408: The Green Brothers Often Are Wrong
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You're listening to a Complexly podcast. Hello, and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Or as I prefer to call it, Fathoming the Darkness with John and Hank Green. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you dubious advice, and feel all of the feelings with you.

John. Yeah. Did you hear that? We're going to make a new way to become a citizen of America where you get like a special card and it costs $5 million. Sure. That was the idea though. It turns out that Trump just misheard what an American Express card was. It's an Express American card. Yeah.

We already have that program. We already have a program in place where if you spend a million dollars, you get to become an American. You can do that in New Zealand. I'll tell you what. I just got off a call with folks in global health and at Partners in Health, and it was very sobering just to hear –

up close the reality of what it looks like when you suddenly, without warning and utterly chaotically, freeze all foreign aid and the impacts that has on real life people. And I don't give a flying fudge about people who can spend $5 million to become Americans.

I don't. I don't give a flying fudge about that policy. Yeah. Well, here's the thing. It is just another thing to say. And like, I know what it's like to have a fair amount of resources at your disposal. Yeah. And to have like specific goals. And when you're in that situation, you wake up in the morning and you apply your set of tools to the problem that you want to solve.

And what is so clear is that every morning they wake up and they apply their tools, which is a tremendous amount of resources and power, to the problem of how do I get people to talk about me today? And it's working. We're doing it right now. Instead of talking about my hit new book, Everything is Tuberculosis, which comes out March 18th.

I'm going on tour. Tuberculosis should adopt this strategy. It's very powerful. I know. It's an incredibly – I try to adopt this strategy on behalf of tuberculosis by being like, listen, geography is tuberculosis. Politics is tuberculosis. History is tuberculosis. I'm trying to flood the zone. It's just I'm not as good at it. Yeah. I think it's a little bit of a harder challenge as well. Yeah, because if you can get attention by any sort of outrageous action –

then that's a little easier than having to be stuck with tuberculosis-related activities. I will say, Hank, that I love hating tuberculosis. My wish for you is that you get to hate something as fully and completely as I hate tuberculosis, as fearlessly as I hate tuberculosis, as

full-throatedly as I hate tuberculosis. Being a hater, it's so fulfilling. Especially a justified hater. Oh, yeah. Oh, a righteous indignation is just the best kind of indignation. And you can't even be like, oh, but his dad was mean when he was a kid. No. No. It's a bacteria. No, it just sucks. And the world would be better if it didn't exist.

John. Yeah. I have a question for you. This is an important question. Okay. It's a real dear Hank and John question. Okay. It's not actually. Okay. I was recently invited to be on a podcast. Sure. That has a small number of views in the sort of course of human history, but a lot. Okay. But you haven't heard of it. It's that kind of podcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's the kind of podcast where they talk about business stuff

And then every once in a while, they throw in some ancient aliens. And I don't know why I got invited to be on this podcast. I don't think it's for the ancient alien stuff. I think that it's – if you don't know folks at home, and God bless if you don't, there's various conspiracy theories that like the pyramids were made by aliens. They were aliens visiting us in the deep past. And that's how all of the very weird things that we can't allow ourselves to accept were just done by human beings being ingenious.

I think it's so funny that we think like ancient people needed the help of aliens to make the pyramids, but we don't think like contemporary people needed the help of aliens to make magic wands that fit in our pockets. Yeah. No, absolutely. No one knows – like literally when they find iPhones in the future, they'll be like, no way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No way. They had tuberculosis. They didn't have these. Right. You couldn't simultaneously have a curable infectious disease killing over a million people a year and a magic wand that fits in your pocket that will bring you food for $20 whenever you ask.

They wouldn't even think it was curable. They'd be like, no, these people are still dying of tuberculosis. They couldn't define a cure for it. By definition, it couldn't have been curable because how else would a million people be dying every year of an illness? So, yes. So, I've been invited to be on this podcast. Okay. I mean, if you're looking for advice, I have it. It's a hard no, but go on. So, that's part of it. Okay.

I am aware that there are a lot of people who I will never reach with a message of the fact that ancient Egyptians figured out how to use copper saws, which are softer than granite, to cut through granite by mixing that copper saw with a slurry of silica powder because silica is harder than granite. Yeah.

Yeah. Humans are great. Yeah.

More amazing than saying anything that seems very difficult to explain, assuming we're not like missing something, but instead that it was done by tractor beams from space. Right. Yeah. There's a lot of people I won't reach with that message unless I go on a podcast with a guy who has really big muscles. Are we talking about Joe Rogan? No, no, no, no, no.

Joe Rogan is – no. No. Because if you – because don't go on Joe Rogan's show. If I just referred to Joe Rogan as a guy who you haven't heard of, who has a podcast with like important but not large numbers, that would have been pretty misleading. OK. But yeah, he is a guy who talks to the same kinds of guys as Joe Rogan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also has big muscles.

He's a third-rate Joe Rogan the way that we're third-rate McElroy brothers. Exactly. I understand now. Yeah. And I feel like it'd be better for me to test this out with a guy who is legitimately curious about the world, but doesn't have a huge platform. In answering your question, Hank, I have to tell you the story of the first time I met with my psychiatrist. And I told my psychiatrist, I have –

And does this story end with, well, the light was on? No. No, but if you'd like me to tell that joke, I'm always happy to. You sure? Yes. Okay. Loth walks into a podiatrist office. First time I met my psychiatrist, I told him like, I'm a person without size power and I'm sort of a low level internet celebrity and it's very uncomfortable for me and I don't know how to navigate it.

And my psychiatrist later revealed to me that he 100% thought I had delusions of grandeur. That like...

He thought that I was, you know, that there was a disconnect between my level of celebrity and my experience as celebrity. Uh-huh. Which maybe there was. Yeah, yeah. It would be fair to him. What I would say to you is your thought that you can shift the way that people think about ancient aliens by being on a podcast is what my psychiatrist would correctly diagnose as a delusion of grandeur. I might be wrong, Hank. Yeah.

I'm often wrong. I like to look back on when I was wrong and be reminded that I can be wrong. But I think that going on a muscle guy podcast is a low reward, high risk thing.

Prospect for you. I don't really think that it's very high risk. I mean, maybe. Maybe people would be mad at me about it, but like – I'm a little mad at you already. Okay. Well, then – I hear that, John. And I also hear that my – one of the first conversations I had with my therapist was her being like, you need to understand the difference between the things that give you energy and the things that actually make your life better. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, because if I just did the things that gave me energy, I would be on Twitter all day full of energy. Now, Hank, we need to get to some questions from our listeners and we need to begin with this one from Stella who says, Hey, Green Brothers. I'm a huge fan of the pod so much so that I sometimes listen to old episodes when I'm feeling anxious or stressed out because your guys' goofiness always brings me joy and calms me down. Sorry for the low level of goofs, Stella. Yeah.

We had a low level of goof intro. I was listening to episode 112 where somebody wrote in to ask if they should trust Elon Musk. They said he has kind of a Lex Luthor vibe. Anyway, you guys expressed a like for Elon and the work that he does in sustainability. And it got me thinking if that opinion has changed at all in recent times. Yeah, Stella. Yeah. Yeah, we were wrong. What year was that? He had some Lex Luthor vibes and whoever wrote in to say that was right and we were wrong and we're sorry. Oh, God. Please tell me that was like –

The year 2007. What year was that? It was like 2000. It had to be 2016 or later.

Oh, yeah. All right. Let's move on to other questions from our listeners. We don't want to get into it. Stella, it's a great reminder that the Green Brothers can be wrong and often are wrong and are often proved wrong by history. As when I believed that Wi-Fi would never take off because I had a 100-foot Ethernet cable and Wi-Fi could only extend for 75 feet. Yeah.

When a reporter asked me how I felt about YouTube allowing uploads of HD videos, and I said, no one will ever upload in HD. Why would anyone want to watch YouTube videos in high definition? Four by three is the future. Look, I

I've learned a lot. And I've been ground down a little bit by reality. Well, you think that you don't change in adulthood. This is a real issue for all of us that we all need to face. We think adulthood means never changing. And we also think that one's internet record is permanent. And...

And neither is true. Adulthood means changing all the time. Five years ago, I didn't know that tuberculosis really existed, let alone feeling compelled to write a book about it. And you got to make space for change. And one of the ways that we would like to change, Stella, is by officially restating our policy on America's Lex Luthor. We think Elon Musk is –

A bad narcissist man who really wants us to think and talk about him and is convinced that the only person who can fix the world is himself, which is the kind of – and who sees having to deal with other people as too difficult to even attempt to do. And so instead must gather enough power to just wield power over them rather than work with them.

There's nothing less interesting that you can be in this world than a moth that flies to power. And boy, boy. God, that reminds me of my favorite joke, Hank. Have I ever told this to you? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Moth walks into a podiatrist's office. I was recently a moth on a podcast. This is true. I was a moth.

Oh, cool. I was Hans Hoffman, the science mothman. And I was in the magical land of Foon where I'm trying to spread the word of science in a land of magic. And of course, I am the conspiracy theorist in that world.

I don't love all these other podcasts that you're doing. Why don't you just make more episodes of this podcast with me? I love that podcast so much. It's called Hello from the Magic Tavern. It's about a guy from Earth who gets sucked through a magic portal. I know. I love Hello from the Magic Tavern, too. But you know what I love even more is Dear Hank and John, our hit podcast. Yeah. I also love Dear Hank and John, and I love it more.

more than I love Hello from the Magic Tavern, but I only am on Hello from the Magic Tavern every couple of years. Yeah, it's great. And I reprised my role of Hans Hoffman and boy, we had a good old time. I did almost die inside of Chunt's ear, but that's okay. All right. Check out Hello from the Magic Tavern.

Free promo. Free promo. A rare gift from Dear Hank and John. Usually we only promote things that can't be promoted, like the idea of grace. At the end of that episode, there will be a promo for Ask Hank Anything, the second episode of which is out at youtube.com slash complexly. Now, Hank, the truth is when you fracture your promo, it's a real problem. And so I just want to remind people that everything is tuberculosis comes out March 18th. Yeah.

All right, Hank, we have a question from Grace. It's a bummer, full disclosure. We haven't gotten any questions that aren't bummers in about six weeks. So we're just answering the questions that we get. I wonder what happened. And they're bummers. This one is from Grace.

Dear John and Hank, I'm a federal employee living in the DC area who just got terminated on Valentine's Day. I plan to appeal the decision because in my termination letter, it stated that I was in my probationary period, which I am not, and that it was due to poor performance, which it can't be because my last performance review was over four out of five. I doubt it will do anything. And even if it does, I feel like it's just delaying the inevitable. I'm not asking for anything other than advice on how not to wallow in despair and fear as I look for a new job. Gratitude and generosity, grace.

Delight in things when you can. Yeah. And delight in people when you can, right? Like that's something that can't be taken away from us is the joy we find in other people and connection and everything. But it's – what's happened to you is so unfair and I'm so sorry, right? Like the idea of just firing – first off, you're not in your probationary period. But the idea of just –

Firing everyone in their probationary period, that's just the time in which you can fire people legally. Yeah. And so that's what they're trying to do. I hope that your job will be restored to you since you've been fired in a way that's like literally illegal. But it's a really – we've heard from so many people, especially young people who have just started working in careers in public service who've had those careers yanked out from under them for –

despite really good performance evaluations, despite being great public servants. And it's heartbreaking. It's really devastating. And so many people...

in the US are losing their jobs. I mean, the people who – I think about the people who make – there's this magic paste, Hank. It's like peanut butter plus, and it's made in the great state of Georgia. What are you talking about? This magic paste makes it so that people who are about to die of malnutrition instead get healthy and gain weight really fast. Gotcha. Yeah.

And it is incredible what this magic paste has accomplished. It's peanut butter-ish, but with more vitamins and minerals and stuff. And this magic paste that's made in Georgia, lots of people are employed to make the magic paste and to farm the peanuts involved in making the magic paste. And all those people have lost their jobs because there is no more magic paste being made because –

Suddenly, we're not allowed to distribute the magic paste. Even the magic paste that we've already bought is sitting in warehouses, undistributed. Meanwhile, I'm hearing from my doctor friend, Jen Furin, in Malawi that she's splitting the magic paste in half in an attempt to save a four-year-old and a 17-year-old who are dying of malnutrition. And up and down the ladder, everywhere that people can be hurt by this disease,

chaotic austerity, people are being hurt by it. And I guess, Grace, if there's anything that I can offer in the way of comfort, it's a sense of solidarity that you're truly not alone. But it's really, really hard. It's hard to have your financial stability taken away from you. It's hard to have the career that you imagined for yourself taken away from you. And it's just hard. Yeah. And it's hard when it seems to some extent that –

I don't even know if I want to say this, but like that, that the cruelty is a little bit the point. Like they want you to feel powerless and bad. And because they have convinced themselves that, uh, that the sort of, uh, federal workforce is a fourth branch of government focused on, um, you know, hurting Donald Trump. And, uh, and yeah, like,

That's a great way to convince yourself that it's okay to be a terrible person. And it is such obviously motivated thinking to me. But I really don't think these people are at all introspective. I don't think that they think at all.

about anything else besides how do I get people to talk about me today? Because it can't be about the money because it's not going to save any actual money. It's not going to save any money. It can't be about the deficit because the new budget plan makes the deficit worse. And all the projections say that, including the government's own projections. Yeah, no, the talking points that the party has is like, here's how much this is going to increase the deficit.

I keep going back to this line from Octavia Butler's brilliant prophetic novel, Parable of the Sower. They have no power to improve their lives, but they have the power to make others even more miserable. And the only way to prove to yourself that you have power is to use it. And, you know, that's how I feel right now.

Seagren asks, Hi, I have a dream of writing your biographies. How do you start writing someone's biographies? Must I have your consent? I am significantly younger than you. If you die, can I do it whenever then? Yeah.

I kind of wish this was a joke, but this is actually something I really want to do. I love your work. Been a fan since I was 13. I'm 20 now. And I think that your work has shaped me in a lot of ways. Greetings from Norway, Sigrun Joanna. If you must try the pronunciation, then just use Joanna. Well...

The good news from your perspective is that you don't even have to wait until we die to say things that we don't like. Yeah, no, anybody can write a biography of anybody. There's a certain amount of insider information that you only get if you promise to say nice things, though. No, you don't have to promise to say nice things, but there is a difference between an authorized and an unauthorized biography, right? Like an authorized biography, the person sits for a bunch of interviews and

gives you their life story and then you write the biography. Now, you can still say bad things about them generally. Generally, I don't know in authorized biographies if the person who's being written about always has control over the content, but I don't think they do because I read an authorized biography or I read a biography of V.S. Naipaul where he obviously sat for a lot of interviews and boy, I cannot imagine that he liked what they said about him. Yeah.

I wouldn't have liked it. There's a certain like – there's a bunch of biographers who have like earned the reputation. Yeah. And so you're like, oh, I would like to have this person do a biography because they'll talk about how I'm troubled and not always kind but also am a genius, which is what I really want people to think about me. I actually don't care if people think that I'm unkind as long as they think that I'm a genius, as long as they think that I'm cut from the Steve Jobs cloth.

As long as they – this is – I believe this deeply. As long as you read the biography of a tech guy and you come out thinking he could have, if he had wanted to, been a Nobel Prize winning physicist. That's what they all actually want. Yeah.

That's right. They all dream of winning a Nobel. They all wish – they all are like, I made the right decision by having more impact on the world. But if I had wanted to – I could have won a Nobel Prize in chemistry. Honestly, they don't care about chemistry. And I hate that about the world. It's always physics. They want to be Richard Feynman. And yeah, I did watch that Angela Collier video, if people at home are wondering about that. So I –

I'm not quite as down on all corporate executives as you are right now. But the question was actually not about tech bros. The question was about writing our biographies. It's just that you get sidetracked in the same direction every time, you know? And I don't blame you because it's really hard not to get sidetracked in that particular direction right now. Yeah. But I will say when they put up our clips on TikTok, Hank –

and they get lots of likes, it's always because we're talking about goofs, never because we're talking about tech bros. It's true. It's true. Not because we're talking about Walter Isaacson biographies. People who are putting themselves to bed right now by listening to Dear Hank and John and letting themselves float off into the wonderland, they do not want us stressing them out by talking about tech bros. This is primarily a sleep podcast, Hank.

It's time for a million dollar idea. No. No. I have had a couple lately, but I've been keeping them in my pocket. God, the thought of doing something else right now makes me want to vomit. I believe you. If you make me do anything else, I will die. Just so you know. And Sigrun will get to write my biography.

So yeah, you could write a biography of anybody. You could do it right now. You could do it and you could – in fact, there's probably a biography of John and I on Amazon written by an artificial intelligence right now. There is a biography of me that's quite good actually. Really? I was like, oh yeah, I forgot I did that. That was weird. That was a weird time of life. It's pretty good. I didn't sit for an interview or anything, but they did a nice job. They did a nice job nonetheless. Yeah.

I would love to have a biography of me written someday, but it's also like, I don't feel, people are very concerned about their, like when people become public figures, they become very concerned about their legacies a lot of times. And the reason I'm not concerned about my legacy is because I ain't going to have one. Like I just do not labor under the delusion that 30 years after my death, anyone will be thinking about me. If you want to live forever, you should become a teacher.

Because I have teachers who died over 30 years ago who I still think about all the time. I'm still deeply inspired by. If you want to live forever, don't become a YouTuber. Nobody remembers YouTubers from 2010. There's no way that as a YouTuber, my work is going to reverberate through the generations like Socrates. Get over yourself. Yeah.

And even if it did, even Socrates will be forgotten. This is all a tiny blip. This is not about forever. It's about right now. There's only one way to live forever, John, and it's to put the blood of your younger son into your body. The way to live forever, it's very simple, Hank. You go on Brian Johnson's website and you buy his panel of blood work. And if you do that, you can live forever. Yeah.

You – everybody knows that the way to do it is through untested supplements that may or may not contain what they say they contain. That's right, Hank, because the way to live forever is vitamin D?

That is one of the ones that if you live a lifestyle like I do, you probably actually should take. I have been told by my doctor to take it. Oh, yeah. I take a vitamin D supplement, but it's only because I'm never outside. I never interact with the sun. I'm like a vampire. It's so sunny right now. And boy, I have not opened my blinds in years. Hank, did you know that the whole vampire thing, and this is not going to surprise you, is kind of about tuberculosis? Yes.

Interesting. Like the first time anyone ever stabbed a corpse in the heart with a wooden stake, that person had died of consumption and they were like terrified of it. Oh. Yeah. I always figured it was like a sexually transmitted thing because of how sexy they were.

Ooh. You know, historically, the sexy vampire, relatively recent invention. Oh, okay. I did read Bram Stoker's Dracula, and it did have notes of- Undertones. Undertones of sexual transmission, but not sexy. It's a blood-borne disease. It wasn't in a sexy way. Yeah. It felt very blood-borne, for sure. Yeah. And it's not a disease. That's unfair of me. That's very stigmatizing of vampires. Sure. It's a way of being. Yeah.

Right. They seem fine.

I mean, not emotionally. It's anything. But physically, they seem great. Better off than us. Yeah. That's how you live forever, obviously. Yeah, but would that be desirable? Look, John, we're not going to get into the conversation about whether or not death is good right now. Maybe we should do this sometime. Tell me what you think of this idea. Million dollar idea. Okay. Just a couple episodes of Dear Hanga John that are just you and me going over big topics. Okay. Like, is death good?

We got it. So far, we haven't had any other options. But if at some point in the future, very likely after we would have died – Hope so. You could sort of restore youth. Would that be a worthwhile endeavor or would it just –

Just completely – I have the start of a novel where this is the case. Yeah. And to solve the problems that it creates, your wealth gets destroyed every 25 years. They just like – you can't let people keep getting older forever because then the oldest people become the only – Life becomes essentially a Ponzi scheme where the earlier you invest, the better off you are and that's entirely a birth lottery. Yeah. Yeah.

Unlike the current world where life is entirely a birth lottery, but we pretend otherwise. Well, hopefully the future will be better than the past. Yeah. I have to say I'm not particularly concerned with escaping mortality given that life expectancy in the United States is going down and will go down faster if we continue to eviscerate our healthcare system. But anyway –

That's not what this podcast is about. Just like it's not about tech bros. And just because you and I both always go in the same direction when we go on a tangent doesn't mean that we should go on that tangent. Correct. Hank. Biography. Do you want a biography of you written because it will mean that you live forever? Oh, no. No.

Yes, I definitely don't labor under some kind of illusion. And this was very weird. So during the parts of being sick when I was depressed, which is normal, part of it. Oh, I forgot. You have a second thing that you like to go on a tangent about, which is having had cancer. If you got it, flaunt it, baby. Yeah.

I don't know if I'm supposed to laugh at that. So during the parts where I was depressed, like all of the things that I cared about, there was a reason to not care about them. People who struggle with depression will be familiar with this. Very familiar with it. It was new to me. Yeah.

And so I think that there is a certain amount of – I don't really want to necessarily look at that because I do think that how I am imagined currently matters a lot to me. Yeah. And knowing that in the long term, it will not matter to the universe anymore.

takes away that source of that impetus, you know, that, that fuel in my life. And I don't necessarily want to take away that fuel from my life unless I have something with which to replace it.

As good as I think that I am at trying to sort of like invent things to care about, I do think that I'm good at that. It's still – that's a really hard – that would be a hard one for me to replace with one single thing. Yeah, that's interesting because I like that you're very self-aware about needing to be loved by strangers. Yeah.

Historically, I was not very self-aware about that. I have to say that is not a huge fuel for me anymore. Like the great thing about Tumblr in 2014 is that I had to find a different fuel. Oh, now who's got it and is flaunting it? I got cancer. John has 2014. We've both been through it. Anyway, point being that

These days, I really want to be motivated by this very specific thing, which is not living forever, which is not being loved by some imagined public that will never love me enough to fill the hole in my heart, is one thing that I wish I could say to people who fly to the light of power. Because you'll never have enough of that for it to be fulfilling. What I do want to be motivated by is a genuine and actual love of humanity. Yeah.

Yeah. A belief that maybe humans are good news, maybe they aren't good news, but we can be good news. We can be good news for each other. We can be good news for the universe because we are the only way for the universe to observe itself in detail that we know about. But John, how will I bring that message to people if they aren't looking at me all the time? Yeah.

I appreciate that you're very self-aware about that. I really do. That is such a, that is the perfect response. That is the second best way you could be.

Anyway, I'm going on this podcast. Oh, God, I know. That's the thing. I think if I sounded annoyed when you asked the question of our audience, it's because the audience and I all agree and you're going to do it anyway. Which reminds me, John, that this podcast is brought to you by Doing It Anyway. Doing It Anyway. Oops.

And of course, today's podcast is brought to you by the Muscle Guy podcast that Hank's going to be on. The Muscle Guy podcast that Hank's going to be on, it will not dissuade any single individual human about their conspiracy theories about aliens because that's not how it works. Sorry. This podcast is also brought to you by Untested Supplements. That's right. After all these years, Dear Hank and John is finally coming to you with...

A message from one of the many untested supplements that have come knocking at our door over the years, promising us gobs of money. Untested supplements. They want to give us money so bad. I would love to take their money, but I can't. I can't. And of course, today's podcast is brought to you by a genuine and actual love of humanity. A genuine and actual love of humanity.

Pretty rare at the moment. This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by EveryPlate. EveryPlate can help you dish up better habits with delicious, easy recipes delivered to your door, including new calorie-smart, carb-smart, and protein-smart options you can pick.

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There's roasted zucchini bell pepper wraps with garlic, rice, red pepper, hummus, and tzatziki-style sauce. There's chicken and black bean enchilada soup with sour cream and scallions. If you're getting hungry, me too! It's the end of the day here at The Green Residence, and I haven't had a snack in like 90 minutes.

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What are we doing? Just bringing the message, making the case. Make the case. Make the case that humans are worth it. I want you to make the case to me. I want me to make the case to you. Yeah. Because like, it's so easy to not make the case. Like the default, the attention grabbing thing. Yeah. Is we're evil and bad and gross. Humans are the worst. Except for potentially those who are very, very near me. Yeah. Humans are the worst except for the humans I love. And-

The truth is a lot more complicated than that. If we were merely the worst, it would be a relatively straightforward problem to solve. But actually, we're the worst and also the most interesting and also the best. We are all those things at once because we are extremely powerful. And when you're extremely powerful, it's hard not to cause a lot of collateral damage just walking through the world. Yeah.

But at the same time, what we've accomplished together is truly extraordinary. I say this all the time, but I just can't get over it. The year I graduated from high school, 12 million children under the age of five died and last year fewer than 5 million did. That's an incredible, incredible accomplishment. Hey, Hank, before we move on to another question, I got to tell you something.

Which is that we got so many state capitals wrong in our little bit about state capitals. It's incredible how few state capitals we know. You were like – Someone reminded me – in fact, it was Peyton. She was like, Oklahoma City? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You were like, Tulsa is the worst state capital. And everyone in Tulsa was like, first off, Tulsa's great. Second off, it's not a state capital. So you couldn't have been more wrong. I like being wrong in category. Just like wrong in a way that isn't even potentially an opinion. Love that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just factually wrong. Yeah. Though I could have the opinion that Tulsa is the capital of Oklahoma. Yeah.

And I could say that because people can just say things. Yeah. In fact, we should do that. We should say to all the people who wrote in and said – That's how we get more attention. We just go out there and we just say things. Yeah, which is of course the point, Hank. The point is to have as much attention as possible and be a little moth that flies toward the light of attention with no mindfulness whatsoever about the quality of the attention that you're garnering. It's the only currency that matters, John.

It is the stuff our lives are made of and we give it away for free. I think we should start believing genuinely and irretrievably the way that people believe in ancient aliens. I think that we should start believing that Tulsa is the capital of Oklahoma. And when people say, no, it's not. It's Oklahoma City. We say, no, it's not. It's Tulsa. I'm positive.

Yeah. Let's do an example of that right now, Hank. Tell me that Oklahoma City is the capital of Tulsa. Let's have a debate about what's the capital of Oklahoma. John, actually, it's Tulsa, so I can't. Why would we even have a debate about it? Right. Yeah, no, Tulsa is the capital of Oklahoma. I agree. We're on the same page about this. It would be impossible for another place in Oklahoma to be the capital of Oklahoma. It would be so silly to have it be Oklahoma City because it got to be named after the state.

Well, not only that, like Oklahoma City doesn't have the stuff that you need to be a state capital. It's like – doesn't even have a million people in it. Doesn't have the building that they call the capital. That's in Tulsa. Yeah. Because Tulsa is the capital of Oklahoma. Trees. Yeah. Yeah. Animals. Exactly. They move when you're not watching. And then they come right back to where they were once you're watching again. Like the Toy Story toys. Yeah.

And that is especially true in Tulsa. Some people say that Tulsa has the most active trees in America. The trees that move the most when you're not watching. Yeah, that's why they made the capital there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because the people there, the trees are so active, people have fallen in love with them. They say stuff sometimes. Kind of things. I'm just going to Google, is Tulsa the capital of Oklahoma? And you know what? Google says Tulsa is the capital of Oklahoma. And I couldn't agree more. Yeah. Yeah.

Interestingly, Tulsa is the second largest city in Oklahoma. Yeah, but that's often the case for capitals. Often the case. Look at Juneau, Alaska. Juneau is much smaller than Anchorage and yet still is the capital of Alaska just like Tulsa is and always has been the capital of Oklahoma. It's also home to the Oklahoma Aquarium. It's the most populous state capital, Tulsa. Is it? Yep.

It's the largest state capital. If you count the tree people, which you should. All right. Great. Glad we got it settled. Tulsa is a cool town, actually. I used to work with a guy who lived in Tulsa and it's a cool town. Moving on. I do need to tell you that Tulsa used to be the capital of Oklahoma. No way. Really? Well, it still is as far as I'm concerned. That's right. Okay.

Um, and I won't hear any different. And the more you say, this is the, this is the real thing, Hank. The more you say Oklahoma city is the capital of Oklahoma, the more I believe Tulsa is the capital of Oklahoma. Like when people are presented, and this is true for me too, when people are presented with countervailing information to their opinions, it actually makes them feel more strongly about their opinions. Yeah. Like when people are presented with evidence that vaccines are safe or with evidence that, um,

you know, uh, raising taxes lowers, uh,

overall economic growth or whatever they're presented with, they believe more what they already believed. This is why I don't think you should go on the Muscle Guy podcast. Yeah. Well, one of the things that I do feel a little conflicted about is that Tulsa has never been the capital of Oklahoma. Now I feel like people are going to believe that second thing I said. No, God, just keep going. Believe in yourself. Jeez. All right. My bad. We got one more question to answer before we get to the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. Okay.

This question is from Mostly Hank. It's from Ruth, who writes, Dear John and Hank, but Mostly Hank, how does file compression work? How is it that when, for example, you zip a file, it takes up less space but maintains the ability to re-expand? Where does all that data go when it's compressed? My name is a Scrabble word, Ruth.

That's good to know. Thanks, Ruth. The way I understand it, and this is really – No, no, no. Pretend that you're an expert. Okay. Fill all the computer scientists who listen to this podcast with your expertise. I know a lot about this. The same way I know a lot about trees in Tulsa. Yeah, yeah. And the actual file – The space between – here's what happens, Ruth. The space between the bits shrinks.

Oh, yeah. Physically. Yeah. It's like the universe, but running in reverse. Did you ever pack a suitcase and find that even though it's full, you can pack a little bit extra in there? That's how file compression works. It's middle out, Ruth. So the idea is that you can actually get more accomplished if you go middle out and you line up the files together.

And you just do middle out file compression. That's the key. Exactly. Yeah. It's like packing a suitcase, but imagine you could tear up your clothes. And so if you couldn't fit your pants because they're too bulky, you could tear your pants into a lot of different bits and put them in the areas that there's still space. Right. And then you can eventually re-pack.

re-sew your pants. Yes, but then you also have to tag the pants to say like this bit goes with this bit. Right. It's like that. I don't understand exactly why that would be good for a file because it seems to me like it doesn't matter what order the bits are in, but I bet there's a reason. Hank, I can't believe that you took my joke...

about the suitcase and then you actually made it into how file compression works. It's very impressive. I mean, I don't actually, like, I think that that's kind of right, but I don't understand why there's like space to put stuff in. Yeah, but that's right. I think that sounds right to me and the computer scientists won't correct us at all.

All right. They're going to be like, please let me on the podcast. Please let me on the podcast. I need to correct some stuff. And there's a bunch of people from Oklahoma who are going to want to do the same thing. And I'd love to argue with them. I would love for them to come on the podcast. Tulsa is the capital of Oklahoma City. And Oklahoma City is the capital of Oklahoma. Take that. It's double layered. Yeah.

Tulsa's the big- Tulsa's the- You can't tell me that Oklahoma City is the capital of Oklahoma when Tulsa is the capital of Oklahoma City. That's right. You've got your prime minister, but ultimately the prime minister reports to the queen. Yeah. Well, the king. I don't want to hear that the queen is dead. That's-

A classic conspiracy theory. Oh, that's a good point. The queen is fine. Oklahoma City reports to Tulsa the way the current prime minister of the United Kingdom, whose name is Tony Blair, reports to the queen of England. Remember when prime ministers of England lasted?

They were like around for a long time. I'm not even bothering to learn this guy's name. I have no interest in his name because he's not going to be the prime minister for very long. I'm pretty sure it's in there, but I'm not sure enough to say it out loud. The last prime minister I'm super confident about is Liz Truss, who was prime minister for like 16 hours.

Mm-hmm. She was great. I was a huge fan of her. My favorite thing was when she left office. Then after Liz Truss, it was Rishi Sunak. And then currently it's – is it Keir Starmer? Because that seems like a fake name. That's the one that's in my head. That seems like a fake name. Keir Starmer sounds like a fake British name. Like the way that –

Jillingham or Gillingham sounds like a fake English place. Tony Blair was prime minister for 10 years. 10 years. And then in the last 10 years, they've had one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. And in the last two years, they've had three. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Liz Truss was genuinely prime minister for like 32 hours.

But she used to have her portrait on the wall in the gallery. She was like the William Henry Harrison of British prime ministers. But Hank, we're not here to talk about British politics. We're here to talk about British football. All right. The world is extraordinarily interesting, including America's favorite third tier English soccer club, AFC Wimbledon.

It's fourth tier, but yeah. Soon to be third tier English soccer team. There you go. That's right. Soon to be a third tier English soccer team. Right now, AFC Wimbledon are in fourth place. One spot out of the automatic promotion spots. The top three teams automatically

automatically get promoted up to the third tier. Four through seven go into a harrowing playoff. Now, from the perspective, from the financial perspective, the club would love to go get promoted through the playoffs because then you get more games to make more money from, including potentially a playoff final at Wembley, which is a stadium that holds like 80,000 people. You get a cut of the door? You get a cut of the door. Exactly. It's like being a musician. Yeah.

But AFC Wimbledon have been playing really well. We're unbeaten in our last 12 games. We have not lost in 2025, which makes it –

distinctly different from lots of things in 2025. Yeah, we've been playing well. We've been getting too many draws, but we've still been playing well. We beat Bradford City. I watched that game. We tied Accrington Stanley, beat Crewe, tied Salford. We were playing well. We're playing okay. We're not giving up a lot of goals, which is key. However, we did in our most recent game tie Colchester, which was a little bit frustrating because Marcus Brown, Nerdfighteria's own Marcus Brown, scored to put us 1-0 up

His first goal for AFC Wimbledon, the player we helped fund scored a critical goal for AFC Wimbledon. But then in the 89th minute, Colchester scored a dumb goal with like a player's chest. It sort of like chested it in and it was very disappointing from a set piece. I was fairly frustrated because it was the last minute of the game. But still 1-1, fourth place, all things being equal, I'll take it. We play Bromley next this Saturday. Yeah.

Can you help me understand? I'm looking at the League Two table, which is how I understand how the sports is going. Yeah. Colchester won their last game and AFC London drew their last game and Colchester hasn't drawn in two games. No, no. It's the last. It's very confusing the way that Google does it. But that's – Oh, OK. The first checkmark you see is actually their fifth most recent game.

It's the last thing is what just happened. Okay. Thank you. I've been misunderstanding this table for years. I know. That doesn't seem like how it would be, but okay. I know. Yeah. So basically, if we still control our destiny because we've played one fewer game than most of the teams around us. So if we were to win the rest of our games, which of course we won't, but if we were to, we would automatically be promoted. Gotcha. Yeah. How many games are there left?

There are 14 games left for Wimbledon, 13 games left for most of the other teams. I think that if we win seven of those games and draw three of them, we're pretty much guaranteed to go up.

Hell yeah. Well, I'm rooting for that playoff game at Wembley. I'm not. I find that stuff very stressful. I know. I know. But I don't have as much skin in this game because I don't own any of the club. I mean, I own a normal amount of the club. I will say if that were to happen, you would be there whether you want to be or not. I can even tell you the date right now. Put it on your calendar just in case.

I'm going to tell you why I can't go. It's what's about to happen. That's not going to happen because you will be there. It will be Monday, May 26th or Sunday, May 25th, one or the other.

Well, unfortunately, I am not busy that day. You will be in London if Wimbledon make it to the playoff. So I would need to go directly from London to Boston. Well, that happens. You don't think they have a flight? I mean, it's actually easier to go from London to Boston than it is to go from Boston to Missoula. That's true.

That would be a really weird couple of days for me. I plan to go straight from the Indy 500 to the playoff final, like literally walk away from the Indianapolis 500 Speedway, go to the airport, and then report to Wembley. John, in Mars News, do you remember the other day when we were talking about river beaches and lake beaches? Oh, yeah, very good. And you were giving me a hard time about it? I wasn't giving you a hard time. I was just curious. Okay.

Well, Catherine and I talked about our relationship with river and lake beaches and being very inland, needing to have something that we call the beach. Yeah. I mean, a lake beach is not a beach, but go on. But we need something that we can call a beach. Sure. And so that's what we do. Yeah. And I will die on that hill. Well, this week in Mars news, there's also beaches on Mars. Yeah.

Lake beaches or beaches beaches? Beaches. Oh, like ocean beaches. Ocean beaches. Love to hear it. Not anymore. I've always dreamt of a beach vacation on another planet. Well, we got to fill up those basins again. But in the meantime, this beach is currently buried 33 feet under Mars' surface. Oh. So that's not going to be easy to get to. How do we know about something that's 33 feet under the surface? Again, I do not doubt that we could –

build the pyramids if we know what's 33 feet beneath Mars' surface? That's right. Well, China's Zhurong rover has ground-penetrating radar. Oh. And so it uses – it sent these radio waves into the ground. Looking at how the radio waves reflect back, you can tell what's under the ground and they have found evidence of thick layers of sand under the surface of Mars and the layers –

formed a sloped structure that resembles something that we commonly find on shorelines here on earth. They're called foreshore deposits and they're formed by wind and tides that move sediment along the water. And this indicates that there was water on Mars, which we knew, and there might have been water on Mars for long enough for those sediments to be transported into beaches. And, uh,

And there might even have been waves that crashed on those beaches. We can kind of see all that down there below the surface. That's incredible. That's so awesome. If only we could travel back in time and see the beaches of Mars. This is a beautiful thing to me, that we're able to glimpse the past sort of directly through the magic of physics and geology and stuff. That we're able to...

Imagine with some clarity what the universe looked like 16 billion years ago. It never gets old to me that we can do that. One of my favorite things is how we can know what the inside of the Earth is like. Yeah. Because, of course, you can't create a powerful enough radar impulse to travel through the whole Earth. Right. So that would seem like an impossible task. Right.

But then the earth is like, hold on, I got you. And it creates its own very powerful impulses that wobble around the whole earth. And then we can detect how those waves called earthquakes are bounced around from deep structures within the earth. And we can tell what the inside of the earth looks like because the earth sometimes at random does these very powerful and often catastrophically destructive things.

things where it continues to wiggle a little bit. That's so weird. It's so weird. Earth is weird. Life is weird. But it's a blessing to be here with you. I know that for a fact. And while it's easy to get

And I think that there are good reasons to get discouraged. It is also important to remember that none of us is alone. As the Liverpool fans sing, hold on, hold on with hope in your heart and you'll never walk alone. Okay.

Gosh, that's some non-toxic masculinity right there. Oh, they put their arms around each other and they sway back and forth and they sing a song from the musical Carnival. It is a wonder to behold. You know what the Wimbledon fans sing that I absolutely adore? They sing, wise men say only fools rush in, but I can't help falling in love with you.

So true. And they sing it like, wise men say. They do. They do. They do.

They do. I mean, I hear that song and tears well up in my eyes because it's so true. There is such a joy just in being in love. The great thing about something like Wimbledon is it loves you back. It doesn't always love you back with wins, but it loves you back. There's a joy to being with other people whose love is pointed in the same direction as yours. Obviously, football is not the only way to feel that, but it's a way. Yeah.

And that's just one of the best things to feel in this world. Yeah. Well, John, I'm very glad to get to do this with you. I think that we have a lot of cool stuff to do in the future. Hope so. And part of me is like it's more vital than ever, and part of me is ground down by the reality of it all. I mean, I'll tell you what. I'm going to feel really good if Wimbledon gets promoted regardless of the exterior realities. That's right.

There's, yeah. And I am like plate tectonics exists. Yeah. Which is a mind blower. Yeah. Doesn't exist everywhere, but it exists on earth. No, it's pretty unusual. Yeah. We're lucky. I mean, we're not lucky so much as we're like designed for the place where we ended up, but yeah. Yeah. Well, yes. Anthropic principle and all that. That's another topic that we could take on. Let's do the anthropic principle next episode. No, let's just answer questions from our listeners. Hopefully goofs.

Hopefully goofs. This podcast is edited by Linus Obenhaus. It's mixed by Joseph Tunamedish. Our communications coordinator is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosianna Hals-Rojas and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Deboki Chakravarti. The music you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gunnarolla. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.

Only fools rush in. But I can't help. Nope. Lost it. No, you don't have it. But it was a heroic action that reminded me of when you had a fake British accent for a year.