Dear Hank & John - 40: Almost Distressingly Good Advice

Episode Date: March 21, 2016

How Canadian am I, really? How should I unpack? How do I reconcile my ideals with my actions? And more!

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Doors I prefer to think of it Dear John and Hank. It's a comedy podcast where me and my brother John, that's that other guy, and see your questions, give you dubious advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. How you doing John? You know, to be honest, I'm a little bit tired. Sarah's been out of town for a few days and I've been sort of running around trying to write and record stuff and make good videos and also sleep and

take care of my children and the thing that fell by the wayside was sleeping. Especially last night for some reason. I think I just got too sucked into watching the election returns. We're recording this on a Wednesday after a so-called super Tuesday named that because it's the fifth time that we've supposedly had a super Tuesday. The American primary election system is just astonishingly inefficient and arcane. And so I stayed up too late. How are you? I'm good. I did not stay up. I was at a concert last night.

I did check my phone and it said the thing that you would find out if you would have just waited and that you could not have possibly changed. So, and I looked down halfway through and found out all the things. And then I went back in this morning, I found out that we have a nominee for a Supreme Court Justice, which,

which, you know. And he's an elderly gentleman. He's elderly? Yes. He looks like he's like maybe 56. He is the oldest new justice in 44 years, or he would be if he were to be confirmed, which he won't be, so it's irrelevant. And the next president will nominate someone far, far, far more liberal than he is,

and that person will become the next Supreme Court justice because, of course, Donald Trump is not going to be elected president, but he is apparently going to be chosen as the Republican Party's nominee. Which, is this the first time that we've said Donald Trump on the podcast? Cause I'd be really impressed if it was.

Oh God. I feel like it is. And I feel like maybe that's been a little bit of a conscious decision because, oh, goodness gracious, do we not want to live in this world? I don't really want to live in a world where I have to talk about Donald Trump's policy positions as if they are serious or anything other than,

yeah, I don't know, Hank. I am frustrated by the quality of political discourse in the United States as I have been for a long time. I keep trying to remind myself that this is not in truth an entirely unprecedented turn of events, you know, like we've had periods like this in American history where in extremely polarized times, populous candidates gained lots and lots of traction. But boy, I'm not encouraged right now. I'm not encouraged by the way that we're talking about policy or the way that we're talking about each other.

It's not a lot of fun right now to be an American living in the presidential season. It is however astonishingly profitable. The ad rates for both Crash Course, SciShow, Vlog Brothers, everything that we do have gone absolutely through the roof, which should indicate maybe part of the reason why this whole process drags out so for so long and benefits the people who are the most media savvy, which is that this is a huge part of how media companies stay profitable.

Yes, it is very frustrating. I wish I did not profit from it, but I'll tell you what, John, it's only gonna keep going up from here. The advertisements haven't even really begun. I know. I know. It's like the spending is just at its very beginning

and we can already tell the difference and it is an amazing thing as a content creator. Because of course, I think that traditional media don't really want that to be a thing that is known because it's terrifying. Yeah, they seem to be wanting to hide it, but you know, nobody watches CNN except when there are election results coming in. And the more dramatic and crazy and shocking and upsetting those election results are, the

more likely we are to be watching. And therefore, the better the ad rates are. But also just the number of political ads in because we have very little campaign finance oversight in the United States. The number of, just the raw number of political ads that people are trying to get out, forces ad rates up higher and higher and higher. So that in 2012, they were, you know,

the two months before the election, we were getting, you know, three times as much money per view as we were in 2011 or 2013. It is a, it's a crazy situation. Yes, correct, accurate and... Let us move on to questions from our viewers. Probably make a video about that, but no, you have to do a short poem, John.

I forgot to do the short poem. I even have a short poem, Hank. Oh good. This short poem is actually sent have a short poem, Hank. Oh, good. This short poem is actually sent to me via Twitter from Julie, who wrote, have you read, there will come soft rains by Sarah Teesdale on the podcast. If not, I recommend you do.

It's about death if that helps. It does help. It does. There will come soft rains by Sarah Teesdale. And I guess this is written about or in wartime. There will come soft rains in the smell of the ground, and swallows circling with their shimmering sound, and frogs in the pools singing at night, and wild plum trees in tremulous white.

Robbins will wear their feathery fire, whistling their whims on a low fence wire, and not one will know of the war, not one will care at last when it is done, not one would mind neither bird nor tree if mankind perished utterly, and spring herself when she woke at dawn would scarcely know that we were gone. There will come soft rains by Sarah Teesdale and I's poem about the apocalypse. All right, John. We have questions. We have so many questions and they're good questions and we should try to do our best to answer them.

Well, I'd like to start with one. Okay. Oh, you've got one ready. This question is from Claire who writes, dear John and Hank, I am a 15-year-old Taiwanese female who is currently living in Taiwan. However, I am also a Canadian citizen, but I haven't actually lived in Canada in 11 years. I know I'm Canadian because I have a Canadian passport, but I also feel like I'm less Canadian than someone else who's currently living in Canada.

But I'm always quick to identify myself as Canadian, whenever people ask me why I speak English so fluently. This makes me feel guilty since I don't have the same amount of exposure to Canadian culture as someone who's lived their entire life. And it got me wondering, as someone who has a Canadian passport but hasn't lived in Canada in a while, am I more Canadian than someone who doesn't have a Canadian passport but has lived in Canada longer than I have? I just thought this was a fascinating question, Hank.

And it reminded me of one of my all-time favorite novels, Ulysses, by James Joyce, which I read with my friend, Ransom Riggs, when I was a junior in college. Ransom went on to write Miss Paragon's Home for Peculiar Children, the movie adaptation of which comes out soon. The trailer looks awesome. And in that book, Ulysses, there's a great moment where the book is about this guy, Bloom, who's, he's an Irish person, but he's also Jewish. And so he's seen by many Irish people as

sort of belonging to two nations, you know, the Jewish identity and the Irish identity. And it's almost seen as a threat to his Irishness that he's Jewish and in some ways a threat to his Jewishness that he's Irish. And at one point somebody in a bar asks him, well, what is a nation? And Bloom says, a nation is the same people living in the same place. And then he pauses and says, well, or different places. Because of course, you know, by then the Irish diaspora was such that most Irish people lived outside of Ireland, and the Jewish diaspora had long since been such that almost all Jewish people lived outside of, you know, the traditional Jewish homeland now known as Israel. And the book was written

before Israel was a state. And I just find the concept of nationhood and national identity completely fascinating. And all I can say to Claire is hold on to that discomfort, explore it, think about it because it's a way into thinking about the identities that you choose, the identities that are thrust upon you, and what you're going to do with them in your life. Mostly I'm fascinated that you could feel guilty about having a nationality.

Yeah, I would never feel that I just have a hard time. Well, I think it's more that she feels guilty, that she feels like inadequately Canadian. Like saying I'm Canadian when you aren't truly like that you don't have that Inside like the actual reality of Canadianness inside of you and so saying it is is a kind of lie But like yeah, but what what is what is any of that anyway? Yeah, I right? What does it mean to have Canadianness inside of you? Like I know that moulson Beer has it. I know that ice hockey has it.

But I don't know how people have it. Ah, well I don't know that I've ever had Moulson in my life. Here's another question, John. This one's from Megan who asks, dear Hank and John, I love the podcast and listen to it as soon as it comes out each week. Thank you Megan! I have moved just recently and am completely overwhelmed by the unpacking processes. How do I prioritize what to unpack first and how do I keep my one-year-old from negating

any progress I might make finding spots for all the things? Any dubious advice will be appreciated. Well, the dubiousest of advice is to put your one-year-old into some kind of pen, which I believe they call a crib and just lock it in there. Well, not just that, but I mean, if I'm not mistaken, Megan is literally surrounded by boxes. Right. Yes. Just turn upside down.

One of the boxes and place it over the child. One year olds, they're not very capable. Turn upside down one of the boxes. The kid will have a like a play pen for hours and you'll be fun. Yeah, sure, kids like the boxes is what you're telling me that I cat. They love box forts. Boxes.

Cool, cool, cool. So how does she prioritize that, John? Well, first off, I think that moving is just incredibly stressful. So I think just acknowledging that is important. The way that I unpack boxes when I move is I unpack my books first because it makes me happy and then I slowly unpack everything else as I need it or use it. And then after about a year I find that there are still a bunch of things that I haven't unpacked and I throw those things away.

Or you just, if you have a big basement, you just put it down there, which I do. I think you gotta unpack, like first, do the things that make you happy, that's important, and do the things that are gonna make you comfortable and let make your life eat livable, like kitchen stuff. And I also think that it's really important, and often the last thing that gets done

is putting stuff up on the walls because that seems like a sort of like, you're not actually unpacking, you're decorating at that point, and that's not unpacking, I need to unpack. But I think putting stuff up on the walls is how you make yourself sort of feel like you're at home. And I think that that can be an important part

of unpacking even though it doesn't feel like the most productive thing you can be doing. I think that was extremely undubious advice, Hank. It was almost distressingly good. Alright, if you say so, I very rarely follow it. We only recently got our downstairs walls unpacked upon in the last few months after living in our house for about a year, but it is something that I like to do. And it actually makes me feel like I live in a place. I think that's wonderful. Should we move on to another question?

Yeah, sure. This question comes from Steven, who asks, dear John and Hank, I noticed earlier this year that the license of vlog brothers videos since September of last year were changed from standard YouTube license to creative comments attribution. I'm curious about what led to this choice for vlog brothers in particular.

So for those of you who don't know, Hank and I are not just world famous podcast stars. We also make YouTube videos. We have a channel vlog brothers that we've been doing since 2007 and a bunch of other channels. And Creative Commons Attribution basically says you can do whatever you want with this as long as you attribute it to us. Thank you. Yeah, basically. And we made that change. I believe, thank correct me if I'm wrong.

Nine years ago, it's just that YouTube didn't update their settings until recently. Well, kind of. YouTube didn't nine years ago have a thing that let you identify your content as creative comments. They introduced that sometime in the last nine years, I don't know when it was, but we noticed it in September. And I believe that happened after I posted a video of my Yellowstone trip, and then I posted on Hank's channel, and I said, here's all the footage from my Yellowstone trip,

it's Creative Commons, anybody can use it. And somebody said, you don't have to put that in the beginning, you can just like, click that button in the YouTube license, and I was like, oh! And then I made that the default switch for a vlog where there's videos. So all vlog where there's videos are Creative Commons, though they are not all labeled that way,

but on YouTube, just because we can't go, there's a lot of clicking necessary to make that happen. And we want that basically because like who cares? And we love it. We have always loved it when people have done cool things with our content. And we can't do that first, I show in Crash Course for various funger reasons,

but are happy to do it with vloggers because we don't even really know what we're doing still. And it's still just like the connection and interaction between the people who connect with our content on vlog breathers is the most important part of that channel for me. Yeah, I mean, I think that copyright law is pretty broken on the internet, obviously. And in so far as we can stay out of people's way and help them make stuff, that's what we want to do. I even think that copyright law is pretty broken when it comes to books, as evidenced by the fact that, you know, my work will be copyrighted until like 95 years after my death or whatever. I am very uncomfortable with that and although I don't expect my books to be read in that distant future, if I find that it's looking like they might be, I definitely will put it in my will that

stuff gets released into the commons because I think it's so important for art to be able to work off other art and to be able to respond to other art and to be able to quote liberally, even to be able to lift whole passages or rewrite it so it's pride and prejudice and zombies, whatever. I, you know, John, I have to say that you might die at any time. You should probably put that into your will now. Yeah, well, if I died now, thank you for the reminder. If I died now, I would want my work to remain copy-written for some time

because it would help my kids with their education and everything, but Sarah is under, Sarah is under instructions, she knows it's all written down. Okay, you don't have to worry, everything is fine. Okay. I am going to die, you have a will, don't you? It's, I think it to die you have a will, don't you? It's it's I think it's called Hank's Hank's will

It's a folder in fact and it also contains instructions for what to do with Like how to access all of my files and such mine is called Have I suddenly died question mark and if you log on to my computer as a guest It's the only file that you have access to I love that so much. Oh That's so wonderful that's oh Yeah, if you log on to my computer as a guest There's just one file in the center of the screen that says have I suddenly died you're so prepared It's actually but most of it is like Sarah has all of the passwords if she have I suddenly died? You're so prepared. It's actually, but most of it is like,

Sarah has all of the passwords. If she has also suddenly died, we all better hope that Rosiana's around. And never let John, Sarah, and Rosiana on the same airplane. Exactly. No, it's too dangerous, too dangerous. All those passwords.

Yeah, fascinating, glad to know that you've got that all taken care of, John. In line with that line of questioning, of thought, I have a question that I would like to find. It's somewhere, here it is. It's from Jessica who asks, dear Hank and John, I don't know why Jane Austen's Mr. Darcy is one of the most revered romantic men in literary history.

He was a jerk in the beginning of Pride and Prejudice, and that somehow makes his change of heart more endearing. Like, what? Why is that? I know you're both familiar with Pride and Prejudice, so I thought I would ask you to share some of your thoughts. My husband and I love your podcast. Well, you've come to the right place for a guy

who's gonna defend William Darcy to his dying day. So, do you wanna start, John, or should I? Oh, you start. I think it's because he shows that he can change, not because he can change from a bad guy to being a good guy, but because he has a world view, and when he gets new data, he doesn't change his world view. He recognizes that he should change in light of his world view

and the data that he has. The pride in Pride and Prejudice is Darcees, but the prejudice is Lizzie's, and she has all of these opinions of him, but she also has incomplete data. So he's being a jerk for a number of different reasons. And some of them are like, some of them are bad reasons,

and some of them are good reasons. But a lot of those reasons are not known. They are hidden. And when they come to light, both he's reasons, which helps Lizzie overcome her prejudice, and the sort of like, you know, how the world is functioning outside of that, that helps Darcy overcome his pride, is a process of change and of like listening to other people and

having a good, strong world view that you believe in, that turns out to be filled with thoughtfulness and kindness, but you couldn't be filled with thoughtfulness and kindness, but you couldn't share all of the information and you didn't have all the information because the world is complicated and overcoming that shows that two different people with different upbringing actually can have very similar worldviews if those worldviews are about thoughtfulness and kindness. And that's a wonderful thing. And I think it's really important because I hear a lot of guys particularly saying that Lizzie doesn't fall in love with Darcy. She falls in love with his house.

And I don't like that's just not true. Like if you read the book, that's not what it's about. Like she like they fall in love with each other after considering each other's thoughts and words. That's what happens. It's not just about what they look like, it's not just about how much money he has. And I think it's, you know, like his rude behavior in the beginning turns out to have had a lot of motivations that couldn't be shared and for good reason. And when those things come to light, you know, everybody realizes that they were kind of in the wrong, and then are able to come to a place of agreement

and beyond agreement, love and marriage. And presumably babies. I knew you were going to answer that question well, Hank. Pride and prejudice truly is your Irish nationalism. We have another question here from Claire. Very interesting question, particularly in this historical moment, dear John and Hank, I'm a huge supporter of bipartisanship or multi-partisanship as I live in Canada and we have a multi-party political system. Quick side note, Claire. Please let us into Canada.

Well, you know, John, I've been looking into it, and it's not that hard, but apparently, so have a lot of people, and additionally, I don't actually want to move to Canada. I want to be, I want to do this America thing. We can make it happen. I love the United States so much. I love its chain restaurants.

I love its broken, dysfunctional medical system that I know how to navigate. I love, like, I am so American, so incurably American. When we moved to, the Netherlands for a few months thinking that we might make a permanent move, I immediately realized that I can't. I can't live in Holland because I am too American, but I might be able to live in Canada anyway.

I'm sorry, that isn't Claire's question. I think our repulsion from bipartisanship is what's slowly destroying Western politics. However, when I meet with someone who has different political views from mine, I'm immediately turned off from them. How do I reconcile myself with my own hypocrisy and move toward accepting a more politically diverse group of people in my life? Oh, Claire, I thought you were going to answer that question. I have no idea. So I'm reading a book right now about this actually, which is fascinating. It's called

the Re-United States of America. And it is by Mark Gerson. And it has, it just recently came out like this month. And it has a lot of high quality reviews on Amazon, but it does have one star, one one star review on Amazon. And I would like to read you that one star review, John. Okay. That one star review says,

Dr. Phil? It is just the words, Dr. and Phil, followed by a question mark. And I do not have any idea what's going on. But it's the number one new release in government. Can I tell you, I've ever told you about my favorite one star review for the Faultner Stars? Oh sure, go ahead and tell me that. In addition to being a world famous podcaster and and youtuber I am also a part-time novelist and I wrote a book called The Fault in Their Stars and it has a lot of one star reviews on Amazon

all of them gold in their own way Like I mean it's just it's hard to Say what's my favorite one because I've read all of them so many times, you know. But my favorite is from a user named Catherine, presumed we're not your wife, who says, uh, item was not received as described. was not received as described. And I don't know if she's talking about my novel or the shipping process or what, but like, I can't tell you how many things in life I feel are described by the sentence, item was not received as it was described.

Yeah, I think the United States of America may in fact be one of those items, or at least Congress. But I have not received the Congress that was described to me. I have received a Congress, but not the Congress that I was told about in seventh grade civics. So this book has been a fascinating read and it is about that process. How do you come to talk to other people and present yourself in a way that is not immediately dehumanizing other people or immediately demonizing, vilifying them, thinking that they're either ignorant of something or evil, or, you know, like dissolving into an argument or a fight. Every time you have a conversation with someone who disagrees with you,

and we have become very sort of tribalistic in the way that we think about our parties. One of the points that was made in the opening chapter of the book is that a majority of Americans don't want their children to marry into the other, marry someone of the other political party. And that's like, wow. Yeah. That's, I mean, like I get it, like, yeah, and I think about myself and I'm like kind of like, yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe. But like the fact that we're there feels really, really wrong.

It feels like there is something like we're driving along in a car that has had the oil light on for a while. And we, for decades, and we need to take this thing in for service. But it is a very, I'm only a quarter of the way through. But so far, and it's a short book. So far, it's really great and I suggested the United States of America to sort of like

think about this very thing because I don't think there's an easy answer, but I think that answering that question is important for every single person right now. Yeah, I mean, we've just got to find a way to talk about things better. I mean, one of the, been thinking a lot about the support that Donald Trump has, which, you know, is a minority of American voters, significant, but it's a significant minority of American voters, and just trying to understand that. And I think I understand some of it. I certainly understand why lots of people feel that they have been left out of the so-called economic growth that the US has experienced since 1990 or even really since 1980

because a lot of that growth hasn't been particularly inclusive and so it doesn't so it so it isn't experienced as growth by the vast majority of people which kind of means that it isn't growth and I and I certainly get why people feel experienced as growth by the vast majority of people, which kind of means that it isn't growth. And I certainly get why people feel like the country has changed in ways that they aren't comfortable with or we've sort of been left behind in some way. But I find it really difficult to have discussions about policy statements like we should not allow Muslim immigration into the United States because that's incorrect. And it's based on this very circular reasoning of we will be safer if we don't allow Muslim immigration into the United States, which I've seen no evidence for.

And it's not a provable data point followed by the circular reasoning of, and we must do everything that we can to be safer without considering what do we mean when we talk about safe? What do we mean when we talk about safe? What do we mean when we talk about safety in the US when... And what do you mean when you say everything? If you're talking about, we must do everything

we can to make ourselves safer. No one believes that. Right, right. But... Yeah, no one actually believes that, right? So then, so then you get into, you get into these very circular logic loops and you don't get to have discussions about like a, like a really interesting topic,

which is, you know, should the income tax rate for income over $500,000 be 39%, 42%, 37%. Those are things that we can talk about and disagree about without it feeling like our lives are in the line. And I think part of the problem here is that, you know, to try to get elected, to try to get attention, politicians and, frankly, the media have made it sound like our lives are on the line for who gets elected president. And when the stakes feel that high,

it becomes very, very difficult to talk about policy with someone because what you're really talking about is, wow, if the top marginal income tax rate is 42%, everyone I love is going to die. And that's a, like, you know, it's that, and we're not going to be able to have a conversation. It's also that we've tied our ideologies so very tightly to our identity that we feel when our ideology is being threatened, that our personhood is being threatened.

And when I listen to the conversation, what I'm trying to do now is hear not whether or not this sounds objectionable to me or sounds awful to me or I disagree with the policy statement, but to think about whether the statement is designed to create division. And that's what a statement like we should not allow all Muslims to, we should ban Muslim immigration to America. That statement is not a policy statement. That is a statement designed to create division.

And all politicians do this. And so I'm trying to listen as hard as I can to statements that are designed to create division. And all politicians do this. And so I'm trying to listen as hard as I can to statements that are designed to create division on all sides. And like here, who, and like right now, the person who is best at not doing this is of course Barack Obama, who doesn't need to care about getting elected. And so like it's sort of remarkable to hear, but you can definitely hear in everybody in all every single candidate statements that are designed to create division. And...

Yeah, and what's not? And being turned off by those first and then by policy second is not an easy thing to do. I have, so there's this thing in the liberal world, which is like, if Donald Trump is the nominee, that's probably a good thing for the progressive agenda because he probably won't get elected and he'll probably get a lot of people out to the polls,

a lot of liberals to the polls, and we might get more control, more power to do what we want to enforce our agenda. And that's like, that's a good thing, right? Cause what we want to do is we believe that this agenda will make the world better. But I think that that view of this situation is kind of terrifying.

Because what you're saying is, I don't care how torn up this country gets as long as I get to enforce my agenda. And I can see that point of view, but 100%, you have to say, like, do I care more about America not getting torn up and like dragged, like the steering wheel of this country being dragged in every direction

by people who just want this control or do I care about like the nation feeling like a nation and healing itself and not getting, like having these wedges driven deeper and deeper between people and who do not actually differ that much ideologically, but who have been convinced, have been convinced that we do. Yeah, no, I think that's a hugely important point

that in a lot of cases, there's a lot of ideological crossover. There's also a lot of policy opinion crossover. It's really the way that we approach it. And just so we're not lambasting only the Republican party, I have to say that in the Democratic party, there is a very similar us-them dichotomy created which is the phrase the billionaire class that you hear over and over and over

and over again, which is some vague other, these, you know, 50 or 100 families in the United States who supposedly sort of control the future of the U.S. Let me submit that like if this were an actual oligarchy, those 50 to 100 families, the vast majority of whom are Republicans, would have found a way to get literally anyone on earth other than Donald Trump to be the Republican nominee. I don't think that they think it's in their best interest to have Donald Trump be the Republican nominee, the billionaire class. But I think any time that we're trying to create this vague villainous other, even if it is a somewhat villainous group of billionaires, I think we need to be very, very cautious because the truth, I think,

turns out to be a lot more complicated than... Says a guy who's really good friends with a billionaire. I am not good friends with a billionaire. I do not know any billionaire intimately. I am good friends. It seems like you and Bill Gates just hang out all the time. Bill Gates and I do not hang out a ton. However, I do suspect that my having met Bill Gates and I do not hang out a ton. However, I do suspect that my having met Bill

Gates a few times has humanized billionaires for me in a way that perhaps most people have not experienced. And I realize too that I'm, you know, obviously I'm coming at that whole conversation from an extremely privileged perspective and probably a somewhat defensive one. But the truth is, and I think the big underlying truth that is a cross-party problem that needs to be acknowledged is that the growth in the United States, the economic growth in the United States, since, you know, about 1980, has been very, very unevenly distributed, and that that is a problem. It's not gonna be solved by, like,

quote unquote, negotiating with China. It's not going to be solved by, like, emulating Putin. It's not going to be solved by, you know, somehow like bringing down the billionaires because it's not that easy. Like the truth is that it's a really complex problem that's born of a globalization that has been in many ways beneficial, not just to the world, but also to the United States. And not in every way, but in some ways, and acknowledging that complexity

and trying to start from there, like how are we gonna get better jobs in the United States? And how are we going to find ways for wages to go up, which they haven't really done in a long time? That's a big, interesting question. I don't think we're gonna solve that problem by, you know, villainizing the Chinese or lionizing Putin or villainizing billionaires.

I just don't think that's gonna solve the problem. Like if we raise taxes, income taxes on billionaires to 95%, it would represent like, I figured this out the other day. It would represent like something like half a percent of our income tax going up. Like, there just aren't that many billionaires. Yeah, yeah, there aren't.

And they have a lot of, they have a lot of the wealth, but they don't have that much of the income, which is, yeah, and they have a lot of the wealth, but even, they don't even have a lot of the wealth relative to the overall wealth. Like they do, but they don't, yeah. It's complicated. It's complicated.

We should make a video about that. Sorry, you got Hank, Hank and I off on a rant in which we never actually answered your question. Closer to my question. I suggested a book at least, which will I think help. But I do, I do hope that this has,

like I do, as we get closer to the election, we're gonna do our best to make this podcast open to people and interesting to people who are not Americans, and I apologize for the amount that we're gonna be talking about America, but we're not gonna do it as much as we would be inclined to. I don't know, when I was in Jordan, lots and lots of people asked me about Trump.

Oh, that's awful, that's terrifying. That is terrifying, I'm terrified and want to run away. Yep. They asked me if he was going to be president. They shouldn't. No. God. Can't we just, can't we just like keep this one under wraps and be like, ah, that didn't happen. All right. Can we move on to another question? Uh, yes, we can. I have one from Adam, John. Who asks, dear Hank and John, I have an urgent life or death question.

Why do we say yes, please? And no, thank you. Why don't we say yes thank you and no please? Oh, because- Oh well Adam. When I say yes, I'm generally saying please give me that thing. Yes, I will take that thing please. No I guess I could say thank you too. Actually now the more that I think about it, the stupider it is. Adam is right. We've been doing this wrong all along.

No, no, no, because you can't say no, please. Because no, please, is what you say when you're being tortured in a movie. That's true, that's true. Yeah, that's when like Putin shows up in his bare costume and he's got like a car battery or something and he's about to shock you. It's doing judo.

You're like, no, please. It's got a car battery. Yeah, you're right, you can't say no, please Adam. You can say no, thank you and yes, thank you. Yeah, yeah. And I think it's because of what those words mean as the reason that we say them to the way we do. I have a question Hank that I wanna get to

before we get to the news from Mars and the news from the dark, lightless cave that is AFC Wimbledon. All right. This question is from Aisha, who writes, dear John and Hank, I'm a Christian and it can be rough. I had to leave the main Nerdfighter Facebook group because the hate of religion is so strong there, although I love some of the other Nerdfighter groups. I'm not an evangelist, I'm not evangelist, but I get so much backlash once people find out that I'm a Christian. I know that I'm not being persecuted, but I don't feel like defending my belief system every time I speak to someone who doesn't share my faith, but I also don't feel like I should have to hide something that makes me who I am. How do I handle this negativity?

I think that's a really interesting question, Aisha. The internet is sort of on the whole, interesting question, Ayesha, the internet is sort of on the whole pretty strongly anti-religion in my experience. Like, at least that is my feeling about it. I am also a Christian. I handle it mainly by talking about my religious faith, but not trying to defend it. And when people ask me to defend it, I generally just say that I'm not really that interested in defending it. Like it just doesn't interest me much. Because I don't think that it's gonna be a productive or interesting conversation.

Yeah, that's a really good advice. And it's not, like as a person who is not religious, I, like, it is so, it has become more and more perplexing to me the way that some non-religious people approach religion as a source of, as like this monolithic source of badness, or that there's some really fun thing out there that is the attempt to argue and put on the defensive a really just person and make them have to defend their faith. And I just like, it's just, it's so tired and uninteresting to me.

And I, I mean, it feels tired to us because, you know, we were part of that first wave of internet discourse in the late 90s or early 90s that was doing the exact same thing. Yeah, no, absolutely. I literally- It does feel tired to you. The other day I had printed out and kept in a binder some stuff from like my old old IAG email address. And one of them was like a literal email debate I had with another I assume 12-year-old about the existence of God. And I thought that was important enough for me to save, I guess. And if it's about helping yourself, helping you define who you are and what you believe

and how you interact with the world. And then like, yes, but if it's about you trying to feel superior to other people and to like have this view that like certain kinds of people are responsible for all of the evil in the world, then you are like, there's an issue. There's an issue. And it's not that, it's you. Yeah, I remember the like awakening moment for me was I was talking to someone on the internet. I think I was probably in college. So I don't have the excuse of being 12 like you did. It's talking to someone on the internet and they were pointing out all of these things in the Bible that contradict themselves, especially things in the gospels, there's four different gospels that tell four different accounts about the life of Jesus. And they often, at least appear to me and to most people to speak contradictorally about the life of Jesus at

times. He has three different last words, for instance, in the four gospels. And someone was pointing this out to me. And I was like, yeah, no, yeah, I get that. And they were like, well, that means that you can't believe in God. And I was like, I still do. So I think I might have just disproved your point. Like, at some point, it ceases to be productive, or to me at least, it ceases to be a fertile ground for exploration. It becomes personal and complicated and nuanced in ways that you don't really necessarily talk about well with strangers.

I think accepting that for me was the turning point. I have one more question that I want to ask before we get to the news from Mars, John. Are you ready for that? Yes. All right, this one's from Lizzie, who asks, dear Hank and John, the day a couple of my roommates and I were talking about nuclear weapons

and how terrifying they are and how many exist in the world, I was wondering if there were a way for, we could even ever hypothetically get rid of all the nuclear weapons that we world I was wondering if there were a way for we could even ever Hypothetically get rid of all the nuclear weapons that we currently have. Oh, there's a way. You know totally totally destroying the planet Like shooting them into the sun or etc. But yo no. Yes. Oh wait. That was my way indeed Yes, there are easy ways to get rid of nuclear weapons and we do it all the time Mostly we do it through nuclear power plants. Really? Yeah. Well, that's nice. We take the fuel from nuclear weapons and we put it into nuclear power plants and when we decommission nuclear weapons, this works for most nuclear fuel, we are able to actually

take that, put it in the power plant and make power with it. See, that's wonderful. And that's where a lot of the current fuel of nuclear power plants comes from and we're actually running out of that fuel And which is a problem. So we have to like get more of it again. I have an idea. What? We could decommission more nuclear weapons. That's like I like it. I like it. Just throw it out there. I will also say, John, that our nuclear power plants are also a source for nuclear weapons. And indeed, when we were designing our nuclear power plants, we made it specifically so that

some of the byproducts of the nuclear power plants could be used in nuclear weapons. And if we had not had that alternate goal in mind. We probably would have ended up with a better system for generating nuclear power that would have been safer because it wouldn't have produced all of these byproducts that could potentially be used in weapons. So that's a bummer. Wow, so I guess that knife cuts both ways. Hahaha.

Yeah, yeah, it's bummer. Instead of a knife, it's a nuke. Yeah, it's, I guess, I can we use the phrase from now on, I guess that nuclear weapon cuts both ways. That really seems like a double edged H-Bob. Today's podcast is brought to you by double edged H-Bob's, double edged H-Bob's, sometimes used for fuel, sometimes not so much. Today's broadcast is also brought to you

by the complexities of Mr. Darcy, handsome, rich, and additionally, with a complex, thoughtful world view that makes people who take the time to get to know him really, really fallen love. And today's podcast is brought to you by Vladimir Putin wearing a bear suit holding a car battery Vladimir Putin wearing a bear suit holding a car battery. Please please Please And

This podcast is finally brought to you by placing your one-year-old into a cardboard box so you can get some freaking work done. Placing your one-year-old into cardboard box so you can get some freaking work done, save it every time that's the year 10,000 BCE. I don't think they had cardboard. We should also thank our Patreon subscribers who actually bring Dear Hank and John to you. If you want to get a monthly live stream live stream which is inevitably disasters handsmen this week talking almost exclusively about his struggles to get an appointment with his gastroenterologist if you want to uh... if you want it if you want that kind of

hot hot content uh... check out the uh... dear hank and john patron patron dot com slash dear hank and john uh... you can become a patron of our show and get a live stream, but mostly you just help out with Claudia and Nick and their work on the podcast. Also, you can choose between AFC Wimbledon and Mars, which you want to support. It won't actually matter because the money goes

to the same place, but right now AFC Wimbledon is losing by a lot and it makes me sad. Well, maybe we should get to the Mars News then. All right, what's the news from Mars, Hank? The first component of the exo-Mars mission, a joint project between the European Space Agency and Ross Cosmos launched last week and has now honored to be at Mars and it will arrive there in about seven months, eight months,

ish. There are two components to this first mission. There's a lander, which is mostly just designed to test a landing system, but it's gonna do a little bit of experiments, but mostly it's just testing the landing. And the other is an orbiter, which has the main job of detecting trace chemicals in the atmosphere,

because the goal of this two-part exomars mission is to actually, like actually, their biological goals, which we've been really sort of wary about at NASA, but the ESA and Roscosmos is just going after it. So the orbiter is going to be looking for to detect methane in the Martian atmosphere, which we've detected before, and we're a little bit confused about where it's coming from, though it here on Earth is often generated by biological processes. So we are very interested in where that methane is coming from. The orbiter will be able to figure

that out and then take pictures of areas where the methane concentration seemed to be originating from and then use that to find a good landing site for the next component of the exomars mission which will launch in 2018, which is a rover that will land around where that methane is being produced theoretically, and do science and explore that area to see where what's going on with this mysterious methane. That is a giant spider. That is a giant spider.

Wow, that is a big spider. On Mars? Wow. No, I was not looking at Mars. It's on my wall. I don't know what to do. It's so big. Oh, take a picture of it and put it on the dear Hank and John

Patreon. It's so big. Oh my, I can't see it anymore. It's like all the way across the room and it's going really fast and now I can't see it. Take a picture of it. Take a picture of it for our Patreon. Which you can, by the way, you can access that for free.

You can see Hank's spider pictures for free. I just, Hank, we need to do more content outside the podcast. So Hank, do you remember that I, on my way to Jordan, I stopped by AFC Wimbledon, met all the players. Had a wonderful time. They lost to Oxford 2-1. You can still hear me but the podcast can't. Oh, apparently the podcast can't hear Hank because he has run away from his microphone because he's afraid of a spider. Is that correct, Hank? That is correct! Well can you hurry back?

I can't pod without you. You told me I have to take a picture of it. Well, I didn't think that it would involve getting out of your seat to take a picture of it. It's real big. Can I deliver the news from AFC Wimbledon? It is important. Get. Yes, you may.

Thank you, recall, that I went to visit AFC Wimbledon on my way to Jordan with Rosyana and we saw them lose to Oxford 2-1. Sadly, unfortunately, I seem to have cursed them while I was there. I met all of the players and I accidentally put a hex on them. Since then, things have gone from okay to terrible to yet worse than terrible to unbelievably bad. Lost to Oxford 2-1, tied, lead leading Northampton 1-1. That was a great result, actually.

Nill-Nill draw against Ackington Stanley. Then lost to Bristol Rovers and then a lost to more cambie or more camba. They're a camba. To give you a sense of what it's like to lose to more cam, they're like a mascot is a shrimp, an actual shrimp. They are known as the shrimping team. They come from the shrimping country in the far north east of England, possibly northwest. I have exceptionally bad ability to distinguish between east and west.

You don't know how good a shrimp would be at soccer. Maybe there's like a super long history of shrimp soccer. Maybe, but given the size of the ball and the size of shrimps, I'm a little dubious. Anyway, we lost to Morcam, it was devastating. I don't want to, I don't wanna make it seem worse than it is, but they're 18th in League 2. And we are now down to, I believe, ninth, possibly 10th,

which is just, it's very bad, we're ninth, we're ninth on 53 points, and we need to get up into the top seven spots in order to have a shot at the playoffs. There are now just 10 games remaining in AFC Wimbledon season, so they would have to go on an incredible run to make the playoffs.

That is the update. I wish it were better news, but instead it is like walking all the way into a cave so deep down into that cave that you turn around and you find that there is light neither behind you nor in front of you. It's called cave darkness. There isn't a single loom in a light. That's how I feel right now. So I look at the table and you're in ninth, though, and you have to be in seventh, right?

So you're only two out. Yeah, it's just the way the results have been going, though, Hank. It's like, are you familiar with the concept of momentum? Yeah, but I do not think that it applies to phenomenon such as this. I think if you, you know, past performance, as they say, is no guarantee of future success or future failure. It's all just dice. It's all just dice being thrown on that football pitch, John. And you just got to keep throwing those dice. Well, it's not all just dice. It's not all just dice or Northampton would win fewer games. But yeah, I think, I guess the reason that I feel so hopeless. I mean, look, it's always, look, it's great news.

AFC Wimbledon staying up and league two is great news. That's the main goal for every season. But like the reason I feel such despair is that I let myself feel such hope. By the time of the Oxford game, by the time that game kicked off, I was properly dreaming of League One football. I was imagining it, and that's... That's a big mistake.

I, well, you know, it would have just been that one season anyway, as you said. And... That's true, but what a season! What have been able to travel the country, visiting the likes of Swindentown. Oh, Swindentown. I know, I know, it would have been great, but it ain't gonna happen.

Or maybe it will, but it looks less likely than it did a few weeks ago. So that's the news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. Hey, what did we learn today? We learned that John has a lot of complicated thoughts about nationalism and Ulysses, which is a book. Yes, I guess we learned that. We also learned that both Hank and John are clearly distressed about the quality of political discourse in the United States so much that it kind of derailed

the podcast. We learned that you should unpack your boxes in order of what stuff you need, and then if you don't need it, don't unpack it and it'll just you'll just have like four forks and uh yeah that's uh and just a bunch of boxes our advice is so good how hey hey Megan how come you got four forks in your house oh John and Hank told me to they told me to stop it for at unpacking four forks I haven't needed one of them. That's also why my one-year-old child is in this here box. And of course, we learned that if Vladimir Putin wearing a bear suit approaches you with a car battery, you should say not no thank you, but rather no please.

It's important linguistic advice from here at Dear Hanger John. Thank you for podcasting with me, John, and thank you to all the people for pod listening, which I think is what that's called. I believe that is the technical term. Our podcast is edited by Nicholas Jenkins. Our hard-working, amazing intern is Claudio Morales. Thanks also to Rosiana Hoss-Rohas for helping us with the questions. Our theme music is from Gunnarola. You can email us at hankanjohnatgmail.com and we'll find us on Twitter at hankarrows.com to Rosie on a whole roll-host for help to the questions.

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