Dear Hank & John - 432: Turtetiquette

Episode Date: November 12, 2025

Who is responsible for the ridiculous pet names from John and Hank’s childhood? Any tips on how to cope with pre-wedding stress? Can you explain snot? What is turtle etiquette? What organs do you actually need? What would happen if the oceans were 50% less salty? …Hank and John Green have answers!If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening to a Complexly podcast. Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Nor is I prefer to think of it, Dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you to BS advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon, but maybe not that last one because I don't think that I don't have any right now. Anyway, Catherine recently said to me, John.

Yeah. She was like, I think I want to have another kid. Oh, my God. And I was real surprised. Yeah. I thought that ship had sailed for sure. I said, I thought you liked this one. That's a pretty good joke.

Okay. That's all right. It's not true, though, right? I mean, you're not having another kid, aren't you? No, no, yes, yes, yes. That ship has indeed sailed. That would be a weird way to break the news to me. How is the siblings?

How do you find having siblings versus my situation where there's just one of them? It's great. It's lovely. They're lovely kids. So, Hank, I just did one of those long-form interviews that sometimes you do where The interviewer talked to me for 90 minutes and asked me a bunch of questions and then it's all going to come out as a podcast and like none of it will be cut and everything that I said will be hyper scrutinized. Is it like a big? Is it a big one? Is it like one that like Nicholas Cage would go on? Nicholas Cage, I think would do it but hasn't been offered the opportunity. That's how big it is. Okay. I think it's big enough that Nicholas Cage is like desperate to do it. He's like, man, I hope someday I get to do this podcast. No, no, no, no. You're not bigger than Nicholas Cage.

Okay, we'll go offline real quick. I'll tell you what it is, and then we'll come back. And we're back. Okay, I get it. I get it. So it's not so much that you're bigger than Nicholas Gage. It is more sort of suited to your personal brand. A little more suited to my brand, but it's a big, it's a big-ish deal is my point. And the time during the interview is fine. I mean, I'm highly anxious and like very much on guard and like desperately trying. And the only clear thought that I'm having is like, wee, wee, wee, like, that's my only real thought throughout the entire thing. You're familiar with this experience.

But then afterwards, afterwards, after the end of the interview, that's when the crushing anxiety hits. Because you would think about all of the things you just said. Or didn't say. Yes. I think about all the things I just said. And then it's just like, boom, just smashing me in the chest. So that's where I'm at right now. Can we just make things not matter?

You know, could we just like, could we just, could things matter? Maybe, look, obviously, things need to matter. Can you lower the stakes? In terms of me, in terms of like just things people are saying? I wish I didn't care so much if people liked me. Yeah, no, that's really it. I'm 48. Why am I still in middle school?

Yeah. Yeah. And are the platforms optimized for it? Do the platforms want us to feel this way so that we're always checking? One thing I think people don't understand about, unless you're a real poster. is the extent to which the labor comes after the creation. So, like, you make a thing or you do an interview or you post-to-post, and then it's like, then you're like, got to babysit that.

You're managing it. I got to manage it. I got to, like, see how, like, the feedback, and I got to learn from it. And I got to, yeah. Hank, I'm about to change your life with some great advice. This isn't even dubious. That's why seven minutes after posting something, when it starts to feel like labor, I just delete it.

I just deleted it. And I got the kind of high of posting. I got the high of the initial response. And then the moment a person took it in the wrong context, I'm like, oh, I'll just delete that. I'll delete that. I have this problem of thinking that if somebody interprets something differently than I meant it to be interpreted, that that that's my fault. And I think that it is sometimes.

Sometimes it is. I kind of like truly, deeply, actually believe it always is. Like, I feel like if I was misinterpreted that I could have done better. Yeah. But sometimes people just like willingly bad faith interpret you because like that's part of how you get internet points is by, and I do this too. Like I'm not accusing people of participating in some evil social internet that I'm immune to. Like I sometimes like present an argument in bad faith as a way of saying like look at these idiots. Yes. It is where it is where the incentives drive. Yeah. That's one of the reasons I've stopped posting online is because I can't resist the urge to do that. And so the only way to resist the urge is to kind of not start. Yeah. I assume it all stop. posting online. I don't know, Hank. I think that might be the last thing you do. But first, before you stop posting online, which you'll never do, let's answer some questions from our listeners, beginning with this one from Kaylee, who writes, Dear John and Hank, red green the dog, blue green the snake. Who was responsible for these ridiculous pet names from your childhood?

Are there any other color names you would like to reveal Kaylee? I cannot believe that we ever have talked about blue green. I can't believe we talked about blue green either. Until this moment, I forgot Blue Green. I feel bad because I don't think Blue Green was adequately loved in the world. No, I think that Blue Green was re-released eventually. So I am almost positive that that is a story that we told you. Oh, no, don't ruin it for me. Yeah, I might have to ruin it for you.

Because Blue Green did come from the wild. Blue Green was not a pet store purchase. Blue Green came from the wild, but Blue Green did not return to the wild. Blue Green died inside of that terrarium. That's a shame. Yeah, well, I mean, I've got even worse news for you, which is that we all go. That is what one might call a shame. So blue green was a garter snake, who had a little stripe of blue, a beautiful stripe of blue.

Yeah, so he had a stripe of blue, and his last name was green, because that's our last name. It's not our fault that our last name is a color. And so we named him blue green, and then red green was a red dog, and we named him red green because we got him at Christmas. It's the perfect name. I don't apologize for either of these pet names. I still think they're hilarious. Yeah, but I have no idea who's responsible. I don't know who named Red.

I think you did. God, what a bad dog. I mean, we don't talk enough about what a bad dog Red Green was. He was bad to the bone, man. He was bad for 50. I know there's no bad dogs, only bad owners, but we must have been bad owners. I don't doubt that we were. Also, look, I think that Red Green was not a bad dog.

He was a bad pet. He was a bad, he was a great dog. He was a bad family dog. Yeah. Yeah. He was, I'll tell you what, you could. Like, I only got bit by that dog like four or five times. Yeah, he was violent.

He wasn't as violent as some dogs, but he was violent. He was a miniature dog. He couldn't be that violent. He weighed eight pounds. If he was a big dog, the number of times and the intensity with which he bit me would have been a huge problem. Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. But he also, he was never house trained. trained in a meaningful way. God, I remember what I got, I got a black light because I was like a cool high schooler trying to be, you know, trying to be like getting a blacklight poster up there and rebel in my own special way. That was a huge mistake. Huge mistake.

A huge mistake. Big error. Big error. Like, I knew that I'd cleaned up some pee, but I didn't know that I had cleaned up pee from every spot in the room. Yeah. Yeah. No, he was a very petulant peer.

Like, he would wake you up and then jump down off the bed and stare at you and pee. He was like a dominant spear. He was like, hey, you know that thing that you hate? Watch it happen. Whereas blue-green was a great gartersnick, no complaints about him. I think that was the only... Also, probably not a great pet, but... Those were the only two pets we named after colors.

I don't remember what we called our tortoise. Chippendale were the... Chip and Dale were the... Chip and Dale. hamsters. No, these were finches, the finches. I don't remember the finches. Yeah, well, there it is. What was the name of that other bird you had? Rico. Rico, the conier, and we had Willie the hamster. We had a Willie. Who was Willie? Willie was a hamster. One-eyed Willie. You don't remember Willie. Why did Willie only have one eye? Because Willie disappeared. Willie had two eyes.

Willie disappeared. We didn't know where he was. Every night, mom and dad would like put gerbil food under the headboard so that they would hear him come by, and maybe they would wake up, and the gerbil food would disappear, but then they wouldn't wake up. So they knew Willie was around. Willie was gone for weeks. Wow. And then when Willie, when they finally, like, woke up as Willie was eating the gerbil food, he had one eye. He went from two eyes to one eye in a mysterious accident. Yeah. And then it must be said, he got killed by Red Green. I read. Yeah. is not a good pet as you're dropping some new lore today. That's new war.

Yeah. No, I don't know that we ever let it slip, that red green was the reason that Willie died. Yeah. Do you want to know my other traumatic pet death story? Yeah, please. So we got two goldfish at the fair. Never do this. No, never do this.

But it was the 80s. Yeah. And we got two goldfish at the fair. One of them was won by Phil, who I will not use his full name. Yeah, I know Phil. Close family friend Phil. Yeah. And I think my parents did not want to get the goldfish, but Phil won the goldfish, and I wanted them.

I think this is what happened. And so they took the goldfish home. We did not have the best way of taking care of the goldfish. One of the goldfish started to get sick. So my parents were like, we need to change the water. And they're changing the water over the sink. One of the goldfish slips out of the bowl and into the sink and goes down the drain. Mom looks at me, and she says, I'm so sorry, Hank, that was the good.

one. That's like a really metaphorically resonant story. I mean, who among us has not lost the good one here and there? And like, boy, do I remember that. Like, I'm having like an emotional response to it right now as a 45-year-old man. I'm like, prickling and like very, like, just, I mean, I guess I'm kind of thinking about Orrin, too. Like, just the moments where crushing stuff happens to you as a kid. Well, here's the thing, Hank. That fish went where we are all going. Yeah. Well, what did we say?

The dust? Complicated dust, baby. This next question comes from Lisa, who writes, Dear John and Hank, I'm getting married in five days. And I feel as though I am on another plane of existence with the amount of stress I am feeling. I am thrilled to marry the love of my life. Everything is packed and as ready as it can be for the weekend's festivities. But I am buzzing with energy. Any tips on how to cope pumpkins and penguins, Lisa? Now, Hank, let's drop some more lore. Yeah, you want to tell everybody what you did for me? I don't remember. I didn't do anything for you. I just like hung out with you. Correct. So first off, when I got married, like, I was at a very high level of stress, but I'm frequently at a very high level of stress, right? So like, it wasn't,

it wasn't new for me to be like at the, at the limit, you know, like, if the stress starts in your toes, I It was at my eyebrows, but like, that's nothing new for me. I've been there before. I found the day of getting married so stressful that it was kind of difficult to enjoy it for me. Fortunately, it turns out that that's like the first day of like a 6,000 day marriage and like the other 6,000 days have been great. Not, I mean, not universally, but pretty good as things go. And so you've got to remember that. You got to remember this is not like the marriage. This is the wedding. And then And the marriage is going to be a whole different thing that's actually much more important than the wedding and much more interesting and much more fulfilling and all that.

But on your wedding day, as I recall, we were at a brunch on your wedding day. And mom was like, can you go find Hank? And I was like, sure. And so I looked around for you. And then eventually I made my way to the bathroom because that's where you tend to hang out. And if one's not in the brunch, one's probably hiding in the bathroom. Yeah. You were in the bathroom and you were like not doing too good.

No. I had overestimated my need for Kish. Yeah, that was part of it. I mean, I wouldn't say that was the primary issue. Here's what I'll say. Given my mental state, I had overestimated my need for Kish. My current need for Kish was below zero. And I had had maybe a spoonful. And that had really pushed me over the edge. I was feeling real. Like the anxiety had turned into it was physical. It was physical. I was my blood pressure was not working. it should be. And I was feeling like puke. You were having a physical reaction to anxiety, which is not uncommon, right? But it was uncommon for you. Yeah, no. And so, look, it's only happened like six times of my life. When you're experiencing something you've never experienced before, haven't experienced in a long time, it's stressful on its own. And then there's the fact that like the stress, you know, it becomes a vicious cycle because the stressful thing is getting worse and worse. So anyway, we went, I was like, screw everything. We're getting out of this joint. We're going to hang out at this breakfast place. We're going to get Hank home and we're going to play

Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2. That's exactly what I remember. And you know, there's an extension of this story that I have also talked about, which is that I biked to that brunch venue. You chose me home. And then I got married and a bunch of other things happened. And then I woke up one day to go bike somewhere and I was like, my bike got stolen. And then four months later, I found my bike parked outside of the brunch venue. I just walked by it. And I was like, that's my bike. Yeah. There's nothing like falsely accusing the world of stealing your bike only to find out that it was not in fact stolen. Yeah. That's a good one. Yeah. I'll tell you what, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 is the exact right thing. And that's probably not going to be the exact

right thing for you. But it was for me because like I know how to play Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2. I know that I enjoy it. And so like maybe that's like Star Trek the next generation for you, which it also is for me. Or maybe it's like an album that you have a like a deep relationship with that you can can like hear a lot of and experience a lot of inside of. Or maybe it's a friend or may like it could be a lot of different things. But like if everything's done and the only thing left to do is worry and the worry is not producing anything except for unpleasantness, that's the that's the best and purest use of the tremendous opportunities for distraction that our society has developed for us.

Right. That's true. There was no Instagram or TikTok back in 2006 when you got married. Yeah, I don't know. There's something much, like, I actually don't think that TikTok or Instagram would be a good solution here. No, that wouldn't calm me down. Because it gives you so much, you know?

Yeah. It's too much sensory input. And like, you don't, you ever know if like the next one's going to make you worried or not, you know? Yeah. That's why I had to get off of TikTok when I was sick was because it would give me, like, triggers. And I would never know when one was coming.

for like you know sickness well we wish you lots of luck but remember that the wedding is one thing and the marriage is another and the marriage is going to be the most interesting and important thing the last thing I'll say about this Hank is that on my wedding day the most enjoyable part was walking out of the church yeah I don't know once once it all started I was like really yeah you did great once it started And you seemed like you had fun that day. I did. I liked a lot of the parts of it.

I mean, I liked basically all of the parts of it. My least favorite part was how hungry I was during the part where you have to like go around to all the tables and say hi to everybody. And I was like, man, I should have had a hot dog. I was hungry. I was also thirsty for beer and no one would get me a beer. And I was like, I thought this was my special day. I should have as many beers as I would like. Oh, man.

And like at my wedding, I won't name. many names, but certain family members had never had a real Montana beer before. So they thought they were having one beer at a time. And really, they were having like two and a half. Yeah. I mean, listen, Hank, we've got a family that knows how to party. So I don't think it was just that they were drinking more than they thought they were drinking. I think that they were drinking exactly as much as they thought they were drinking. Like a Scotchale could be a real surprise when you hit like a 7, 8%. All right. I'm going to ask you a question about snot, Hank. All right. I love that. It's from McKenzie, Dear John and Hank.

as someone who grew up with severe allergies and lots of colds, I've always wondered about snot. What is it? Why are there so many different textures? Is it the same as phlegm? Do you spit it out? Why can it be different colors? Most importantly, how is there so much of it? Thanks for considering my bugger question, not Hazel Grace, McKenzie Grace. Snott may be one of the coolest proteins. And also, I had a video script I was working on about this years ago, and I abandoned it. But I should revive it about how about the largest molecule in your body is probably a single molecule of mucus that runs from your sinuses to your rectum. Oh, my. Because when a single like protein of a mucin, which is a mucus protein, is produced, it crosslinks with other molecules, other musins that have been produced.

So one mucin will join up with another one, and they'll crosslink together. And they have these really weak cross links. They don't have very many from one to the other, but they are cross-linked. And that makes them into these big, wiggly molecules that have very sort of like weak bonds between each other, but they are bonds. And they're not just hydrogen bonds. I think that they are, in fact, covalent bonds. This is the track that I was going down, and I abandoned the video. So, like, I'm saying things that I'm like 90% sure of right now.

Okay. And they're also like really, they like water. So water gloms onto them. So the vast majority of the mass of snot is water. But it is bound together by these long filamentous musin cross-linked structures that hold all that water in like a gel. And like the reason you can produce so much snot is because your body produces a little bit of these proteins. And the proteins suck water into them. and so it's mostly the water from your body that is that is creating that so you can create a lot

of snot because there's just like you can create a lot of spit like it's just a lot of water from your body and they're produced by you know all the like the like molecules on the surface of your mucus membranes that like shoot those mucons out now do you know why some people's noses just sort of drip all winter but not all summer i don't actually no i don't that's that's a great i'll save that for my i'll save that for my askank anything episode great John's going to be on Asking Anything, everybody. I am going to be on Asking Anything. I've been thinking about what questions I want to ask you, and I don't think I really

want to ask you many scientific questions. I want to ask you a lot of questions about your relationship with your brother. Oh, hell yeah. Yeah, I think that'll be fun. Muckus kicks ass, by the way. It's so great. Yeah, we love it. It does a lot of good stuff.

Anything that gets into your body that's not supposed to be there, it just like sticks into this gel, and it doesn't get into your body. And then you, when you like, you know, spit it out or it comes out in various ways. All that stuff comes out too and isn't messing with you anymore. Which reminds me that today's podcast is actually brought to you by mucus.

Mewis. It's underrated. It's underrated. This podcast is also brought to you by one-eyed Willie. One-eyed Willie, rest in peace. Godspeed, sir. Today's podcast is additionally brought to you by Red Green.

Red Green, the murderer of one-eyed Willie. We shouldn't have let them both sponsor the same episode, John. That's really. I know. It's dark. But it's real. Yeah.

And when you buy an ad with us, we read the ad regardless. This podcast is also brought to you by Cold Smoke Scotch Ale. Cold Smoke Scotch Ale from Kettlehouse Brewing, the downfall of many a cousin. Yeah, you're getting close to identifying them by identifying them as cousins. There's a lot of cousins, John. There's only like 19 of them. This episode of Deer Hanga John is brought to you by Quince. As it gets cooler, I'm swapping in the pieces to get the job done.

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Free shipping and 365-day returns, quids.com slash deerhank. This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by Factor. You know what I want literally right now? A nice warm meal. I'm a little chilly, and I'm also pretty hungry, and I did not prepare for that eventuality, and so I don't have any way to provide that for myself, because my fridge is out of factors.

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Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You live in a pond? In front of a pond. That makes more... I was like, is a frog asking the question? I didn't know they were monogamous. I knew they could write into our email, but I didn't know they were at boyfriends. I thought they were all polywags.

I knew you were going to do that. Dang it. I hate that. My boyfriend and I live in front. of a pond that is home to many different kinds of wildlife, including turtles. In the middle of the pond, there is a log sticking out of the water at about a 20-degree angle, which is just perfect for turtles, by the way. You couldn't have planted any better, Samantha. Perfect turtle log. That the turtles will often climb onto. No joke, they will. It's the happiest turtles in the world.

Turtles can only climb on one at a time due to the angle and have to move up the log in order to make room for more turtles. So here is my question, what is the turtle etiquette when it comes to climbing onto the log. Does the first turtle climb straight to the top because they know there are more coming? Do they wait for another turtle to arrive and then move? Do turtles just push each other up the big log to make room for themselves? Thank you, John and Hank, for your knowledge, Samantha. I've always thought, John. Yeah, you and I have missed our calling. We could have been the, what's the etiquette lady? We could have been the etiquette lady, but for turtles. Yes, the turtle the turtetic. Sorry, it's going to take me a second, but I'm going to get there. The turteticetet

lady. I really like. Patience, Grasshopper. I'm going to get there. You will be the Tertedicate lady. The Tertedicate lady, yeah. I mean, Tertedicate is an amazing title for our new novelty book. Because one thing that we don't, one thing that we're like, look, you got to follow

up everything is tuberculosis with Tertedicat. With a novelty Tertedicatiket book. That's just. like absolutely committed to the bit where it's just like, here's what you do when you are a turtle. Like John Hodgman did this. He wrote like several like absolutely dense, complex novelty books. John Hodgman is a bit commitment expert. I mean, wow. But yeah, I don't know, like how fast could we get turtetican out? I don't think it's going to happen. Not fast enough. And also, I've got to go to the Philippines tomorrow.

So I got a lot going on. It's perfect. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I should do on my flight. Just write the Great American Turk Tedicate novel. John's got to get four scotch and sodas. Right. Tertedek of Zanx for the fear of flying.

Yeah. Then write Terticatiketiket. 16 hour and 10 minute flight, Hank, in the air. My God, you're going to write tertedicate and tertedicate, too. It can't take more than eight hours to write a turtenticate. Okay, then you do it. You do it this weekend. You'll have plenty of time. I think that the turtles have a sense of etiquette that we do not fully understand, Samantha. And I think that it is your job to become the Jane Goodall of turtle etiquette and observe these turtles closely to see

how they move on the log, and that will be not the end of your turtle expertise, but the beginning of it, because from there, I'm sure there's so many other turtle etiquette issues for you to consider. Oh, yeah. They're always doing stuff. Yeah. How do they, when they bury themselves in the sand, in the muck, in the mud, come winter. Do they make space for each other? Or do the biggest turtles get the best holes? Do they believe, as I do, that we have to protect the young? or are they in fact like monsters of narcissism? And there's only one way to find out, and that is to pay attention. And that's really what we should all be doing, because that's what our lives are made of.

And we should be paying attention to the blue striped garter snakes and the turtles and the weird games at the fair. I feel like that's my job sometimes. And I'm like, I feel so lucky. Yeah, you get to pay attention for a living. I feel like that's my job, too. Good job. Good work if you can get it. How about this, John?

Yeah. A proper turtle never rushes to conclusions or anywhere else. That's good. That's a really good, that's a really good first sentence of your tertedicate novel. Thanks. I'm looking at a picture of a garter snake and it's making me sad. Poor blue-green. Oh, well, you thought, I love that you thought blue-green got re-released into the wild.

I am 100% sure. Well, because he was dead. That's why, because if we re-released him into the wild, we would have been re-releasing a corpse. But I think we told you that because you were still so young and fragile. You were like eight years old, and I was 11. So I knew about the world. Yeah, I knew what the world does to you. I had to turn nine before mom poured a goldfish down the drain.

It is dark. Let's answer another question from our listeners, Hank. How about you ask me one? I don't have the doc. Okay, great. I'll ask you one. Okay. This question comes from Becky, who writes,

Dear John and Hank, I know people have had their bladders removed, and I know that people can live without a spleen or a gallbladder and you can lose a kidney and part of your colon and half of your liver. I think you can even live with one lung or with only one hemisphere of your brain, etc. So what organs do we actually need? Morbidly curious, Becky? I think there's only four. Like there is something, there is like a... Well, you need at least one lung and you need at least one kidney. No. And you need a pancreas really badly. No. You don't need a pancreas. People live without pancreas all the time. What? I mean, their life spans are significant. significantly shorter, but on average.

That, okay, all right, so you can live without a pancreas for a while. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I think, I think brain heart lungs. Brain heart lungs? I think, like, I think you need a kidney. I think you need a kidney, long term. But everything, I mean, long term, I think you need everything except for your gallbladder.

No. I don't have a gallbladder, and I feel fine. You definitely don't need one of your kidneys, for example. don't need your eyes. Yeah, you don't need one of your kidneys. You don't need a gallbladder. What's that other thing you don't need that people, a spleen? You know a wild thing about spleen, John? Yeah. Sometimes people have traumatic injury to their spleen, oftentimes car accidents or motorcycle accidents. And then, and they'll take the spleen out. And then years later, they will discover that they have more than one new spleen located at non-splean parts of the body. And what happens? is that the spleen, when it ruptures, releases spleen cells into the body, those cells go and recolonize another area of the body, and they can still do spleen stuff. Can I tell you a really sad story about spleen's? As long as it's not about a pet.

No, it's about a human. It's worse than that. A human child, no less. So when I was a chaplain at the Children's Hospital, on my first night on call, this kid came in with a ruptured spleen from a car accident. and I threw up and fainted. And when I came to, the nurses were kind of laughing. And I was like, what's so funny? And they were like, well, first off, you threw up and fainted, and that girl was fine.

You know, like, she's going to have a normal life. And secondly, the parents who had just been reassured were like newly traumatized because they thought you were a doctor. Oh, boy, you've got to live with that shame forever. And I feel like that's also new lore that I didn't know. Yeah. I mean, that was a tough job. I wasn't good at it.

It was the rare unpleasant combination of not being graded a job that also is a tough job. But yeah, anyway, I did not faint after that. That was the only time I fainted. There are five organs that are definitely necessary. brain, heart, lungs, liver, and kidney. Liver and kidney. Yeah. Wow.

I really thought your pancreas was necessary. It's really, really important. But, yeah, yeah, people, pancreatic cancer patients often have their whole pancreas removed. And then have to have a bunch of stuff, like obviously makes you variously diabetic because you don't produce anything right. Yeah. Sure. Well, I'm glad we took this turn. We were having such a good time.

This podcast contains multitudes, y'all. Sometimes it's red green and blue green. Sometimes it's John having flash memories of being a chaplain. Let's answer another serious one before we get to the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. All right, John. This next question comes from Raquel, who asks Steer Hank and John. What would happen if the oceans were 50% less salty? High energy but low sodium, Raquel.

No, this is the kind of serious question I've been after, Hank, because I think that life would be dramatically different. Well, what are we talking about? Are we talking about like it happened all of a sudden? Yes, like tomorrow. We wake up and the oceans are 50% less salty. We made a terrible mistake and we removed half the salt from the oceans. I'm a little worried that the Earth would end.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. That's like complex life on the planet would collapse. Really? I'm worried that there might be like atmospheric effects. Okay. So like one thing that's going to happen is all of the animals and the ocean are going to It's really bad for the whales. That's going to be very bad.

That's going to be bad for everybody. It's going to stink. A huge number, it's going to smell so bad. A huge number of people are reliant on ocean life or, you know. Their survival. Also, maybe a lot of like zooplankton will die. And what would that mean? I don't know what a zoooplankton is.

It won't be producing oxygen. Oh. And zooplankton actually produce a lot of the oxygen. Well, no, yeah, actually, it is, it is in fact not the zooplankton. It's the, that means like living plankton, like animal, I think. All right. It is the other plankton. It is the ones that do the photosynthesizing.

That would be the concern. But like maybe not. Maybe they'd all die and just like the cycle would shut down and it wouldn't affect atmospheric chemistry too much. It feels like if we stopped pumping a bunch of the oxygen in the air into the air, that would be a big problem. There would also be fewer things absorbing the oxygen. Like the photosynthesizers wouldn't be absorbing it. So it might stay. But, like, I think also that changing it would make the ocean less effective at absorbing CO2.

I mean, if it happened all of a sudden, basically, you're talking like a civilizational collapse. I don't know that humans would survive. Now, there's another version of this question, which is like, what would the world have been like if the oceans were half as salty? Which is, like, probably not that different. Still would have had life on land, still would have had life in the water. You got everything you need for chemistry Stuff probably would have been a little easier because going from freshwater to saltwater would be easier

Right It's just a reminder of how fragile And I don't mean to get existential on you Hank But like this whole thing is so fragile We think of civilization And our current situation as being so inevitable But I don't think it is so inevitable No

I think it was like required a lot of luck and good timing and that like a bad luck and bad timing could could be pretty bad for us. Yeah, it could still happen. It will have. I mean, you know, I don't want to get ahead of us, but like, it's going to happen. Eventually everything happens. Yeah. Thanks for coming to our party. I wonder what the worst things about Earth are. Great question. So like, obviously, great planet. Really good size. Yeah, best planet in the known universe. Very underrated. It has both water and land. A lot of people are like, wow, a water world. But, like, I think most water planets that we find if we go out and are looking,

I bet they won't have land. Zero percent land is actually probably pretty important for things to have gone the way that they did. Yeah, I agree. Life in the water way longer. And none of that stuff figured out how to do technology. Unless it did and then was like, forget this, this is a bad idea. Well, there are a little octopus towns. So there's kind of.

Cephalopods, I think, maybe figured it out and decided like. Yeah. Wasn't worth it. I wonder about that. I do too. I sometimes, I have thought about, like, what would a civilization that happened underwater actually look like? And I have, and I, like, run into, like, physical barriers. Like, it's just really hard to do a lot of stuff.

Yeah, it's hard to build monumental structures. You can't, like, you can't do fire, so it's hard to control energy. You can't, like, you have to have, like, pots of gases instead of pots of liquids, and that's just much harder. Yeah. Or you take advantage of. the tides and use that to create energy somehow. Maybe you get out there, yeah. I hear you.

It wouldn't be easy. But like, but if it's a pure water world, then like, what are the, what are the tides even? I don't know. I guess the, but you're talking about what's good about Earth. I mean, I'm interested in what's bad about Earth. So, like, there's all this good stuff. What's, what's the stuff that's bad?

Like, plate tectonics is really important probably for life. Yep. But, but also, like, we have plate tectonics, but like, we have a pretty mild volcanic. situation. Right. Compared to what it could be. I know, I know. Good about Earth.

So that's not, like, I was thinking maybe volcanoes were a bad thing, but like actually you kind of, like, if you're going to have plate tectonics, you're going to have volcanoes. But our volcanoes are, frankly, pretty insignificant on the global scale of things. Right. I'm going to say dip and dots. That's not. If we're going to go to human-created things. Yeah.

Diff and dots. Why not just have ice cream? I probably would have moved beyond dip and dots. Yeah. I like Dippendots. They feel so weird. Oh, what a bad take. It's like all the people who wrote into me mad that I hate rich.

That take. Yeah, bad take, man. Bad take. Pro Dippendots is a bad take. I'm sorry. Everything that I'm ending up with is like the worst thing about Earth is that we could lose it. Oh, yeah. Well, let me put it in a different phrase.

Okay. We will lose it. Oh, Jesus. You made me make Ben bleep something. Sorry, Ben. All right. It's time for the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. I'll go first since Hank has no news from Mars. Hank, yeah. The news from AFC Wimbledon just keeps getting better. It's not just that we keep winning football games. It's that we're securing our future. We just signed Isaac O'Gendara, who's played for us since he was a kid to a new contract. And we signed AFC Wimbledon manager Johnny Jackson to a contract extension. And Ashley Bays, Bezo, our goalkeeping coach, who's one of the main reasons why we've developed so many great goalkeepers over the years. he signed a contract extension, and when I said, thank you so much for signing a contract extension, he smiled at me and said, you're welcome. So there you go. I'm very excited about the future of this football club. I feel like we're really securing it. One contract extension I would love to see is Craig Cope, the head of football, the guy who's organizing all of this behind the scenes, who's responsible for our incredible recruitment and everything. I'd like to see him signed to a lifetime contract. But in the meantime, AFC Wimbledon, secure the future of our football club.

That kicks butt, John. I'm so glad. Is this the transfer window that people talk about? No, the transfer window opens up on January 1st. So I'm trying to accrue some capital between now and then. Oh, like, if you're trying to get money? Yeah. To spend, you?

Yeah. Wild. How do you accrue capital? Well, Hank, there's a number of ways to do it. Okay. Yeah. Who knows? Yeah.

You sign a book deal? Signing a book deal is the obvious one, yeah. But let's move on. Okay. Well, in news from Mars, I don't know. Yeah, you don't have to have news from Mars. That's okay. It's a rock, man.

I mean, it had the same week this week as it had last week. I think that there were some scientists that were doing some simulations on what it'd be like to dig under Mars to, like, build down there. That's a great question. How, what are we talking about? Are we talking about drills? Do we drills on Earth work to get down under the surface of Mars? It seems like Mars has a lot of sedimentary rock, which is pretty easy to dig through. Okay.

But it also indicates just sort of an astounding amount of water happened for quite a long time. Yeah. But it was a water world. Oh, God, it was. And probably also had land, which makes me think maybe my take about how most planets would be just. water is probably wrong. So, yeah, they could definitely dig down there, but I think that they want to kind of see, because, you know, you want to have a mix of the rock being not too hard, but not so soft that

it's going to cave in on you. Right, especially when there's all these volcanoes and Mars quakes and whatnot. Mars is actually much less quaky than Earth, so that is. Oh, really? Oh, good. All right. Well, see, there's one thing. We're a little too quaky.

But they don't have plate tectonics, which ruins it. We need plate tectonics. That's a huge part of the reason for our success. They also don't have the spinning. core, which protects you from the electromagnetic rays of the sun. Oh, I'm very grateful for that, because I stress out enough about radiation without having more of it. Radiation is so good.

I've got to classify visible light as radiation, and then it all gets much more chill. I appreciate that reframing. Thank you. And thank you to everybody for listening to our podcast. You can email us at Hank and John at gmail.com. This podcast is edited by Ben Swordout. It's mixed by Joseph Tuna Menish, our marketing specialist. is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosiana

Halls-Rohas and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is to Boki Chuck Rivardi. The music you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by The Great Gunnarola. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.