Dear Hank & John - 448: Doogie Howser, Boy Chaplin

Episode Date: April 15, 2026

If you had to choose one person to represent our planet in an interplanetary meeting, who would it be? How do you make an elopement still feel special? Why do I have to take math classes? What would you include in a museum to educate people alive in 2070 about what it was like to be alive in the 2020s? Why do you see weird shapes when you rub your eyes? Is an alligator a fish? …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/dearhankandjohnProduced for Hank and John Green by ComplexlySee 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. Welcome to Dear Hanka John. Or as I prefer to think of it, dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you an eubis advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbled and John. Yeah. The astronauts of the Artemis II mission have reported

they found some crazy arachnids on the moon. Oh. They're calling them lunatics. Hmm. It's all right. Yeah. I am. happy to be here with you, John.

I don't know when. I have no idea when this episode is coming out as we are recording it. So we record because John's going to be out next week, et cetera. So we record some out of order. But like today is the day that the rocket is theoretically taking off. Yeah. At like 6.23 p.m. Well, I wish you all the best with that.

I hope that it gets to the moon. You're experiencing this entirely through the lens of Hank Green? Yeah, pretty much, if I'm being honest. Like, I, my concerns are very worldly right now, Hank. I am thinking entirely about the fictional movie Andy Warhol never gets old and the two young people at its center, Kai and Juniper. They're your worldly as well, rather than like the Strait of Hormuz worldly. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The great thing about writing fiction, and one of the things that I missed the most about it, is that I have no, like, I haven't come up for air in weeks.

Yeah. And it's obviously bad to disengage with the world. I shouldn't be disengaging with the world. Yeah, you need to know that Matt Gates has told the world that there's a human alien breeding program being run by the U.S. government. Has he really? Is that a joke? No, it's not a joke. It's real. Matt Gates, the former congressperson?

As if they would tell 435 congresspeople that and it wouldn't get out. Yep. Yeah, he had, it was a guy who worked for the Army, so you know it's for real. Okay. Well, I'm glad I don't know about that. I'm really, so there are some things that I'm frankly, like, glad that I'm not informed about, like that, like that, or like the new Super Mario Odyssey movie. Yeah, no. I think that I think that I'd say that, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a. A solid 10% of people listening had any... Matt Gates' opinions no longer a matter, which is fantastic. I have not formed an opinion on a number of things, including the alien human breeding program that's being run by the CIA.

I've also not formed a strong opinion on the Super Mario Odyssey movie that is coming out. I have been really, really deep in writing this story and thinking about Kai and Juniper, and writing fiction is such a gift in that way because you just live in that world. And it's not always fun to live in that world, but it is always deeply, deeply engrossing. Like the problems of a novel are so real to the novelist that they, everything else is subsumed by them. And it's just, it's not a wonderful feeling exactly because like it's also really difficult and really challenging and everything. But it is deeply engrossing.

And I think what I want in the world ultimately is to be engrossed by something other than social media. And I think that is a thing that many people want a great deal. And maybe is, I mean, you see it a little bit in data that people are actually spending a little less time on social media than previously. Though, as I have said, I think on this podcast before, from a very high high. The decrease is from a very high high. So it is still very high. But the, but I think that I like, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, sensing that from all directions. I'm sensing it very much

internally, just like wanting to have a little more control. Yeah. Like not yielding my like my consciousness over to you know, the algorithms. Letting them decide what you think about. Yeah. Who have one

single goal, which is just to monetize me more effectively. Yeah. Unlike this podcast, which isn't trying to monetize your attention at all. There's not a lot of algorithms involved in podcasts, which is kind of nice. So it's obviously not entirely free of the, not entirely free of the system or the salience economy, but like a little bit more, a little bit more free of it. I will say, I think this is something that books do very well and books can be engrossing, but you have to put in the time with a book, which is really

hard to do right now because the engrossment you can get from social media is there is seconds away, whereas truly being deeply engrossed in a book is probably 45 minutes away. And the difference between 12, 15 seconds and 45 minutes is a pretty significant difference. I don't know. Like maybe 10 minutes. I feel like I can get in there in 10 minutes. I mean, the first 10 minutes of a book has to be so good for the first 10 minutes to be engrossing. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

I thought you meant like each individual session. No, no, no. I'm talking about starting cold. Like you're opening the cover of Hollywood ending for the first time. Realistically, I'm doing my best to make it a banger from page one. But realistically, you're 15 minutes at least away from being engrossed. I feel like you might know the data on what percent of books are being read on paper versus listened to. Do you know those numbers?

I don't. I don't. I feel like it's getting close to if not having surpassed. 50-50. No, it's nowhere close to parody, but it is growing. I mean, audiobooks are growing, which is awesome, because I think reading via audio is awesome, but like, it's nowhere close to parody. It certainly is a majority of the books I read are listened. Well, I'm excited for you to read on audio, Hollywood ending on September 22nd. I don't know who's narrating it yet. It won't be me because, well, for one thing, it's a novel in two voice.

And so I think it'd be weird if I was both of those voices. And for another thing, I don't really like it when people conflate my life with the lives of my characters. And that will only get worse if I read the audio books. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn't make any sense to, for fiction. It doesn't make sense. For nonfiction, it makes perfect sense. It does.

Which I'm somewhat looking forward to doing from my book, which also is coming along. Yeah, but it's not available. for pre-order, so there's no reason to talk about it now. Why are we talking about it? Boo, boo, boo. Hollywood ending. Everything that matters, Hank, is what can be immediately monetized. Can you tell me the story of the comma?

Why is there a comma? You keep bringing up the fact that there's a comma in Hollywood ending, and it's not how I would write the phrase Hollywood ending. It changes the meaning of the title for me. Yeah. It's supposed to change the meaning of the title, I think, is the answer to why there's a comma between Hollywood and ending. And that you're going to leave that up for me to interpret. It's probably the thing to do. Yeah.

Wait to read the book. Okay. Are there what? I know that this would be crazy. Yeah. And I know this would be a huge spoiler if you told me. Yeah. So maybe you just don't tell me.

But do either of the main characters end up being human alien hybrids? That's what it's about. You caught me. It's the big reveal. I've told you. I've told you my. Succession story, right? No.

Which is that I was once told that I should watch this new TV show and I would really, really like it. And it's really cerebral and has this like crazy sci-fi direction that it goes in. Yeah. And so I was like, okay, I got to watch that show. It sounds really cool. And so I watched like the first 10 episodes of Succession waiting for the sci-fi twist before realizing that my friend told me to watch Severance. And I was like, this Twitch is going to be nuts. Wow.

Nine episodes in when this person pulls off their human masks and reveals their lizard face, this is going to be bonkers. Which you can totally see happening in that show. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To be fair, in Hollywood ending, one of the main characters is like a huge movie star who's taken this movie, Andy Warhol never gets old, playing Andy Warhol to try to prove that he still has acting chop sort of.

Yeah. you know, put himself in awards conversations and whatnot. And I could see him being a lizard person. He's not in the novel. But, you know, like, you know how those big stars, like, are so different from being regular people? Like, that it's easy to understand why conspiracy theorists say, like, well, that's not a human.

That's a wizard person. They're so outside of, like, what, I don't know, just like the amount of, of, of, a value being placed on them by society, you know? Yeah. It separates them from reality. It does separate them from reality. It does not make them into wizard people from the record.

Like, I know some of those people, and they're human beings who's grieve on universal bones and whatever. But, like, yeah, there is a weirdness to that. That's a Faulkner line that the griefs grieve on universal bones. I love that line. Anyway, let's answer some questions from our listeners. Okay. This question comes from Laura, who has a question.

Asked dear John and Hank, I'm wondering, if you had to choose one person to represent our planet in an interplanetary meeting with other creatures from different planets, who would you choose? Not Dora the explorer, Laura. I think it's not Dora the explorer, Laura. That's what I said. You kind of put an er. Explorer. Laura. There you go. There you go. I mean, obviously I'd choose one of the lizard people because they could communicate with multiple. multiple folks. So probably Dolly Parton, you know? I imagine Dolly. Probably Dolly. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think Dolly's a great choice, John. I feel like, I feel like maybe I've asked you this question before and you've said Dolly before.

No, but Dolly is one of my background answers for who should we have. Yeah. Who can unite us? To do it. Who can still bring us together. Yeah, a real uniter. That's, that is somebody that everybody, like, just like the most people can agree on. Abraham, Lincoln, you know, that kind of person? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I want somebody who's really quick on their feet, and Dolly's super quick on her feet. She is. She's sharp as attack, as they say. Sam Campbell. I don't know who that is. He's an Australian comedian. Okay. He's very quick on his feet. Okay. I want somebody who can think, uh, just, just really be ready for any, any direction it might go, which is just like an improv comedian. Right. A Brennan Lee Mulligan type of character. Yeah. Oh, my God, Brennan would be, I think, totally up for it.

No, Brennan would definitely do it. He would definitely volunteer. So would you. That's one thing about the Green Brothers is that Hank would volunteer and John would not. And Hank would do a pretty good job and John would not. I mean, I'm reasonably quick on my feet, but I can't handle the pressure. I just remember speaking at the United Nations, which was as close to a gathering of all sentient beings as I've ever encountered and being real nervous. So here's what, here's an interesting question.

If you were an alien, how would you do this? There's a great John Scalzi book where the alien hires a Hollywood agent. And it's like, I need you to, I need you to like, let's do this. Let's figure out how to do the first contact thing. But how, because I feel like, you know, one person, it's a big planet. You wouldn't want to do that. You'd want, you'd want to be like, okay, I've, I've, I've, I've gerrymandered the entire world into, you know, 100 equal-sized districts, you all have to elect a person to come talk with us.

And then they will, then that Senate will elect an ultimate representative. No, no, no. They'd have a hundred different conversations. Oh. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. And then they'd be like, we, we have reached our conclusion. We believe you to be worthy or not.

God. I would like, first off, this will never happen. If I learned anything from Project Hail Mary, it's that the situation that would lead to us encountering intelligent life would be ridiculously, absurdly complex, and or it's been happening for millennia and we don't know about it. We are it. Yeah. Yeah, right.

Like, it's hard enough for us to talk to each other, and we have all kinds of shared experiences and shared biology, and yet we really struggle to communicate with each other. I think this would be a challenging circumstance in real life. Yeah. Well, well, certainly it would be challenging. I don't think that we'll have to deal with it. It seems now that we've got pretty powerful technology and tools, it seems as if the kind of thing we are is not common. Yeah. Yeah. Or it is common, and it's just a really really big universe. Yeah, I mean, common. It's not common enough to be close by. And also, there is no close by. I actually think that's the bigger issue. The lack of a close by is a big issue.

It's a big issue. I mean, things are so far apart. Not as far apart as you think. Yes, they are. They are literal light years, Hank. It takes light years to get from one star to another. Let me hit you with a solution to this problem which is intelligence that's not biological. So given that possibility, those things can just turn themselves off and turn them back on, you know, in a thousand years,

in a thousand years, ultimately, not a long time in the history of the universe. So really, like, not actually, totally within current ability for us to travel to Alpha Centauri within thousands of years. Like, we could do that now. Yeah, to Alpha Centauri.

Not like with a body. Not with a body. I understand. And then like what? And then another 50,000 years to get to the next star? Yeah, I mean, ultimately, I don't know,

like I can't hit you with the math, but it's not millions of years. No, but we've only been here for 300,000 years. Like as a species. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. You have to, so this, this, this,

this is the thing. When I say uncommon or rare, I don't necessarily mean that we don't happen very often, but I mean that like the current level of technological sophistication may be more of a shell. So like a very brief period before whatever we are doesn't keep going or not. You know, the great filter could be behind us and we just happen to make it through. And most things don't. So maybe we'll maybe will maybe will be the thing that just takes over the. the whole galaxy and it's just really uncommon. I hope not. I don't trust us one. I don't trust us as far as I can throw us. Yeah. Well, here, John, we talk often. We talk sometimes about how our rock is better than nothing. Yep. Is a solar system with life better, or a planetary system

with life better than a planetary system without life? Yes. So if there's a bunch of planetary systems that don't have life. Yeah. And we bring it, would that be a positive? Yeah. Okay. Dolly Parton. everybody. But I think we should be very careful about what sort of life we bring. I think we should bring Dolly Parton, Golden Retrievers, and kittens that don't become cats. Kittens that don't become cats? You heard me. Oh, how much? Shut up and take my money. All right. Let's answer another question. This one's from Emma, who writes, Dear John and Hank, my partner and I recently got engaged, which is very exciting. We're planning on having a wedding in 2026. Sorry, there's no wedding website for you to critique yet, but my health insurance

is turning out to be terrible with $100 copays every time I see a specialist. Welcome to America, Emma. And my undiagnosed autoimmune arthritis condition means that my meds cost $160 a month. Long story short, we're going to elope so I can be on my partner's health insurance and have the celebration later. Money is tight right now as I haven't been able to work much. How can we make our elopement still feel special? Ope, I'm going to elope. I'm going to elope. Emma. I mean, Emma, I'll just tell you, I think that eloping in general is a great strategy and an underrated one.

I once went to an Elvis wedding in Las Vegas, and Elvis explained to me, this Elvis impersonator explained to me that actually a huge percentage of his weddings, people come back and visit like 20 years later or something, and they're still married because he's like, some of them, you know, they come in and you're like, I don't feel great about this one. But the vast majority of them, he actually feels pretty good about it because they're people who know each other well and have been together a long time. They just decided to elope and have an Elvis wedding. And I think that's great. Some of the best marriages I know started in a courthouse. The thing about what we're doing here with weddings is we are creating rituals.

And like the nice thing about the existing ritual of the wedding is that there's a a bunch of things to choose from that you want to include or not include, but they feel like they have this weight. And so you're going to have to, like, maybe slam a little bit of your own weight down and say, this matters because it matters to me. And that might be vows that you write to each other, which is, of course, like the original weight. It might be, like, letters that you write to each other.

Like, make it an event. None of this stuff costs money. Like, it's almost, like, worse, if any of it costs money. make it an event. You create something for each other. You put aside some time where you're making a thing to bestow value upon this situation. And for me, like, that's like heading off in a word type direction because you're a word guy. But there's, you know, you choose the directions that work for you and that matter a lot to you and the things that you share and you find the value in those things, whether like you're pulling ideas for.

from the media that you love together, or you're pulling ideas from the experiences that you've had together, et cetera. But like, give it some weight, make it matter. And then the other thing that you do later, if you have a ceremony for friends and family, that will matter as well in a big way and in a different way.

Yeah, I agree with all of that. I think, did I ever tell you about the time I baptized a kid? No, wild. Yeah, so when I was a chapman, this kid was at the hospital and was about to get a, liver transplant.

And his mom was like, he was probably seven. His mom was like, he's never been baptized in the show she asked a nurse. Like, can you call the chaplain because I'd like to get my kid baptized just before this operation? And they called me because I was the chaplain on call, not because I was the good chaplain. And I went, and all you need to baptize someone is water. And then you say, like, I baptize you in the name of the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit and they're baptized, that's it. That's everything else is, uh, you know, ritual. I mean,

that's also a ritual, obviously, but like everything, everything else about it is created to make it feel like an occasion. To give it the weight. Yeah. And I never realized this until I'm in the room with this kid. And I'm like, oh, because like they, they don't come from a particular faith background where there's like a particular set of rituals involved in baptism. I, know that like all that's required for a baptism is a splash some water on a kid and say, I baptize you in the name of the father, son, and the Holy Ghost, or whatever. But I realize, like, that's not sufficient for this person's need in this moment. Like, they want a thing. Yeah. And so I'm like, I kind of talk it over with them. And I'm like, what kind of thing should we do?

Should we do a thing from the Book of Common Prayer, which is my faith traditions, you know, organization of rituals? Should we do a thing where we like do it together somehow? Like you want to splash some of the water? Like you could get evolved. Yeah. And I and I realized looking back that probably what they wanted was for me to go in super confident with a baptism strategy. But I never baptized anyone before. I didn't feel confident. I was 22 years old. You know, I was Duky Hauser boy chaplain. This is so cool. I want to hear all the details of the story.

You should make a video about this. It's great. I don't believe I don't know about this. Eventually we go with the book of common prayer. And I bring out the book of common prayer and I like read all the stuff. You're like go to the gloss, look at the index and you're like, be bap, bap. Almost literally. And I go through all the stuff.

and, you know, I say, like, peace be with you and, and they say, like, and peace be with you and all that jazz, even though I'm not an ordained priest. But none of that matters, because you don't have to be ordained to baptize someone. Any baptized Christian can baptize another kid or person or adult or whatever. Meanwhile, this like seven-year-old kid who's fully cognizant, you know. Yeah, yeah. This isn't a baby. Exactly. Like a, an active participant in the baptism in many ways, is there. And we go through the whole thing, and then we say the words prayer, and I baptize them. Then this kid is baptized. But then after, I realized that, like, after the baptism, usually you go back to being in church, and, like, then you have communion and whatever, and, like, you go. But, like, there's nothing to do after.

I baptize them, and I'm like, all right. You guys want a soda? Congratulations. Should I turn on? the TV Alps on. You want to watch the Lion King together? Like, what's a good vibe? Should we play PlayStation?

Yeah. Mario Kart? Yeah. John, this is a great story. I have two questions. Yeah. The second one's going to depend on the first one. Was the kid, did the kid end up being okay?

I mean, last I heard the kid was okay. They got through the transplant well. Yeah. Second, was the kid's name Duncan? No. Duncan, Duncan. I appreciate that you were only going to ask that question if the kid turned out to be okay. Oh, God.

Which reminds me, John. Yeah. Oh, God. We've only gotten two questions and we've already got the sponsors. This podcast is brought to you by Duncan. The only baptized donuts. That's true. It's a really good point.

Today's podcast is also, of course, brought to you by a rock. It's better than nothing, which I guess means that we should terraform the universe. This podcast is also brought to you by kittens that don't become cats. Kittens that don't become cats. It's coming eventually, and I don't know how I feel about it. And, of course, today's podcast is brought to you by Dolly Parton. Dolly Parton, our chosen speak for humanity person. I guess speak for America person, because if we're doing a speak for humanity person,

I think we might want to reach outside of the English-speaking world a little bit. There's a lot of humanity. Yeah. Yeah, that's a lot of pressure for Dolly. But that's what I'm saying. I would have her speak for America. And don't email me and tell me all the reasons Dolly Parton is terrible and ruin my day.

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Quince.com slash Dear Hank. John, we've got a question from Elise who asks Dear Hank and John. I'm a first-year microbiology student and to migrate dismay. I had to take a couple of calculus courses. I mean, to migrate dismay, this person is named Elsie. Did I say Elise? Yeah. Well, it just goes to show you.

Sorry, Elsie. There is a reason that I went into the biological sciences. One, because I think bacteria and viruses are cool. And two, because I don't want to do math. Got terrible news for you, Elsie. Some math is very useful in biology, but I haven't come across a single part of Calch 1 or 2 that are helpful in anything to do with my field. Can you tell me why do they make me pay $1,200 for two courses?

that I will never use the information that I learned in. Mathematical Mysteries, L.C. This drives me crazy. Yeah. So I can tell you the logic behind it, but I don't think the logic is good. Okay. Well, I appreciate that you don't think the logic is good. Before you tell me the logic behind it, let me just say that if I'd gone to a college that required

Calc 1 and 2 in order to graduate from college, I would not have graduated from college. Yeah, but you weren't getting a microbiology to. That's true, but I just want to state for the record that this college math course that so many colleges force you to take in order to get a bachelor's degree is really denies educational opportunities to a lot of people like me. I agree with you. Okay. And that's that's actually a separate, you know, it's a separate course from Calc 1 and 2, of course. But like a lot of this like college math stuff, I don't know, man. It feels very 1952.

Like, I'm not sure what we're training people for because it's now. And if you, like, get algebra conceptually, you don't need to remember, like, the inverse square law. I'm sorry. And indeed, I don't. I actually don't even know if that's definitely algebra. So I just came up with a math term that's bumping around in there. Now, with specifically about microbiology. The thing that they're doing here is twofold.

First, there are conceptual things in calculus that you should understand that you actually don't need all of the, like, different ways of solving the derivations that you're going to spend the vast majority of your time on. But there's concepts in calculus that you do want to have. You do want to know about, like, first and second order effects. You do want to know about, like, the area under the curve. You want to know stuff. You want to know what the tools of calculus are for at,

at the very least, like, that is actually important. Yeah, but I know that. I was going to say, I don't actually need to, I know, I understand that. I can understand that intellectually and I can grasp that without doing the math. Yes. The math helps to reinforce it. Of course. And if I, if I'm going to be in a career where I, where the area under the curve is a huge part of what I do, I'm going to need to know. know the math. And then the other thing I'll see, this is this is the actual reason why you took Calc 1 and 2, because there are directions that you can go with a microbiology degree where you will end up taking classes where you will need calculus. And they want to keep that, those options

open for all microbiology students, even if not all microbiology students are going to go in that direction. I don't know if this is worth doing, but if you're going to be going into like pharmaceuticals, if you're going to do pharmacokinetics, if you're going to do physical chemistry. Like a lot of this stuff is really important. Like in your, well, it's like it's like people are going to go in those directions. And those people are not going to be able to go into those courses without taking Calc 1 and 2 first. And so those, they're going to have a prerec that you have taken calculus before you take

those courses. And so they're just basically saying, hey, you know, a lot like several of the future courses in your degree path that you might take are going to have prerex of Calc 1 and 2. So we're just going to make everybody take it so that they have those options of potentially taking those courses when they're seniors or juniors. And that's why. But from what I can tell, you're unlikely to be going in those directions with your microbiology degree. So I ultimately agree with you. But I think that that's the theory behind it.

But isn't there also an element, Hank, of filter. Snobbery and filter about it? Like I remember when I was a chapman, I said to my like, discernment supervisor at one point, like, why the, I mean, from a patient perspective, from a chaplain perspective, why do you have people do this before they are ordained or very far down the path of ordination? Yeah. And he was like, oh, it's hazing. Yeah. And he was very effective hazing. Like, I quit. It worked. You know, like, I figured it out cheaply and quickly. that I didn't want to head down that path.

But there are a lot of people who would be good doctors who don't do well in organic chemistry, and there are a lot of people who would be good microbiologists who don't understand Calcutu very well. And I think that that's a disservice to people who would do well in the profession. Maybe I'm wrong. I might be wrong. I've been wrong before, but that's my inclination. Yeah. There are artificial constraints being placed on the number of people who can

get degrees. And doctors, and specifically, like, there's literally, like, the federal government decides how many doctors, how many new doctors we get each year. And the, right, sorry to be a little controversial here, but the, the doctor groups lobby to keep that number as small as possible so that there will be a doctor shortage. Wow. All right. We're getting hot here. Hot takes. I mean, that is true. Nobody wants to, nobody wants to hear it, but this is a, and I'm not saying every doctor agrees with this, of course not. But the groups that represent doctors do not want, and they say that the reason is because they want only the best doctors to come out of the process. But we artificially limit the number of doctors that we get. And it's a big problem.

All right, Hank, let's answer another question. This one from Taylor, who writes, Dear John and Hank, I'm working on some history homework where we have to create a museum room about the 2020s. My intended audience consists of people who will be alive in 2070. Oh, so like Hank and me, What objects would you include to educate visitors about the 2020s? Would a jar of sourdough starter count as historically authentic? What about a pizza John shirt? Looking forward to your expert curation advice, loose suits need a tailor. Loose suits are back, actually, Taylor as it happens.

Yeah, yeah, tight suits need a tailor now. Yeah. A sourdough starter is a great shout because that was huge in 2020. Yeah. Especially if you can keep sourdough starter alive from 2020 to 2017. that would be a hell of a museum thing. You know the most 2020 object that exists is those

cloth face masks that said do good. Which is extra funny because it turns out like the cloth ones didn't do much at all. They weren't as good as we wanted them to be. Just massive holes in them, it turns out on a microscopic scale. Yeah. And it was just like we like the,

oh no, I don't want to get to it at the weeds. But that now feels very, very 2020. Well, it's the 2020s overall, though. That's why I think a Pizza John shirt would be very good because, you know, I mean, Pizza John is one of the defining images of the 2020s and the 2010s. Well, it does feel to me, I mean, this was my thought, is that the Pizza John feels a little bit like it's a 2010s nostalgia play.

Yeah, more. Or even before that. I would say that P to John, like all great images, like I heart New York, like the smiley face is timeless. Uh-huh. Oh, John. John, I got a good one. Okay. A ringlight.

Oh, a ringlight is very good. A ringlight is going to be the most 2020 object. Yeah. We're already leaving it behind, but oh, man, we will look back on ringlights with a weird feeling. Yeah. That's true. Anything from Sheehan? Mm-hmm.

Sure. Mass-produced plastic of any kind, really, feels very 2020s to me. It's the 2020s now, right? Oh, yeah. It's still the 2020s. So you got to put chat GPT in there. No, you don't. There is a piece of me that feels like maybe the way that, like, the chat bot,

Mm-hmm. AI thing will be looked back on as a bit of a fad. Wow. I mean, you're bringing a lot. You're bringing in a lot of hot takes today, Hank Green. And it makes me uncomfortable. I think that I don't think that they won't be tools. But like, you think talking to an artificial intelligence will be a fad.

I just want to be clear about this. Because in 2040, when we're still making this podcast, I just want to have you on record that you thought that, you thought that, It would be a fad. There will just be other ways to use the tools that won't be so, like, chat-based. Okay. I don't know. You don't think that we're going to say in the future, like, hey, chat, GPT, schedule a haircut. That's a good point.

Probably will do that. I'm worried that we're going to do more of it, not less. I don't know. it feels like we very much all went like we went all in on the first use case and there's got to be like other other ways for it to just be sort of like a more subtle background piece of life rather than like your i think people will be doing it you don't think it's going to be your therapist in the future oh my god here's what i think is possible that if it is that that you talk to it like a person and it lives in your head okay well that has me panicked uh let's move on For people who didn't get to see the way John's face just looked, he hadn't had that thought yet, and he didn't like it. I didn't like it. I didn't like it. I didn't like it at all. I want to move on from the whole question and answer this question from Starr. Who writes, Dear John and Hank, I'm currently attempting to fall asleep while listening to your hit sleep podcast for teens in the elderly as I started rubbing my eyes. You got to not be writing stuff down, Star? Put your phone down.

I started to see kaleidoscopic like shapes. Why does this happen? Also, am I physically seeing it or is it all in my head? Does John see weird shapes when he rubs his eyes, too? Twinkle, twinkle, little star. Thank you for only caring about my perspective, not Hank's on this one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I don't have eyes.

Because Hank's obviously going to do the science stuff, but I'm going to do this, and I'm going to, I see the kaleidoscope effect in my, and I think it is physical. Yeah, it's, well, well, here's the thing, John. Everything is physical and everything is psychological because the brain is made out of meat. Well, hit me with the specific language of stars. What? Hit me with a specific language of what Star said here. Star said.

Star said. Am I physically seeing it or is it all in my head? It's both. It's both. Yeah. So like this is a really big question in consciousness. Does red exist? Okay.

So obviously, if you're me, you would say red is an illusion created by the brain that is like a consciousness's representation of a specific wavelength of light. And then the philosopher would be like, but Hank, there's something physical going on there and I'd be like, fine. and then I stomp out of the room and be like, I guess. And so that's very much what's going on here, is that it's certainly not something that you are physically creating like wavelengths that your head is, that your brain is interpreting, but you are physically having an impact on your optic nerve

and that is changing the signal that's getting interpreted by your brain and it's being interpreted as these like weird shapes and stuff. And that's a thing that we all get to experience whenever we want to to prove to ourselves that consciousness is just sort of like a vivid hallucination that is yet tied to the reality that we inhabit. Why do we see stars when we push on our eyes, though? Yeah. Okay. I'll walk you through. I think I said that.

The eyes send electrical signals to the brain in response to stimuli. Usually your rods and cones being hit by photons. When you rub your eyes, you are generating a physical stimulus, and that also causes electrical signals to be sent to your brain. And they are what we see as those shapes, and there actually is a name for them called phosphines. And when we do other things that make our retinas behave weird, but you can also see shapes.

Like if you stand up really fast, sometimes sneezing does this, you can see like flashes of non-existent things that your brain is interpreting as stuff you're seeing. Right. Okay. Thank you, Hank. That was helpful.

Now I have to ask you another question. Is an alligator or fish? No. Yes. I mean, it depends on what you meant by fish. Dear John and Hank, writes Anna, I've been listening to old episodes of the podcast recently while running.

In episode 410, y'all said that fish are not well-belled. defined. Seeing as it's Lent right now, and Hank, a little bit of background information for you, a lot of Catholics don't eat meat on Fridays during Lent. It's not a huge sacrifice, but but enough that they're, they get, they start looking at the gators funny, but they do eat fish. Okay. So this is, this is helpful background. This is helpful background for you. But we say meat. Fish are actually plants. That's why there's like Friday fish fries in a lot of Catholic communities. Okay.

Okay. I saw online the other day, the Archbishop of Louisiana or possibly New Orleans declared that alligator was acceptable to eat during Lent as a fish, which leads me to believe that at least in one sense, fish are well defined as the ones you can still eat during Lent, pumpkins and penguins, Anna McKay. This is famously true of beaver. What? There was a, there was a French, like Catholic French trappers in early America ate, it didn't have like a lot of food options.

Yeah. And so the Pope declared beavers, tails were pretty scaly. They spent a lot of time in water. You could eat those boys during Lent. Oh, is that true? Yeah. Maybe it's that Catholics don't eat meat on any Friday and don't eat meat at all during Lent. I can't remember because I'm Episcopalian.

And that's different. And we broke off with them so that a king in England could get a divorce. So, yeah. Things are different now. Things are different now. I mean, here in the Anglican convention, we don't, we don't, we don't, we don't, we don't, we don't, to my knowledge anyway, give up meat during Lent. Although I've, I've, I've been trying to eat less meat just because of the horrors. Yeah.

I think it makes sense to me that it would be it would be during during all of Lent. And as I have looked this up, it's some people are saying they abstain from meat and some are saying they abstain from land animal meat. Land animal, there you go. And alligators aren't really land animals. Sometimes they are, but not often. Yeah. So I guess if you. I guess if the alligator was killed in the water, then it's safe.

If the alligator was killed on land, then I've got some questions. because that feels like a land animal. You got to get down in there in its environment and take it on and it's on its own terms. Exactly. The crocodile Dundee knife in one hand. Yep. And just a bottle of Adderall and the other. I believe that is the only way to legally hunt alligators in Louisiana.

All right, Hank, before we get to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, one quick correction from Jeanette, who writes, Dear John and Hank, in your recent episode 445, you were discussing the stimulants, available. to peasants during the Middle Ages. And I wanted to add that medieval peasants also had access to another drug in that they used to eat grain and or bread that grew a type of mold that produced a hallucinogenic effect. So, do they do some purpose? European, I don't know. That's a great question. European peasants did perhaps have access to drugs in the form of moldy bread. Uh-huh. In fact, the artist, Heronimus, Bosch has paintings said to have been made under the influence of this mold if you're interested in seeing the effects for yourself, pumpkins and penguins, Jeanette.

Well, in that case, it does sound like he was doing it on purpose. I know a lot of ergot poisoning was not intentional. What's ergot? Hallucinogenic mold? Yes, that grows in grains, I believe. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure a lot of it was unintentional. I'm sure a lot of it was also unpleasant. Like, it's one thing if you're going to make a point of going on a trip. It's another thing if you're just trying to have breakfast. Yeah. Uh-huh. I'm on the Wikipedia page right now.

A very cool fact about ergotism is that it is sometimes known as St. Anthony's Fire, which is great. Yeah. That's an amazing name for like something weird's going on with Steve. What's up? He's got that old St. Anthony's fire on him. You know, St. Anthony. old Tony. Well, it's good to know

there's a patron saying of going on a hallucinogenic trip by accident because you ate moldy bread. Yeah. Or maybe sometimes a little bit on purpose if you're Hirona Sosh.

Speaking, Hank, of hallucinogenic joy, I have some news from AFC Wimbledon that is not news from AFC Wimbledon for you today. Former AFC Wimbledon player and hero, Ali Al-Hamody,

scored a goal in a playoff game to decide who was going to go to the World Cup, Iraq or Bolivia. He scored a goal and he is going

to the World Cup. Iraq is going to the World Cup for the first time in 40 years thanks to, in part, to former AFC Wimbledon player who I've hung out

with Ali al-Hamidi. Incredible. Incredible. Like, someone I've met is going to the World Cup, Hank. Someone, I think this is the first time an AFC Wimbledon player, a former AFC Wimbledon player has ever made it to the World Cup, like at least since, you know, since the catastrophe

of Milton Keynes and everything. So this is unbelievable. Like, it's so cool. Not only, like, he's not going to the World Cup and he's going to sit on the bench. He's going to the World Cup. He's going to be a striker in the real World Cup. Someone I kind of a little bit know, someone who might, if you ask them, might remember me, 50-50?

Do you know how cool that is, Hank? Maybe he's got to score a goal. Oh, my God, if he scored a goal in the World Cup. He's already a hero in his nation. Yeah. I mean, imagine being one of the 11 people who brings that level of joy to 45 million people. All right.

It's unimaginable to me. God, I love the World Cup so much. By the way, if you are interested in football in the World Cup, you should really listen to the podcast I have with my great friend of 35 years, Daniel Alricon. It's called the away end. And it's available wherever you get your podcast. And it's just going to get you incredibly hyped for the World Cup while also talking a lot about poetry. Heck yeah, brother.

What's the news from Mars? I guess it's this Artemis stuff. I mean, I feel like I can't talk about Artemis because, of course, I have no idea when this podcast is going to come out. So sorry. Sorry about my travels. But I do want to talk a little bit more about this nuclear-powered mission to Mars because I'd only talked about the ship that theoretically in 2028, which running an entirely new propulsion system using a reactor that does not exist yet, would go to Mars.

But they are also delivering a payload. And I love the idea of the payload, which is basically to bring a bunch, instead of rovers, bring just a bunch of those helicopter things to Mars. and just be like, we're going to do this. We're just going to fly around Mars. We figure that out. It works. And bring a bunch of them, have them go all over the place and learn a bunch of stuff. It's nice.

You don't have to worry about your wheels getting all messed up. There has been so much skepticism about this. I experienced a lot of it from basically everyone I know in the space community that this could happen by 2028. It feels very much like that deadline is imposed rather than by reality by when President Trump would like to have it happen so that it happens during his term and he can get credit for it, which is not really how you plan missions to Mars. But a December 2028 launch would be extremely aggressive, but there are a couple of people, not inside of NASA, but a couple of people who have been inside of NASA who have said, like, it's tight, but it's thing if the budget's there. Like, you could do it if there was enough money to spend on it, which I still remain skeptical. of, but I do want to allow for the fact that there is a level of feasibility here as long

as there's budget to go with it. Well, I would be excited to have a bunch of helicopters on Mars. As long as there's no humans there, I'm happy. Things are looking good for you. Yeah. I mean, they've never been, on that front, they've never been better. On other fronts mixed. Other fronts mixed. Everybody, thank you for listening to our podcast. If you want to say, as questions. We have an email inbox. It's Hank and John at gmail.com, and we appreciate

you for sending them over to us. We enjoy them very much. Oh, it's the 15th of April. Okay. That's what it says. It says it at the top. Tax death. This podcast was edited by Bridget Kenneson. It was mixed by Andrew Smith. 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 Duboki Chakravardi. 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.