Dear Hank & John - 394: I Think Very Highly of Me (Live at VidCon!)

Episode Date: July 31, 2024

Would John perform standup if it avoided inconveniencing someone? Which historical figure should be swapped with a dinosaur? Why is everyone so mad about Pluto? How do you solve a problem like Maria? Hank and John Green have answers in this live show. If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn

You're listening to a Complexly podcast. Hello! And that's the ending song. Greetings, friends. I've never done the intro to the ending song before. Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John, a podcast where we answer your questions, provide dubious advice, bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. I'm John Green. I'm joined by my co-host.

Hank Green. John. Yeah. What do you call a YouTuber who's a werewolf? A what? A like and subscribe. A like and subscribe. Some of the people got it. A like and subscribe.

Like and... Like and... You know what? You know like and th. Liken... Liken? You know what, a Likenthrope? That's another word for you, for werewolf. Oh, well. You learn something every day, friends. We're teaching. It's a teaching moment. Hey, so before we get to your questions, which by the way, you can email your questions to

HankandJohnatgmail.com. Thank you for putting it up. Thanks to Peyton, our longtime collaborator, for helping us out with this system. But yeah, you can email us your questions. And we're also joined by my daughter, Alice, one of my all-time favorite people. So thanks to her for being here.

Yeah. And thanks to the rest of y'all as well. So Hank's going to be looking out for questions. I will. Are you just looking at Twitter? No. No. Yes, John, I really want to be looking at Twitter right now.

I bet you do. It's not a great place at the moment. I haven't been there in a few days. And I tell you what, I feel noticeably better. You are in a second suit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can I tell you the secret about this suit? It in a second suit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can I tell you the secret about this suit?

It's an amazing suit. Hold on. It's got little airplanes on it. Oh, it's got a secret. Ooh, who's in there? Wow. This is the moment that AFC Wimbledon scored the goal to head up to League One to get promoted at Wembley when Lyle Taylor scored a goal.

And I had it sewn into my suit. I got this at a place called Divine Trash. It's in the back of a clothing store. It's a little vintage section that smells like your basement. And this is Tyler Thrasher, Tyler Thrasher shirt. I love a Tyler Thrasher shirt. These jeans are from a store.

And these socks are awesome socks, Glob. Blunt Stones. That's the full fit. I'm wearing Hank's cancer socks and Adidas Sambas, not for the first time. So listen, we've got to tell you a story before we do this. We answer your questions, which we are looking forward to email your questions at hankandjohnandgmail.com.

But real quick. It's a distractingly nice suit close up. Some of the buttons are different from each other. I feel like this one might have some meaning. It does. They all have meaning, Hank. So listen, by the way, you want to talk about something that really resonates with a podcast listener is describing a suit.

Well, what resonates is me being easily distracted, because so are they. Right. So we got an opportunity, but it was an unexpected opportunity for one of us, and we thought we would share that story just to start off. So several weeks ago, Hank found out that he was going to throw the opening pitch at a Major League baseball game.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the sport of baseball, this is a great honor. It's been enjoyed by American presidents. Now, admittedly, there are like 62 Major League baseball teams. They do play 161 games a great honor. It's been enjoyed by American presidents. Now, admittedly, there are, like, 62 Major League Baseball teams. They do play 161 games a season each. So it's not like it's that big of an honor. But it is an honor.

It's a... This is going to be a better story than you think. This guy's going to continue being crazy. So Hank is, like, does nothing to prepare, because he's... This isn't true. I don't, I do nothing to prepare for a long time, and then at the last moment I realize, oh no, I did nothing to prepare. Okay.

I call, I'm at my friend Jason's house, he used to play baseball. I'm like, I'm about to throw out the first pitch at the Angels game, and he's like, Hank, what? And I was like, he's like, have you practiced? And I was like, no, I could throw rocks into the lake. I do it all the time. I throw rocks into rivers. Sometimes I just throw rocks off mountains,

though you're not supposed to do that. There could be somebody down there. And he's like, it's not exactly like that. You want to know how far you're going to throw a specific thing. You're going to get one chance. There's going to be a lot of people watching. There weren't a lot of people watching. There weren't a lot of people watching. Thursday at 6 PM for the Detroit Tigers and the Anaheim Angels turns out not to be must-see television or in-person

viewing experiences for the vast majority of Anaheim residents. So I go out and I toss the ball around with my friend Dave, my friend Jason. We mark off the distance to the mound. We throw. I do a lot of bad throws. I do some good Jason. We mark off the distance to the mound. We throw. I do a lot of bad throws. I do some good throws. I learned my lesson, which is don't try to throw it fast,

because then it goes anywhere. It's going to hit Jason's Vespa. And you don't want that. And one time it went into a pond. Jason had went and got it out of the pond. He's a brave man. He drives a Vespa. And then I feel like I'm pretty ready.

I'm pretty sore the next few days, but I recover just in time to arrive at Angel Stadium with a group of my friends and my brother and my niece. We get there and we go through the little security thing and I'm like, he's throwing out the first pitch, like trying to like get, you know, just like get through the line faster and I'm like, he's throwing out the first pitch, like trying to like get, you know, just like get through the line faster. I'm like, he's throwing out the first pitch.

This first pitch guy, first pitch guy over here. We get through the little line and the other thing about this story is that maybe 10 minutes before this all happens, we're in the car on the way to the Angels game and I say, to quote myself directly, I wouldn't throw out the first pitch at a Major League Baseball game for $10,000. That's what I said. I learned something about myself that day. You'd also been harassing me,

as he does as a good brother, to practice. It's like, you need to practice. I was like, I will. And then I was like, oh, VidCon is in four days. I finally did it. So we get through security. This wonderfully nice man comes up to us and says, we're so excited to have you guys throw out

the first pitch at the Angels game. And I was like, huh, that was a weird phrasing. And then he says it again. He's like, it's just really cool for a lot of our staff. They learned from Crash Course. And they're really excited to have you guys throw out the first pitch at the Angels game. And I was like, I just got to stop you right there, sir.

On now two occasions, you've referred to Hank as you guys. And he's actually a single individual, you know? Like I don't know if you know about subject-verb agreement and everything. It's like a multi-celled organism kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a lot of cells are going to be throwing out this first pitch. You guys, this organized collection of cells and bacteria.

All 30 trillion of you are going to be throwing out a first pitch. And I was like, what do you mean you guys? And he was like, oh, you're not throwing out the first pitch? And I was like, who's me? Yeah, no. Like, only one person can throw out the first pitch by definition.

And then he's like, no, no. We're going to have you co-throw out the first pitch. Throw to two different catchers. To two different catchers. Both of you on the mound together at the same time, throwing at the same time. And John's like, I don't need to do that. That's what I said.

And then he says, well, that's the script that the announcer has. We can change it if you need us to. And John's like, no, no, no, no. Don't cause any trouble. I don't want to be trouble. I just don't want to cause any trouble. I don't want to be trouble. I want that on my gravestone. John Green, 1977 to 2133.

He wasn't any trouble. Yeah, that's what all the pharmaceutical companies are saying these days. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. I just don't want to be any trouble. And so I learned that even though I wouldn't do something if you paid me $10,000, I will do something just not to be trouble.

And so they give me a baseball, and I'm holding this baseball. And I realize I haven't thrown a baseball in anger in some 37 years. Is this something you have to do in anger? Well, I mean, by which I mean throw it 60 feet. Right, right. You know, like I've, by which I mean throw it 60 feet. Right, right. I've tossed a baseball with my kids a couple times.

Alice is actually a really good softball player. So I've pitched to Alice before underhand. But I haven't thrown a baseball 60 feet in a major league baseball stadium in my life. Can we pretend like we know what 60 feet is? Yeah, it's like this. It's going to be way longer than you think. It's about the whole length of the stage.

Yeah, it's maybe a little longer than that, actually. So I'm literally on the field, OK? No, wait. You have to tell. Are we going out to the mound yet? Because there's an indoor activity that occurred that makes the story even more amazing. You tell that part. Which is that as we get to the thing,

there's another guy. And he's with us the whole time. Oh, the other guy! There's a guy and his family. Because it turns out. No, no, no, no. I got it. I got it.

You got it. You got it. You got it. His whole family's there. He's in an angel's shirt. He's in an angel's hat. His name is Bob. He's the shape of a man named Bob. He's got an angel's shirt. He's in an angel's hat. His name is Bob.

He's the shape of a man named Bob. He's got a glove? He's wearing a glove. His kid's got a glove. His everybody, and he's just with us the whole time. And I'm like, what's going on with Bob? And I can hear John like listening in, and John's like, maybe we don't have to do this. Yeah.

It sounds like Bob is doing this. Like Bob's going to throw out the first pitch. We get up there and there I, like Bob gets in the first elevator because the elevators are tiny and I ask, I was like, is it, is Bob throwing out the first pitch? And she's like, oh no, Bob's throwing out the first pitch, but you are too. And I'm like, okay, we need to talk about first. And so we get out there, and Bob goes out to the mound to throw out the first pitch.

Yeah. Turns out you can have as many first pitch throwers as you want in Major League Baseball. Their definition of first is not like our definition of first. And Bob gets to throw out the first pitch because he is a season ticket holder to Yeah. To the Angels. Proper fan. And Bob, who again, looks like a guy named Bob. His forearms are as big as my legs. Goes to the mound, puts his foot up against the rubber

like a proper major league baseball player, kicks his leg way up, and hurdles a 65 mile an hour strike right into the catcher's mitt. And I was like, oh no! It hits the mitt. It makes a noise. It made a noise. It's like, it's like a thing happened when Bob hits, when Bob comes off and I was like,

Bob, that was better than what we're going to do. And he was like, yeah. Yeah, because Bob knew that he was going to throw out the first pitch with more than 12 minutes notice. I think Bob knew he was going to throw out the first pitch with like 45 years of notice. He's been thinking about this the whole time. So we get up there, we're walking out there and... To throw out the...

To co-throw out the second pitch. Yeah. It's a great honor and responsibility to throw out the second pitch. Yeah. It's a great honor and responsibility to throw out the second pitch. Co-throw out the second pitch. To be half of the team throwing out the second pitch at an Angels game on a Thursday at 6 p.m. How often I look at my title of co-founder of VidCon and I'm like, yeah, sure, I guess.

I mean, you were there. I'll tell you, I held a lot of stress so that you wouldn't have to. And I feel like my role as the guy who holds the stress is a little bit underrated. I would also say that I did a lot of work to make you not own VidCon. That's true.

That was a big whim. So you're welcome. Anyway, moving on, we throw out this, we co-throw out the second pitch at the Angels game. And Hank, of course, does a little bit better because he had this practice session with Jason and Dave, right? And I do... Okay.

It's on target. It was on target, it did bounce once, but it only bounced once. And I was more worried about sort of a bounce, bounce, bounce, dribble, dribble, dribble situation, and so I was pretty thrilled with my one bounce. We get out of there. I'll tell you this, though. If you can find the footage online, they call down,

all right, play ball. It's like the voice of God speaks to you. You'd think it'd be like terrifying. And it was terrifying when we were on the sidelines. But then like two baseball cheerleaders walked us up to the foul line. And then we like marched straight out there. Like the moment our feet touched the mound,

like God spoke, throw the ball or else. And so both of us like lifted our legs and we put our leg down and like perfect brother synchronicity. And we let go of the ball and perfect brother synchronicity. And it was very cute. And my ball in perfect brother synchronicity actually got there much faster than John's. But all the body movements were in perfect sync,

as if we were a couple of dancers on TikTok. It was beautiful. Yeah, I think we did a great job, and I'm really proud of us. And the main thing that I learned is that I am too concerned with pleasing people. Which is a really important lesson to be able to take away from a Thursday Night Angels game. The Angels won five-nothing, and it was a ton of fun.

It was fun. That was fun. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! All right, we're now going to answer some questions

from our listeners, if Hank has any. I don't actually have access to this email account, because I don't have email on my phone anymore. So you're going to be the question asker. Tom asks, this is our friend Tom Lum. Hey Tom. Would it take $10,000 or inconveniencing someone for John to perform stand-up?

Okay, so like let's imagine a situation where I'm like with Hank at Caroline's Comedy Club and Hank is stricken and they're like, we need somebody to go on, and there's nobody else. I'd be like, oh, I'll do it. I would. I would. And I'd go up with my tight five, which would be the story of the time I co-threw out

the ball at the Angels game. We basically just did it. Wouldn't it be adorable if we did co-stand up? It'd be fun. I mean, that has to have been done before. Yeah, it would be fun. I would enjoy that. But if you said, hey, we'll pay you $10,000

to write 10 minutes of standup for Caroline's Comedy Club, I would definitely say no. And again, this is an issue. And maybe $10,000, I would do it, because that's actually a lot of money. And I think I would throw out a first pitch as well. But like, you know, like I'm undervaluing my sense of self and stability, which is a good...

This is a great takeaway for me. I feel like I'm in a therapy session. I've been in a lot of them recently. And Hank, what are your core beliefs? What? Yeah. This is a question my psychiatrist has been rummaging through with me a lot,

is what are my core beliefs? And you know what we've come to is that my core belief is that I'm kind of a piece of crap. Like when he first asked, I was like, my core beliefs are that we all deserve to love and be loved, and that we're here to understand and be understood. And he was like, OK. Is that really your core belief about yourself?

And I was like, no. Oh, about myself. No. Mm. All right, what's the next question? Yeah, they'd be like, what's your core belief? And I'd be like, 30 trillion cells trying to do this is pretty weird.

And it doesn't make sense that it doesn't work all the time. But I actually think that is your core belief, which is a really healthy way of thinking about yourself instead of like, I am a worthless person. I have like an impetus in the other direction, so it's pushing back. I think it could excuse a lot of behaviors if I needed it to. Yeah, of course. No. Avoid. I think you're dead on there.

What's the next question? I don't know why this got so dark. We're cutting this out of the pod. From Chemical Kim, everybody's seeing how much I need bifocals right now. It says, if you could replace a historical figure with a dinosaur, who would it be and why? William Howard Taft.

So that he could live longer? William Howard Taft. I don't actually know, you know, I don't know much about William Howard Taft, and I feel like I'm going to get a tight five on Taft. So that he could live longer. William Howard Taft. Actually, I don't know much about William Howard Taft, and I feel like I'm going to get a tight five on Taft right now. Imagine if we had 45 presidents, and 44 of them were men. And one of them was William Howard Taft, the stegosaurus. You're waiting for a tight five on William Howard Taft.

I don't know anything about the man, okay? I know very little about his presidency. He did okay. You know about Stegosaurus? I mean, I know that they live basics. I know. I'll tell you what, I could draw a hell of a good Stegosaurus. I could draw a Stegosaurus way faster than I could draw Taft.

Totally. Totally. If you asked me to draw a picture of William Howard Taft and a picture of a Stegosaurus, 99% of people would correctly identify the Stegosaurus. Yeah, the rest of them would be like that. That's a man, I think. That's a stick figure, but you gave him a little belly because that's the, you sort of remember something about him.

I remember that he may have been big. He had a little belly. That's all I remember about him. I think he had good facial hair, but I can't remember. Was he the one that died? No, that was William Henry Harrison, right? Pfft. Right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. William Henry Harrison died after he ate all those cherries. He ate a bunch of cherries. He died a day later of cholera, which is a nice reminder that we think of infectious disease other than. He should have been a dinosaur. Dinosaurs can eat as many cherries as they want.

No, I mean, that's literally how they kept going for hundreds of millions of years. Yeah, I don't know if cherries existed then. Banging down cherries. I don't want to be anachronistic. Yeah. That's the concern with turning William Howard Taft into a dinosaur. Is that, is the historic anachronisms associated with?

Harrison. So. That's who I was talking about. Who would you turn into a dinosaur? I think, well, if it was any, I think, well, you know, I had a thought. I've got other ones. That like something, that like being a dinosaur might hold a certain candidate back in an existing president. No, Joe, it wouldn't. It wouldn't. But I think it might actually be better for him.

It might actually be better for him. People would be like, he wants to make America great again, and he's a Triceratops? Dang. Don't mind if I do. I bet he can golf so far. What about, what about? I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm, and it was like, there's John and Paul singing. There's George on the bass. Wow, that's a surprise. But he's not like a big dinosaur. He's like a human-sized dinosaur. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like a large velociraptor.

I was even going to say a small velociraptor. But yeah, some velociraptors are smaller than you. I know. You don't have to tell me. They have like turkey feathers. They're very undercustive. They're like goose sized. But there were other related raptors

that were more human sized. All right, what's our next question? Well, I was correcting your dinosaur effect, so I wasn't looking. Oh yeah, fair enough. That's a great question, Tom Lum. Thank you. That wasn't Tom.

That was Chemical Kim. Great question, Chemical Kim. Thank you. That wasn't Tom. That was Chemical Kim. Great question, Chemical Kim. Thank you. I'm going to credit all of the questions to our friend Tom Lum. Hey, by the way, while we have you, our friend Tom Lum, who's in the audience, made this incredible video about carbon dating and how we know how old humans are and lots of other things about our world because of carbon dating,

which required an astonishing cross-field way of cross-disciplinary way of looking at science and history. And it's like a Crash Course lecture, except it's on Tom Lum's channel. And it's really good, so you should check it out. Should check it out. This is Kwa from Jasmine, who asks, if the internet were to disappear right now, and you could only save one piece of content,

why would it be Tom Lum's lecture? No. What would it be? What would you save? GPS. Oh, interesting. I didn't really think of that as a piece of content. Well, I would just say GPS is like a lot of things

about the internet. I mean, almost everything about the internet I feel pretty mixed on. All a little mixed. I do not feel mixed on Google Maps. Yeah, yeah. I think that has been in that. Like a lot of you don't know what it was like.

Yeah. No, I have like, I have a first edition. This is a true story. I have a very valuable first edition, first printing of Toni Morrison's novel, Sula. OK? It's a true story. I have a very valuable first edition, first printing of Toni Morrison's novel Sula, okay? It's a beautiful book. And you open it up, and there on the first page it says, to get home in my handwriting.

And then 17 lines of handwritten instructions from my grandma on how to get from her house to my home. And that's how I did it, because that was the only way to do it. And so I ruined this book, beautiful book. Well, if you could potentially, you could just become more remarkable than Toni Morrison. And then-

Do you think he knows? What? That she has died. Oh, I could have, I don't know things. Oh, wait, you said, I thought you said you could become more remarkable to Tony Moore. No, no, no. Than? Than.

Than? Than? And then what? In this theoretical world, or is it like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a what? You become a dinosaur. And they're like, this young adult author... Yes. ...has now...

Noted VidCon co-founder and dinosaur... And co-pitcher of the second pitch at a Detroit Tigers Anaheim Angels game. I'm sorry, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim game. Yeah. Sorry, you guys aren't from Anaheim, because that was a specific joke for Anaheim game. Yeah. Sorry, you guys aren't from Anaheim, because that was a specific joke for Anaheim people who used I'll tell you what, when people listen to it in Anaheim,

it's going to kill. They're like, yeah. It's going to kill. So anyway, I'm sorry. It was so impossible that you would say that I'd become more significant than Toni Morrison and that I literally misheard you. Go on.

I think it's a special book. I would pay not extra for it because your words are in there, but not less. What is the content that you would save from the internet? I mean, how do you draw the line around what a piece of content is? I feel like Wikipedia, you could just save all of it. If I could call Wikipedia content.

But I don't think that's the spirit of the question. I think the spirit of the question is like what? YouTube video, basically? Yeah, or like what? Tweet? Oh, yeah. The tweet I would save is the tweet where somebody said drinking a La Croix flavor is like drinking

bubbly plain water. And then in the next room over, someone shouts, grapefruit. There's a lot of good tweets. You know, I had this idea, and I love it. I have a friend who works at the cemetery, and one of the things that he does is engraves on stone. And he knows how to do this. And there's a machine that he uses.

And it's not like chisels anymore. It's like there's a thing that happens with sandblasting and wax, and I don't understand it. And I was like, what if you and I, in the dark of night, go out to trails in my, I shouldn't sail, what if I actually end up doing this? I was going to say, you're narquing on yourself, man. I'm ruining...

But like... I'll just do it, because I shouldn't do it. But we engrave the stones along the trail with the best tweets. Okay, I want to riff on your idea, because I think you're close to something beautiful. Twitter is going to die, like the rest of us. And when it does, there should be a graveyard, a physical graveyard of the greatest tweets.

Yeah, that you can go to. And you can go to it, and you can walk around, and you can be like, you can tell your children, this place was terrible. You don't know what we went through during the Twitter wars, little Johnny. But we got these. But exactly, we fought and scrapped and elected bad presidents and did many things so that

we could have these 220 marble engraved tweets here at the great Twitter cemetery of Anaheim, California. And every little gravestone will have to have like a plaque with four paragraphs of explanation. Like why it was funny. Yeah, so Skibbitty Toilet was... Yeah. This is actually, this is great.

That's a great idea because like... This is achievable. You're right, because even in my LaCroix case, you'd have to be like, so listen, LaCroix was like bottled water. I mean. Actually, there will be no bottled water in the future. So it'll be like, LaCroix was a. Yeah.

How do I even describe it? It was like what comes out of the tap, except inexplicably more expensive. Yeah. Yeah. And also we dissolved carbon dioxide in it, so it felt like, ow. Yeah. Yeah. But like, good, ow.

Everybody's a little bit good, ow, apparently. And John, I think the problem with this idea is that it's good, and it's achievable, but the only barrier is money, and we have some of that. I don't know that we have enough money to do a whole Twitter graveyard. Also, Twitter is, we could raise it, but there are probably better things to basically say. I was going to say, I mean.

But also, Twitter is all like the thing of Twitter, like the Twitter part of Twitter actually is already ended. So we could call it at X day, whenever X happened. Oh yeah, it's already a Twitter graveyard. Have that be the cutoff. Oh, there has not been a good tweet since it became X. So that should not be a huge loss. I've done some real bangers.

No, you haven't, respectfully. All right, what's our next question? I don't know. If we need another project. We'd both be so much better off if we weren't on Twitter. I hate it. Jack asks, if you could have someone, fictional or real, narrate your life, who would it be?

Can I hear them? Because I wouldn't want that if they're like, and then picks up his phone. Like Morgan Freeman being like, he's on stage and he's panicking. Yeah. He thinks he's going to text his wife, but he opens Twitter. But Twitter sent a notification, so he opens Twitter. Why does he have his notifications on? Because he wants it this way. Because he likes this.

He chose this world. There's an actor who looks kind of like me, but better looking, and whose work I really admire, named Mark Duplass. And I really like his voice, and I actually, I think he would do really good voiceover. So I would pick that, but it would have to be in a movie, like you said. It couldn't be in real life. In real life, I already have that voice in my head, and it's plenty loud.

And I don't want it to be anyone else's voice. It's annoying enough having it. Your own voice? Or is it like, it's sort of like your voice, but like, meh. It's your voice. Yeah, it's my voice. But if I said the things that the voice says, I would be not only like canceled, but maybe arrested.

You're not your thoughts. I know, you're not your thoughts. Thank God. Because if I was, I'd be in even worse trouble. I think I've thought about doing voice acting myself. Of course you have. And I think I think it'd be a sort of a great first, first endeavor. You're gonna do your own damn voice? Yeah, because like it is me after all, so that there's a certain amount that that makes

sense there. And also I just, I think very highly of me and I think I'm great. How did we come out of this? How did we emerge from the same family? It really is amazing to me. It speaks to the power of genetics, I guess. But I love what you're putting down. And I want to be able to pick it up. That's my goal for July.

OK. Meredith asks, Nerdfighteria is great at community organizing. How do we get Dropout to win an Emmy? OK. Meredith, I love you. But how do we get Complexly to win an Emmy? How do we get Crash Course to win an Emmy? How do we get Crash Course to win an Emmy? Hey.

I do want Dropout to win an Emmy, but I want us to win the second Emmy. If there is one thing that I know nothing about, it's how to get something to win an Emmy. I've talked to Sam from Dropout about this, and I'm like, what are you doing? And he's like trying to get an Emmy. And I'm like, why?

And he's like, oh, there's lots of reasons. Is there really? Yeah. And you know, there's lots of reasons. Is there really? Yeah. And you know, there's lots of reasons. Does he know that you have an Emmy? I don't know that he does. Yeah, because it's not something that I think about. I felt like when you won an Emmy, our lives changed zero.

It's like our lives changed as much as when I won an MTV Movie Award. Yeah, I all. For Best Kiss, by the way. They said... It was a good... It was... You didn't even do the kiss.

I know! That's what's so funny. I... They said Lizzie Bennet-Tire is nominated for an Emmy, and then they said... It wasn't like during the main ceremony, so I just got an email that was like, nominated for an Emmy. And then they said, it wasn't like during the main ceremony, so I just got an email that was like, we won the Emmy. Do you want one? We only get four.

We're going to give them to these four people. We figure you don't need this. They need it more than you to have it on the shelf. I mean, certainly in terms of sense of self-worth, they're like, you don't need this, Hank. You're good, man. It's incredible. It's awesome. We love it. But you don't need this. Yeah.

They're also like, you're not in the industry the way that these folks are. But then they let you buy one. And they were like, do you want to buy one? It's $600. And I was like, nah. I bought one. And now I'm like, yeah. No, can we go back?

I don't know why I said no to that. Yeah, can you? Well, you had less money then. That's probably why. All right, I'm going to ask the next question. Hold on. Oh, you said no to that. Yeah, can you? Well, you had less money then. That's probably why. All right, I'm going to ask the next question.

Hold on. You haven't been looking at them. I don't need to. OK. I don't need to. I'm ready. You don't know which ones I've already asked? Hey, Hank.

Yeah. Do you think AI will take over the world from Krissa? That's a great question, man. I mean, what's the time scale? 250 years. Oh, probably. I mean, parts of it. I think that that's a long time scale.

I think that we are not done figuring out how human societies organize themselves. But what you mean by take over the world is that the actions of a lot of people will be heavily influenced by the sort of advisings of artificial intelligence that hopefully have our best interests at heart. I think probably, I think AIs have already kind of taken

over a lot of the world. I don't know if you use a content platform, but they tell you what to watch. Some of them sort of offer you things to watch. They're like, hey, here's a selection of 30 videos that you might want to watch from the 30 trillion that are available. And some of them are like, you push a button and then it's like, here's the next video. Here's the next video. Like you don't make choices on TikTok. It's hard to overstate. It's in charge, not just of what I watch,

but in many cases of what I'm thinking about that day, what I'm paying attention to, what my biggest worries are, and how I feel about the world and other people in it. Like they are in charge. Their goal isn't to achieve anything in particular, except to keep me on the platform so the platform can make more money, but they are in charge of me. They're like, I've given them that power

to have that power over me, and I like giving away that power because it's relaxing, because I don't have to think about making choices, which is, I think, probably a bad decision. So I have been thinking about this a lot, because as you say, Hank, TikTok decides how I feel, or Instagram, or whatever it is that I use to scroll.

And that's an interesting power to give an algorithm. And I've watched a lot of TikTok, probably more than almost anyone in this room, because I have an addictive personality. And I have never once been, never once, in all of my time of watching TikTok and Instagram and even YouTube Shorts, I have never once received in that feed a TikTok that said to me,

hey, you know what's amazing? This year, 2024, fewer children will die under the age of five than any year for at least the last 4,000 years. Since 2000 BCE, when the world population was like 100 million, that was the last time that fewer children died than will die this year. At no point have I received a TikTok about that, which should, of course, be the most important news story in the world, right?

None of this, of course, is to like minimize or dismiss the so-called polycrisis, which I really do believe that we're in, or to like minimize or dismiss all so-called poly crisis, which I really do believe that we're in, or to like minimize or dismiss all of the suffering. It's just that like there has long been unjust suffering. And like we actually are doing work that means something and matters on at least some of those issues. On other issues, of course, we aren't doing anything or we certainly aren't doing nearly enough.

But like the letting this algorithm, letting this artificial intelligence decide how I feel, distracts me from knowing the things that I also want to know to be able to engage complexly with the world and to understand that no simple story is ever going to tell the whole truth. And I just think it's really, really bad for me. Yeah. Yeah, I sometimes I hear people saying like...

But I can't stop. Nothing, nothing, there's nothing like good has happened in a while. It's like, it's only been bad news for so long. And I'm like, if there were good news, where would you hear it? Like, if the government did something that was like, oh, that's a net positive for America, like why would you hear about that? Is there like a, do you think that someone would be incentivized on TikTok to make that content?

And if they did, would that content be watched and liked enough for it to hit your For You page? No, like that's not the things that do well. Like the things they get created not the things that do well. The things that get created are the things that do well. And even if the things that don't do well get created, they don't do well. We end up in a world where it's like cat video, cat video, terrible thing, cat video, cat video, terrible thing.

You get cat videos? I just get terrible thing, terrible thing. I didn't know there were cat videos? I just get terrible thing, terrible thing. I didn't know there were cat videos. Well, sometimes it's like a person writing a cool song or doing a good dance, you know? Oh, OK. Yeah, I get a little bit of that. They give me just enough of that, you know?

But in general, I'm pretty distressed by this. So will AI take over the world? I think we have to worry about the ways in which it already has. I think that is a good focus to have. I can't predict the future. Is Pluto a planet? No. Here's this thing. It's in the name. Dwarf planet. I don't know why everybody's so mad about Pluto not being a planet. It's a planet. It's a dwarf planet. Like, it's there. It's not, they didn't, they didn't say Pluto is now a dwarf.

No, it's a dwarf planet. It is a small planet, and it is among other small planets. We did not decrease the number of planets in the solar system. We increased it. Ceres is a planet. Haumea is a planet. Eris is a planet. We got a bunch of planets that we didn't know we had.

I don't know why we get so mad about it. It's not a just a planet because it's too small. It's a little boy out there in the far away. It hasn't cleaned up its orbit, so it's not a big boy planet. But it is a little boy planet. It's a dwarf planet. They should have just called it little boy planet. Maybe we'd have all been a little mess matted. We could have changed planet to big boy planet. And in fact, we probably should have changed it to there being two kinds of planets, rocky planets and gas giants, because they're not similar.

Those aren't two types of things that are close together in kind. And it's not in our solar system, all the rocky planets are close up and the gas giants are far out. It's not always like that in other solar systems We see I think that it makes sense to have there be a classification for gas giant and for rocky planet and also there are Planets that are just like and as big as planets in our solar system that just happen to be moons I think they should be moon planets. They are big they have atmospheres They have more water than Earth has. They're very

important. And I think we ignore them sometimes because we think, ah, that's just a moon. Ganymede? Ganymede? Titan? These are important places. There's water volcanoes in our solar system spewing liquid water out into space. What's down there? We're not thinking about it because it's a moon. No! It's a planet! It's a moon planet! Wow. That was beautiful. That was like a high school football halftime team talk.

You know, like I'm ready to go out there and run through walls for coach. That was lovely, man. Lovely. There you go. You asked the next question. All right. Oof. Hank, it's interesting to me that when Hank really gets going, he says, um, less.

You should just always be going like that. Bring that energy to every answer. I feel a little bit. I can tell you're tired. You're tired. That's what it's like for Coach Hank, when he's got to give everything to the team. He's got to get out of got to give everything to the team.

He's got to get out of himself and give everything to the team. I was watching the Tour de France this morning, which as you can imagine, Alice just loves. And one of the team managers was crying on the phone like, give it everything! And I was like, that works though. That works like, you don't want to disappoint the people who love you, or the people who are paying your bills, or the guy from the Anaheim Angels.

Yeah. You just don't want to disappoint people. Like, that's the nature of being a person. So we threw out the pitch, and then the catchers caught the pitches. And then the catchers, and I'm like, okay, we're done. But no, the catchers walk up to you so you can like meet a baseball player.

And I meet the baseball player and I swear to God, I say, so you play baseball? And he interpreted this because of course that's an insane thing to say to an MBL player, to an MLB player. That's probably what it is, the Major Baseball League. And he interpreted this as, are you playing tonight? And he said, well, I'm on reserve. And I was like, I don't, and I was like,

so you don't play baseball. And then he said, I'm a relief pitcher, so we'll see. Catch it. Yeah, and whatever he said. And then I relief pitcher, so we'll see. Catch it. And then, yeah, and whatever he said. And then I was like, how is this happening? Meanwhile, my guy was like six foot eight and signed my baseball and then came in for a picture. And I just sort of found my head kind of just snuggling into his shoulder as he pulled me in. And I was like, this is going to look weird in the picture.

But it was a nice moment for me. Yeah. That's nice to know what it feels like to be small. All right. I have it. Okay. The next question comes from Amanda who asks, how do you solve a problem like Maria? I've had some time to think about this. The song, how do you solve a problem like?

Yeah, thanks, everybody. Kind of. Theater kids are going to keep going, so we're just going to let them. So here's the thing. I don't know yet how to solve a problem like Maria, but I have a seven-year-old, and someday I will have some kinds of problems like Maria,

but their name will be Oren. And I think, from what I've seen, the only way that you can... You have to let them go if you love them, but you also have to listen. You have to be there with them. You have to, like, love their loves. You have to, like, you have to follow their infatuations. And if like you're involved and like aware of what they're into, I think that that would help to... You can't solve a problem like Maria.

Maria isn't a problem. Everybody has problems. And Maria's maybe making choices that you wish Maria wouldn't make. But we have to be there with them, and we have to be listening in part of their lives as much as we can. Yeah. But I'm talking a big game for a guy with a seven-year-old. Right now, I solve a problem like Oren

by being like, yeah, Geometry Dash is pretty cool, buddy. I will also watch those MULPAN videos. But that's great. I mean, the fact that you're able to be into and like, and watch what Oren likes and watches, I think, is a huge deal. And I think it makes a big difference. I think the joy of something like the VidCon is a joy for me because I've been to every one and I get to see old friends

and I get to reconnect with people. And I know there are people in the audience who've been to every VidCon or at least nearly every VidCon. Woo, thank you. Good to see you guys. And that's nice for me. But also, it's really wonderful to see VidCon through Alice's eyes, to experience it as she experiences it,

for her to get to see her favorite creators, a lot of whom are animators, who tell funny stories from their lives and just make great content. And it's a wonderful thing to watch your kid grow up, because one of the joys of it is that they start to get into stuff that you can get into, too. Lemon asks, what's your screen time? Do you know how to do this?

It's a lot lower than it used to be. If we did it from two weeks ago, you guys would be like, you've got a problem, and I did. So I cut it, but it's still pretty bad, I'm sure. My screen time, it's going to be, it's two hours and 22 minutes. Is that good? That's extremely good.

That seems terrible. That's extremely good, John. Do you want to, do you want to, do you want to re-time? That's one eighth of my waking hours. Oh, no! What the f- Whoa!

What is happening? No! Oh, my God. Hank Green. What do people do all day? Hank, I'm worried about you. Hank, you spent 10 hours and 44 minutes this week on X. That sounds right.

That is shameful. That sounds right. Hank. Yeah, what else? What else? Hit me, make me feel bad. Messages, which is good. Messages is good, that's real people.

That's you talking to people, which is good. Seven hours, you spend an hour a day messaging people? I message a lot of people. Well that's, the difference between you and me is that I have 1300 unread text messages. Oh, I got more than that. Because I'm not looking to respond to everyone that comes in. Instagram is second for me, it's third for you. I actually spent even, but I spent less time on my most, my most thing than Hank spends on his third most thing.

Yeah. Jesus Christ, Hank. How did you spend two hours a day on X? You know, here and there. I mean, I feel great right now. I feel like the Dalai Lama. I mean. I mean, yesterday was amazing. I basically didn't open my phone at all.

So you're telling me that you have 11 hours of screen time, even though you didn't open your phone. I also did not. Yeah, yeah. No, the average. There's something went wrong here where my phone thought I spent all day on my phone last Thursday. So something broke in the screen time app.

So the average is slightly inflated from where it should be. But I don't know what that was. That's not why the Twitter average is inflated. The Twitter average is correct and very consistent day to day. And I do have a problem. Jesus. I mean, that's disturbing. Oh, god. I'm really worried about that.

My first used app after pickup is Google Calendar. Yeah, that's impressive. Because I'm like, where am I supposed to be right now? Wow. All right. I mean, even last week, I only had five hours a day. And I thought I was in the pits. You're great.

You're doing great. Oh, sorry. I forgot that we are still making a podcast. Goodness gracious. Oh, Hank, we have to get to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbled was in the pits. You're great. You're doing great. Oh, sorry. I forgot that we are still making a podcast. Goodness gracious. Oh, Hank, we have to get to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon in a minute. But let's quickly, before that answer, one more question. I did not prepare anything.

What do you mean you didn't prepare? From Mars. I didn't prepare any Mars things. Don't you just know things from looking at Mars news all the time, like I look at AFC Wimbledon news all the time? Maybe I'm not as big of a Mars fan as you are in AFC Wimbledon. Oh, a confession.

It's possible. Mark asks, how do we foster a love of mathematics in today's youth? I think you probably know the answer to this better than I do, because you're at VidCon and you're asking a math question about fostering love of mathematics in today's youth. I mean, I just don't think that the things that we teach about math are the interesting-est, or maybe we carve some of the interesting parts out. When I look at people who are excited about and good at math,

they aren't excited about and good at the parts that you learn in high school, which is just a lot of ways of solving an algebra puzzle. I mean, it can be really fun to solve an algebra puzzle once you build up all of those skills and tools. It's almost like math is just puzzle solving, but we make the puzzle as boring as possible by doing out. So imagine if Sudoku sucked. No one would play it, right?

People voluntarily go play Sudoku because it's fun. But I feel like oftentimes we don't figure out how to actually make the math puzzle fun. We also don't talk about the context of math and where it came from very much, or the philosophy of it. Or, you know, I remember talking some about proofs, but I never, like, was given a reason to care about it.

So I think that there's a lot of stuff missing there. But you know, you've probably read Paul Lockhart's Measurement. I think that is a great place to start. And if we started from measurement and we built a curriculum around that, I'd be really interested to see how American 10th graders would react to it. Yeah, the college math class I took through study hall focused on sets.

And I found that a helpful way into learning about math. But, yeah, it's hard. I don't envy the job. I'm somebody who really, really struggled with math, and I think I struggled with it because of the way it was taught, but I also think I struggled with it because of my inability to conceptualize, like visually conceptualize ideas in my mind. I have something called aphantasia.

And so, like, I think that was part of why I struggled so much with math is that there is, there was an actual, like, paucity of ability to process that way. And I don't know how I would teach math to me. I've kind of learned calculus a little bit over the years But just by being really interested in it and by like having friends and stuff explain stuff to me that I don't understand So I think you've you some people are always gonna struggle Same is true in reading same is true in writing. You know same is true in other basic skills

And you have to make space for them, too. Sweet. I've been talking too much. OK. Do you have Mars news? I mean, AFC Wimbledon. I have both Mars news and AFC Wimbledon. I've got some Mars news.

I've got AFC Wimbledon news. So listen, our fixture list came out this week. This very big deal. This means we know who we're going to play. Our local rivals, or like somewhat local rivals, got promoted and we play. I don't know. There's not the, look, the truth is

there's one interesting game, one game that I look for on the calendar. And I know that I shouldn't look for it because I shouldn't even think of them as a real football club. And I should think of them as the despicable franchise currently plying its trade in Milton Keynes that they are, but I still want to beat them.

And we beat them last season. It was the best feeling I've ever had in my life. Sorry, Alice. It was great when you were born, but I knew it was going to happen. I did not know that we were going to beat Milton Keynes in the 94th minute. It was an absolute unadulterated thrill. And so I looked, and it turns out, Hank, I can't go to the game. It's on September 14th.

I have preexisting plans. And I asked Sarah if I could cancel our vacation together, and she said no. So that's the highlight of the fixture list. Our run-in, like our last five games, looks pretty manageable. Makes it make me think that we could be okay. But we still haven't really signed any players. For instance, preseason starts in I believe two weeks,

and we do not have a goalkeeper of any kind. I don't know how much soccer you've watched, but even if you're not super familiar with the game, you might know that goalkeepers are important. They play a role. So hopefully we'll sign a goalkeeper at some point. Otherwise... I feel like I could do it.

I know you do. I know you do. Yeah. Yeah. Just get big. And that is the job a lot of times. If you're in a one-on-one, you just get big. You do a lot of this?

Yeah. A lot of foot, a lot of, oh, Jesus Christ. I thought the physical comedy in your comedy special was really good. And it just reminded me that you've always been kind of a funny guy. I just didn't know that you could be funny in that way. I thought you were mostly kind of cringe funny.

It turns out, and I don't mean that as an insult, I love cringe funny. But it turns out... That's what I was just doing. I know, you were doing that on purpose. But it turns out you contain multitudes, just like the rest of us. It was beautiful to see, man. I love that comedy special so much,

and like I just couldn't, I genuinely couldn't believe that it was you. Now you know what it's like to read one of your books. Yeah. Yeah, it's just to read one of your books. Yeah, it was very accomplished. Yeah, so that was great. What's the news from Mars? Do you remember the Mars InSight lander? Of course! It was a relatively short-lived mission.

Tried to do a bunch of stuff that turned out to be harder than we thought. But it did do a bunch of, it was a seismometer, a primary mission, sit on there and feel Mars shaking. And one of the things you can get from feeling Mars shaking is when is it getting hit by meteorites. Right. Mars is going to get hit by more meteorites than Earth just because it doesn't have a thick of an atmosphere.

So they don't burn up as much. Yeah. But also it seems like it just gets hit by more because it's't have a thick of an atmosphere. So they don't burn up as much. Yeah. But also it seems like it just gets hit by more because it's closer to the asteroid belt or some other phenomenon of the solar system. And InSight was able, from all of its data that it collected over its mission, to be able to feel those impacts and sort of have

a rough gauge of how fast and how big those are. And we now know that Mars is being hit by hundreds of basketball-sized rocks every year. Oh, thank God. I thought you were going to say every day, and I was like, we cannot put people on that planet. They're going to get hit by basketball-sized rocks. It's true. It's too big of a rock to get hit by. Too big of a rock. I mean, I would think any rock is coming from space. Actually, in a room this size, probably one of us

has been hit by a meteorite. No. I know. If you go onto the roof of any Walmart in America, that was a weird segue. This is going to be about meteorites with a large magnet. And you drag that magnet across the roof, you will find tiny micrometeorites.

And we are not each the size of a Walmart, but together we're pretty close. Now, you're also inside a lot, maybe even more than average, one might guess. But there's a lot of us, we've all been outside some, these little meteorites, they mostly burn up, and then there's just like basically dust, and it would just land on you,

and that would be being hit by a meteorite. But like its terminal velocity because it's dust is really slow, so you wouldn't even feel it. You wouldn't even feel it. Okay. It could be any other piece of dust. Whereas a basketball has a higher terminal velocity.

Yeah. And I think it would hurt. I'm going to put the terminal velocity at bad. Yeah, yeah. And it doesn't bounce like a basketball either. No, it doesn't even really slow down. Right, it just goes right through you. Yeah.

So hundreds of those a year. As I said in my book, like dropping a knife into a glass of water. That's good. It's good. Another thing about you and your confidence is that you're willing to quote your own work unironically, which I can't do.

I had a really lovely interaction earlier at VidCon where somebody came up to me and they were like, there's a couple things that you wrote in Looking for Alaska, and I read it 15 years ago, and I still think about them all the time. And they quoted me the lines. And I was like, there's a couple things that you wrote in Looking for Alaska, and I read it 15 years ago and I still think about them all the time and they quoted me the lines. And I was like, that's so sweet, but also as I'm hearing that, I'm like, I hate both

those lines. So I got to do some work. I got to do some work on myself to learn to love those lines. But in general, I have found VidCon to be a wonderful salve. I hope it has been for y'all as well. And it's wonderful to know that we're getting hit by meteorites all the time, but that they don't hurt. There's something kind of lovely about that.

We're part of the space-time continuum, whether we want to be or not. Yeah, they're just sort of gently caressing one of us once. Yeah. And we don't even know who it is, but we know that it's one of us. One of us has been struck by a meteorite in this room,

and among those listening, thousands of us have been struck by meteorites. It's kind of beautiful, actually. I'm going to go outside during the month of July and see if I can't get hit by a meteorite. Make as much surface area as you can make. Just get as big as I can be. Make sure that there's no trees overhead, you know,

and just try to get hit by a meteorite. Yeah, I like that. John, thank you for making a podcast with me. I don't have the show notes in front of me. So can I do it by memory? This podcast is edited by Joseph Tunamettish. It's produced by Rosianna Halls-Ruaz. Our so our our communicator.

Oh, I don't remember what we call Brooke anymore. Brooke Shotwell is a person who helps. Yeah, with things. Our editorial assistant is tooki Chakravarti. The music you're hearing now at the beginning of the podcast is by The Great Ganarova. And as they say at our hometown, don't forget to be awesome. Thank you, guys.

Yeah!