Good morning, John!  I mean, I started out your video yesterday and I was like, there's no way this is going to be interesting.  Predicting the future from 8 days ago, that's just not long enough for this to be an interesting exercise, but it turns out it was hugely interesting.  

But before we get too deep here, let's see how your predictions went. 

John: I can be fairly confident that on your today, it is unseasonably warm in Indianapolis.

Hank: Ehh, not really.  It was like three degrees warmer than usual, so I'm gonna call this one a miss.  Understandably, though, it is, of course, unseasonably warm on most days in most places.  Like, you could think of 2020 as one of the warmest years in the last hundred or you could think about it as one of the coolest years in the next hundred.

John: The number of newly diagnosed COVID cases in the United States was higher yesterday than it was a week earlier, probably by around 10-12%.

Hank: So week to week, we went from 41,601 new cases to 45,791, which is an increase of almost exactly 10%, so that's a win for you, except it's more of a win for the people who do epidemiological modeling, except it's more of a loss for everyone.

John: And I can predict about how many people people are gonna buy this Pizza John shirt today, probably about 40.

Hank: Well, we blew that one out of the water.  We sold more than 95 of those shirts, which is a great example of how we imagine the future affecting the future, which is a thing that happens.

John: What happened in AFC Wimbledon's game against Swindon Town, I think, we might eke out a draw.

Hank: John, AFC Wimbledon had a single shot on target during their game with Swindon Town and it went in the goal and was the only goal scored in the game, which means AFC Wimbledon beat the Town and you're now in 10th place.

John: I know there's a presidential debate upcoming.  I suspect that in your present, that's being much discussed.

Hank: This was a great prediction, John.  It turns out that because of COVID, we were gonna have a virtual town hall debate, where the two candidates wouldn't be in the same place,  but Donald Trump didn't wanna do that, so he dropped out and then Joe Biden was like, I'm gonna do the town hall by myself.  Then, Donald Trump was like, okay, I'm gonna do a different town hall, but at the exact same time.  Why at the exact same time?  I don't know, maybe because Donald Trump's favorite debate format is talking at the exact same time as his opponent the whole time.

John: I suspect the news of my morning will feel like the very distant past.  This morning, the main news was that the president of the United States has been hospitalized for COVID.

Hank: And you are right.  Somehow, that is not a big deal in our minds anymore.  Instead, the vitally important thing that we're talking about now is how congress is ramming through a supreme court justice instead of, I don't know, thinking about COVID relief, maybe?

John: And I predict that we will feel like there is cause for alarm and I also predict that there will be cause for alarm.

Hank: John, there is and continues to be cause for alarm.  You also talked in your video about unknown unknowns and how the pandemic is one of those, and I disagree with you.  I think the pandemic was a known unknown, a thing that we know could have happened.  Unknown unknowns are things like the fact that mask-wearing could be politicized.  You can look back in hindsight and be like, well, I could have seen that that would be a thing, and like maybe if somebody had asked you like, could mask-wearing be politicized, you would have said, yeah, yeah, maybe it could have, but no one would have thought to ask the question.  That's an unknown unknown, and our lives and our history are governed by unknown unknowns.  The rise of social media, the mere existence of climate change, the internal combustion engine.  At one time, all of these things were unknown unknowns, and looking at today from eight days ago, which is not a long time ago, has provided a surprising amount of insight.

First, the thing we're caught up in now isn't the thing we're gonna be caught up in next week, which doesn't seem true.  Like, it doesn't, but it is.  Also, there is just a ton about today that we don't know.  Like, we like to think that today is the thing that we know the best, but no, the thing that we know the best is like, a year ago, and finally, just a great deal has happened.  It's helped me realize that a great deal has happened and continues to happen and all of it has been for the species ultimately survivable.  

John, I'll see you tomorrow.