Dear Hank & John - 273: John's Shark Bite

Episode Date: January 11, 2021

What is John's emergency scale? What does "profit goes to charity" mean? When do you list someone other than immediate family as an emergency contact? How do I stop thinking about my thoughts? How much money is there in the world? Can planets be other shapes? Hank Green and John Green have answers!If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] us for monthly livestreams and an exclusive weekly podcast at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John! I'm the first to think of it, dear John and Hank. It's a podcast for two brothers and two year questions, give you dewey advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimble and John a man. Just throw some milk at me. Oh, did he? How dare he?

Oh God, no. I'm offended. That's a terrible way to begin 2021. It's a disastrous way to begin this beautiful new year. I already did. We already began 2021. And now we are announcing to the world that it's National Milk Day.

Is it really? Yes. Yes, the 11th of January is National Milk Day. So there was some rhyme to the reason. Yeah. And I must be why he was throwing milk at me because he was like, it's national milk day. Everybody gets them out.

Everybody gets them out. You get them out. You get them out. That is how we celebrate. Yeah. Yeah. We celebrate by pouring milk on each other's heads. Like we all just won the Indy 500, yes.

That is how we celebrate national milk day. Oh, God. Hey, I'm excited for 2021 for a variety of reasons. But the biggest reason probably is that it means we are one year closer to the now inevitable day when this podcast is renamed Dear John and Hank because no human lands on Mars before December 31, 2027. Oh, they only six short years to go. It's yeah, which is a long time, John.

And who knows what advancements in the field of space travel await. And I look forward to all of those advancements on or after 2028. We could have cars that take us to other galaxies in a blink as I predicted in my essay about the year 2020. I just made a video about 10 year old Hanks projections for the year 2020, but it's only about one of your predictions, Hank. The prediction that in 2012, because like all of them were pretty normal, but then in 2012, your prediction for the year 2012 that you skimmed over in the video was in its entirety

superior fishbeings. And I was so taken with this phrase that I googled it and I found out that in the whole history of the worldwide web, at least according to Google, no one has ever used the phrase superior fishbeaks. Just one person. I just, it's my favorite phrase that you've ever said. Well, I was so into, I was so convinced that I was going to be a marine biologist and then I was going to make great discoveries, not knowing how seasick I get, apparently. And I guess that like the biggest discovery I could imagine was superior fish beings. Like, wouldn't that be pretty big?

To be fair. Yeah, it would be something else if tomorrow somebody was like, hey, so we discovered a new species of fish. Also, they are far more technologically advanced than humanity. It's this is wild because I think about this all the time. Yeah. And like I had no idea that I had thought about it when I was 10, but I constantly think about whether a species

that exists only underwater, like there are many planets where that is the only option. There is no land. Right. On a planet like that, could you have technological advancement? What would be standing in the way? And like this is something I think about constantly. I don't like it's not like for a reason or like when I'm driving my mind is just like, I wonder if an octopus could do chemistry. Like that's what my brain

goes. And I've been doing it since I was 10. I do it a lot too. But my version of it is usually like when the octopuses get together and they're like, you guys need to shut up, calm down, take it down a notch. Yeah, that thing you figured out, you're gonna have to unlearn that. Yeah, right. Not do that one.

We discovered all this stuff that we could do, but we found out that we didn't want to do. And now you're doing it. And so we have to instruct you to stop. Oh, God. I just think it would be hilarious if like an elephant one day was like, yeah, okay, all right, that's it. First off, I can talk.

Secondly, this has to end. We've been watching. We've had enough. And like, we've been letting you go because we really like Robert Pattinson. We don't want to mess up his career trajectory. Yeah. But we're going to have to put an end to some things. Let's answer some questions from our listeners.

Beginning with this first question from Taylor who writes, Dear John and Hank, but mostly John, it's my favorite kind of question. Several times on this podcast, John, you have referred to things as being a level one emergency. This is not just a podcast there. And it's not just a joke either. It's not. John will call things a level one emergency when it's a really big deal.

And it is, it's not pleasant. It doesn't make me feel good. It doesn't make anything better to realize the height of the level of the emergency. But regardless, continue. I find it helpful and we can unpack it today. Are there other emergency levels? Of course there are Taylor.

Of course there are. And if so, what is the scale and what constitutes a level one emergency versus another emergency classifying catastrophes, Taylor? So Taylor, I want you to imagine, as I do when I am encounter versus another emergency, classifying catastrophes Taylor. So Taylor, I want you to imagine, as I do when I am encountering an emergency, that you are in a large building with many floors, say nine floors, and you are looking down at an emergency. If you're on the ninth floor and you're looking down at the emergency, you can barely even

see the emergency. And it will probably resolve without you even interacting with the emergency, right? That's a level nine emergency. So an example of a level nine emergency would be you have a colder flu virus that will likely resolve on its own. Okay, you get to like a level eight, level seven emergency. That's the situation where you might have to like open a window and like shout some advice. You know down to the emergency. Do something. You might have to do something, but nothing extreme. When you get to a level one emergency tailor, you're on the same floor as the emergency. The emergency is coming for you. This is helpful to know. The emergency is spilling into your building. And I think it is important,

Hank, to increase with me. I think it is important when you are having a level one emergency to immediately acknowledge it, because it changes your behavior. Well, it also not on a level eight emergency situation where you can just call down some advice. You are in a level one emergency. Okay. So this is extremely helpful. I'm so glad, Taylor, that you asked this question, because I have always imagined that a level one emergency. Okay. So this is extremely helpful. I'm so glad, Taylor, that you asked this question, because I have always imagined that a level one emergency is the biggest emergency that can happen. It is. No, it's not. It's an emergency that you need to interface

with right now. There are many levels of emergencies that one needs to interface with right now. There's like, I am currently being consumed by a shark. Are you telling me that there's a level one half emergency and I've just never encountered it? No, you've got what you were saying. If this is a thing that we need to deal with right now. And I think there's a great thing to have a word for that, especially when you're trying to communicate to someone that you love, that this is how you feel about this situation. And you need that them to get on board with you in that moment. Right, that's exactly what a level one emergency is.

So I think that's great, that's smart. We got to deal with this right now. Yes, and there are many things that we have to deal with right now. And there's like, there's like, I'm being eaten by a shark. And there's, we left the kids, levies, they're little stuffed toys at the hotel,

which is the first time I heard you use the phrase level one emergency to be fair that was a level one emergency was well now that I know what a level of emergency is a was yeah yeah by the way the only time that I've ever been bit by a shark the first thing I said was this is a level one emergency is a level one emergency. So I needed to shark to understand that. I needed me to understand it. And I needed all the people around me to understand it immediately. Where did you get bit by a shark? I did it.

I didn't. I didn't. I made that up. You think I could, first of all, I mean, how would I ever get bit by a shark? I don't know. I have a friend who got bit by a shark and it was like at Miami Beach.

She was just in the water at Miami Beach, but like it was a little shark. So she has the coolest scar of all time. Oh, I bet that's a really cool scar. Secondly, if I ever got bit by a shark, how many seconds do you think it would take me to tell the world I got bit by a shark? Wouldn't take four years of podcasting before I heard the story of Don getting bit by a shark? Yeah, that's a good point, John. So you can be on the news?

No, you wouldn't. No, I wouldn't. You would be making a video about it, though. I mean, the truth is that I would like probably spend like two to three months like crafting my narrative around being bitten by the shark and making sure that I, yeah, making sure that I was like retroactively applying a lot of like thoughts and feelings to the experience of being bitten by a

shark that in a moment I definitely didn't have. You are way too self aware. Oh god. But I would definitely definitely have told you that I got bitten by a shark. definitely have told you that I got this by a short. Yeah, I agree. The next question is from Marissa. It's a logistical question. So everybody get ready. Hello, brother's green. I've recently signed up for both the awesome sock

club and the bizarre bees pin club, both of which I'm enamored with. I have a logistical question. Both clubs say that profit is going to charity. And I'm curious, what does profit mean? Can you share like a percentage of revenue in sales that is donated an admirer of articulate accounting, Marissa? So I guess there are multiple definitions of profit. But in this case, what we're talking

about is the amount of money left over after we have paid for all the things. So the paying for the sock, paying for the sock design, paying for shipment of the sock, the people to pack the socks. We have a consultant who helps us learn how to create high quality socks and make sure that they're being made in a good way. So all of that is part of the costs of the sock club. And then normally in a sock subscription, the profit would then go to the owners of the sock club. And in this case, instead, it is going to charity. But first, there isn't amount of money that has to be paid to taxes. So it's basically the exact same model as Newman Zone, which is kind of our platform, and maybe even a little bit of our inspiration for trying this out, and hopefully maybe even doing other things like this in the future.

We're trying to make a thing that people will want to buy, like good salad dressing, like Newman's own does. But then also, instead of saying, what should we do with this profit, I guess, send it to our shareholders, we send it to charity. Yeah, so the way this is often described is after-tax profit. And we don't know exactly how much that is going to be

for something like the awesome socks club because it hasn't happened yet. And like, this has been the case with Life's Library, another similar subscription model where all the profits go to charity. We don't know until after the books have shipped. Right. Sometimes until like a month or so after because there's returns and other stuff, how much is actually going to charity.

That said, one thing that's been very helpful for life's library members is hearing once we know that number, what that number is. So they have a sense of what the margins are. But it's a very similar model to Newman's own because, well, I guess we want to be Newman's own when we grow up. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just, I love it so much. I think it's, it's such a cool story that Pondamon was just like, I like making salad dressing, but I'm good. Because it just shows that like working hard doesn't have to be about like getting richer, more rich or whatever. It's like

about adding value to the world. Hank, Hank, did you know that Paul Newman was a big fan of IndyCar racing, a sport that I also followed because I live in Indianapolis? And in fact, he owned a IndyCar racing team. Oh, well, I feel like you guys had a lot in common until that last bit. Yes. Well, there were other things that we didn't have in common. Like, I think that most of the time he was in a movie, he didn't get cut because he was such a bad actor.

Whereas, like, the one time I was in a movie, I did get cut because I was such a bad actor. How much does it cost to own an IndyCar team, John? How good is Paul? Paul Newman doing it. All Newman was doing very, very well. It's not an inexpensive enterprise. He didn't realize he was doing so well, or he did so well.

Oh yeah. He did fine, Hank. He did okay. Ha ha ha. I'd love to know where all of Paul Newman's money came from because my sense is that you didn't get paid that much for movies back then. And then he wasn't in that many movies.

I think it came from being maybe the most famous movie star in America for 30 years. Oh, I didn't realize that about that. It's like saying, like, where did all of Beyonce's money come from? Oh, geez, I don't know. It's hard to know. It's hard to piece it together. I'll have to do some forensic accounting on that. I wonder if it was having 42 number one hits. Okay. All right. I'm just curious, John. I want to see the pie chart. Hey, we have so many good questions this week. We're doing a terrible job moving through them, but this next question comes from Sam who writes, hi, John and Hank, I recently moved into a new

apartment three days ago and my across the whole neighbor is a radio DJ. And he now has to work at home because of COVID. Oh my God. It's not the music that's so bad. The music is loud, but it's not like shaking the house. It's the DJ yelling over the music every few moments, which is really annoying. I knocked on the door and asked him to turn it down and he said, sorry, buddy, I'm working. Which I had no response to. His wife came over later to explain a little more.

She said that they have explained their situation to the neighbors, but like, what do I do? I understand this is his livelihood, but I do not spend a lot of money each month to be trapped inside of a radio station. I do not listen to it. This is... You are going to have to become a very big fan of this radio station. You are gonna have to become a very big fan of this radio station. This is so difficult. When I lived in New York, the person who lived on top of us was an opera singer.

And she had to practice her opera singing. That's part of how you become an opera singer. Yeah. And she would practice this for two or three hours, like a day. We would hear opera singing. And I don't know a lot about opera. I mean, she was on key, like it was good singing and everything.

But it wasn't necessarily like what I would choose to listen to. And yet, and yet, but I will say this, Sam, when we were renting the apartment, the landlord was like, there's something you should know an opera singer lives up stairs from you. And that helped a lot. It seems like you were a little bit duped into being trapped inside of a radio station you don't listen to.

And this is a temporary situation as the first thing I'd say. The second thing I'd say is noise canceling headphones. Yeah, I think that noise canceling headphones, certainly, I don't know at what times of day this is happening, certainly much more tolerable in the middle of the day that at night. Oh my God, I hadn't thought of that. And like, I, you know, I have neighbors

and they play very loud music and they don't work for a radio station. They just play very loud music. But that's different, that's different than somebody playing really loud music and you hear on top of that. Like, hey, hello and welcome to 99.3 the radio station in my apartment.

Like hearing that all day would get really old. Yeah, it's wild to me that you could just set up a radio station and someone's home. I figured that there was really important equipment that you would need. I think they took the really important equipment and put it in the person's house. I just, that's what I did when I had to move. I also did a hit podcast from a studio to my basement. But if you're doing it live though, I don't know, like you'd have to have it go over the internet

and then there'd be a delay. I don't know, like maybe they're just pre-taping. Maybe they, yeah, they're probably pre-taping. Now that I've said that out loud. But I also think like, sorry buddy, I'm working, is like, he's working. Like he's trying to do his job during the pandemic and keep everybody safe.

So. Yeah, but that's, I feel bad for everyone in this situation. Of course. Yes, I'm not saying Sam. This doesn't suck. Sam, this sucks. I wonder if you could become friends with this guy and slowly over time make the case

that what live radio needs is less intrusions on the music. And just like a lower level of energy. Or it is feel like, hey, what if you got a new job at like the jazz station? Or like, yeah, why does an all radio sound like public radio? Where he's got a skill set. He's doing his thing. Yeah, I do think you can ask that this not happen at night. Yeah. And I think maybe there's another unit in the apartment building. I don't know. It's not how that works. This is a cut situation. I'll tell you what Sam, it will be a great story.

I mean, yes, having that opera singer live above us for two years in New York City had its moments of frustration. I'll be honest. Yeah. But I've gotten a lot of mileage out of the story. And is there a possibility that you could just get really into his radio show and like, there are people out there who are a fan of his? Right.

So maybe one of those people could be you. And you could be like, I get them behind the scenes picture. Ooh. Yes. 2021, the year of learning to love what you thought you hated. Ask me another question. John, this next question comes from Kat, who asks, dear Hank and John, at what point do

you list someone other than your nuclear family members as emergency contacts? I'm at that weird middle stage in my 20s where I'm not married, so I can't put my spouse on the paperwork, but I no longer live with my parents. Do I pick one of my friends at random and hope that they respond well if they receive a call from my doctor or something? Any dubious advice is appreciated pumpkins and penguins cat. I have a funny story about this. So this was a long time ago, maybe like 15 years ago, but I got an email from someone

and they were like, hey, I know we haven't talked in a while because on account of how we broke up five years ago, but I got a call from your ophthalmologist saying that you'd missed an appointment and just wanting to check and make sure you were okay. Wow. I guess you listed me as your emergency contact. Oh my God.

When we were dating and now it's all this time later and it turned out that I had moved and that is why I had missed the appointment. But it was just a reminder that like you got to be a little careful with how you lose your mind. This is not an emergency. I want to just say to the ophthalmologist that this is like a level 20 emergency. Like if you're like, oh, that emergency, you got to

open the window and be like, hey, you missed your appointment. That's it though. You don't have to do anything else. You don't have to like reach into the depths of my emergency contact list. My paperwork and find the phone number of my ex-girlfriend. But yeah, this is hard. One of the things that I was surprised to discover is that

emergency contacts are used for things other than emergencies. For example, if you have not paid your bill, they contact the person in your emergency contact list to ask the and you like aren't answering the phone and you are trying to avoid paying a bill because you do not have the money. They use the emergency contacts as a way to get in touch with you, which I am like, this is a little bit of a break in the contract that I have.

Now that you mentioned that, I think that might have been the issue with the ophthalmologist. That makes more sense to me. If I'm being completely honest, I think there's a possibility, based on my behavior in other realms, I think there's a possibility based on my behavior in other realms. I think there's a distinct possibility that was it. Yeah. Yeah.

The little bit of credit score rebuilding to do. The main thing, Kat, is if you're in a relationship that doesn't feel like it's going to stand the test of time, don't put that person's feet close to your parents. Yeah. Or, or, or, or, or list, or, Or list an uncle or an aunt or someone else you trust. Yeah. Who you've known for a while and you think you'll know for a while longer. Yeah, I only switched over from my parents when I was married.

And I'd been with Catherine for like 10 years. Oh yeah, I mean, I still sometimes list as my secondary emergency contact. My parents. Sure. I want them to know if something goes wrong. I don't know. This is where the level one emergency problem breaks down, actually,

because there's like certain level one emergencies I don't want my parents to know about. Oh, sure. Because I don't want to stress them out. Whereas with you, I have to say, I want you to know about more or less all of my level one emergencies. Yes, because you.

And I don't care if it stresses you out. Have a deep belief that I am not stressed out enough. Oh, I wouldn't say it's that. I think at your core, your like, Hank needs to be a little bit more stressed out. You know about certain things. That's, I don't think you need to be more stressed out. I do think that you need to up your alertness level a little bit sometimes. up your alertness level a little bit sometimes. I think that your background alert level is the lowest possible setting, and I do think it should be like two settings higher. I absolutely agree that mine

is too high. There's no question. Right. Like anything there is a right amount. Yes. And some of us have too much of it. That's why that's why we need each other, John. Which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by Too Much Worry. Too Much Worry. Another defining feature of 2021. Today's podcast is also brought to you by milk. All right, stand up. Look under your chairs. That's right. Everybody get some milk. That's right everybody get some milk You get a milk you get a milk today's podcast is all brought to you by the level one emergency the level one emergency It's closer than you think this podcast is also brought to you by John's ophthalmologist John's ophthalmologist just contacting his ex girlfriend to let him know that he either hasn't shown up for an appointment

Or more likely is a little bit delayed on his bill. Oh, it's not impossible that that is still an outstanding battle. Oh boy. Hank, I want to answer this question from Madeline who writes, Dear John and Hank, how do I stop thinking about my thoughts? Madeline. Oh, well that seems like a John Green question. I do have this sometimes actually. I remember being a kid and thinking about whether or not I was never not thinking.

Oh, yeah. And then thinking about the fact that I was thinking about thinking and then wondering if it was possible to think about thinking about thinking. And that's the point where you're like, hold my beer, I'm going in. I can see it. So Aron just turned for recently. Yeah, and I see it happening to him sometime. Thank you. Happening to him sometimes. We were sitting at the table and I was probably listening to an audio book and he was sitting next to me and we were eating lunch quietly and he said, I don't think they are. And I looked over at him and I was like, you don't think what are. And he was like, very quiet for a second. And then he was like, nothing. And

I was like, no, now I'm very curious. You don't think what are what. And he was like, I was just thinking about stuff. And I was like, but like, but this is the first time I've ever gotten a chance to know what you were thinking about. Cause whenever I ask him, I'll go, what are you thinking about? And he says nothing. And I'm like, this is the first chance. I get to know what you have to tell me

because now you were thinking maybe they don't. And I was like, what were you thinking about? And he said the hairy crabs. And I was like, what were you thinking about? And he said, the hairy crabs. And I was like, the Yeti crabs from Octonauts. And he was like, yes. And I was like, wow, he was just sitting there thinking. Yeah. That's so cool.

Because of course he was like wandering and roaming around and doing all the weird things that minds do. Yeah. And I don't know what he thought that they weren't doing, but he probably didn't either. By the time he was finished saying it out loud because that's part of how thought works, right? Like you can't trace back the lines very effectively. I don't think this is a problem Madeline unless it's a problem for you. Like if you find yourself in a position where you feel like you can't participate in, and this happens to me, so this is why I mention it. We're like, you can't participate in conversations

because you're stuck thinking about your thoughts or you're stuck thinking about thinking about your thoughts or how do you stop thinking about thinking about, you know, these endless recursive loops that I wrote the book, Turtles, all the way down about. If you find yourself there, you should probably talk to somebody who's more knowledgeable about this stuff than us, a therapist or someone else. But in general, I kind of like thinking about thinking.

Yeah. One of the, I really like, notice thing that I'm having a thought and being like, how did I get here? And then tracing it back. It's really interesting that I can do that, that like it's left enough of an impression that it hasn't left short-term memory yet. And I can be like, oh, it's because I was looking at my shoes. And that took me to here, to here, to here, to here, and then I ended up on my mates. And I think it's cool.

And like, where does my mind go? And what are the, like, well-traud enough paths that I end up in these places over and over again? Like Octopus is doing chemistry, which is one of mine. where does my mind go? And what are the like well-traug enough paths that I end up in these places over and over again, like Octopus is doing chemistry, which is one of mine. Like, I end up at Octopus is doing chemistry all the time. And then of course sometimes it's like that really, really awful dumb thing I did in high school.

Yes. And like that's both like embarrassing, but also was actually kind of harmful. And like I end up there all the time. Yes. And like, how did I get there? Right. What brought me to it?

Yeah, I often end up at my mortifications when I am left alone with my thoughts. I almost always end up in stupid places, actually. Yeah, I'm left alone with my thoughts for long enough. I weirdly think of other people's mortifications as well. Oh, I don't. Simpathetically, not like as like, yeah. Oh, okay. Like that must have been so.

Yeah, like I don't. Yeah. I wonder if people think about my mortification. I'm more like that. I'm more like that. Let's move on. We got it. Madeline.

We got that one to be. Move, move, move. Oh God, we got to inception, Madeline. We got to the Madeline. We got that one to do. Move, move, move. Oh God, we got two inception, Madeline. We got to the dream inside of the dream inside of the dream. That's a question I've got. Who has dear Hank and John? From my limit understanding of money, there must be a finite amount of it for it to have

value, right? So my question is, how much money is there in the world? If you could convert it into British pounds, for me that will help me understand because American dollars mean nothing to me. No! Curiosity as a campaign cat. Oh God. I was converting to pounds, John.

Oh God, it's about $88 trillion and I'm not converting it to pounds. That's the, that's not there. Does it, it doesn't matter. It doesn't, like none of those numbers make any sense at all at that scale. This is, that's the matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't, like, none of those numbers make any sense at all at that scale. This is, that's the calculated size of the global economy.

Well, yeah, there's like all kinds of different ways to count this. So, like, the physical money is one thing, which is very different to the amount of money that people have, because, you know, you have money in your checking account and saving account. And that number is like $37 trillion. But then there's

also all this other money that people have that's like stored in their property. Or you know, it's like not easily easy to spend. It's not like in your account or it's it owns other things like right. Or you can calculate it by the size of the global gross domestic product, which is the overall amount of economic activity in the world, which is valued at $88 trillion. But none of these are quite right. Well, this is the really upsetting one for me, that if you count investments and derivatives,

then it's far, far more. It goes up by two orders of magnitude or something. And it's in the quadrillions because derivatives are these like, you can own a thing more than once. And I'm just like, right, turn it all off. This seems way too dangerous. The elephants are here and they're like, okay, I had to speak up because it turns out derivatives were just making us too nervous. You think that's the thing that they're worried about, not like the complete failure of extractive

capitalism to appropriately value natural resources. I think that you think they're worried about derivatives. Okay, probably that one, but like I think derivatives have a part to play. For sure. And that conversation. The thing to remember is that what the economy really runs on is faith. Yes. The amount of money ultimately deep down that exists is the amount of money that ultimately deep down we believe exists. Yeah. And the other piece of it is that money is tied to actual value. So value is done for me by my home. I get to live on the inside and it's value. So value is done for me by my home. I get to live on the inside and it's warm, and value is done for us by the people who take care of us,

who teach us, who feed us. And money is not that tied to value, but okay. Money is a way, no, I agree that money is not that value, but how we value the things in our lives is tied to like how much it costs and just because of the costs and amount. This is where like the usually moderate john and the usually radical hank actually switch places. I think that money is a very, very poor substitute for value. And that it, I agree with you. And that it shouldn't, it shouldn't be taught as such, because that's not really what money does. Money facilitates the exchange of goods and services. Yeah. Yes.

Money does not assign value to things. No. And when it tries to, it does a really, really bad job. Right, and we do that all the time because money is easy to count where value isn't. Exactly. Yeah. We could reshape the economy so that money did a better job of reflecting value, but we don't because.

Some people don't want to. Yeah, the people who currently have a lot of the money don't want to. Yeah, because they would have much less of it. Right. Money is weird and we made it up. I really recommend Jacob Goldstein's book. He hosted this podcast with me a while back. He's the coast of planet money and he wrote a book about money. The true story of a made up thing and it's very interesting and I found it helpful and thinking about this stuff. All right. Hank, before we get to the all-important news from Mars and ASC, well then, I want to answer one more question from Hannah who writes to your channel, Hank, I got to thinking about how every planet you see portrayed in movies and books is a sphere,

but aren't these just like based on our own solar system, a spherical planet? Like, are there cylindrical planets, pyramid planets, cubes? Is it possible that other shapes of planets exist? Hank, is it possible? Well, in a couple of ways, it is not. And in one very specific way, it is. So a planet is actually weirdly enough defined as being spherical. So in order for a body to be considered a planet, it has to be spherical. It's not the only qualifying characteristic, but it is one of them. But the reason for this, I always get really upset by qualifying characteristics because we tend to think, okay, the definition of a planet is now that it's

spherical, but it's only because we're forced into like forced into drawing a line where like there isn't a clear line. But if a body is large enough, it will form into a sphere. It's about like, now it depends on what the body is made of. So obviously if it's liquid, it turns into a sphere very quickly in zero gravity sort of situation. So it just spheres itself up, which if you just put a ball of water, if you could just put a drop of water on the space station, it's going to turn into a sphere. So that same thing happens in space with a ball of like molten, you know, rock that is a planet that is forming out of a proto-planetary disk. So like if it is a big enough rock, it's going to turn itself into a sphere because the gravity is going to grab the things that

are high up and pull it back down and until it becomes relatively, you know, smooth. And we think of the earth as being quite bumpy because we look up and we see mountains and look down and we see valleys and oceans and stuff. But the earth, if you averaged it out and like shrunk it down, is smoother than a pool ball. Wow. So it's extremely spherical. Wow. So because of this property that like a big enough object will turn itself into a sphere,

we find that a convenient place to kind of draw a line as to what a planet is. And that's why things like series, which is a, the largest object in the asteroid belt, is a dwarf planet because it is spherical because it is large enough to form itself into a sphere, whereas all of the other asteroids are not big enough to do that. I think there might be one other one. So, wait, so how would a planet not be a sphere then? The only way for a planet to not be a sphere is if it was artificially constructed. So if someone decided to make like a Borg cube the size of a planet that is not a,

that is not a thing that would be technically impossible. It would be extraordinarily difficult and it would provide no advantages. I was going to say it doesn't seem to be the kind of thing that one would do for any reason other than pure aesthetics, which is not generally what drives planet formation in my experience. It would be very weird. One of the nice things about a cubic planet, for example, is that if you had atmosphere, it wouldn't surround the whole cube. It would be in pockets around the lowest points on the cube. So there would be a circle of atmosphere on every face of the cube, and then also a circle

of water that would actually sort of dome up in that area. Weird. And that would be really cool and weird. So that is the only reason to do it, is that it would be really cool and weird. So that is the only reason to do it, is that it would be really cool and weird. And those six faces would be entirely isolated from each other with no atmosphere shared. And so they would basically have no idea that the other one existed, which is just a cool thought experiment. And no way of sharing climate or genetic diversity or molecules or anything. So basically, they would be six planets isolated from each other

with no idea that the other ones existed. I mean, that actually is pretty interesting. We should do that. We should do that as soon as we can. All right, John's in, everybody. I'm in. I think the easiest way to do it would be to start with a spherical planet and then build like a cubic scaffold around it.

Yeah, just just start hammering. Shave the edges off. She needs a really big chisel. All right, I think it's time for the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. I'll go first in a stunning turn of events. AFC Wimbledon have lost a football game. Oh, boy. I'm doing that a lot lately.

Yeah. So over the so called festive period, as it is known in English football circles, Wimbledon lost three games, all three of the games that they played in. We gave up a lead or a tying position twice, and then the other time didn't score at all. So that's that. It's pretty discouraging and worrisome. The only bit of good news from the last few weeks in AFC Wimbledon results is that Oli Palmer, who you'll recall is our extremely large forward, did score a goal against Lincoln City, which is good. It's good that he scored because that was his first goal for Wimbledon this season.

And hopefully it portends brighter things to come. But this is a really difficult period now that Wimbledon have entered. And it's frustrating because we looked pretty good at the start of the season. And now suddenly we are just one place away from relegation, just two points removed from the relegation zone. I know with a little under half the season to go. So we have some time to figure this out, but we do need to figure

it out having lost four of our last five games. Oh gosh. Did everybody just realize how you were playing and they were like, Oh, we know how to play these people now. Because this, it seemed like you were playing a weird kind of football in the beginning. Yeah. In the beginning, it was very joyful and expressive, which is not like AFC Wimbledon at all. We should have been playing more stoic defensive, physical, etc. I think part of it is luck. I think we were probably overperforming early in the season based on our overall kind of budget and everything. That said, I mean, this is the fourth or fifth season in a row

that we've just been barely trying to scrape by and stay in league one. And I know a lot of fans are really frustrated, I mean, they're frustrated because they can't be at the games, obviously. This is a weird way, especially when you're talking about third-tier football that isn't widely televised unless you have the I follow app. Right's just a weird way to follow your club most of the people who follow AFC Wimbledon. This has been the hardest period I think of of the five years that I've been a fan mostly because of outside stuff. It's just you know the wider situation is so bad that it inevitably

has an effect on sports. Yeah well um I mean if get relegated, then you'll win a bunch of games. So that'll be nice. Maybe. It's not at all clear to me that we wouldn't be one of the worst teams in league too, but yeah, maybe. What do you guys need? We need to give up fewer goals. We give, we actually have given more, up more goals from winning or tying positions than any team in the top four leagues of England. So that's just completely unacceptable. So we need to, we need a stronger defense. And we also just need to be a little more, I don't know. We just haven't looked good. I'm not an expert. What's the news from Mars?

Well, so we're always talking about like missions that are on their way to Mars. But one of the things that happens is that way before missions arrive at Mars or get to Mars, we decide to make them. And this week, we know a little bit more about a future mission to Mars called the Mars Ice Mapper. It was originally announced as part of the NASA budget request back in February. And when that happened, it was a bit of a surprise. Like, we didn't really know about it or know much about it.

But in the past few months, NASA officials have been releasing more information. So as you might imagine, the goal is to map the ice on Mars and do that. NASA is going to be working with the Canadian Space Agency to put a radar instrument on an orbiter, which is a thing we've already done with other orbiters, like the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The ice mappers radar will be able to create maps of water, ice, and other geologic activity on Mars' surface, and those maps will be important for understanding the geology of Mars, but also for possible future human exploration of the planet. So in addition to Canada, Japan,

their space agency is going to be involved. So will the Italian space agency and potentially other commercial collaborations because we're now open to that. And that seems to be happening more often. If everything goes according to plan, that mission will launch in 2026. Oh, so just before the people.

Three months before all the humans. Wow. That's exciting, though. It's really space is one of those places where we see big international collaboration that I have to say I find very encouraging, especially in times where resources are sometimes hoarded and not shared. It's nice to know that when it comes to space exploration, we do try to work together as a human team.

Agreed, John. And speaking of working together as a human team, we are now off to record our Patreon only podcast this weekend stuff over at patreon.com slash deer hank and john. We do that every week to talk about stuff that we like and that's helping get us through this strange period of human history. And we are very grateful to everybody who supports us over there because that money goes to help out complexly in all of its projects from Crash Course to SciShow. So thanks everybody. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tudor Matic. It's produced by Rosiana Halstero-Hasen-Shared

and Gibson. Our communications coordinator is Julia Bloom. Our editorial assistant is Deboki Chokravarti. The music you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gunnarola. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome. Be awesome. Be awesome.

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