Dear Hank & John - 25: LIVE IN NEW YORK it's NARS MEWS!

Episode Date: November 23, 2015

Why are we so obsessed with zombies? What do you do if your dentist tries to talk to you when you obviously can't talk? How do beat my girlfriend's gift skills? Should I try to re-kindle a friendship with someone who I did something nasty to? AND OTHER QUESTIONS answered here, today, on Dear Hank and John.

Hello, welcome to Dear Hank and John. Thor, as I prefer to think of it, Dear John and Hank. It's a comedy podcast where me and my brother, John, answer your questions, give you to be a advice and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. And today, we're doing it live together! That's right, we are both right now in New York City. Why are we in New York, Hank? We are doing a thing with Save the Children.

We are going to a gala this evening, or possibly a gala, or possibly a gala, at which we are being fetted, or possibly feeded for whatever, for very dubious contributions to the field of making the world suck less. Yeah, I keep people asking when I'm going to New York and I'm like, I'm doing a thing with Save the Children because I feel very awkward about saying what they say that I'm doing.

The truth is that we are receiving an award, but we find the awarding of this award to be completely ludicrous. And so the greater truth is that we have been asked to do something by save the children and we were happy to say yes. We do not generally say no when they ask us to do stuff. So today's podcast is going to be a little bit different in two ways. First off, Hank and I are both here together. That's nice. Secondly, it's going to be of much lower quality because we have very little time before we have to put on our extremely fancy suits. It is true.

You may hear some jackhammering in the background. That's because it's New York City, you guys. Yep. Here in New York, with the jackhammers never stop. They are making things. That is actually, do you know what that's what they say? They say it's the city that never sleeps to the 24-7 jackhammering. I believe that's the phrase. It started this morning at around eight, which is it so bad. So hey, let me ask you real quickly, how are you doing? I'm good.

I'm a little bit stressed because it's pizza mess. And I need to make a podcast today and also a video. Yes. And also go to a gay legala galva. Should we move directly in to the short poem of the day in that case? Sure. Hank, I would like to tell you something that is deeply true. I do not have a short poem for today. Okay, well that, well we've, that was a really beautiful poem, John. Thank you.

Let's move on to the next portion. I'm going to find a poem, Hank, while we are talking, but I really, I've already read that Margaret Atwood poem that I usually use in times of crisis. You've had too many times of crisis. Oh, okay. We'll use this Dorothy Parker poem, unfortunate coincidence. Okay. I have a list of short poems on my phone in case of emergency, and we are in one. So we're going to use this Dorothy Parker poem, unfortunate coincidence.

By the time you swear your his shivering and sighing, and he vows his passion is infinite undying. Lady, make a note of this. One of you is lying. Oh dang. Dorothy Parker. Unfortunate coincidence. So let's move on now to questions from our readers. Well Hank is looking up the news from Mars.

Let's do some questions, John. They can hear you clicking away. I can't keep or- Again, it would have been fine if you had just kept quiet. Alright, Hank, this question is from Jeff. It's vitally important. Dear John and Hank, I just came from the dentist. And why do dental hygienists want to carry on conversations with you while they are scraping

away at your teeth? It's not like I can answer with your hands in my mouth. I suggest if you must talk, keep the questions to yes or no ones and I will give a thumbs up or thumbs down to indicate my mouth. I suggest if you must talk, keep the questions to yes or no ones, and I will give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to indicate my answer. Well, here again we have come to Dear Hank and John with questions. John is qualified to answer. Oh my God. A man who has had many people's hands inside of his mouth. So many. I don't know that there is a person on earth who has had more strangers insert gloved hands into his mouth than myself. So here is my theory. I've had great dental hygienists and I've had terrible ones and I've had ones in the middle. The first

thing that I look for an dental hygienist is are they expert at removing plaque without hurting me unnecessarily, which is a real talent and a real skill. The second thing I look for is, are they able to deliver 20 to 30 minute long monologues without meeting any input from me that will be of interest to me? So for instance, my current dental hygienist who's just brilliant is both excellent at the plaque scraping and wonderfully talented when it comes to I sit down, she says, so I saw the paper towns movie and then proceeds to talk for 20 minutes in a very interesting way about all the strengths and weaknesses she feels we're in the paper towns movie and

then when the whole thing is over I can respond, right? So it's just a different kind of conversation. I have a question for you. Yes. What is this person's job title again? Dental Hygienist. Hygienist. Hygienist. Dental Hygienist. What is this person's job title? It's no tea. I've never been saying Hygienist this whole time. Do you have no no tea. There's no tea. I've been saying hi gentist this time Do you do you have good dental hygiente? I do I have x went dental hygiente now I didn't in my teens that why I'm in this mess in the first place dental hygienist Hagenest dental hygienist dental hygienist I want to say tis dentist yeah, he is a dentist

Great. Yeah, it's not dentist. It is a dentist. Okay. It's not Dennis. It's not just Dennis. It's your friend, the Dennis. My friend, my friend, my friend Dennis, who is a hygienist. That's all I'll remember it. Okay. Oh, God, we could, we also have a little more information for you there, Jeff. Call them a dental hygienist and they might respect you more.

To be fair in his question, Jeff did call them a dental hygienist. It's all on me, not on Jeff. And I think that people just want their board. They don't want to discreet teeth all day. They also want to interact with humans. Yeah, you have to imagine your dental hygienist complexly and understand that they want to have a social interaction.

And also, they want you to be as comfortable as possible. And I think that's a lot of it. It's not comfortable when someone is both scraping away at your teeth and doing so silently because that feels like a threat. It's important. I agree. John, we have another question. This one is from Bethany who asks, dear Hank and John, my question is, why do you think

our culture is so obsessed with zombies? Well, Bethany, I don't know what Hank's answer is going to be, but this is mine. Let me submit to you that I am not entirely sure who is running the show inside my brain. Why do I want granite countertops in my kitchen? Hmm, why? Is it because I am in fact kind of similar to a zombie? Is it because I am also not making conscious decisions? Is it because I am also sort of making the default choice

because I don't really ultimately have control over my consciousness, but in fact a cog in a much larger machine, that makes me think that maybe we write about zombies because we fear that we are zombies. I think we write about zombies and think about zombies because in the history of humanity, the scariest things have tended to be the things that kill us and we are usually killed by you know as humans humans get killed by disease microbes mostly microbes yeah if your theory were correct let me argue if your theory were

correct all of the things you haven't heard my theory yet. I know what it's gonna be. Which is, that the zombie is like a monsterization of disease. Instead of disease being this invisible cloud that is everywhere and you accidentally walk into it, it is a disease that attacks you physically and that the disease is transmitted through violent acts. Unfortunately, I love that theory. I was so ready to disagree with you, but I think that's brilliant, because I think that we are all afraid of disease, but we find it very difficult to personify

disease. Right. Movies about diseases are scary, but they're not like horror scary, they're psychologically scary. Yeah, so you might have noticed by the way that Catherine just turned the shower off. No, so there's less background noise. We're doing this in record time. Yeah, I mean, this is, yeah, so if it just got quieter, that's because the shower has ended. We're not in the bathroom with Catherine to be clear.

No, no, no, no, there's a separate thing, but you know, yeah, okay, shares a wall. Okay, point being, um, disease is something that we have a very difficult time, like both personifying, but also like, uh, actually like, comprehending, uh, because like our human narrative, uh, memories and, and, and ways of processing the world want to tell us that all the threats to us are The ones that we fear the most that the biggest threats of the ones that we fear the most so for instance People are very afraid of dying by violence even though that is extremely unlikely or at least in the vast majority of of places in the world. It's extremely unlikely and

people are not adequately afraid of dying from texting while driving, even though that is one of the biggest threats to your life. So what you're saying is the next big thing will be the personification of texting while driving, physically attacking and ripping apart teenagers and movies. Oh my god, what a great idea. Not only have we discovered Jurassic Mars, the single greatest movie idea of all time,

we've now discovered the second greatest movie of all time, a horror movie about texting while driving. Don't text while driving. And if you're visiting to this in the car right now, friends, and you're texting, Oh god. That's just, it's too much. Hank, I have forgotten

that we have had an amazing amazing development. Oh, which is that I know why bananas are hexagonal, which I like to say, hex-ag-no-hagzagonal Yeah, so we got a tweet from somebody explaining to us why why bananas are hexagonal? Yeah, I just got to find it. Where's my like tweets? How do you find the tweets? Oh likes it's right there Okay, so this is from brilliant botany who seems like an expert based on their Twitter handle Let me see if I can find out anything more It's a blog about the amazing world of plants and how we study them, total expert.

Brilliant botany, at Brilliant Botany, check them out on Twitter, writes, to answer the banana-shaped question, it has to do with the shape of the banana flower ovary. This makes, yes, this is good. The banana ovary has three locules, chambers, with two lines of ovules in each three times two equals six a.k.a a hexagon That's amazing. So it isn't it isn't anything to do with the functionality the banana only that the that's just sort of an

Artifact of what the banana once was like when it was before it was a banana It's an artifact of the shape of the flower over it. Yes. That's really cool. That is pretty cool, but it makes sense because that's what the banana comes out of. The banana is sort of forced, as I imagine, through, you may now hear a hair dryer. The banana is forced through the flower, right? I don't know.

It just comes out of the flower vagina. Ask brilliant botany. Ask brilliant botany on Twitter for all your questions about banana shapes. But I will often get people who are like, what is the evolutionary reason why X? And sometimes there isn't. Sometimes it's just like, this is how things happened

and we're stuck. Like the evolutionary reason, like why we have two arms and two legs instead of like an extra, like an extra set of arms is just because like the first thing that was the common ancestor of all mammals had you know these sort of two little thin things in front and it had a little thing in back and eventually like every that's why all mammals and birds and reptiles like all like vertebrates. Except for fish. Four limbs. Four limbs. I've always wanted to have six limbs. Like, four arms. Like, Goro and Mortal Kombat.

Was that his name? Just checking. Yeah. If you hear Hank typing, it's because he's doing live research. Live research here on Gear Hank and John. Okay, I want to do a couple more questions. The thing that bothers me about Goro is that he has two sets of arms arms but only one set of pectoral muscles

um... so i'm not exactly sure how that works right like how does he move the bottom arms yeah to be fair though as i recall he wasn't a particularly effective villain on more at least in mortal combat too which was the one i played a lot uh... and also when i say played a lot i should also say play a lot because uh... now we have this stand-up arcade machine in our office. Oh, yeah, I use a lot. And I enjoyed playing the Mortal Kombat.

I love playing NBA Jam, I'm really dating myself here, Hank. But remember NBA Jam? Nope. Okay, it was double-dribble. It was after double-dribble. You've just dated yourself tremendously. No one who listens to this podcast was even a lot. That's not true.

Double-dribble was really. That's not true. No, so NBA Jam, it was even a lot. That's not true. The double dribble was really not true. No, so NBA Jam was two on two. And remember, it was like amazing dunks. They could do like, they could spin while dunking. And then they would dunk. And then the announcer would always be like, Abra, Kedabra or whatever.

There's actually an account you can follow on Twitter. I think it's an NBA Jam account. And just occasionally, it tweets one of the things that the announcer would say when someone dunked on NBA Jam. That's its entire existence as a Twitter. All right, let's answer another question from a reader of you. This one is from Grel from Kyrgyzstan.

That's the good question I want to get to at the very end. Oh, you want to get that question? I was such a good question. I wanted to get to it as quick as it is possible. But I guess we'll skip that one from now. We'll get back to girls' question at the end. This one is from Sean, who asks, Dear Hank and John.

For our second anniversary, my girlfriend has taken me to Wales in the UK for the Doctor Who experience where I will get to be on the set of David Tennant's Tartus. I don't know how to beat her idea for our anniversary. So do you guys have any suggestions for a gift or anything? I need help. It's in two weeks. Smiley face. Well, Sean, first I say this isn't a competition. You guys are, you just want to make the other person happy, not make the other person less, feel less good about your gift because yours is better than theirs. Right, exactly. If you then you get into an arms race, right?

And this did not work for the Soviet Union, Sean, So I don't think that it's going to work for you. You don't want to keep raising the stakes of birthday presents. Hank and I did that the first few years on vlog, brothers and sisters. It was a disaster. By the end of it, it was like, okay, so I've created 48 hours of work for myself. Yeah. Didn't do. But it was wonderful. It was nice. It was great. It was nice. We have to do the thing. But I'm glad that we had to call it end of the war. It had become a kind of war where I hated Hank

for having birthdays. Oh, that was the problem. And I couldn't even really enjoy the gifts that he would get for me because I would just be like, well, this means that I have to do something extraordinary now. Secondly, Sean, I'm a little concerned that you've waited until two weeks out to begin considering this two-year anniversary present. My rule with anniversaries is that you begin considering it the number of months before

the anniversary it is. Well, that only works up to a certain point because- No, no, no. What about your- What about your 57th? It works all the way up. 57 months before. That only works up to a certain point because... No, no, no. What about your 57th? It works all the way up! 57 months before.

If you like 60 months before your 60th anniversary maybe you can do that, but not before your 59th. Because you know you're going to be working so hard in the 60th anyway. The crazy thing is that at some point you're working on like 20 or 30 different anniversaries at once. This is true, you know? I think there's a math problem. I'm not a mathematician, but according to my strategy, at some point I will be working on more than one anniversary at a time. Very fairly soon.

Um, well, yeah. Right now. That's all baby. Yeah, the alternative is terrible. What did it take 13 years before you were working on? Yeah, okay, so we've only been married for nine years. My strategy still works great. Anyway, Sean, long story short, you've waited too it. Yeah, okay. We've only been married for nine years. My strategy still works great. Anyway, Sean, long story short,

you've waited too long, just give up. Yeah, I think what you want to do is pretend like that this is an anniversary, a resident year girlfriend is getting for both of you. Ha ha ha ha ha. That is the most dubious, dubious advice that makes you the spot coach. Yeah, just be like, this isn't a gift

you're giving to me. It't an experience we are having together. And then take her out to a nice Doctor Who themed dinner. Yeah, maybe a Doctor Who themed dinner. And unless she doesn't care about Doctor Who at all. Just take her out to do something that she loves to do in Wales. So let me tell you some stuff that they do in Wales, never been there myself, but I do know them by reputation and I watch a lot of Welsh soccer because that's where Swansea City plays.

Dude, that being where Swansea is. Also, Cardiff City. I watch a lot of Welsh soccer come to think of it. So anyway, take her to a Swansea City game. They're right. Abs, yes. They seem to enjoy that. Well, you know what, Sean?

I can't help it. I've got a question for you. If you're going to Wales in the UK, that implies that you don't currently live in the UK, which means that you're probably flying two whales. No, I'm probably going to take a train. From? If he's not in the UK, he probably is going to fly two. He's not in the, I figured he was from... No, no, no, taking me to Wales in the UK implies that he's from the UK

Yeah, so they're probably going to fly to London where In place Oh my gosh, we've done it Sean. You don't do an aFC Wimbleton game It's so nice to be here with you in person so we could say that in unison because our phones when we're doing this It's like there's this like three- in person, so we could say that in unison, because our phones when we're doing this, this is like, there's this like, three-second delay and it makes everything impossible. Oh, you're going to an AMC Wimbledon game, Sean's partner, whether you like it or not.

Happy anniversary. I'll even get you the tickets, they're 10 bucks. Gosh, okay, we need to do one more question before we get to the question from Grel from pack from Kirgistan Which I'm so excited about Grel's question Katie has a question that I quite like I wanted to answer Will's question. Okay. Well, you let's do you could do well Okay, there's like 8,000 Katie's out there who are like ah It wasn't you guys. I wasn't you. It was a different Katie

I don't know if you have that if we have that many listeners actually I think you might have exaggerated that we don't have an abundance of Catherine's. But don't go. Oh! Okay. This question is from Will who writes Dear John and Hank. I've been a supporter of AFC Wimbledon since listening

to this podcast. That's a great reason to start and a great time to start. However, I recently learned that one of my absolute favorite podcasts ever, Freakonomics, also support the sponsors in English. What? The football team, the mighty Dunn Cow Football Club. I can't seem to find any information on whether AFC Wimbledon and Duncow will be direct competitors because I'd hate to have

to pick and I'm not sure what I would do. Is this something I should worry about? It is something you should worry about because it implies that Dear Hank and John might be your second favorite podcast. And that's a big concern to me. Another concern is that Freakonomics potentially stole our idea. Yeah, I'm a little concerned that Freakonomics, they plagiarized us. That would be pretty great. I mean, frankly, what are the odds that why would this idea happen twice? It is a dumb idea.

Yeah. So it should not be something that happened two times. So if I were you, I would not be terribly concerned. I'm looking up right now on where precisely Duncow FC is in the world. It does not seem that they are very likely to ever, ever, ever play AFC Wimbledon. Here's a couple of reasons. They are a Sunday football team. They play, they're like a Sunday league team, which means that they're probably below the 9th Division. So they'd have to get six promotions. So either the earliest AFC Wimbledon could play Duncown FC I think is in three years if AFC Wimbledon were relegated in three consecutive years and Duncown were promoted in three consecutive years

That seems very unlikely to me Yeah, so it's because AFC Wimbledon is ninth in their league Oh, it's such great news. I don't want to get ahead of myself But yes, I think you're okay. I don't think Duncown is ever going to play AFC Wimbledon If they do it will be a big moment for us though because we will find out if Will prefers freakingomics or or dear Hank and John that's I'm terrified What was the question from what was the question from Katie? There was a question from Katie Let me do Katie asked dear Hank and John around the time we started college I did something to my

best friend that was very selfish and unkind. We remained friends despite this, but eventually my guilt took over and I began to distance myself to the point where we no longer speak. It's been several years now and based on social media, it seems like she is in a good place in her life. I would like to believe that I could finally be the friend she deserves so I decided to reach out by sharing something that we both used to find humorous, but she has yet to respond. I would like to try again with something more sincere, but I worry that bringing the past, me, back into her life, would be selfish and harmful. Am I- I am wondering? I'm wondering, is it actually unkind to interject myself and apologize in this situation, or is it worth it for another shot? That a once great friendship? That's a good question, and I think that probably it differs on specifics, but in general, I would say that it is never wrong to apologize as long as you do not ask for or expect a response. Yes. In fact, what I would say is that it is probably a helpful thing to let your

friend know that you recognized that you did a thing wrong, the reason why you retracted is not because you didn't like yourself and what you had done. Just let them know that and say that that is a thing you are letting them know, not that is a overture for a rekindled friendship. Right. I think that you need to let her make that decision. Did I ever tell you about the time that my college girlfriend got back in touch with me? Who's a lovely person? I don't want to speak it with her.

So we didn't speak for seven years and then she emailed me and she said, I thought you would find this book interesting. Dear John, I thought you would find this book interesting, signed her name. And I was like, you're kidding me, right? That's just, that's it. Like, we didn't talk for eight years and then you just saw a book on Amazon and you were like, oh, that reminds me of that guy. But anyway, I actually went to a very productive foundation. Amazon and you were like, oh that reminds me of that guy.

But anyway, I actually went to a very productive conversation with that book. I do, I do remember it. Yeah. Could it be one of the sponsors of this day's podcast? No, it's a really dark personal thing. Oh. That was the other thing about it. It was like weirdly intimate. Right. Yeah. That was the other thing about it. It was like weirdly intimate.

Right, yeah. This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by weirdly dark personal things. Weirdly dark personal things. Not discussed on this podcast. And of course today's episode of Dear Hank and John is also brought to you by the letter T, the the letter T only appearing in the word hygienist once This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by Duncow football club

Six times worse than an MC Wimbledon And of course this episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by the question From Kyrgyzstan, that we are going to answer now. We said we were going to answer. We're going to do it. We're very excited. This is one of the best questions I have to say that I have ever seen, not just on this podcast, but ever. I am fascinated by this question. I feel like we should devote several episodes to it. But instead, we're just going to try our best to answer it. I said this person's name wrong earlier. I don't know how to pronounce it. I think it's Grail from Kiergistan.

Dear John and Hank, yesterday my teacher asked which one of you would like to own a Ferrari? And everyone raised their hand. Then he asked, but what if you knew that everyone else in the world also had a Ferrari and almost everyone put their hands down? This got me to thinking about you and by you I mean people from the West. You often refer to countries as developed and developing, which to me sounds as if you're hoping that one day will all be quote unquote developed. But how is that even possible? Sure you could probably make it so that everyone in the world had food to eat and didn't die from preventable diseases, but other than that there is absolutely no way for everyone in the world to have the same quality of life as you do in the West, and some countries in East Asia, of course. I mean,

who is going to be sowing the clothes and making the mobile phones? Surely the demand for those things will dramatically increase if every country is developed, but there won't be any way to get cheap labor anymore. I'm sorry if this question sounds as if I'm not... I'm sorry if this question sounds as if I'm putting blame on anyone, I'm really not. I just don't understand. That is a great question. Yes, it is kind of the question of modern economics. So like panic or not the optimists response to this question is that the

overall size of the pie that the overall size of the pie can increase. And so while there remains, you know, people with smaller sizes. Exactly. So while there remains economic inequality, the overall size of the pie can increase. And we have seen this with hundreds of millions of people emerging from poverty in the last 30 years, mostly in China and Brazil and India,

countries that have, you that have developed dramatically. But what we mean when we talk about, quote unquote, emerging from poverty often means going from a place where you are in that extreme poverty that Grills writing about where you don't have food security and people often die of preventable diseases, too going to a place where you're making $10 a day instead of $2 a day or $1 a day. And that's not what we would think of in the West as middle class or as a, or even working class. We would think of that as poverty.

Yes. Yeah, and there are a number of big questions here. I mean, we start out with the question of whether, like, whether wanting something necessitates inequality, because you only want the things that you can't have, and if everybody could have it, then you wouldn't want it. If it were just like, you know, if it were a UGO, you wouldn't want a Ferrari. If every person had a Ferrari who cares, just like, you know, now like it used to be a luxury item to have a refrigerator in America and it no longer is. Right. The refrigerator example is actually the example that I would use in terms of what I think about with development. I do think that we

can live in a world where everyone has a refrigerator. Yes. And I think that would dramatically increase quality of life for billions of people. And I think that is a good goal. I think that living your life in a way that requires or necessitates an underclass is very problematic and that almost everyone in the west lives their life that way, including you and me. Yeah, you and I, including you and me. Yes, I'm staying with my original.

And the hope is that there is a future in which those products can be created without a necessary underclass. Right, I mean, a little bit that is the hope. I mean, I think that's a very optimistic hope. I think that like any time you're pinning all of your hopes on sort of mere capitalism, if any time you're pinning your hopes only on the market, I think that you are maybe being too optimistic

about what markets can do. But that's just what they can do, but what they tend to do. Yeah, what they tend to do is they tend to put a lot of money in a few hands. Yeah. And, yeah, and that's true. I mean, I don't want to sound like a Marxist, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but Marx was, it was a good and interesting political

economist. interesting political economists. So I mean I look I think that we do when you say like sure you could probably make it so everyone in the world had food to eat and didn't die from preventable diseases like let's just stop there and say yes let's do that yeah I think that that is a that is a good goal I remember being in when I was in in Ethiopia with the CEO of the Gates Foundation, Sue Desmond-Helman, I think is her name. I said, you know, this is so complicated. Like, I feel overwhelmed by the complexity of the problem of poverty. I feel overwhelmed by how do you address the infrastructure problems? How do you address access to things like better seeds so that the corn is as high as it is in Indiana where I live and not coming up to my knee?

I don't have any idea how to fix any of this and it is completely overwhelming. I think rotavirus vaccines are great but I am totally overwhelmed and she said to me she said to me you just jumped over something that I think is very important which is that rotavirus vaccines will save a hundred thousand lives of kids under the age of five in the next ten years and that's a hundred thousand mothers who don't have to bury their children and I think we in the West need to do a better job of listening to people in the poor world in Ethiopia when they ask us what they need, what they want, what their goals are for their lives,

and what the number one thing that I heard was clean water, and I want my kids to live and get an education. And so those are my development goals, is to listen better and then respond. But I also think it's really interesting to hear from, I mean, Kyrgyzstan is a middle income, what we would call in like development, like a middle income country.

It's very interesting to hear that perspective because a lot of times we don't. Right. Anyway, it's a great question that I don't have a great answer for, obviously. I don't know if you do Hank. I just talked a lot. I talked as much as I could.

It's all I had. Do you want to move on to the news from Mars and AFC Wembleton? Yeah, I'm still, I'm still, I'm still, you want to mowing this question. I feel like we should, I feel like we should start a new podcast called Questions from Grill.

You reach, just this one person asks us really interesting questions. Anyway, thank you for mentioning. Oh wait, right, we have to do the nose from moves into AFC Mumbleton. That's great. And this week's Mars News are Mars Nars. I call it Nars Moose. Yeah. And this week's Nars Moose. Yeah. Scientists have done a lot of research on how Mars became not wonderful. That's it. It became less good place for people.

Let's take another step back and just celebrate how much better Earth is than Mars. Yeah. Period. Oh, man is than Mars. Yeah, period. Oh, maybe it stopped. Yes, definitely. Is there a way that Mars is better than Earth? No, not really. Really not. I mean, you could say that there are ways in which it outranks us.

And just sort of just mass. No, I mean, it doesn't. It's smaller than Earth. It's colder. Colder? Yeah, it's more cold. Do you love winter? Do you love Mars? Do you hate there being too many atoms in the atmosphere? You ever have you ever wanted to like Jump but wish that you couldn't jump quite as high. Yeah, you could jump higher on Mars. I Just told you was less massive.

And then it had less of an atmosphere. Yeah, well, the thickness of the atmosphere doesn't really hold you back that much. A little bit. A little bit. A little bit. It's not as if you're from going all the way out. No.

Yeah, no, it does. If I were on Mars, correct me if I'm wrong. And I jumped, like, if I, I mean, Mars, correct me if I'm wrong, and I jumped like, really, like if I, I mean obviously I don't have great quad muscles, but like if I had better, if I was better at jumping, it would be easier for me to leave Mars's You know orbit. Yeah, that right. It would be easier for me to leave Mars than Earth Right. Well, yes, because of gravity. But if I wanted to get to Pluto. Even, that's almost all because of gravity, but I will tell you how you are right. If there was a ball, the size of Mars, that had Earth's atmosphere, it would be harder

to jump off of that planet than it would be to jump off of Mars. Because there's more atmosphere to push through. Right. So it's overwhelmingly a better place to play basketball. Except as long as you have a respirator. Like in a full space suit. Yes. Mars is the worst. Why do we talk about it every week? Yeah. Well, one of the reasons Mars is the worst is because once upon a time it had a nice thick atmosphere. Yeah, but it no longer does. And the reason for that is the sun. The sun is great.

Yeah. It is a nice thing for us to have here on Earth. It's driving me in favor. Life would mostly not exist without it, though it would a little bit, at the deep sea vents and such. But Mars atmosphere was ionized and blown away by energy from the sun. And this happens on Earth,

and it continues to happen on Mars. But it happens less on Earth because we have a strong magnetic field. And there is a belief that Mars probably used to have a magnetic field, and thus was able to hold on to its atmosphere. And then when it's magnetic field stopped, it lost its atmosphere. And we have now been able to model quite accurately

what exactly happened to Mars's atmosphere. And it's a bummer, man. It's too bad. So, quick question. Yeah. Is our atmosphere going to blow away? If the magnetic field stops. Which? Is that going to happen? No. No. I mean, potentially in billions of years.

Oh, I'm not worried about that. We don't even have thousands of years. Let's get to the news from AOC Wimbledon. Let's celebrate what really matters. Yeah, so right, because we are only going to be here for a little while, and all of the things that we learn about Mars while we are here will be rendered irrelevant by our inevitable non-existence as a species.

And so will all the goals we have scored in soccer matches, but that doesn't not matter because both of those things matter to us. They matter now. They matter to us, which is the only kind of mattering. And in incredibly exciting news, they have seen Wimbledon. You might remember the last podcast. I talked about how they're going to be playing

Portsmith, a team that was once recently in the Premier League, but then got demoted a bunch of times due to going bankrupt and is now owned by its fans, but they still have incredible support. I don't know if you know this, like, Portsmouth is actually, it's a town in England. It is, and has a port,

and that mouth of a river. No, incorrect. It is called Portsmouth because it is the place where Port, the liquor was invented, and the mouth is where you drink it. Really? No, no, it's because invented. And the mouth is where you drink it. Really? No, it's because it's at the mouth of a river.

It's because it's a port city. Yeah, because I'm like, I'm pretty sure port must have been also invented somewhere where there was a port. No, no, no, it's total coincidence. Port is just, it's an anagram. And prop, which is the kind of grape you use to make pork That is correct. You don't have to look it up by promise Don't even bother going to Wikipedia. I'm quite sure you can just Google outline. Yes. I'm right

We played port Smith and it's a Portuguese fortified wine It is from Portugal. It's from port fortified one. Portugese from Portugal. It's from port-chugul. Yes. Vinhon de Porto. Oh, you know, de Porto. Oh, interesting. All right, so it has nothing to do with ports then except the portugal has a bunch of them. Probably I assume having all of all of Portugal, which is Portuguese for port-land of ports. Portugal, which according to Spain has all of Spain's ports. Okay, right, hey guys, so the news from Mars, right, so the news from AMC will then is this, we played Port Smith, who at the time were third in the table, and do you know what happened Hank, can you imagine the most dramatic outcome to a football game?

Yes. What would it be? At the 89th minute, the ball comes into the goal area, bounces off the post, bounces off someone's foot, bounces off the post again, bounces off the back of the goalie's head, and into the goal! that's not what happened. It was a nail-nill draw. There was a nail-nill draw for AFC Wimbledon against Port Smith, but that's great. It's a good point away from a home against the team who's higher up in the table.

So now we're ninth instead of tenth. We are currently ninth in the table. More importantly, AFC Wimbledon Hankyl remember the Don's Trust owns the team. Every fan of AFC Wimbledon is an equal owner of the team. And so on big decisions, we all vote together. So we all needed to vote to sell the current stadium to Chelsea so that we can afford to buy

or to build the new stadium that we want to build in the historic home of Wimbledon's football club. So we have completed that last vote. It has succeeded. So once we get planning permission and the money to build the new stadium, we will also get the money for selling the old stadium, the stadium where we currently play. And that was a vital part of this long-term plan to hopefully by 2018 be playing in a state-of-the-art fan-owned stadium in the heart of the Wimbledon community. So that was a big, big deal.

The votes passed. It's all done, except now we need planning permission from the council, the local council there, and then we're going to need to raise just a small amount of $10 million. I have a question, John. AFC Wimbledon is a fan-owned team. Yes. What would happen if AFC Wimbledon due to the weirdness of the world, and 10 years or so, is throwing off a billion dollars in profit a year.

Would you get some of that? Mm, I mean, I don't think so. I don't, this is so far from ever being a concern. I've never heard a single Wimbledon fan discuss the possibility. My understanding is that if AFC Wimbledon fan discussed the possibility. My understanding is that if AFC Wimbledon were making a billion dollar profit, that billion dollars would be invested back into the team or the community. So AFC Wimbledon also has a foundation where a percentage of their money goes to support local charities and other initiatives.

So it might go to the foundation. I don't think that it would go to me. However, I am ready to see that day when we are making that billion dollar profit. By the way, other football clubs that don't make a profit include Manchester United. Liverpool Football Club. So I think it's pretty far down the road that we've got to worry too much about making money. All right. Well, John, this was a wonderful day on Dear Hank and John. What did we learn? Well, we learned that hygienists only have one tea. We learned that John Green has had more hands in his mouth than any other human on earth according to John Green. We learned that according to John Green. We learned that globalization and development

and Ferrari acquisitions are extremely complicated and that anybody who claims to have absolute certainty about any of it is probably lying. And we learned that your anniversary is not a competition. But you should start planning several months and impacts. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Love is not a competition, but, you know. But it is.

I mean, you do keep score, and there is a winner at the end, right? Whoever's around longest. That's a... Oh, it always ends in death here at Dear Hank and John. Thanks for listening to our podcast. If you want to ask us questions, you can do so at Hank and John at gmail.com. Thanks to everybody who sent in questions this week. I'm sorry that there were so many good ones and two

few to get to, but that's always the case. And what else do we say if you have here Hank? You can find us on Hank, you can find us on Twitter at Hank Green or John Green. This podcast is edited by Nicholas Jenkins. I can't believe that you just missed an opportunity to promote your own Snapchat. My Snapchat is at Hank GRE. The theme music is from Gunnarola, and as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪

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