil and in trying to do bad, you can also do good. It's just so hard to sort it out. I think that what I mean when I say humans are inherently good is that people are bound by the contracts of culture. That is one of the things that we consider to be the good is that culture has rules and we tend to obey them. The other thing that I mean when I say that humans are good is that in general, a lot of the motivations of people are to make life better for the people they love.

Yeah, I agree with that. I, and I believe in empathy and I believe that humans are capable of extraordinary altruism. I wouldn't go so far as to say that people are good, like you keep saying. In fact, every time you say it, I'm wincing a little bit because it just seems far too optimistic. I don't know, I've met a lot of people,

and they seem pretty nice. I agree, almost all of the people that I have ever met are good, and I will say this, I guess, all the people I've ever met are both good and broken. But most of all, hungry. I can't exercise enough. How much I believe in human hunger. Oh, I guess.

Okay, let's move on. We can agree to disagree. People are good and hungry and broken. Okay, it's our first proper disagreement. Hank thinks that humans are good. I think that humans are good and bad. That's as close as we've ever come to a real disagreement. Okay, Hank, we've got another question.

This one is very important and it comes from Adam who writes, Dear John and Hank, I am a junior in high school and I referee kids soccer games. First off, Adam, I just want to pause to thank you for doing the Lord's work. This means I have a lot of experience with angry parents yelling at me.

Why do you think adults are compelled to yell at teenagers during sports games? And what should I do about it? Oh, Adam, this is such a good question. It is. And I'm so sorry that in refereeing children's soccer games, you, a high school junior, are being treated by parents as if you are an actual figure of authority.

I think, so I, I, I don't know if this is gonna work, but my, my suggestion to you, I don't really know how, how children's soccer games work, but I assume that it's just a bunch of people standing along, like there's no, this is bunch of people standing around, right? It would like a line on the ground and some goals. Yeah. So go up to the people before the game and say,

hi, my name is Adam, I'm a junior over at the school, over at Middledale, high school. And I just wanted to say, I'm out here to like make sure everybody has a good time and try and make sure everybody doesn't get hurt and it's nice to meet you. And then maybe they will have some empathy and realize that they are yelling at a child. Yeah, I actually agree with that strategy.

And maybe also say, just actually say, I am a person in addition to pointing out that you were a junior in high school. Like, one of the weird things about referees is that I have a theory, I have a theory actually that wearing uniforms is a way of dehumanizing, is a way of dehumanizing the other. Oh yeah. So like, and that uniforms are kind of like designed so that you don't have to think about people as people. One time when I was in college,

I went to a girl's softball game, was dating a member of the softball team, and I am a, I'm just an inveterate talker at public sporting events, and I don't, even like, you know, like Alice is, my daughter is two, and when she plays soccer, I will even, I won't criticize the refereeing, but I will comment upon it.

Um. Um. Just because it's the thing to do. It's part of the sporting event. Yeah, exactly. It feels like it's part of the sporting event. So I remember anyway, I was, I was criticizing the strike zone at this women's softball game at Kenyon College Division III school. And the umpire just took off his mask

and he turned around and he looked at me. And the moment he looked at me, I was like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. I didn't realize you had eyes. I just realized you were a person, like all the other people. Oh, yeah, so Adam, I think what's happening is that, you know, people aren't thinking of you as a person.

They're thinking of you as sort of an obstacle to their child's success. And when you do that, it feels like someone is opposing your child, and you're very defensive of your child. But I really like Hank's suggestion of just going up to them before the game and being like, I am 16.

I am doing this out of the goodness of my heart. Yeah. I'm gonna make $50 over the next three hours, so maybe don't be a jerk to me. Yeah, I think also, like, even if people continue, recognize first of all that it's probably not most of the people and second, you know, the people who are doing it, it might just be that like, this is the way they experience sports. You yell at the referee, that's a thing you do. And at a large sporting event,

like they have been trained how to behave at sporting events at, that you certainly do that. Of course you do that. I am very, I kind of anti this, I feel very strange. We have a hockey team in Mizzoula that is like sort of, it's like the lowest professional level you can be And a lot of the people players on the team are are like 16 15 even years old So like they've dropped out of high school to start their professional hockey careers. It's very weird

and when the when when the crowd starts jeering these children of the other team, I'm just like, no, no, no, stop. Or like when they get in a fight, and like it feels very strange to like, like be in a group of people who are cheering for children to fight each other. Like that just, it seems very, very wrong, very weird. And I like, I like very much that I get to watch live hockey, even if it is a very low level of hockey, but I am, I am often disturbed by the audience. I'm pretty concerned, I have to say, by the fact that you live in Paneum and you guys are doing the Hunger Games, they're in Mizzula. I mean, basically, yes. That's weird. Yeah.

Yeah, with really bad pizza. Oh, God. Adam, you are a person. This is not about you. It's not even about the quality of the refereeing is the other thing. Like a really well-referred game will still get a lot of cheers.

I don't know. I think it's something that's inherent to an inherent problem within the sport is that it's the black and white striped uniform, I think. I agree. Uniforms are definitely dehumanizing and that is part of their goal. We have a question from Jillian who asks,

dear Hank and John, Gotham uses the bat signal, a modified search light to let Batman know that they need help during times of crisis. Knowing what Little I do about the functionality of searchlights, admittedly a very small amount, wouldn't the light need to be projected against something reflective or solid in order for it to be visible and not escape unnoticed into the great beyond of space? Ultimately, does this mean that Batman only works on cloudy nights? Well, first off, fueling every night is cloudy in the city of Gotham. I think that is the clear answer.

And from a scientific standpoint, I think that what is factual is if Gotham happens to be in a very humid area, no matter whether it's cloudy or not, you could see that a searchlight was being shined into the sky. If you lived in Phoenix, Arizona, you might not be able to see it reflecting off of any of the particles in the air, but if it was in Orlando, Florida, you definitely could. And is Gotham Chicago? Well, Gotham is a fictional city.

Sometimes it's Chicago, sometimes it's New York. Occasionally it's Pittsburgh, at least judging from the movies. So here's my question Hank. When we were kids, there were a lot of search lights in Orlando. Remember like a club would open or whatever and you'd always see the search lights.

I remember being able to see the beams of light moving around because they were moving search lights. I don't remember being able to see like the thing, the equivalent of the bat signal. Like I could see the beam of light. I couldn't see the equivalent of the bat signal. Like I could see the beam of light, I couldn't see the equivalent of the bat signal. I'm wondering. Yeah, from, absolutely not, you cannot project,

like there is not a way to project an image onto a cloud for a number of reasons. Now, clouds can be fairly flat on the bottom, that certainly isn't always the case, but they are far enough a way that it is, it would be very difficult to focus light in that way. You may be able to do it with lasers, but you could not do it with a normal search light style thing. You certainly couldn't just strap a logo on top of a search light and

have that be projected into the sky. The good news though is during the 80s Batman got a beaver. though is during the 80s Batman got a beaver. So you could just, what you do is you just call me, say 5551212. Wait, so the whole bat signal thing is, it's just a lie? It's just a visual, it's just made up. Yeah, no, yeah, I mean, it's a comic. It's a great trope for a comic, absolutely. Like, I love it.

I don't dislike it or anything, but yeah, no, that's not gonna work. That's fine. Sorry. Like, I love it. I don't dislike it or anything, but yeah, no, that's not gonna work. That's fine. Sorry. That's a bummer. Yeah, I mean, humans are inherently evil, John. I didn't say they were inherently evil. I said they were inherently complicated and hungry. Oh, man.

Anyway, today's podcast is brought to you by Batman. Batman, totally unreachable apparently. He has a beeper! Okay, today's episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by angry parents, yelling at referees. It's a whole group of people who really just haven't worked out reality quite rightly.

Today's episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by human evil. Human evil, Hank doesn't think it exists and yet it keeps happening and of course I Think it exists and of course this podcast is brought to you. I don't know that I do even Looking for a new Popeye podcast Dear Hank and John is supported by dirt cheap a new podcast from neon-hom media that digs deep into the dollar bins of used bookstores and your grandmother's storage unit in search of sass and questionable grammar.

Hosts Amanda Meadows and Jeffrey Golden bring these bizarre stories to life each week, chapter by chapter, with a heavy dose of humor and a dash of shot and froida. Each season will explore a discarded pulp novel called from the dustbin of literary history, re-enacting its pages through narration and sound design. In season 1, they read the book Murder in the Glass Room, an LA noir novel that almost became a blockbuster film. Subscribe to follow and solve the murder mystery of season 1 by searching for dirt cheap in Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. by the way, it is my prescription drug prices a lot. And so I told people to not buy their stock, which I guess that was my act of activism.

Anyway, it's got me thinking, how does one buy stocks? So if either of you had any insights into this and any advice on whether I can or should invest in stocks, that would be greatly appreciated best wishes Rory. PS, keep in mind that I'm 17 years old. Yeah, you should definitely buy stocks. If you're 17 years old and you have a bunch of money sitting around, Rory.

Yeah, I mean, this is the time to do it. Yeah. When you have a 55-year investment horizon, so, Rory, the answer to your question is that a share of a stock is essentially a very small percentage of that company. So if I buy 100 shares of Warner Chilcot stock, I then own some fraction of the company Warner Chilcot.

I can later sell that fraction of the company to someone else. It may be worth more or less depending on whether, you know, Warner Chilcot has grown its business in the intervening time while I've owned the stock. And then there's another way that you can potentially make money from owning stocks, which is dividends if Warner Chilcot makes a profit of, say, you know, $100 million, they may

pay out a portion of that profit to their shareholders, to their owners in the form of dividends. That's as for how you buy a stock. You most mostly these days, people set up accounts with brokerage firms. From fidelity, you may have seen commercials for companies like E-Trade or a TD Ameritrade on TV. Those companies are basically places where you can go to buy tiny amounts of companies. Yep. Also also sell them. Yeah. And the reason why stocks are tend to be a good deal is because,

because the economy has grown in the past and we believe that it will continue to grow. And indeed, if it doesn't, then there are larger problems that we would need to face. And the stock market tends to grow over the last 100 years at around 6% per year, which is a very good return on your investment. And if you put $100 in, now that $100 would be a lot a lot of money by the time you retire. And that is kind of the way to make sure that you have, you know, can take care of yourself

into old age. Yeah. Actually, you know what I'm going to do? I'm just going to find out what, uh, Rory. So let's assume that, uh, a 6% interest rate, um, compounding a $100 initial investment, that's gonna be $1800 in 50 years, assuming a 6% return and that you reinvest the money that you make.

So based on the averages of how the stock market has fared over the last 100 years, in 50 years, you could turn your $100 into the equivalent of $1800 today. Now, is it gonna feel that good? In 50 years to have $1800? Or is it gonna feel better now to have a brand new pair of sneakers?

That's up for you to decide. Not here to make your decisions. But do not buy just one stock. No. That is a very bad idea. No. The great thing about financial tools now is that they're so cheap that you can buy lots and lots of stocks at the same time, even with a relatively small investment like $100. It's important stuff. I mean, it's kind of exciting. It is incredibly important and it is horrifying to me that we had to learn it as adults and everyone else has to learn as adults and that it's not part of like education.

Yes. Well, we should do a crash course personal finance, John. We've talked about it. I would love to. And maybe someday we'll be able to. But in the meantime, you can watch the financial diet. Our new channel that we're producing with lovely people in New York City. It's called The Financial Diet. You can Google it and learn about how to live in the world and make your dreams come

true without destroying your life. I wish that all of your answers were in the form of songs, Hank. Let's have a question. That was my jingle for The Financial Diet. Ryan, who asks, dear John and Hank, I'm 20 years old, I'm from Texas, but go to university in Scotland, and I'm gay. When I try to think about who I am as a person, I usually make lists of adjectives and facts about myself like the things I just mentioned, but that doesn't really feel like me. At a time in my life when I'm still working to find my niche, I have to evaluate myself in terms of those around me to figure out whether or not I fit in with them, but at the

same time, I'm also trying to find myself. How do I balance the need to understand myself in terms of those around me to figure out whether or not I fit in with them. But at the same time, I'm also trying to find myself. How do I balance the need to understand myself in terms of the surface level performances I put on for others and the need to understand myself out of an external context? Or is there even a difference between the two? The subject line of that email, by the way, Hank, am I the sum of my recent emojis, which is a beautiful,

beautiful subject line. Yeah. And that's a big question. One that I've been trying to write about for the last four years. So hopefully Hank will have a good answer. Well, I believe strongly for myself that there is no such thing as myself that is separate from my experiences and my values.

There's not a core me that just connects to all of the things that we describe as identities. I am just those things. Like in the way that a calculator, there isn't a calculator if you take all of the calculators parts away. You know, a calculator is like the circuit board and some buttons in the solar panel, I'm holding a calculator in my hand right now and some plastic.

And like, that is the calculator. So like, and then if you take away all of its parts, it isn't anymore. There's nothing there. It's not like a bunch of stuff that's tied to the calculator. So like, and then if you take away all of its parts, it isn't anymore. There's nothing there. It's not like a bunch of stuff that's tied to a calculator. Yeah, I don't want to make your life harder, but what if you take away one part of the calculator? Like, what if you took away the button for the number nine?

Is it still a calculator? Yeah, it's still a calculator. And at some point, you take away enough things. Yeah, I get it, but it, like, that's not the metaphor I'm trying to make. That's not connected to the metaphor I'm making. The metaphor I'm making is simply that, that I am just a bunch of things,

a bunch of expectations, the story that I tell myself about me, like there's no core thing that I have managed to uncover. It is just a bunch of things that have happened and that I tie together with narrative structure in my mind. And I can change that. And I can, and like, certainly there are like, there, I have predispositions toward emotions and, and maybe those are slightly different than other peoples. But the idea that, like, I just can't get behind the idea that there is a

thing that I've, that I've been trying my whole life to uncover that I can be my true self. When in fact, my true self is just an amalgamation of my predispositions and my values and my experiences. Yeah, I mostly agree with that. I think the only thing that I... Yeah, and I think that, you know, Ryan's question and your response to me are both sort of indicative of this shift that we've had in the last hundred years of human history away from the soul or the idea of the soul as being sort of...

Well, I mean, let's say Western history. Or to personhood. Well, I wouldn't necessarily say Westernism. Well, I mean Buddhism is very much about this idea of like the self not being a structured thing and that is a constructive thing that people create for themselves. Right, but within Buddhism, in almost all sex of Buddhism, there is something inside of you that survives into the next life in the karmic circle. So like, there is still some essence that is capital-y-u. And that idea has been, I think, deeply challenged

in the last 150 years by industrialization, by globalization, and to some extent, by scientific discovery. But I think I am very interested in, in like at what point I stopped being me. Like, you know, if I had a, for instance, I have a friend who had a traumatic brain injury before I knew them, right? And if you speak to people who knew my friend

before the traumatic brain injury, they always say like, oh, he was a different guy then. But he wasn't, but he also was. Like, and so this is, that's like a very difficult, like it's a difficult thing to get around, get your head around when it comes to identity and understanding yourself and also understanding other people. But I'm also a different guy than I was when I was 16.

Like there are other ways to become different than physical change occur. Yeah, that's what I think is so interesting about the calculator metaphor that you don't find interesting about it, which is okay. But I am interested in like, if I take things away and add things, like at what point does the calculator, is the calculator just no longer a calculator, and it becomes something else entirely, like it becomes a computer or it becomes a robot or something. I don't have an easy answer for that question, and I don't think there is an easy answer. And I think Hank is absolutely right that you are the sum of your identities

and experiences and feelings and that you aren't separate from those things and that's part of the reason that understanding your identities and being able to process your experiences in a way that helps you to create yourself. I think that's part of the reason that's such an important process.

And like anytime somebody is sort of dismissive of that process, particularly among young people, I get really angry because I think it's important that I think it's valuable. And I also think it's something that not just teenagers and not just young people are doing. And there's also a sense that like there are some people who just like have find it very easy to know who they are.

Yeah. And that often comes with some like, you know, just being like people expected them to be, being, you know, sort of like if you grew up in Texas, for example, you would probably not be a gay person moving to Scotland. Depends on the text. Depends on the text. Depends on the text. Depends on the text.

Very true. But like if you sort of fit into society as it exists, then it's sort of a less difficult path. And I kind of fit into the expectations of me early on in my life a lot. Like it was just like, oh, you're a nerd and like do nerd stuff. And I was like, okay, like whether that was like do well on tests and enjoy Star Trek or get punched by people at school. Like I was like, okay, whether that was do well on tests

and enjoy Star Trek or get punched by people at school. Like I just did all those things. And there was an identity for me to fit into really easily. And so I did that. And that, like, when you realize that your identity is something that you construct for yourself, it can be liberating and terrifying.

And I think that that's what it should be. And I think that like stripping yourself a little bit of like the constructed identity that's been applied to you or that you've applied to yourself is necessary to do sometimes. So I guess all we're saying is that this is a healthy process and that there is not an end to it and there doesn't need to be, right? Yeah, okay. Well, that doesn't help me with my book much, but hopefully it's helpful to Ryan.

Is it great? Is it great question? I mean, I think, yeah, I think that Ryan needs a whole series of podcasts on what the self is. You can go and watch some good TED talks on what the self is. You can just type in like identity into TED, into the TED website.

The problem with all of these self, all these ways of new ways of looking at the self, whether they're constructed or derived, the problem to me is that all of them seem to imagine a self, that I don't know that it exists in a body that's 90% not me. 90% of the cells in my body are bacteria. Like, am I, am I me or am I actually just like essentially a colony that-

But by weight, by weight, the vast majority of you is you. The bacteria cells are very small. By weight, you're almost all of you. No, no, that's not, I find that very unhelpful. I cannot overstate how... Well, 100% of your brain cells are you, so there's that. Yes. I don't know.

I hope anyway. I'm very distressed in general, I have to say, about how we understand what constitutes personhood and how we sort of give or acknowledge personhood in others. And I don't think that we do a good job of that right now, and I think one of the reasons we don't do a particularly good job of it is because we don't think that we do a good job of that right now, and I think one of the reasons we don't do a particularly good job of it is because we don't think about it very much. We don't think about what actually makes people people or what actually, you know, how to actually treat a person as a person

rather than treating them as, you know, so many people are treating Adam the high school referee. Right. We're just like, you know, like you're sort of like off-hand construction of a person. Because of course, you can't, like you't, like you just don't have enough cognitive resources to try and imagine everybody the way you imagine yourself. No, not nearly enough, but you should have enough cognitive resources to be able to confer

a personhood onto others. But I think increasingly that personhood is something that is both like one and conferred, it's something that's both like one and conferred. It's something that's both like achieved by, you know, like because I don't think, I don't think people who are benefiting from power structures, particularly like to confer personhood upon people who are oppressed and not being treated by the world

as full people. But I also think that it is conferred in the sense that like we all have to agree that each other is human. Like we all have to agree that one another is a real person. Right. And so and so people who are afraid to or dislike the idea of bestowing that personhood on people create constructions by which they can dehumanize them in their own minds and have themselves believe that those people deserve their situation or that there's some threat that they represent to their way of life that is not about just the fair distribution of resources, but it's about like the destruction of something

greater than any individual human, et cetera, which is something that we sure do see a lot and that I've been thinking a lot about lately. I don't know. I don't, now I'm back in the darkness in this comedy podcast. Well, it's bound to happen. We are all going to die.

Not just we're all gonna die, Hank. It's much worse than that. Everyone we love is going to die and everything that we work for will disappear into dust, everything forever. And you sometimes eat poop. Not just a little bit, either. Lots. It is just a little bit. It's just a lot of different poop. You just eat a little bit of poop a lot. Speaking of which, it's time to get to the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, because we've gone too far down the rabbit hole of darkness.

And we're two, it's almost recursion at this point, just sort of spinning around this idea of selfhood. Thank you for the excellent question. I'm sorry that we answered it so poorly and ended up in this recursive nightmare. But we're going to move on to the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. Let's begin with the news from Mars. Hank, I saw the Martian. Oh good, how was that? I thought it was great. Can you, can you, I have some questions. Oh, okay. Ask me some questions about the Martian. Could you really grow potatoes on Mars using only your poop and Martian soil? No. Oh, that's a bummer. I mean, they're working on ways to do it.

I mean, basically what you'd need is you'd need to rinse the soil real good, because there's some stuff in the soil that would eat potatoes. Not like consume them, but just harsh chemicals that would oxidize the roots, which would make it impossible to grow. So you need to wash all that stuff out of the soil. You need more water than Mark Watney had, but maybe real life Mark Watney, if that ever happened, would have access to more water, because it had some kind of water production system in place that was more significant than the one he had. But yeah, it is absolutely possible to grow potatoes on Mars, but not only with human poop and Martian soil and water.

Another question for you, to what extent is that what Mars looks like? That's what Mars looks like. I mean, that was one of my favorite parts of the movie. Some people complained that there was like a lot of just like, like shots of Mars and they're like, come on, get with the story. And I'm like, shh, I just, if the whole movie was just renders of the surface of Mars

with little dust devils rushing across it, I would be perfectly happy. Yeah, that was also my favorite part of the movie was just the Mars parts, just the parts where he were just looking at Mars, and he was a tiny little person. Yeah. I thought it was a very enjoyable movie though. I have to say.

Yeah, you know, I think I liked the book, but I think it was, it was sort of made to be a movie. I think it was a better, better movie than a book. Sometimes it, sometimes that happens. Yeah. Absolutely. And sometimes people get angry at me when I say that it doesn't happen that often, or when I imply that books are a more enjoyable experience

than a movie, because I'm being an elitist dillhole, but I like books a lot, and also I feel like they're the underdog in this fight, so don't you feel like maybe movies are doing okay and don't need to be protected, so harshly, this is a little bit of a personal thing that I have experienced in my life that really has no bearing on reality or this podcast. Yeah, seriously speaking of which, is there any other news from Mars other than the fact

that I saw the Martian, or is that the big news? That's big news. There is also a recent report that was put together and this has bearing on a question that was asked to us by Samuel who asks, dear Hank and John, why aren't there moon bases? We hear a lot about when I go to Mars, but it seems that to me that if we're serious about living on other planets, we would go to the moon first to test the technology. It's real close, so why aren't there any moon bases? Well, a recent report from MIT, I think, I'm not entirely sure if it was, yes, it was. A recent report from MIT says that if we want to go to Mars, it indeed might be a really

good idea to set up some moon bases and particularly set up a moon base that would produce fuel that we could use to get to Mars. Now there's this huge problem that we have in getting to Mars and that huge problem is called Earth. It's very heavy, it is hard to get stuff off of it because it is so heavy, it has a lot of gravity. And so in order to get to Mars you have to not only launch all of the stuff you want to get to Mars, but you have to launch all of the fuel that it takes to get to Mars, and also all of the fuel necessary to push the fuel to Mars, and the fuel necessary to push the fuel to push the

fuel. It's a big problem, it's why it's hard to get to space. But if we launched some little robots to the moon that just created fuel using electricity from the sun or from nuclear generators and water and some other stuff on the surface of the moon, then we would be able to get to Mars much more easily by having a sort of pit stop at the moon because you can launch fuel off of the moon much less expensively because the moon is much lighter than the earth.

So your proposal is to build a nuclear power plant on the moon? Well, I mean a lot of a lot of space stuff is powered by by nuclear generators of one kind or another. So that's not a that's not a crazy idea. No, it's just nice to know it's nice to know how the human experiment will end. Well, I mean it it's the moon. What's the worry? Yeah, I know. And when we blow it up, when we blow it up, we're going to find out just how big of a deal it is.

Well, first of all, you can't blow up the moon with even a very large nuclear weapon. That's not going to happen. And, too, this might be solar powered. It might be solar powered, John. Or, three, it might be more of a thermal electric generator, which is just like basically a lump of radioactive stuff that is just hot, that is used for electricity,

not a nuclear reactor. Sometimes I feel like you haven't even seen the movie, Armageddon, like it's just not even part of your scientific understanding of the world. I did recently read a book in which the moon explodes, and it turns out to be a very bad thing for Earth. Oh yeah, I think I reviewed that book in the New York Times book review actually.

Really you read seven eaves? Nope, different book, amazing. Oh wow, different books explode with moons exploding. Wow, it happens all the time in literature, apparently. Well, I mean, that's all fine and good, but let's get to the real news, Hank, AFC Wimbledon. All right. A team owned by its fans.

Just the most wonderful institution that humans have ever made. What is good of us is all contained inside of AFC Wimbledon. So we played more camp on a Saturday, the 17th of October, and we lost, and we didn't just lose. We lost five to two So that was that was not good and then This Tuesday as I'm talking to you, which is yesterday We went to Accrington Stanley and we played them away and we've never

beaten or tied Accrington Stanley in the last four years of playing them and We gave up three goals. And we won four to three. It was amazing. We were two-nil down in the first half, but we've got this new striker, Lyle Taylor. He's 15. I mean, he's 25 years old. He's 15.

He's just a child. We do have a couple of legit 15 year olds, but he's not one of them. And while Taylor is a, he's a very promising striker though. He's had a kind of a journeyman's career, like a lot of league two players. He played in Scotland for a club called Patrick Fistle.

And he's actually Montserratian. You know, where Montserrat is Hank? I couldn't tell you. Well, it is in the Caribbean Sea, it is a Caribbean island. And he plays for the Montserratian national team. In fact, he scored a goal for them. It's pretty, you know, he's an international goal scorer. Okay. But he scored two goals in this game for AFC Wimbledon.

We came from 2-0 back and 1-4-3 and put ourselves in a situation now where, you know, you don't like to get ahead of yourself, certainly, but there's some promising things going on over at AFC Wimbledon, right dead center in the middle of the table. 10 points from last place, 10 points from first place on 19 points, but you know, I feel scared but good. Well, so all they have to do is score 10 points in the next game, right? Cause that's how it works.

Well, no, you get three points for a win, one point for a tie and zero points for a loss. So we would have to win three games and tie one while the best team in the league doesn't play any. Okay, I see. All right, that makes it hard. That would be ideal. Yeah.

But it was an absolute, yeah, it was an absolute thriller of a game. And there were only 125 AFC Wimbledon fans who were able to make the Tuesday evening trip to Acrington Stanley, but they enjoyed a heck of a game. And I'm starting to feel, I'm starting to feel like this team is coalescing a little bit. So we'll see how things go, but it seems good right now.

All right. Well, congratulations on your mediocre season thus far, John. Thank you so much. So what did we learn today, John? Well, we learned that when we start talking about self or when we start talking about getting rocket fuel to go to Mars, we quickly get into a recursive spiral. And we learned that it is important to have a diversified stock portfolio if you are capable to invest through index funds at a brokerage firm such as Fidelity or E-Trade or TD Ameritrade. None of whom sponsor our podcast, just to be clear.

Also, we are not certified financial planners. Please God do not listen to us. And of course, we learned that Sheamus Heaney likes skylights and Hank like small enclosed spaces. We also learned that John had the best robot costume of all time for three years when he was a child and I never got to wear it. And maybe by the third year,

you were just wearing it so I couldn't. Well, it all worked out in the end, Hank, because you were able to use your anger over me having the better costume as a child to become the better costumeer as an adult. So I hope there's some comfort in that for you. Yeah, I think I've just, I spent an awful lot of time trying to make up for that.

And maybe I don't even like wearing cool costumes. I'm just trying to make up for my scarred childhood of not having a good enough costume for a couple, I'm sure I had great costumes. I'm sorry, I feel bad about saying that to and I'm sure my mom, if she's listening, would be sad to hear that I feel as if my costumes were inferior. They were not. I love you, mom. This podcast, oh, she's listening. She's a great, she's a great friend of the pond. Thank you for listening to this episode of Dear Hank and John. I am Hank, and that guy is John. We are always open to more questions. You can send them to dearhank and John at gmail.com.

This podcast certainly would be, dearhank and John at gmail.com. No dear, just hank and John at gmail.com. I'm sorry, everyone. And what would we be without your questions? Just a bunch of news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. And who wants that? If you end a short poem as well.

You can also send questions via Twitter, hashtag to your Hank and John. This podcast is edited by Nicholas Jenkins, our theme music is by Gunnarola, and as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC