Dear Hank & John - 339: Every Building is a Vehicle (w/ Brennan Lee Mulligan!)

Episode Date: August 1, 2022

How does something absorb light? How do I handle losing four marks? Is it okay to disagree with movie reviews? Can I just take ice cream? Is it bad luck to open an umbrella in a car? Hank Green and Brennan Lee Mulligan 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. Or as I like to call it, Dear Brennan and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers and sometimes one brother and a friend answer your questions, give you to be a advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and F. Swimbolden. Today we are joined by Brennan Lee Milligan and I have to say I like Dungeons and Dragons very much. I was once playing D&D and I asked my DM about dark vision. And he said that I meant I could see 60 feet in the dark, but I was confused.

I would like to see 60 feet in the dark, but there's nowhere near 30 people. Ah! Oh, oh, joy. A straight up, a straight up joke, a true joke. Just a capital J joke. We love it. Did you expect it? Did you know where I was going?

Not even at all. That would be an alarming thing. Seen 60 feet in the dark is very upsetting. Also because the original description of dark vision is that everything is kind of in a grainy, black, and white. It's sort of like you're in there, devil, scary, mystery feet, scary mystery feet. Ooh, no, thank you.

You see 60 feet in the dark and I'm like, do I have to kill all of them? How do they have eyes? Well, can I do an arcana check on this? What's happening? It does the good horror thing too. If I tell you you see 60 feet, it immediately makes you have a psychological lurch forward because I didn't tell you you saw 60 people. So are three people. So you have to suddenly go like, wait, but I see feet do it.

Are they attached to ankles? Can I see shins? Why? Wait. I mean, it seems like I would rather fight 60 feet than 30 people. Like that's true. Because what can a foot do to me? Oh God.

I mean, that is literally the definition of like a monkey paw wish. That is like the hero. That is like the thing before we smash cut to exactly what 60 feet can do to you. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. We'll find out someday on a campaign where you will throw a bunch of feet at me. That would be wonderful.

I would love to play D&D with you. One of the world's foremost dungeon masters. If you don't know Brennan does lots of funny things, but one of the things he does is runs as many different games, but is always running some dimension 20 game, which is just an absolute delight. I'm a big fan and I'm really excited to have you here on Dier Angajan to answer questions from our listeners. I thrilled, elated beyond measure. It's a joy and an honor to be here. And I love to help answer questions. I hope your listeners are ready for a nice chunk of me

as the philosophy, the former philosophy measure that I am, talking myself out of any possible answer to any of these questions. It's so hard. So, this is it. Yeah, it's like, okay, so we got a sentence and a half from you. And we're supposed to tell you about our living life. I love it.

But, you know, hey, there's even something within that, right? Of we get these questions, we get the context of them, but that's, you know, people aren't always looking for the right answer, Hank. Sometimes they're just looking for an answer, and I get that. Yes. And we can deliver an answer. Brennan, do you have any questions that you found particularly compelling that you want to start with or should I go? Oh, man. I jumped into these and the, the gamut that they ran was so exciting all over the place.

They're all over the place. I would say, let's start, I would say, let's start with a nice, easy, underhand pitch. If there's one that you see that seems like, hey, this one, this one's maybe one we can like knock out of the park to get ahead of steam going here. That'd be my choice. So this one is from Prash, who asks, dear Hank and Brennan, I know that white clothes reflect light and tend to keep you cool in the sunlight

and black clothes absorb light and keep you warmer. What exactly does it mean for something to absorb light? Does that mean that there are photons somehow saturated in the fabric? Could I ring out the photons and they would spill out like water? What do you got for me, Brennan? Well, there's nothing kind of,

I would say my response to this is a great point and the premise of your question is really appreciated. And immediately, I think Hank is Hank is going to be able to handle the science behind this, but I think that we can all agree that there's nothing more sort of viscerally upsetting to see than a hot goth during the daytime. And you need temperature too. Yes, exactly. Right. Yeah. I worked for many years at a live action role playing summer camp called the Wayfinder Experience. And every so often, that? Yeah. I worked for many years at a live action role playing summer camp called the Wayfinder Experience.

And every so often, that's cool. Very, very cool. They're an incredible program that does day camps and overnight camps for, you know, teens and preteens. We have all kinds of programming for stuff. But occasionally you have to play an army of undead villains or other kind of lark things. And sometimes you play them at night where you get to be very cool and very scary, but occasionally you have to play them during the day. And then what happens is you

are dressed head to toe in black garb with sort of undead makeup on. And it is mid-August in upstate New York. And let me tell you, black clothing really does trap heat. And it is hard to be sort of the terror of the realms when you are truly just, you can feel sweat running like a coursing river down your back. You're like, oh, I think my body has a timer on it of when I will literally desaturate like a hydrated fruit. I'll just like fribble to the ground and die. Yes, I was in marching band in Florida. I lived in Orlando and I was in marching band

and they put on these, I don't know why they're, they're probably are now, but at that point, there, I guess it was probably an upgrade from the wool that they were before, but it was point, there, I guess it was probably an upgrade from the wool that they were before, but it was just very heavy polyester, which of course didn't absorb anything. So you just like, whatever sweat came out, just came out. It was in there. It would immediately just be sort of like wicked and you're just, everything was wet or

it like stayed in. It like wouldn't absorb it, so it would just like stay on your skin all of the time But luckily our marching band outfits and I think for a good reason we're white Because of this so what white is is Reflecting all of the colors and it's not reflecting all of the colors. Otherwise, it would be Not getting hot at all except for through so there's two it now I'm going to get super nerdy. There's two ways you get hot. So that's great. Hell yeah. There's the air that's actually carrying heat to you. And that's going to be there, whether you're in the shade or the the sun. So 96 degrees in the

shade or whatever it is that is in the song., that just gets to you no matter what. And then there's the actual radiation. So infrared radiation from the sun, getting through the atmosphere, hitting you, and heating things up, jiggling atoms, because those photons in the case of white are just mostly going to get reflected back out. And that's what we see.

It's reflecting all the different wavelengths of visible light. It might be absorbing some non-visible wavelengths of light, but there aren't that many that get through the atmosphere, so you don't have to worry too much about that. But there are some. And then there are the, and then there's like black, is absorbing all of them, and that's what we see as black.

And so there's still going to be reflecting some, because it's not like pure, vanta, black, or anything, but it's going to be absorbing most. And what that means is the photon is coming in, and it is being absorbed, and it's no longer there. So what happens is it gets absorbed by the molecule and that energy becomes energy in the molecule and that molecule or atom jiggles more.

And that jiggling is what we feel as heat because that jiggling can then be transferred by convection into our skin and we feel that as the heat. So the photons aren't there anymore. They become, they are always energy, and their energy gets transferred into a different form, which is the jiggling of atoms and molecules, which is the thing that we feel is heat. Heat is just speed of molecules, which is wild, and does not make intuitive sense. But eventually, if you say it enough times, you start to believe it.

leave it. So, and to break this down, again, as a lay person, as someone who, you know, made the decision for reasons, you know, that we don't need to go into here, but to study humanities rather than the, rather than the hard sciences. What it seems like you're saying is that these, these articles of clothing eat photons. They eat them and then they get lots of energy from them. That's what I'm hearing in my head. Yeah, so they're more of their full and they're going to have to go to the bathroom soon. It's like when my nephew gets his hand on a fruit snack that we didn't know was out somewhere where he could get it and then he eats that and then he jiggles and actually

does become quite hot to the touch. Yeah, then there's a lot of jiggling. There's nothing like, nothing like a nephew on a fruit snack. Yes, for jiggles. For the jiggles, exactly. Well, that's wild. So, now that, so, so, so, light turns into heat as it gets, as that energy gets, turn, is that energy is created. And then is there a reverse process by which heat gets turned, as that energy's created. And then is there a reverse process by which heat gets turned into light? Like for example, if we had,

if we had a goth on a hot summer's day out in the woods, could that goth become so uncomfortably hot that they began to emit light? Yeah, yeah. Yes. And indeed that goth is emitting light from their black clothing because, but they are is emitting light from their black clothing, because, but they are not emitting light

in the visible spectrum, so we can't see it. So if you hold like a warm shirt up, you can put your hand in front of that shirt and feel the warmth, that's infrared radiation coming off of that shirt. So it's the hot molecules are actually jiggling and then they are re-radiating that light in a wavelength that we can't see.

So, and if you like pointed at infrared you get them hot enough, they will start glowing in visible light. And unfortunately, that is the kind of heat that no one goth or not could survive. Gotcha. But I feel like if you took, like a goth being able to be seen in the darkness is a goth's pretty much the biggest dream.

So that's, it's exciting that we're already there. That's, yeah, it's very, very tough to have the right. And certain animals can detect infrared radiation, we just can't. So like, there are species of, I don't know, maybe spiders that would be able to see the goth. Which seems, seems right. That seems right.

There are some infrared snakes out there who can detect heat, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's also fire beetles that they have a special organ for sensing heat. And it's very, I think it's similar to the pit organs and like a pit fiper that senses heat. And they use that to go and like go to fires

because they like to eat burned wood. Wow. Yeah. Oh my God. Burnt wood. That's, I mean, that's a lovely, mean the miss I get it a nice miskeet Yeah, it makes sense. I dig it and dig it. Yeah or or whatever is going on there

We We could get we could get so so far into heat. Thank you for asking all of the best questions. Yes I into heat. Thank you for asking all of the best questions. Yes. I, uh, it's that radiation, by the way, when, uh, something gets so hot that it starts to glow, like lava, for example, is called black body radiation, which also feels applicable to our scenario here. Yeah. This next question comes from anonymous who asks, I had a math test recently. I got a 37.5 out of 40. When I was checking over the paper, I saw that the teacher had made some mistakes, and I felt the urge that I had to tell the teacher about it so I did, and he was happy that I told the truth,

and then he deducted four marks from it. Now, I know I made the right choice, but I do feel really bad for losing those four marks. Please help anonymous. Wow, wow, wow. I to send a little message to this teacher that like those four points on this test are not as important as that honesty that you displayed in that situation. And in that, I, in that situation would be like, thank you for being honest. As a reward, I will leave your test at the same score. That's me. I know that that's not everybody, but I feel like that's such big move. That's a big

move. And I'm proud of you for making the big move. And I think you should have kept your four points for it. That's how I feel. Where I in the teacher's position, I would probably similarly decide to leave the score unchanged. However, I do remember being a little kid and my dad telling me a story as he was often want to do while we were walking down the streets of New York together, which was always a fun way to receive life lessons while you were like a tiny person being buffeted by crowds on a city street. And he told me the story of, this is some like apocryphal legend of the sailor and the loose cannon.

And this idea of like a sailor, like negligently, forgot to tie down a cannon on a ship which he was supposed to do, right? And doing that could potentially get people killed. It's a huge deal to not, you know, if the ship enters combat or there's a storm that cannon could punch a hole on the side of the ship.

It's bad news. But sort of like when the ship got into choppy water, the sailor realized the huge error and bravely leapt into the gun deck and with the cannon swaying around wildly and risked his own life to tie the cannon up and he tied it into place. And the next morning, Captain called up the sailor and was like, for your bravery and your courage in saving the lives of your fellow crew members, we decorate you with the highest metal it is possible to decorate a sailor with. And for your negligence and failure in not securing the cannon in the first place, the penalty is death and they

threw him overboard into the ocean. It's a mixed blessing, you know, it's a mixed blessing. And like a lot, do they keep the metal on the way down? I think so. And I think that's sort of the vibe as we're going to put this metal on you. And then we're going to pick you up and throw you into the sea. And I think that there's a, I remember as a kid, I don't know, there's certain little fables or legends that your parents tell you when you're a kid that are, I guess, either so deeply jarring or.

Yeah, that's, I don't know, but I hit my son with that one at this moment. Yeah, but I got it. Like I groked what he was going for, which is sort of like, like your merits and your demerits, you've got to take them all. Like the slate never becomes clean in other words. It's just that you receive all of your marks

good and bad, right? But I, so, this is a long, meandering way of saying, I would probably leave the score unchanged, but also there is a broader philosophical point that the thing that motivates you to do the right thing can be maybe kept in a separate category from your feeling about losing those marks. Like, you do the right thing. I do agree with the feeling that when you go to explain that the teacher has overgraded you, you should go with the expectation that they will not keep your grades the same. You should go with the expectation that you are doing the right thing for the sake of

doing the right thing. And it may in fact, you know, they're hurt you. Sometimes you do the right thing and you should not expect that like the response will be universally positive. Sometimes you do it just because it's the right thing to do. I commend you for that line of thinking. I will provide an addition to,

if you can do that grand for you, but also I'll provide the addition that this teach, this is not the end of your relationship with this teacher. And to have done a good thing and done the right thing is not, we are always trying to figure out how to be in the world together. And to, first of all, I think that getting that signal from the student at all makes that teacher feel better about their work and the way that they are, and the connections that they have with students and about students in general, and it's going to make them feel better about you. Now, is that going to come back and become some kind of benefit in the future? Probably not, but maybe. And also like the moving through the world in a way that sort of helps everyone feel like the world isn't a trash place is extraordinarily valuable to everyone.

And everything that we can do for each other to make, to help each other believe that is really good because we get a lot of signals, especially when we're not dealing one on one with people. We get a lot of signals, especially when we're not dealing one on one with people, we get a lot of signals that that is not the case. I think this that is exactly correct. I'm like, I'm like very much of two minds in that I, there's the mind of like what you say to an individual and then there's the mind of how would I make the world work. If you were in the mind of how would I make the world work? If we're in the mind of how would I make the world work,

then yeah, everyone's rewarded for honesty. You know, if you take morality and ethics in the aggregate, then you see that we are a social animal that is really affected by incentive structures. And when you have systems and structures and patterns of human interaction that incentivize selfish behavior, it's no wonder, you know, we are neither angels nor devils, right? But if the borders of the system that we're playing in funnel us into anti-social or pro-social behavior, then in the aggregate, of course, you're going to see those results more and more.

So if I was going to design a world, I would say, yes, honesty, always the best policy. But if I were speaking to an individual about how to navigate this world of forms in which disappointments happen all the time, I would probably tell a friend, you will guard your heart more securely by not expecting to be rewarded for these things, but still doing them nonetheless. Yes. And who knows? Maybe by telling the teacher that you avoided

some other worst fate. What if you'd gone up to the teacher and just like not said anything? And then the teacher said, is there anything you want to tell me in your test? That would be really, that's definitely unethical teacher behavior right there. You can't do teacher entrapment. And then the teacher slowly draws a sword from under their desk and they say, pick up your

blade. And that could have happened. That could have happened. Yeah. I'll do. What happened? That could have happened. Yeah. I'll do, I'm so glad that I never had to do a duel with a teacher like I know that it happens, but I'm just really happy that I never got in a situation where I had to fight to the death with a professor of mine.

Yeah, well, I think that that's always, it doesn't create the ideal learning environment to know that at any moment your teacher could stand up and a wind could kick up in the classroom and blow their long robes to the side. And then in a flash of light, they have just vipisected you and all of a sudden you've failed algebra one. You know, that would be terrible. That's, I mean, that's a problem.

It's also like, it just makes it, like, we're already, there's already enough of a shortage of teachers, right? So you don't need to be losing them in these pointless duels. Yes. Children are strong. They're live. They're, they're dexterous. We're all saying,

We're all our teachers. The moment they hit 50 because they can't handle it. Exactly. Los Angeles just actually passed an ordinance that if you defeat one of your teachers in single combat, you become the teacher. So that's, I mean, yeah, which, which if you want that, I say go for it. Oh, man. Well, well, good.

That's, I'm glad that, that feels solved. I think we solved that. And I think that person got exactly the answer they were looking for or of any of the answers we gave. There's certainly one that they're looking for in there. This one comes from the Haley. Thanks, Mahaley. Dear John and Hank, sometimes I will look up reviews and ratings of the show or movie

I just finished. I get really self-conscious when I really like to show and it got terrible reviews and ratings. Do I have really bad taste? Who are the critics that get to decide what is a flop? Has this ever happened to y'all? Rotten tomatoes ain't got nothing on me, my hailey. Woof! Ah, I mean, I know this feeling, I know this feeling,

and I do this. I often sort of like, this is the worst way that I do it. Sometimes I read or watch something that I really like and I like want to make sure that, like if I'm going to tweet about it, I want to make sure that I'm saying it in a way that isn't been said a bunch before or like, you know, is like, you know, useful content for people. And so I'll go and read a couple of reviews. And then I'm like, you know, useful content for people. And so I'll go and read a couple of reviews. And then I'm like, oh, these people got a very different thing out of this than I did,

or they didn't get what I got out of this. And I do my very best to one not let that, you know, impact how I feel about the thing, which is impossible, of course. But also like, to not let it discourage me from like raving about a thing that I love, which I will absolutely continue to do even if people who I do not know did not like it in the same way that I did. Now, there are also times when I like something gets pointed out to me where I'm like, oh, maybe that's like my viewing, like my,

like, situation in life who I am gives me a different viewing than other people experienced, and maybe I can sort of take that into account in the way that I suggested and rave about it. But like, usually that's not the case. Usually I say, I am a different person than those people and different things are for different people. Yes. And there are a bunch of people out there who are going to love this as much as I do and I want them to know about it. God, well, that I want them to know about it. God, well, I think that's the only way that you can preserve your joy and sanity in the world

is just to be like, yes, the things I love are for me. And I think that makes a lot of sense. It's very funny, I feel like a lot of this, I haven't thought about this as much recently, but I remember early 20s and teenage years, which feels like the chapter of your life where you are kind of fashioning, are kind of like, how do you put it?

You're fashioning this suit of armor that is your identity. But especially when I was a teenager, it felt like a big part of that was what was good and what I liked, that that's like a huge identity project. And I think that, so you get into this position where you're like, let me tell you, this fantasy property is the best.

And it's about to become a huge tempo of my personality. And then someone's like, like, you know, not for me, really. And yeah. And you go, you have attacked me at the deepest core of my being. And this will not stand. And so, you know, I think that there's a, that's a big element of those things of like, the more you attach your identity

towards your consumption of something like that, the worse it gets. And now I feel like those opinions, I'm trying to think of what I like, still have those opinions about bad taste. I feel like I do get a lot of that bad taste, feeling that like getting your dander up and like getting your back up against a wall

about having bad taste, about things that are very basic. Like I feel like in my family, I'm surrounded by a lot of dark chocolate lovers and as a milk chocolate, as a, so it does, that weirdly, it's like, it's less so with like movies and books now, but if I'm in a room and people start going off about like, oh yes, like I got this bar of, you know, 99% pure cacao,

it tastes like biting right into a bar of pure carbon. And this is the closest I've ever gotten to a tire. And I'm over here with just a piece of like, like brightly colored, like it couldn't be more four kids piece of milk chocolate. And that's when I really go berserk. That's when I'm like, actually, all of you are wrong. And I'm right.

And you need to go to the doctor for why your mouths are doing that to you. Like, yeah, I'm this way with wine, where the better the wine, the more I'm like, I don't think I like wanted to taste like grape flavored sprite. Like I just, I want it to be fun and sweet and cold and not at all interesting.

I have enough interest in my life and I also feel this way about much of the reality television that I watch where I'm just like, I'm watching this because it's, and this is another thing. Here is the thing I deeply believe about criticism, is that early on, there is often lots of like new types of content that are panned critically, and then as those types of content become their own genre, people start to judge them based on their own merits.

Now this doesn't always happen. Sometimes you get areas like genres of content that never get judged based on their own merits either because there's not enough of it or almost because there's too much of it. And it's like, it is, it's, it's so sort of like for broad consumption that anybody who watches a lot of content and works hard to think a lot about content is going to feel like there isn't anything interesting here. But that's their job is to try and like find the interesting stuff in content. And they're not, they sometimes can be looking

in the wrong place, or they sometimes can just have so much overexposure that they need stuff to be like, too dang interesting, for it to be interesting. Yeah, I totally agree with that. And I also do believe that what you call it. The person asking this question gets really self-conscious that they like to show and it got terrible reviews. But I do think that like you're saying different,

whether it's a show or a food item or any kind of thing where you're like, oh, this is something that's like I'm consuming to bring value to my life, whether it be an intellectual thing or a physical thing or whatever, you go, what is the purpose of this, right? And I truly do believe in that of like certain things, you have to judge them in their

proper context, right? That's true with like, you know, reality television. I feel like myself and my fiance have been talking about this a lot recently in terms of scripted television. Because weirdly, I feel like my, there's like this weird no man's land that's appeared for me with scripted content, at least like during the pandemic, where show, I don't have any medium scripted shows anymore. I'll watch a new scripted like single camera kind of show and it will be like, I'll watch a new, a new scripted, like single camera kind of show. And it will

be like, I'll be like, Oh, God, this is like not good. Or I'll be like, this is the best thing I've ever watched. It's like, there's this incredibly high bar to clear. And if you don't achieve that bar, I'm like, this is funny. And there's too much. There's too much. there's too much. Yeah, like why would I spend time watching something that I think is a little bit good when there's so much content that there might be something that was made exactly for me? Yeah, a million percent. And I think too, this person's question is very much about,

like, what do you do when you're in the minority and people seem to dislike stuff? What I would also like say, I mean, there's a very funny, I remember this conversation recently about reading restaurant reviews and my, again, my wonderful fiance pulled up a review and like was reading a review and I looked at it and it was a three star review out of a five star system. It was this three star review and she started to read it and I said, I have to stop you there because yes, we are all, we're, we're herd animals were affected by the opinions of others.

You don't want to believe that you like something that other people don't like, but I said said I have to dismiss this three star review out of hand because what could be more unhinged than writing a three star review of anywhere like You you have a short You have a short human life. I write exclusively one star reviews and five star reviews right exclusively one star reviews and five star reviews. One star reviews is that I am trying to prevent human harm. Five star reviews is the owner of the business is someone that I want to help. I like that I want I am I am I this needs to keep existing. I desperately want this place to not close. The idea that I would get home from a purely average dinner and I would, I would close my door and I would go, the people need to know. They

need to know that this place is right down the middle. It's instinct, instinct, I can't understand. And, and you're like, it's's Olive Garden. That's what they're going for. That's their context, okay? I don't wanna read a three star review. The person that wrote this review saying that they had an okay time at this restaurant did it in a room filled with severed human heads, okay? There's no...

That's not true. There's no. People are motivated by different things than you obviously. I'm calling everybody out right now. If you're out here writing three-star, if you are going, I need to tell people that this was eh, then we must part ways to and I. I can't follow you down that road.

I'm so curious now having had this conversation for too long. What is taste and is there both a positive and a negative to having developed it? This is, this is actually how I feel about wine. I do, I am not interested in developing a, like, knowledge about wine because that sounds expensive and, like, it's not going to make my life that much better because it's not like I'm going to encounter a lot of great wine in my life unless like I start to orient my life in that way. And so I have chosen, you know, in many different aspects of my life to not be that interested

in the quality of a thing. Like I don't care about how nice my car is. Which is true with a lot of people. It's a utilitarian thing. I don't care about how nice my wine is. I'm not, I really admire the beauty and craftsmanship of a nice fancy mechanical wristwatch. But I'm never going to be interested in that to a level where I'm going to like buy one because it seems like just a way of turning my, like orienting my life in a way that I'm like sort of, like I could

be knowledgeable about so many things. I don't know why I would choose to suddenly be knowledgeable about that thing. And so I think that there is, I think that we also need to accept that there are areas of our lives where we don't need to have good taste Hank you are you're preaching the gospel my man you are you are saying exactly how I feel about Almost everything when I my my like meal preferences, right if The best indication that I will enjoy a restaurant is if that restaurant is mostly empty. I do not want to go. I do not want to go. My main problem is if this is going to take a long time. 100%. 100%. I want a restaurant where we will be able to walk in and sit down immediately where the staff at that restaurant will not be super stressed and having a terrible time.

And I want a place where, again, and I would say on a meal by meal basis, number one predictor of whether I will enjoy a meal or not. Is it heavy? If the meal is heavy, I will enjoy it, right? You can cut a lot of it. You mean like literally like wait, like has mass. I here's here's when a meal gets good for me. If that meal could be placed in a paper bag, if that paper bag were then dropped from a height of let let's say, five feet above

my head onto my head. If I were completely okay, then that meal is disappointing. I would Heaviness at empty restaurants. This is where joy lies. Which reminds me that this podcast is actually brought to you by Heaviness at empty restaurant. Available at every Olive Garden. We also want to thank today, obviously, one of our other podcast sponsors, classroom combat, a series of internet lectures teaching you different forms and martial arts to defeat teachers that have set up clever ruses and traps to test your ethics while they are testing your mathematics, STEM, humanities, et cetera. Just remember that with a little bit of knowledge,

it can go a long, long way towards being the last one standing on top of a beautiful sunset mountain as the teacher you have bested in combat turns into a small whirlwind of blossoms and congratulates you on now becoming your middle school's social studies teacher. So there you go. But guess is also brought to you by a warm goth in the sun, a warm goth in the sun glowing, but invisibly, as well as a well tied cannon tired of being thrown into the sea by your

incredibly strict captain, who's I guess trying to teach you a lesson in the last few moments of your life. Make sure that can and strap down with a well tied cannon today. Dear John and Hank. And by the way, I'm going to always say John and Hank, because that's what's written here and I'm reporting faithfully, but Grace, my sincere apologies. John's not answering this one, baby, it's me, okay? And that's them's the breaks.

Dear John and Hank, I work at a tiny ice cream truck where I always work alone. Oh my God, this is starting like a fairy tale. I work at a tiny ice cream truck where I always work alone. It's not very busy, so most of the time I'm sitting doing nothing. When I started, I was never told whether or not I could have free ice cream while I work. I don't want to ask because I'm eternally terrified of talking to people of authority. Should I just take ice cream or wallow in perpetual sadness staring at ice cream the love of my life for hours on end? I want ice cream. Grace. This is like a Hemingway short story. This is one of the most beautifully written questions I think I've ever seen. This is, uh,

Grace, you really took me on a journey and I feel like I understand your heart and I totally get it. Oh, yeah well, so There's you I think Renemade is agree with me. You have two options. You can either Talk to your boss about whether or not you can have free or discounted ice cream or and this is a Little rough you can be your own customer and buy some ice cream, and then you're not staring at it anymore.

And you're putting that autopop direct into your mouth, but it is being taken out of the dollars that you have just put into the cash register. Because you can be a customer of a restaurant or any business that you are employed by. But I would suggest taking a scary hour. Do you know what a scary hour is? What's a scary hour? The scary hour is the hour that you spend every day or on a day that you choose, depending on your tolerance for scary. It's the hour you choose to do all the scary things that you've been not doing.

Calling to cancel that subscription, talking to your boss about whether or not you can eat the ice cream, or emailing that person about that thing that you need to get done, that you haven't gotten done. Yeah. Wow. Scary hour. Wow. I love scary hour. What a great way to think about that. And I think Grace, I fully understand the being terrified of talking to people of authority. I think to break this down into some actionable principles. Anytime you're looking at a decision tree, you're looking at sort of a flow sheet of options. If one of the, one of the forks on your path is wallow in perpetual sadness, I think we X that.

I think we just X that for every decision tree. You know, we can, we can work around that in some other way. And you know, I think in that scary hour, so context, my very first job of all time was I worked as a cashier at a grocery store to save up enough money to go to summer camp. By the way, one day, some of the people in line at my register were the people that were running the summer camp,

and they told me that the camp I had been saving up money for had been canceled. And so I rang them out and shut down my register and watched to the office and quit that very moment. I gave my two weeks notice because that job was really hard, and we were not allowed to sit down and it was long, long hours. Also, they had little lunches over by the deli counter and there were a couple of times where I would get a lunch because I was told I had an employee discount and I realized that even with the employee discount, I was usually spending somewhere between like 20 to 40% of my after-tax pay, buying my luncheon work. And it made me very sad. So there's a big part of me with that kind of sense memory of that experience

that would just tell you grace steel ice cream. That would be my advice. And just for clarity, if John were here, that would be, that would also, I think, be his take. He would be ragging on me right now and being like, hang are you for real? Grace got to eat that ice cream. And also, I used to work at Walmart where it was very hot. I would go out and push carts,

and I was one of my parts of my job, and I would come in and then I would have a Little bit of fountain soda from the little cafe that was in the Walmart and then I was told by my boss That I was not allowed to have fountain soda and could have water and that did seem a little extreme and and Very upsetting to me at the time where I was like are you serious about that? But they were they made me very upsetting to me at the time, where I was like, are you serious about that? But they were, they made me-

But I also understand that probably if you have, if you have a fear of like speaking to authority figures, it's, I feel like it's a rare person who is like, well listen, I had this anxiety around asking for favors from authority figures, so I'm going to boldly steal from them. I feel like that doesn't, there's, you know, there's, I get it. I don't know, I bet there's over there.

For sure, it's like, my social anxiety is enormous. My theft anxiety remarkably low. Um, there's, you're all by yourself in an ice cream truck. Apparently, like, I would be concerned, I will say they may do inventory on the ice cream grace. I don't know if they do, but they may do inventory and they may know if some ice cream started to disappear.

I also had a friend in a high school who worked at Steak and Shake, which, if you don't have it, is like a Denny's, but maybe a little nicer? I don't know. I think so. And at Steak and Shake,

they do inventory on a lot of things, but they don't do inventory on soups, shakes, or fries. So that's what we ate. And we ate it for free. Jesus, okay. Well, first of all, I gotta say, stake and shake, incredible. Love, there was one in New York, stake and shake.

No, I missed it. Beautiful. Yeah. So, I think it's two things here, right? I'm of the opinion that certainty always beats uncertain. Like anxiety comes from ambiguity, for me at least. Yeah, yeah, that's, yeah. So I think, no matter what happens, speaking to your employers is going to set the record

straight, and that's actually a positive thing. So even though you have that anxiety around that, I think you could say, you know, it's to your employers is going to set the record straight. And that's actually a positive thing. So even though you have that anxiety around that, I think you could say, you know, it's actually, I don't think it's that unusual request, right? A lot of places have staff meal. I worked at a bar for a while where it was the very first bar I ever worked at. And we got paid even like our, you know, sub minimum wage due to tips, pay was like withheld and there was weird stuff going on.

And my one act of rebellion because we had staff meal that was from a buffet table is I basically was like, well, if they're going to sort of like screw us out of this, you know, the money that we're owed, I'm going to quadruple my salary in stake every day. I'm going to eat as much of the big ticket items. I'm going to try to hit them in the pocket book in terms of what I'm eating. We're gonna see a running theme of my relationship to food and mass and heaviness here.

But I think in your search, certain things, it's a grace. The thing to do might be Talk to them and say hey is there some kind of staff meal? Hillary when I when I do a shift in the ice cream truck I'm like, you know, I'm like running around for a long time. Would it be is there is it's high? Maybe is there and I don't think it's on to because of course like the amount they're paying for the ice cream It's like a fraction of what it's being sold for. It's probably something that's that is not that difficult to ask for.

And then you'll have an answer. And the answer is I'll be like, of course, like help yourself, you know, like, or like, yeah, if you want like, like once a shift, if you want to do that, and then you have your answer. And if the answer is, that is not your ice cream, how dare you? My father and my father's father discovered this ice cream at the bottom of the ocean and whatever kind of thing they're going to say. Then you know, ah, I'm dealing with cold-hearted villains.

And then you kind of feel absolutely justified in being not only an eating ice cream, but I will actually dawn a mask, and at night, I will, you know, to the neighborhood children, I will throw ice cream like a kind of frozen confection, Robinhood, you know, so then you have your answer either way. And I think it dispels the ambiguity, which is the main thing. All right, I have a last question before we get to the news from Mars and not AF Sue Umbleton, because John's not here.

This is from Rebecca, who asks, dear Hank and Brennan. It doesn't say that, but I'm not faithful. So what is written? If I open an umbrella inside my car, is that bad luck or is that strictly a house-based phenomenon? Unluckily or not, Rebecca. Rebecca, it's, Brennan, why is it unlucky to open an umbrella in a house?

Okay. Because I've got thoughts, because I think it's unlucky to open an umbrella in a house? Okay. Because I've got thoughts, because I think it's unlucky to open an umbrella in your house because you're about to go Mr. Bean on that vase. Now, I'm, now here's the funny thing. We have sort of been shooting from the hip on some of these answers, right? Okay, yeah.

This question hit some deep superstitious Irish part of my soul and it actually prompted me to open a window in a browser because I am not going to be glib and fuck around with this person asking questions about luck. Luck is, there are very few universal forces that I believe in. Luck, one of them. So, so, wow. Because I think luck is indisputable, right? Luck is the name we give to the incalculable forces of chance that govern all of the elements

of our lives outside of our individual control, right? Do you want to know a weird thing? So yes, and there are many of those things. Without doubt, and by virtue of the fact that you have a device with which to listen on podcast to on, we have all experienced our share of luck here today. But I have, this is a really interesting study, and I wonder if you've heard of it. There is, there was a study done, and the basis of it was, here's a newspaper. And you have to tell me the number of times that like something happens in this newspaper,

I don't know, like the word the appears in a headline. And so you have to like mark down how many times the word the appears in a headline, you go through the whole newspaper and you see how fast it takes. And there are people who self reported being lucky. Before doing that, we're though, we're much more likely to see that one of the headlines said, there are 41 instances of the word the in this paper. There are 41 instances of the word the in this paper. And that, so like there was a way that you could, there was like a cheap way

and they were much more likely to see it, indicating that they were just more open to the possibility of gaining or gathering insight in new in different ways. So this is not about whether or not luck exists. It's about whether like people's experience of luck, which is very different thing. I think that'll like, you know, obviously luck very luck exists, it's about whether people's experience of luck, which is very different thing. I think that'll, obviously, luck very much exists, but luckiness seems to oftentimes be about people's experience of luckiness. Like me feeling like a lucky person, which I do, tends to be actually something that might be

innate in the person rather in their experiences. Wow, wow, wow, wow. That's very wild, holy smokes. And I certainly agree with that. I don't know that I believe in luckiness. I can kind of definitively say, like I think it's possible to believe in luckiness after the fact.

If someone goes on an incredible streak, you can go. Yeah, they were incredibly lucky. But I think having something that you can determine ahead of time, that doesn't strike me as true. But I don't know. I believe a belief in luck of some kind is one of the only ways that I can make the universe make sense where you go like, it just feels like an acknowledgement of the forces outside of human control. And it's one of the kinder ways of describing that because it's so impersonal. And I think

when you- And it's so unjust. Well, it explains injustice in a lot of ways, right? It explains like, oh, that's because I think if you start going, you know, it's the old like, what is that candy? Like we live in the best of all possible worlds. And if you believe that you live in the best of all possible worlds, then you're suddenly left trying to explain all of the horrifying things that happen. And that gets immediately indefensible, right? At least to me. To the question about umbrellas, I think it is, I think the superstition.

To the umbrellas. To the umbrella. Yeah, we're talking about ethics, blah, blah, blah, whatever. Listen, we need to talk about where it's bad to open umbrellas. In a lot of the language I'm finding, it doesn't mention a house. It says inside. Inside. And specifically, I'm seeing indoors.

Now, not to open a whole lot. Wow. All right. A whole hot dog is a sandwich kind of question. Hey, I don't care who you are. I don't care who you are. If you're telling me that cars don't have doors, you're dreaming, pal. Cars got doors.

Okay. Okay. Brennan, Car's got doors. Okay. Okay. Brennan, convertibles have doors. Are you indoors in a convertible with the top down? You're surrounded by doors. Now here's the deal. This is an edge case. You are not technically indoors while you are within the closed doors of a convertible.

So however you have, you have proved thus that it's not about the doors. Or have I proved simply that the doors of a convertible do not close because there is no upper edge to the door frame. You can't, you'd rather argue that you can't close the doors of a convertible. It is impossible to close the doors of a convertible and I'll die on this hill. Unless the top is up, in which case, the moment you take the top down, the doors open again. And I would say it is bad luck to open an umbrella inside of a convertible with the top down and also potentially rude because the top of a convertible is essentially an umbrella and you're being disrespectful to the car.

So if the top is up in a convertible, you can open the umbrella inside of the car. If the top is down, if the top is down, there's nothing between you and the sun, nothing between you and the sun, nothing between you and the rain, I guess or the rain. And if you want to fly down the highway at 80 miles an hour with the top down in a driving thunderstorm with your umbrella up against the sky, it's not unlucky. It's not unlucky on principle. I do think bad things will happen to you. But if the top is up and you are protected from the rain, you cannot open the umbrella until it is outside of the car.

That is absolutely correct. And it's because of the simple fact that when the top is up, the doors are actually closed when the top is down those doors and thus indoors. And thus indoors. Exactly. I like, I never thought about how indoors was just like just a way of saying that I'm inside of a door. I'm inside of a door. I'm on the inside of a door.

And then when I'm outdoors, I'm outside of a door. Yes, absolutely. I totally agree. That was just, and there is that moment on the threshold where the door is open and you're standing there, where you are nowhere. Yes, you are neither here nor there.

This was a weird argument. I remember having some, not an argument. It was sort of one of those philosophical questions that people get surprisingly heated about, which was sort of like, what, I remember, it was something like what is the point of a door and someone was like to open and someone was is the point of a door and someone was like to open

and someone was like, the point of a door is to close and it was like, how can you make that thing? And they were like, the point of an archway is to provide passage through to areas of a house. The door is something you add to an archway in order to temporarily seal that entrance. So that it can be closed. So a door is about closing, not about opening. Which is a little bit of a bummer is something you add to an archway in order to temporarily seal that entrance. So that it can be closed.

So door is about closing, not about opening. Which is a little bit of a bummer. And I can't tell you why. There's just something about the poetry of that that makes me quite clear. And rather, I'd rather doors be about opening, but here we are in this world as it exists. And this world has exists.

Which is why in my home, we exclusively have bead curtains. Yeah, and I took our front door off ages ago, which does make it very cold in the winter and the heating bills are wild. But it does mean you can open as many umbrellas as you want in your house and never get unlucky. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. For God, that now I'm outdoors,

because the door is open and I'm out of it. Apparently I remain and always have been, since the beginning of this conversation on team inside of a car is not indoors. That's the inside of a car. That's and I would like to hear people's opinions on this. My Twitter is at Hank Green and I want to know to what extent I am wrong, but I feel like that indoors is in a home. In a car is in a car. That's not indoors, even though I am indoors. I would say that we have to go by, by the letter of the law here, you know, when you're inside of a car, you are not necessarily at home unless that car is your home.

But I am almost certain that there is no law about this. But maybe there is, if there this. But maybe there is. If there's a lawyer out there who has litigated the term indoors and that does not seem impossible, please let us know. If you were on the phone with your friend and you were, let's say that you were hanging out in your car, cars parked, you're in a parking lot,

maybe you have the AC on, maybe you're just on your phone, and a friend asked, where are you? They shot you at a taxi and they're like, hey, where are you right now? Where would you respond to tell them that you are? I'm in my car. You're in your car. And I think the in is, like, in other words,

would it be inaccurate if someone texted you saying, I'm inside the car? No. That would be fine. If they said, I'm indoors, I would be like, you are currently in a building. And I would also say it's a weird response. Is not a car a building question. No. Okay.

I think you, I think you're taking big swings. And I think that, I think that when we actually get to court, and we actually litigate this, you're gonna be surprised by what the evidence suggests, which is that cars are buildings, and houses are vehicles. I just went to a science direct article. So this is a journal article from Transportation Research,

which is a journal, a real journal, and this article is from 2011, and it says, in a scientific peer reviewed article, cars are buildings building like energy use in automobiles. So to Valerie Thomas, principal investigator on this article, first author, I'd like to say you're wrong and we can fight about it. All I'm saying is this, any categorical that you want to put on it, what is a building? A building doesn't move, that's the main one.

Oh, so if you were to see a truck carrying a house down the highway and that house was moving, that would not be a building where you want to be team and may I remind you mr. Green that as our planet orbits the sun and the sun moves throughout our galaxy that all buildings are moving constantly ladies and gentlemen of the point have been scored. All right. This weekend news from Mars. It has to end at some point.

It might as well be now. Is a great, very attractive. They look so much of good science is pictures. And what aren't we all very lucky for that? Having looked and admired the James U Space Telescope pictures, you can now look and admire pictures from the European Space Agency that was taken by the Mars Express Orbiter of the largest canyon in our solar system. It's the Valest Marinarris Canyon System. It's 10 times longer, 20 times wider than the Grand Canyon. And thanks to 3D imaging capabilities of the Orbiter,

so we can actually take pictures in 3D. Scientists estimate that there are spots that are 5 times deeper than the Grand Canyon. You can look at these pictures by looking at these pictures by googling things you would expect to Google, and you can actually take this data and sort of turn it on its side. So it looks like we're sort of looking at it as if we were on the side of the Canyon or above the Canyon, wherever we want to do it, which is awesome. So there's just new data that has been crunched into beautiful images, just like Jim's

of Space Telescope pictures. And thanks to the European Space Agency for doing that great work and helping us understand what the heck is going on here, because it is not like the Grand Canyon, which is created by a river. It was actually thought to be created by it just like a crack that formed between tectonic plates

back when Mars had those, doesn't anymore. And along the floor of the canyon in the image you could see like jagged rocks that would have formed there as the plates actually pulled apart. Wild that planets just create themselves and we end up with these beautiful wild features. Wow.

Wow, wow, wow, wait, it doesn't have tectonic plates anymore? No, it's tectonically locked. Mars, is that just like, which is not unusual? It appears that our way of doing it is as planets go more weird. Wow, oh my God. So, okay. So Mars is locked. I have to assume there's still magma or lava. What does the core of Mars look like to be now?

Yeah, it is still liquid in there. But the, so like, you have to have a lot of convection and the crust of earth is very thin. And it could, you know, and eventually as the earth continues to cool off, which it does do. I don't know if this will happen before like our solar system explodes or not, but it would eventually happen. Enough heat would leave that the plates would stop like convection. That kind of convection would stop and earth would also lock up, which would be a problem, because plate tectonics is actually pretty important for a lot of things on Earth. Wow, wow, wow, wow. I'm just, I'm a little stunned.

I'm just sitting here, well, yeah. Hatchy, matchy. There are, there is, we are the only planet with plate tectonics in the solar system, and there are two moons that kind of do, but they're ice moons. So they have like, it's like ice crust, which I guess you could say is plate tectonics. It's not any different from,

not having, it's just ice rock instead of rock rock. Ice rock. Ice is a rock. Ice is a rock. I guess so, right? Ice rock instead of rock rock. Ice rock. Ice is a rock. Ice is a rock. I guess so, right? Ice rock instead of rock rock. Well, I love our little rock rock planet. And for some reason, I now have a strange association

of pride with tectonic plates, which have only ever brought me concern and anxiety in the past. So now I suddenly have a weird. Oh, they're great. I mean, I like on the short term, they can cause a lot of problems. But in the long term, they're extraordinarily necessary

for recycling of minerals and keeping the planet vibrant and interesting and it seems to be quite good for life. Wow, way to go text all those minerals. Way to go tectonic plates, thanks. Thanks, buddies, that's awesome. Brennan, thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Your Hangout, John. A joy, a privilege, an honor, a pleasure.

I hope we help some people today. And I just want everyone to remember that if you believe in yourself, you can be anything, just like every car is a building and every building is a vehicle. And that, you know, you can all, and every student is a potential social studies teacher. All you need is a sword. All you need is a magical sword given to you

by one of the staff and then off you go. Beautiful, beautiful. If you wanna send us questions, you can do that at hink John at gmail.com. We don't have a podcast without questions, so thanks you all so much for sending them in. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tune of Medicets, produced by Rosiana Halls-Rohan. So our communications coordinator is Julia Bloom. Our editorial assistant is Deboki Chalkan-Varity.

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. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪