Hank: Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John.

John: Or, as I prefer to think of it, Dear John and Hank.

Hank: It's a podcast where me and my brother John answer your questions, give you dubious advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon.

John: Hank, it's been a big week for AFC Wimbledon. Actually, it hasn't. There's not that much news from AFC Wimbledon. Is there a lot of news from Mars, or should people just stop listening to the podcast?

Hank: There's always news from Mars, John!

John: Well, there's always news from AFC Wimbledon, too. It's just... I don't know. How are you?

Hank: I'm good. I'm good. How are you doing?

John: I don't know. I don't even know anymore. I'm writing a lot, and I'm inside of the story, and so when I get frustrated with the story, I feel frustrated with every other facet of my life. But I will say, in weather news here in Indianapolis, the post-Taylor Swift beauty that we have been experiencing, we're just clinging to it.

We're just barely holding on. The sky is still blue, but the temperature is dropping. It's a little worrisome.

I'm beginning to think. that fall might be in the air. How are things in Montana?

Hank: It's actually very beautiful here. It's definitely fall. Lots of color on the trees. And I am doing good.

We did NerdCon Stories. It turned out to go really well. It was a treat for me because I got to hang out with a bunch of great people and watch. lots of Thanks for watching!

All of our guests and all of our attendees totally come on their A-game and make a good thing happen. And everybody was just down to clown. It was fun.

John: I really liked the attendees of NerdCon Stories, I have to say. I felt like it was a good and gracious bunch of people who were positive and enthusiastic. And it was really. that's what made it special. for me was just, you know, being around people who care about stories in the same way that I do. I felt like I was kind of with my tribe.

It was a wonderful weekend, and thank you for it, Hank. The only downside for me was that I was in a car race against Maggie Stiefvater, a great young adult novelist. Well, I crashed. my car and it erupted into a fiery tomb of death, but fortunately I was pulled from it before I was injured.

Other than that, I would qualify the weekend as an entire success.

Hank: Well, I have to say, in fairness to you, you didn't crash the car.

John: I didn't.

Hank: You spun out.

John: I spun out.

Hank: It didn't hit anything.

John: I never hit anything.

Hank: You managed to control the car, and you didn't slam into anybody or anything, but apparently the stress of whatever... of losing control of the car caused, I think, the brake line to break, which then sprayed brake fluid all over the hot underside of the car. And apparently brake fluid is flammable. So that happened.

John: You're right, I didn't crash. I came within about six inches of crashing into the wall, but didn't. And I was very pleased with myself for about 10 seconds. I was like, look at that.

I managed not to crash. I even put the car into reverse, and I was going to keep going. And then I realized that I was on fire.

Hank: Well, I call that the car's fault, not yours. Do you have a short poem for us?

John: I do. It's Philip Larkin. It's a request, actually, today. William requested the poem Home is So Sad by Philip Larkin.

It's a bit of a depressing poem. I apologize for that, Hank. I know that you prefer the funny stuff.

But this is Home is So Sad by Philip Larkin. Home is So Sad. It stays as it was left, shaped to the comfort of the last to go, as if to win them back.

Instead, bereft of anyone to please, it withers. so, having no heart to put aside the theft and turn again to what it started as, a joyous shot at how things ought to be, long fallen wide. You can see how it was, look at the pictures and the cutlery, the music and the piano stool, that vase. Home is so sad by Philip Larkin.

Oh, home. It is so sad.

Hank: Well, I guess when you take out all of the people because everything is impermanent.

John: Yeah, I guess that's the sadness, Hank. The underlying sadness of most stories is that everything is impermanent. I was thinking today as I was writing that in a way like all stories are about not just all. stories, but also all of life. But every story in one way or another is about a plucky young hero desperately trying to escape her fate.

And each of us is a plucky young person desperately trying to escape our fate until we become middle-aged. 

Hank: That's not true, there are lots of plucky middle-aged people trying to escape their fate.

John: Right, I know, but the only choice is between being a plucky middle-aged person trying to escape your fate and just accepting it. Not that I'm frustrated by how the writing's going at the moment or anything. Maybe we should answer some viewer questions in this incredibly depressing humor podcast.

Hank: We have a question from Renee who asks, Dear Hank and John, My partner and I will be getting married in a couple of months.

John: Originally we planned to- Oh, why bother, Renee? What's the point of being alive? 

Hank: Originally, we planned for it to be just the two of us, our officiant and our photographer, to keep things very casual, stress-free, and meaningful to us. To celebrate, and as a concession to our family and friends who wanted to be there, we decided to throw a big party later. the same day. As time has gone on, we've felt pressured to allow our families to attend the actual ceremony. Do you think we should stick to our guns and do what we want, or will we regret it later?

John: It's a big question, Hank, and I suspect that you and I might actually disagree, so I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this one.

Hank: I think that I don't know René, and I don't know René's partner, but I do know that marriages are about more than just the two people inside of them. I think that no marriage is an island, and I think that it It was important to me that I had important people in my life there to witness me making that super important, most important promise I've ever made and that I've needed support from outside of my marriage to make my marriage work and I think that's true for everyone and so it's good to recognize that marriage is about more than just the people getting married and a good way to do that, not the only way to do that is by having those people there at the ceremony. And then in. addition to that, in addition to the practical needs of the people getting married, it is about more than just the two of you in a way. And I think that if I was a parent and my child was having the most important day of their lives, So, my counterargument...

John: is that it's not one of the most important days of your life, that in fact, like, the day of your wedding is not one of the most interesting or important days of your marriage, right? It's the day that you make a commitment to a marriage, but all the interesting, cool stuff that happens in a marriage, and I completely agree with you that no marriage is an island, and that every successful marriage requires the support of more than two people, but, like, I don't think that the wedding is that important. Um, like looking back on my wedding day, I just don't, I just don't think it was that important.

Hank: But how would you think that our mom would answer that question? How do you think she would react to not being at your wedding?

John: Poorly.

Hank: Because it's really like, like, yeah, the question, there's the. question of like, what is it for Renee and Renee's partner? There's also the question of what is it for their parents? Right. And like, how, how Devastated are they? and I don't know the answer to that question.

Yeah, but I think that that my parents would Be crying Yeah in silence.

John: Yeah, I guess my advice would be to sort of follow the path of least resistance because I don't actually thinks it. I mean unless it's gonna be super stressful and miserable to have Family there because it's you know broken or unapproving relationships or unhealthy relationships or whatever. I really, you know, obviously you need the day, you need that day to be about you and your partner and the commitment that you're making. And you want that day to be special and fun and as unstressful as possible.

But if the family relationships are healthy and functional and positive, you know, I would just be like, you can come, but can you make it as unstressful for us as possible? That's what I would say.

Hank: Yeah, yeah. And in a lot of ways, it may be, it may end up being more stressful to not. have them there. just because you're creating, you're creating, in striving for a stress-free, a stress-free marriage, you may end up creating drama.

John: Yeah, yeah, I mean it's very it's. sometimes it's very difficult to know what is the path of least drama. It's always the path I try to follow but you just sometimes you don't know which path it is. But I guess like my advice to people who are getting married is always to think to try to focus more on the marriage than on the wedding because Weddings pass and marriages if you're lucky don't pass until you do.

Hank: Oh It's all about death here on. Dear Hank and John.

John: Sorry, I just, I noticed that we'd almost answered an entire question without talking about the universality of death.

Hank: Alright, John, give us another question.

John: Alright, this question comes from Matt, who writes, Dear John and Hank, I've been thinking a lot about the intelligence of animals compared to that of humans. I realize that every day my cat knows where to get its food and knows to eat it, but there's so much it could never know. No matter how hard it tried, its brain. could never possibly comprehend the company that manufactures the food, or the nutritional value of the food, or the fact that I buy the cheaper kind because student loans are a thing. Anyway, I'm rambling.

My point is, are we just cats? Are humans staring out into the universe looking right out at something that we will never actually be able to comprehend no matter how hard we try? That's my kind of question, Matt!

Hank: And it's like, I was looking at my cat today and I realized that maybe we know nothing.

John: Well, I do think that we know more than your cat, Matt. No disrespect to your cat. But, you know, this is a matter of degrees of gray, I think. The great thing about humans is that we can collaborate and not just You know, not just in simple, straightforward ways like me saying to Matt, Matt, if we work together to pick up this log, we can pick it up, but neither of us can pick it up alone, but also collaborating across space and time, being able to collaborate, for instance, with Socrates.

That's a huge. or like being able to know the laws of. Hammurabi. It's a huge advantage that no other species enjoys And that does make us special. and I don't think that we are just cats but I do think that we are looking out at the universe and Seeing it through very limited eyes, of course and and also seeing it in a kind of human centric way And that seems to me inevitable and not like not particularly Tragic or horrifying or anything, it's just part of being a person is that you're sort of stuck inside of person-ness.

Yeah,

Hank: it's often very jarring to me when I realize that the way that I've been understanding myself and my place in the universe and my relationships with people is much more influenced by my culture and by just sort of the lizard brain ways that we operate and see the world than it is on like my, you know, my And we continue to figure out stuff. And I feel like that path is going to continue. 

John: Hank Green, DFTBA Hank, do you ever think about the fact that your brain is made of meat? Like, your brain is edible. Everything, all of your hopes and dreams, I could. eat them. 

Hank: Well, you could eat the thing in which the hopes and dreams, the platform in which they exist, but you couldn't eat them themselves. They would cease existing before they got into your mouth.

John: I think our culture around zombies and stuff really boils down to that. Our contemporary obsession with zombies is about two things. First, the feeling that we may in fact not be running the show in quite the way that we think we are, that we may not be in control of our own thoughts and desires in quite the same way that we think we are. And then second, that our Like ourselves or what we think of as the self which is located in the brain is edible. 

Hank: Yeah, I mean that is each each your brains. the eating of brains is definitely a Definitely comes from there in a lot of ways comes from the place of realizing That that our the the meat that contains ourselves Hank is just meat.

John: God, this is a funny podcast. Let's have another question.

Hank: It's a really funny podcast.

John: I know.

Hank: I'll give you another question, John. I really liked this one and I. want to talk about it. You won't maybe have much to say, but I'm interested to see what you do say. Owen asks, Dear Hank and John, this might be a mostly Hank question.

If my body temperature is about 96 degrees, then why does 96 degree weather feel so hot? Why doesn't it feel neutral? I hope that makes sense.

John: Well, first off... Owen, I am concerned because your body temperature is unusually low. It should be at least 97.5 degrees, and the fact that it is 96 degrees has me worried.

Hank: Alright, now that we've gotten through the insufferable pedantry, what's your actual answer?

John: No, I'm not being pedantic. I am, as a hypochondriac, genuinely concerned. I cannot tell you how many times I have taken my own temperature and found it to be between 96 and 97 degrees and called my physician. 

Hank: I am hypothermic.

John: Don't laugh at me. That is not a joke.

Hank: Oh, okay. Anything else for Owen?

John: Um, again, I really think that that's worth checking out.

Hank: Okay, but anything else? Any actual answer to the question, assuming that Owen means that Owen's body temperature is 98.6 degrees? 

John: No, I can't get past my. concern.

Hank: That's not true, John. You can get past your concern, you just don't want to because you don't want to admit that you don't know the answer because I'm smarter than you.

John: No, we're just different kinds of smart. My mom's been telling me that my whole life. 

Hank: Oh, man. So, John, let's start out by saying is there any situation you could imagine being in something that was, you know, maybe say like 90 degrees, but it doesn't feel hot to you.

John: Well, yes, of course.

Hank: What's that?

John: 90 degree water. Correct.

Hank: So what's the difference between water and air?

John: Well, there are a number of differences, you pedantic b *.

Hank: But what in this case, what do you think might be the difference that causes that that difference to be?

John: Oh, my God. I'm being reminded of how much I f hated middle school science because it was full of rhetorical questions asked by a know it all teacher. Who was like, and what do you think? And I'm just like, you know the answer, just f ing tell me.

Sorry, we're gonna have to bleep a bunch of that because I got really genuinely angry at Hank. 

Hank: Well, I like walking through the process of figuring it out.

John: What is different between water and air? A number of things. But I bet that the inside of my body has a ton of water in it, whereas the inside of my body has relatively little air.

Hank: Yeah, that's kind of the thing. It's that there's far more water in water than there is air and air. So there are, you know, there's just, there's a massively large amount of molecules in water compared to the number of molecules in air. So when you're in the air, your body is.

It is always, no matter where you are, your body is always trying to cool itself off because the existence of a human being in the world requires the consumption of energy and the consumption of energy always produces some heat. And that heat continues to raise your body and if you didn't have any way to cool down you would overheat and die. and that is why and the body has been designed to operate optimally in 70 degree air because it's you know because actually because that's sort of the average temperature of the earth but not if.

John: we have anything to say about it we are gonna get that number up. people are always like Oh, human beings, like we don't reach for the stars, but we are reaching for the stars by destroying the atmosphere and raising the temperature of the planet. We are literally getting closer to the stars. 

Hank: It didn't make any sense to me, but I'll let it be.

John: But I mean, am I wrong that if we just thin out the atmosphere just a little bit that we'll be closer to the stars?

Hank: Well, we're not thinning out the atmosphere at all. We're making it thicker. That's the problem. 2. No, it wouldn't make us closer to the stars.

John: We're getting further from the stars. I'm not an astronomer, I'm just reaching for a metaphor here. So the answer is that we're always trying to cool ourselves off because we produce heat and there isn't that much air in air.

Hank: Yeah, so you're always trying to cool off and so you need I'm Hank Green, and I'm Hank Green. Thanks for the question, Owen. Sorry that John hated it so much.

John: I liked the question Owen, I didn't like Hank's answer. I. wanted to work through it. My issue is not with Owen, my issue is with that like rhetorical know-it-all approach to answering questions. Like when we are discussing poetry, do I ever say like, Hank, what is the rhythm of your heart?

And start from there? No, I just like. Well,

Hank: from my perspective, I think this is important, so I apologize for continuing to talk about it, but from my perspective, like, I like to think about how people figured this out in the first place, or how I might figure it out without having someone tell it to me. And so, when I was asked that question from Owen, I didn't know the answer to that question, but I did know that getting in 90 degree water feels cool. So starting from that, I wanted to figure out what is it about 90 degree water that makes it cool. that might give me insight into why 90 degree air seems hot. 

John: I still feel like a middle school student which is the way I like feeling least in the whole world.

Hank: I can understand that completely.

John: Let's move on to a new question. This question is from Daniel, who asks, Dear John and Hank, is there a way to enjoy slow books? In other words, books that have a droning and otherwise uninteresting tone? I'd love to read Lord of the Rings, but I've heard that it's very slow and easy to lose focus while reading it.

That question took an unexpected turn for me, Hank, because when I think of slow books, I think of... This wonderful book that I read in college called Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde, which is about how the Uzbek people came to identify as Muslims. And it's about 800 pages long.

And it's definitely got some slow parts. It's got some really enjoyable footnotes. But it's a dry read.

And it took tremendous focus for me to read it. And yet, it's still one of the most important books I've ever read. I think about it all the time.

War of the Rings, on the other hand, I found to be a pretty rip-roaring kind of read. But I think that, I think maybe this speaks to something that's changed in the culture in the last 15 years and changed about the kind of attentiveness that humans specialize. in, having kind of been altered by the internet. Yeah, or just by the constant availability of things to enjoy more than more than the internet itself right right by the by scrolling the idea of yeah scrolling being able to sort of permanently scroll through entertainment.

Hank: yeah I mean I think that it is important to be able to take some steps back from from the consumption of media and to be inside of your own brain for a while and maybe If that is something that you are interested in doing, it might make slower experiences more enjoyable. I love to read a lot, but it took me a long time to get to there. There's an amount of like just letting it be and saying like okay well this is what I'm gonna do for the next hour and if you read and your mind wanders then that's okay. let your mind wander and when you notice that your mind has wandered bring it back. and if it takes you you know an hour to read a chapter or if it takes I don't know how long a chapter of the Lord of the Rings is anymore. but if it takes you what you would consider to be too long to be enjoying this thing but remember that you also spent time with your mind wandering, with your mind doing things and working out problems and considering what happened to it today. And there's nothing wrong with that.

John: Yeah, I mean, I completely agree with you. I don't think reading is something that you are born knowing how to do, obviously. And it's not something that you like. It's something that gets better with practice and gets much worse without practice.

I found that in my own life, like since Henry and Alice were born, I have. I spend less time reading than I used to, and as a result my reading has gotten worse. My reading comprehension is worse, my reading speed is worse, I read fewer books per year and I think I read them less well, less generously than I used to.

But I don't think that's just because I have kids now, I also think it's because I spend too much time passively ingesting media, and then the active work of reading feels much harder for me than it used to. So that's. something I think a lot about, and it does concern me. I love the internet, and I appreciate the enjoyment that distraction culture provides me, but I do worry a little bit about the fact that I feel like overall I kind of lead a less engaged life than I used to, and reading is one strong.

Hank: I have a question from Maddie. I think is important but is gonna be no fun. Maddie asks Dear Hank and John, my younger sister recently graduated from college with a degree in marketing and PR. She elected not to go to grad school right away and instead wanted to work for a year and decide whether she wanted to get a master's degree.

However, instead of looking for a job, she got involved in a pyramid scheme. She talks passionately about it to everyone who will listen and managed to convince most of the people she knows to spend lots of money and buy into the program. Her degree combined with her personality makes her a great salesperson.

She's spending a lot of money every month on the program and is spending more and more time trying to build her business instead. of looking for a job. Do you have any advice on how I can talk to her without upsetting her and make her understand that her decision to stay in that business might not be the best one for her? I really hate pyramid schemes, so I wanted to answer this question.

John: Yeah. I mean, I don't know what to say. I think that it's extremely difficult when you are inside of a pyramid scheme a lot of times to understand that you are inside of a pyramid scheme. There's also something of a fine line between a pyramid scheme and direct sales programs, right?

Like, I guess Maybe we should start off by defining what a pyramid scheme is. So here it is in its basic form. I say to my brother Hank, Hank, if you give me $10, I will teach you how to get people to give you $10.

And then Hank goes forth with that knowledge. And then also, if you could just send me one of the dollars that you make every time you teach someone how to make $10, and then Hank teaches two people how to make $10, well, I have now made. $12 just by teaching Hank how to make $10. But if more people convince more people how to make $10, I will make much more than $12 because I am at the top of the pyramid.

The people at the bottom of the pyramid, which will be a progressively larger number of people, Health Bars And that's where it gets complicated.

Hank: You often find that the physical good that's being involved in the pyramid scheme is basically just sort of there as a way to make it seem more legitimate, and so it will be like ridiculously overpriced in some way. And really it's about, you know... People trying to get other people to give them money because there's this dream of getting rich and that is why they're often called get rich quick schemes. They're also called multi-level marketing schemes because the idea is that you're marketing at all these multiple levels and sort of sending money up and the sooner you can get in on the game, the better it is for you.

It's very difficult to Like, these things are designed in really clever ways, and it's kind of, it can often be something that, like, it's. almost like something you should imagine as, like, it's something that happened to a person, like, getting hit by a car, that it's very difficult to control, and then it makes, and then it makes them sort of, like, you know, more difficult to deal with for a while, because they are, that was a bad example.

John: Yeah, it's more like buying into a cult than it is like getting hit by a car. I can't think of a single way in which it's like getting hit by a car.

Hank: Yeah, what I'm trying to say, it's a little like something that just, that happens to a person and it's very difficult to have it unhappen to them. And especially because once they, you know, get involved and they start recruiting friends and family, they have to admit to themselves that they have gotten their friends and family involved in this thing. that is in fact, you know, very bad for them. And like admitting that, especially when you've got all of this sort of like psychological cool like hookiness that these schemes use to convince people that they are in fact a legitimate business enterprise. Admitting that becomes very. difficult and it tends to come in the form of like eventual failure when you no longer are making money from the scheme and then embarrassment and shame.

Which comes along with having previously alienated yourselves from all of your loved ones who you tried to get involved with the scheme and either either got annoyed with you or or you know bought in but then failed sooner than they did because it tends to fail upward. so it fails from the bottom up and And and that is just a terrible thing to have happen but because of the psychological hooks of the the multi-level marketing scheme. It's like As a sister, basically what you can do is to be supportive. in a difficult time. Like that's kind of what this is.

It's a difficult time and just because they haven't realized it's a difficult time doesn't mean that it isn't. And then it will in the future be a much more difficult time as they come to realize the difficulty and sort of like the, you know, like that they've spent a lot of their time and energy on something that was a bad use of their time. and energy and money.

John: Yeah, I mean, I think in general, you know, there's lots of situations in life where you have to love people who are making mistakes. I mean, you also have to accept, of course, that you might be wrong, that this might be a completely legitimate business enterprise. It probably isn't, but it is in her mind. And so you just have to lovingly not support someone, which is very difficult to do.

But I think it's it. When it's going to be really important is when it all falls apart for her to know that you still love her. And anything that can kind of decrease the shame spiral decreases the power of not just pyramid schemes, but lots of different things that prey on human psychology and human emotion.

So I think loving someone and not judging them is incredibly powerful.

Hank: I agree, John.

John: Okay Hank, we have another question. This one is from Brenna who writes, Dear John and Hank, so my roommate and I just moved into an on-campus apartment and we are cooking dinner for ourselves for the first time. My question is, at what point in adulthood do you get? over the fear of giving your dinner guests salmonella?

Hank: Not there yet.

John: Yep, I'm not there. I do not know. Definitely past 38. That's all we can say for sure, Brenna.

I can't see into the future. But I worry. I mean, I spend a lot of time cleaning cooking surfaces and trying to make sure that no raw food has been touched in any way without extensive hand washing.

Hank: Yeah, I think that the number one way to get over this fear is to work in a commercial kitchen. Either at a restaurant, probably is the most likely circumstance that you would be doing that. And then you would know a great deal and you would have a lot of experience with not giving people salmonella. And but without that.

John: Well, but also having worked at having worked at a restaurant, Hank, I can tell you that you don't always learn how to not give people salmonella.

Hank: You got to make the mistake.

John: Unfortunately, I don't mean to crush all your dreams, but you You should worry when you go out to eat. You should make sure that that hamburger is well and truly cooked. I had norovirus a. few years ago, this 24-hour vomiting and diarrheal illness that We were talking earlier about. how my wedding day, I don't remember it as a particularly important day in my marriage. I do remember my day with Norovirus as a particularly interesting and important day in my marriage because...

Me too, actually. Yeah, no, you don't know true love until you've suffered through Norovirus with your partner. And You know, looking back on that day, I often think like, am I overreacting about food safety?

And then I think, no, no, I'm not.

Hank: It was an amazing day for me, my norovirus day, because I was just laying in bed and then I burped and then I was like, Katherine, I don't feel well. And then I sat up in bed and then I exploded. 

John: And she handled it just so well. Yeah.

Hank: I got out of the bathroom a half an hour later and the room was for the most part cleaned up. And I was just like, wow, you just frickin' did that. You were like, okay, time to take care of stuff. It's done, yeah, wow, I was super impressed.

And yeah, hadn't gotten that chance to. really see what she was made of until then.

John: I remember that I ate a bowl of chili. uh wonderful home cooked chili. I'd had a whole food sushi for lunch and then I had a wonderful bowl of chili and I was just going downstairs to get my standard second bowl of chili. um which I've never in my life eaten just one bowl of chili. what's the point? and so I'm going downstairs to eat my standard second bowl of chili and I thought to myself you know there's something a little weird uh in my stomach right now And maybe, just maybe, I should hold off on this second bowl of chili. And then I thought, nah, I'm fine. I'm probably fine.

And I ate about five bites of my second bowl of chili. And then I was like, I am going to throw up. And not like eventually, but like in the next 10 seconds.

Yeah.

Hank: I didn't even get that much forwarding. It was literally the day after Thanksgiving. So I had done the thing where you eat all of the Thanksgiving leftovers.

John: Oh, God.

Hank: So I was just full to the top with cranberry.

John: juice and stuffing and potatoes and yams and marshmallows and pumpkin pie. I remember the seaweed from the Whole Foods sushi. Like at the end, you know, at the bottom. After everything, after all the chili.

Hank: Oh man, John, this episode needs a trigger warning.

John: Oh, it came back up in order. It was brutal. Oh man, thank God we finally found something funny in this stupid humor podcast. Oh, norovirus.

Anyway, norovirus is not caused by contaminated food, usually. So, it's caused by eating someone else's poop. Or puke.

That's right. Usually poop, though. So I...

Hank: If it makes you feel bad to think that like, oh god, I definitely ate someone's poop, there's a chance that you ate someone's vomit.

John: Yeah, I mean, one of the things that really gets to me about being a person who, you know, like has this mind and ostensibly this soul but is stuck inside of a physical body is that I, I mean, like how many people's poop have I eaten? Hundreds? Thousands? Seriously, that's not a rhetorical question.

You told me how many bacteria there are in my body a few episodes ago. I'm asking you now how many people's? poop have I eaten. 

Hank: I mean...

John: A lot, right? Like, more than five.

Hank: Probably, probably, probably over a hundred.

John: A bunch of strangers?

Hank: Yeah, I would say, definitely over a hundred. I mean, I'm sure that the vast majority of times you eat someone's poop, there's no negative consequence at all. And you probably eat your own poop every single day. Just cross-contamination is too common.

John: You know, the other thing I was thinking recently, Hank, is I was kayaking in the White River. The White River is a beautiful river in Indianapolis, but when it rains more than a quarter of an inch in the city, they just directly dump all of the poop in the sewers into the river. And that's not an exaggeration. That is a fact.

It happens maybe like 50 or 60 times a year. And I was kayaking and I was going up something of a rapid and a large amount of water entered my mouth. Like probably I would say between three and six drops of water entered my mouth simultaneously.

And obviously I tried to spit it out as much as possible. But I mean there could be hundreds of people's poop. just in those three drops of water.

Hank: Oh, almost certainly there was.

John: What I'm saying is that like if you And if you, like me, have a fear of contamination, it's not irrational. It's not one of the things that really bothers me about people.

Hank: Well, it's a little bit irrational in that it's unavoidable. And that it is usually fine.

John: Well, no, but the fact is I am contaminated. So it is incorrect for like, for instance, a psychotherapist to tell me that my fear of contamination is irrational when in fact I am constantly contaminated with hundreds of other people's stuff.

Hank: Oh, well, it's not the fear. I'm saying that the reality that you are contaminated is absolutely true. The fear of it is what is irrational.

John: Let's move on to our last question for today.

Hank: We have to let everyone know that this episode of Dear Hank and John is sponsored by Other People's Poop. Other People's Poop, it's everywhere and you eat it.

John: Oh god, this episode of Dear Hank and John is also sponsored by your wedding. Your wedding. 

Hank: This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by the totally not a. pyramid scheme. Hank and John Green magical lip balm company.

John: The Hank and John magical lip balm company, $14 lip balm, but boy is it good. 

Hank: Send it our way and we'll teach you how to sell other people magical lip balm.

John: And of course this episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by middle school science teachers, middle school science teachers knowing it all since the beginning of time. Okay Hank, we have time for one last question before we get to the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. It's a vitally important question. It comes from Sarah, who writes, Dear John and Hank, Is honesty really always the best policy, or are there some situations in which discretion is best for everyone?

Sarah, this is such an important question because I can't tell you how much I wish I could go back in time. To the time before, Hank told me that most of the cells in my body are not mine. It's impossible for me to express the blissful ignorance that I enjoyed for the first 38 years of my life, assuming that most of me was in fact me and not microorganisms.

So yes, honesty is not always the best policy. Discretion is often the best.

Hank: Yeah, I agree. I do enjoy being honest when others think that it is not a good idea. I also enjoy that when other people do it. And I think that it can cut to the chase a lot, especially in business. uh and when there's a lot of posturing going on or in other circumstances where there might be a lot of posturing going on but i think in normal every day.

John: well Sarah's question to be fair is about affection you know like a romantic interest. um it was she. she did not originally intend it to be a question about uh the human biome. But at this point, I can't read any other question. I can't read any question in a different context. But yeah, I think in the world of affections, it's often quite useful to get to honesty quickly.

But of course, there is a real and undeniable risk of loss in that as well.

Hank: Yeah, especially if you know that that person is already in a relationship or that they are definitely not interested in you or any of the other. Hank Green, DFTBA Affectionate toward them. I often like to examine people.

John: What? I don't agree with this advice. Sometimes you should be honest.

Hank: It depends on the situation. I agree. Oh yes, I agree. Take away all of the things I said, Nick.

John: You basically just told Sarah, like, don't know, don't tell them, don't tell the person you like that you like them. Well, maybe tell them. Depends on the situation, Sarah. Honestly, don't take any of our advice seriously.

Do you know how many people's poop I've eaten, Sarah? Hundreds. 

Hank: I was misunderstanding the question. I apologize. I didn't, I didn't, yes. 

John: Oh, I am surrounded by a terrible darkness, Hank. What's the news from Mars?

Hank: Uh, there are pebbles on Mars, John.

John: Oh my god, are you serious?

Hank: Yeah, but...

John: Pebbles?

Hank: In addition to there being pebbles, they are pebbles of a certain size and coarseness that indicate that not only did they exist inside of a river, but they existed inside of a river that flowed for miles and miles and miles and those rocks... Flowed down with that river for miles over a long period of time, not over a short period, not in. a mass flood event, but in a circumstance that looked a lot like one we might have here on Earth.

John: That is incredibly exciting. I don't even know what to say. I'm breathless to know that there are pebbles on Mars that look a little bit like the pebbles that we have right here on Earth, including in South London, where AFC Wimbledon play almost every Saturday. Well, Hank, the news from AFC Wimbledon is about as interesting as the news from Mars this week.

AFC Wimbledon last week played Oxford United. You know, Oxford, that's where they have that fancy college in England. I've never thought much of... of the football club that hails from Oxford, but they did beat AFC Wimbledon one to nothing.

It was a distressing game. And indeed, you can't help but be a bit worried by our lack of goal production. But we're taking on more camb this weekend, which will be in the past as we listen to the podcast.

So let us hope that we have a glorious victory to celebrate, because I would really... I want the narrative of AFC Wimbledon to be a club on the rise, but then I. would also accept the narrative of AFC Wimbledon to be a club in comfortable stasis. But the lack of offensive production is a bit worrisome, particularly given how much talent we have up front with the likes of Autobiowoc and Fenwa.

So, yeah, that's the news from AFC Wimbledon. 

Hank: Why do you think that is, John? Why do you think that The Wimblies are having a hard time getting the ball in the net.

John: I appreciate your famed interest, first off, I'd just like to say that. So, I haven't been able to watch a game this year on account of how, believe it or not, they don't put fourth tier English football on TV in the United States. But my understanding from fans and from reading everything on the website and from listening to the games on the radio is that we just don't have a lot of control of the ball in midfield. So really the game... of soccer is a game of, think of it as a game of three thirds, right?

You've got your defensive third, you've got the middle third of the pitch, and then you've got your attacking third. The ability to get it. from the defensive third when you recover possession through the middle third into the attacking third. That's the entire game.

The whole game is actually played in midfield. So we have good finishers of the ball, but we just haven't had a ton of luck getting sustained possession in that attacking third because it requires traveling through the midfield. Does that make sense?

Hank: It does.

John: It does. Yeah. So anyway, I'm sure that there are brighter days to come. I Mean at least I hope so because this has been one depressing comedy podcast.

Hank: Well, and it's been a depressing comedy podcast in which we learned what, John?

John: Well Hank, we learned that norovirus can teach you more about your marriage than your wedding can.

Hank: Yeah, we learned that there's something about the number of molecules that hit your body that controls how well you can cool off, and that cooling off is important, and that John does not want to be back in middle school in any way at all, ever, at all.

John: And of course, we learned that the rivers that no longer flow on Mars once made puppets. Which is sort of beautiful now that I think. about it.

Hank: This has been Dear Hank and John. If you would like to send us questions, you can do so at dearhankandjohnatgmail.com.

John: Isn't it just hankandjohnatgmail.com?

Hank: Oh, you're right, you're right.

John: Sure. No, it's fine. You can send it to dearhankandjohnatgmail.com too, just we won't read them because that's not our email address. 

Hank: This podcast is edited by Nicholas Jenkins. The theme music that you're hearing now is from The Remarkable Gunnarolla. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.