442: They’ve Been Plants the Whole Time

You're listening to a Complexly podcast. Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Or as I prefer to think of it, Dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you to be his advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, I have a friend, I think he might be addicted to brake fluid. He says he can stop any time. That's not bad. Okay. I am so tired and I'm worried because as we're recording this, it's right before the Project for Awesome. I feel like something is sapping the energy from my body and it's probably just not sleeping enough. Yeah, I actually have a fever right now. Oh, no. You look amazing. Like your hair. What's going on there? Olympic fever. Oh, no. Olympic fever, Hank. I got a bad case. Okay. What's your favorite piece of drama? Mixed doubles curling, Hank. Oh, okay. One man, one woman, sometimes brother and sister, sometimes husband and wife, sometimes just buddies from the curling crew in Duluth, Minnesota. Like Corey and Corey, the Americans who stunned the world by getting the silver medal. Hey. Miracle on Ice, part two. You will never find me more patriotic than when it comes to the Olympics. Suddenly I've become just a massive, a massive fan of the United States of America. Here's, okay. I watched a little clip where someone's broom broke and they fell and they like kicked a stone. What happens when that happens? And if you kick a stone, they have the right to place it. Oh, they can put it wherever they want? Well, no, they have to put it about where they think it would have been. Oh, wow. Is there no other penalty besides that? the one time i saw it happen to cory and cory there was no other penalty wow i would have thought that that would have been a big deal i bet they send you home you go straight onto the plane you touch my understanding is that curling is largely a sport defined by its sportsmanship you know one of those yeah for now until it gets right until it gets really high status and then And then they're flopping on the ground, pretending to be injured, all that stuff. That never happens in football. If that only happened in high-status football, explain why it happens at AFC Wimbledon all the time. The culture has been defined by the high-status football. Maybe. Yeah. Maybe. I think it was always thus. I don't know. It's interesting. I guess penalties aren't the same in most sports where they're very consequential. Yeah, a penalty is a big, big deal in football. So that's probably why they flop. And penalties are going to be big deals in curling when we introduce my new rules. If you touch one of those, whatever touched it, we take. You shall be separated from your foot. sir. That's ours now. Now you have to, you have to, and that becomes your curling stone. You have to throw your foot down the thing. Oh, wow. Well, I'm sorry you're tired, Hank, but you still have all the same creativity that I've come to know and love over the years. So it's good. I'm excited for the Project for Awesome, although it will probably be over by the time this podcast actually airs. Yes, very much so. So I hope you had a good P4A and I'm sorry that you can't donate anymore, but you can always donate to complexly which is now a non-profit complexly.org it's dot org that's right that's right do you want to talk about that at all do we want to get into it oh yeah let's get into it for a minute yeah i i just i've done like a bunch of interviews and i feel like i'm doing a bad a bad job because we had it we we hired a pr firm and they were like you got to stick to the message and i'm like you got the wrong guy you definitely have the wrong guy for sticking to the message. They like booked me on this podcast and the guy started the podcast and then he like immediately started asking me questions about the topic of the podcast. And I was like, when do I say my thing? And he did not bring it up at all. I had to like say it at the end. Wow. Well, let's say it at the beginning here. We have decided to transition complexly from being owned by Hank and John Green, or as I prefer to think of it, John and Hank Green, to being owned by the public as a nonprofit organization. Yeah, it's interesting how the ownership actually works. I was like, who actually owns a nonprofit? And it just kind of owns itself. Yeah, it's owned by the people who care about it, which is appropriate for Complexly. We decided that we've experienced the incentives of the platforms as a business for long enough. And we'd like to experience the incentives of a nonprofit. this space. And I think that like so far it's been, it's, I think very, it's felt like the right decision the whole time. Yeah, it definitely feels like the right decision. I mean, only you and I know how much money we left on the table, but even so, even so amongst ourselves, it feels like the right decision because, you know, ultimately, Complexly, which makes Crash Course and SciShow and lots of other educational media, it's not right for it to be owned by a private corporation or even private individuals. And so the succession plan had to be some version of it being owned by the people who benefit from it and care about it. And really the built-in way to do that is to become a nonprofit. Yeah. And there were lots of things pushing us in that direction, including all of the support that we have gotten from people over the years who've been giving money to a for-profit organization, trusting that we're not going to put it into our pockets, which we did not do. And I am so grateful to all of those people for getting Crash Course coins, getting special postcards. Supporting the Dear Hank and John Patreon, which has always gone to Complexly. And we'll continue, we should say, we'll continue to support Complexly at the Dear Hank and John Patreon. Yeah, for the foreseeable future. That may change at some point, but if it does, we'll communicate. Well, I think that if we do, there will be a new Patreon that we will start from scratch for Dear Hank and John or something like that. Yeah, we'll figure it out. I'm not that worried about it. And I don't think the people who listen to this podcast are that worried about it either. But yeah, we're really excited that it's... Thank you for trusting us. And we hope that we have... We work really, really hard to try to repay that trust and not abuse it because it's an easy thing to abuse and it's easy to make decisions that are about making money. And sometimes we make those decisions to be clear, but this time it just felt like we couldn't. So this was the choice we did. Well, yeah, I want the thing to be pushing us to, because like one of the things was all of the sort of business things that we should have been doing would have potentially decreased our impact pretty substantially. It was like, how do you charge for things? How do you make it so that it's harder to access them? And I was like, that's not what we want to do. And we kept sort of running up against those opportunities and not making those decisions in a way that almost indicated that maybe we were more mission-driven than revenue-driven. And that mission is constrained in a way that is pretty non-profit-y. We want to be a content company. We want to make stuff for people. yeah and now we get to make stuff for people while also enjoying not owning the business which for me is a big win like yeah owning the business was stressful that too i mean i we it will continue to be stressful because we will continue to care about it but that's what stress is john it's care stress is care manifest but there can be too much of it and i had too much Oh, for sure. Yeah. And now I have a little less. Can we answer some questions from our listeners beginning with this one from Faye? Yes, we can. Dear John and Hank, do you ever wonder if a question you answer on the pod might be from a famous person? Like maybe one of the many Taylors you read questions from was in fact Taylor Allison Swift. Or maybe she used her middle name to be more anonymous. Or maybe even something completely unrelated to her just in case people are too perceptive. I like using a pseudonym on the internet for privacy and I'm not even famous. So I imagine celebrities must use them all the time. Oh, Faye, I think you radically underestimate the extent to which celebrities are narcissistic. But anyway, and yes. But most of the synonymous celebrity posting is in the replies to the celebrities' posts. Actually, I think he has a good point. Somebody tagged me on Reddit in a post that just said, I hate John Green. It was in response to, it was like, who's a celebrity who everybody likes who you hate? and it was I hate John Green question yeah yeah exactly and I wanted to reply you think you hate him but I didn't I stopped myself anyway let's get back to this question from Faye aka Taylor Swift yeah ah maybe faye like faylor swift like maybe she changes her name to a totally different name to be more anonymous something completely or maybe very slightly related like faye for example taylor we see you we see you we appreciate you we know you're a fan well i mean she is weirdly but yeah i don't know wait is she a fan of you yeah of your books out of yeah out of well i assume that every all of the 30 million people who read the fault in our stars also went on to listen to our hit podcast for teens and sleep dear hank and john i forget i forget remember the time when i introduced a new segment we had to stop because we're a sleep podcast yeah yeah we're too much of a sleep podcast and people in the middle of things like i like uh because i wanted to be more like the mcgillard brothers i'd i'd say it's time for a million dollar idea don't do it don't do it hank you're ruining the sleep podcast they just started they're fine okay and then i'd pitch you on a million dollar idea yeah i remember the whole bit 999 998 997 just keep counting all right we're gonna get through this question from fey if it's the last thing i do and it might be yeah fey writes maybe the last question you read was from a famous person and you'll never know maybe this question is fey yeah do we still sign off with pumpkins and penguins or is that to 2016 fey we still sign off with pumpkins and penguins i know a lot of celebrities listen to this podcast i know it for a fact. All right. How do you know that for a fact? Because sometimes I'll meet a celebrity and they'll say like, I like your podcast. And I'll be like, I can't believe you listen to my podcast. That's so weird. I mean, we're not talking about necessarily huge celebrities. Mike Birbiglia, for instance, listens to the podcast. Sure. Oh my goodness. And I love Mike Birbiglia. And I think he's a proper- He's got a good podcast. I love his podcast. I know. His podcast is way better than ours. It's called Working It Out. You should listen to that. It's a great sleep podcast. Oh my God. You'll laugh and you'll sleep. You'll laugh in your sleep. That's, I mean, that's an adorable visual. I feel like I've never laughed in my sleep. Cutest possible thing a person could do. I talk in my sleep, but the voice that I use is this really scared child voice. And Sarah is always like, you're talking in your sleep and it's really weird and freaking me out. Yikes. Yeah. It's the only voice I can use. And sometimes I be in my dream and I be like oh no I got to speak And I going to have to use that fragile child voice Weird You so messed up I am messed up. It's true. I'm not going to deny it. You know the other thing that's weird about me that I've never confessed on this podcast? Why do you look so good right now, by the way? Why did you look sharp today? That's how they styled it? I got a haircut at 11 a.m. and it's 1.23 p.m. So I haven't had time to mess it up yet. Okay. It looks great. The other thing about my sleep that I've never confessed to anyone in my life, but will now confess on this podcast, is you know how you wake up in the morning with a song in your head for some reason? Uh-huh. Almost every morning I wake up with the same song in my head. I feel like you have confessed this before on this podcast. God. That's so, I mean, we've made so many episodes. I feel like it's from the 70s. It is. or the 80s maybe. It's a female singer. It is a female singer. I'll even give you a hint. It's Bette Midler. Oh. I thought it was Wind Beneath My Wings. It is Wind Beneath My Wings. Oh, that's Bette Midler. I don't know. In Beaches? Oh, Beaches. It's from Beaches. Right. I haven't heard the song. I assume that's a movie or an album. It's a movie. It's a really sad movie. People say it's the fault in our stars of the 80s. Okay. I guess that is the 80s. You know what's funny? I don't really like movies like that. I also, I will wake up with, I have a couple of anchor songs and it doesn't bother me and it seems like it would. No, it doesn't bother me at all. I love, you are the wind beneath my wings. The wind beneath my wings. That's what I always, that's what I always sing to myself. If anybody could cut that and mix it into a John Green version of the song, that'd be great. an EDM song. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I mean, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Sorry, we're a sleep podcast. I don't, I, so, so do you think Mike Rubigley has ever sent us a, I bet it's happened. Look, I bet it's happened. I don't think that they, you think celebrities would say, hey, it's celebrity. Totally. Because then they're more likely to get their question answered. Yes. I think they would 100% be like, hey, it's me, Tim Apple. Man, if I had Tim Apple's email address, what do you think I'd do with it? Nothing. Same thing I do with Elon Musk's text message address. Aye, aye, aye. Well, hopefully those guys are on different lists. Let's hope so. It does seem to be a list that a lot of them are on, but moving on. I think we've answered Faye's question. Not well, but we've answered it. Yeah, we're kind of a mess right now. We'll lock in. Yeah. All right. This next question, John, it comes from Ruth, who asks, Dear Hank and John, rocks and gases come in every color imaginable. Why are metals always silver slash gray? I guess iron turns red when it oxidizes, but in their base form, I feel like metals are all pretty much the same color. The opposite of ruthless, I'm full of Ruth. Oh, man. I make that joke in my new book. Wow. And I don't want people to think that I stole this idea from Ruth. So you have to say it right now. I had the idea separate from Ruth. So I feel like I have to say it right now, establish that the date is February 11th, 2026, and this has been in my manuscript for at least five years. Okay. Good. You don't want to joke thief in the house. No. I asked this question, John. I chose this question from you, Ruth, to discuss on the podcast, specifically because I and Taboki have worked hard to try and understand this and we have failed. And I think that sometimes we should just say that. You know, there's all kinds of like, there's things you can say and you'll be like, oh, that sounds like an explanation, but you won't get it. Like to actually, like I have not gotten myself to get it. And if I can't get it, then I feel like I can't help other people get it. I will say there are some metals that are not silver. famously there's one that is gold and copper is a good another example there's one that's gold thanks yeah yeah it's a good joke um and and then there are there are alloys that are different colors but they are all like shiny there's like a there's a thing that they all have in common and that's for real and uh and oxidize like oxidation doesn't count that's a totally different compound the yeah but and and there's a reason and there are people who get it but it's a it's a light thing and it's an electrons thing and it's an orbitals thing and it's like deep in there and i struggle you struggle with light i don't like light somebody asked me recently they said like hank why why when a rock gets wet does it get darker and i was like i'm gonna figure this one out no problem two hours later two hours later i like i get it better but this is the thing one of the reasons there's more than one reason so there's multiple effects occurring at the same time but one of them one of the the reasons has to do with the fact that when light hits a rock it goes in a little bit it doesn't just reflect back it partly goes in that seems wrong that's not what that's not that's not how i understand rocks to be but actually there is a there is a depth that the light penetrates that is not zero does the light penetrate me yeah for sure actually much more than it would penetrate a rock that's very good metaphorically held up uh like a light like a strong flashlight to your hand you know oh yeah that's true that's very that's a very good that's that's a reasonably good metaphor um it's like that the light can get in like in fact the light always gets in. The light always gets in if there is any. If there is any. I have an artwork in my house by the great artist Carl Pope who makes posters for mottos that it's sort of like our sponsors on the podcast. Yeah. You know, like posters for mottos that are underappreciated or that no one else would ever like, you know, put a, put a, put on a poster necessarily. And one of them says, nobody made the darkness. And I just love that. I love it. That's good. It's so true. It's so deep and it's so true. That's good. All right. So we don't know the answer to why metals tend to be shiny and silver. We as humanity do, but we as Hank and John do not. We as John sure don't. All right. Let's answer another question, Hank. This one from Heather, who writes, Dear John and Hank, I just started listening to your podcast after a Reddit recommendation and have been enjoying it a lot. As a fellow worried person, my mind likes to spiral on big and little things. And recently, my best friend had a baby and I went to meet him. He's cute and small and I adore him. But my most surprising thing is that when I held him, the worry went away and all I could think about was how silly it was to be a worried person when the only thing that mattered in the world was this little baby. I don't have children yet and was wondering if this is a universal experience and also why holding a baby would silence the worry. Thanks. You can call me any flower if you want to. Heather. Well, we went with Heather, which is one of them. Peony. Sorry, it took me a second. I didn't get the joke. I'm going with peony. Peony, here's the thing. When I first held my child, the worry did not go away. So I'm very glad you had this experience, but I can say with absolute certainty that it's not universal. Yeah. Tulip, I agree. Though there is like a thing that I had. I remember being like, oh, I'm not worried that I'm doing the wrong thing right now. You know that? Yeah. Right. I remember wanting to. Finally, I'm like, this is exactly the right thing I should be doing right now, which is a like is a valuable feeling and not one that I was expecting to get. So in the same way as you, Lilac, I had this moment where I felt like something pretty different. Every time I would hold my kids when they were very, very little, I would think about this thing I'd been told once that probably isn't even true, that they can feel your anxiety. Oh, boy. And I would be like, don't feel it. That makes you very anxious. Exactly. I would be like, don't communicate anxiety to them. But you are worried. It's like when I finished cancer treatment and my doctor was like, one of the things you're going to want to do is avoid any excess stress. And I was like, don't say that. That's very stressful. I don't know how to avoid stress, Doc. That's not one of my expertises. Now every time I feel stressed, I'm going to have the compounding stress of knowing that I'm risking my risk for cancer. Yeah. I don't have that anymore, though now that I've said this, I might have it a little bit. But I had it really strong for the first year and a half. Yeah. I will agree with you, Hank, that when you're holding a baby, you feel like you're doing the thing that you're supposed to be doing. And that is clarifying in some ways, right? Like even if it's not necessarily solving the anxiety, it clarifies one facet of anxiety, which is like, what the hell am I supposed to be doing all the time? Yeah. It helps with that. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's good, man. Holding a baby, underrated. Sarah is always like, hey, don't ask to hold that baby. You don't know that baby and you don't even know that parent. And I'm always like, God, I don't want to ask to hold the baby so bad. It's been a long time since I held a baby, to be honest with you. It's nice. Yeah, you got to get more younger friends. I know. I got to get friends in their 20s. But they're so energetic. It's true. No. You know? I mean, God, I cannot believe the nonsense that we used to get up to. We had so much time. We had so much time and so much energy. So much energy. I remember I used to run down the halls of a hotel just to feel myself running down the halls of a hotel. That's definitely a good childhood activity. But I did it when I was like 30. Oh, wow. Cute. I know. Which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by running down the halls of a hotel. Running down the halls of a hotel just because you can. Do it now because when you're 48, it's not going to be there. This podcast is also brought to you by the goldest medal. The goldest medal. It's gold. And also probably won by Canada in the couple's curling. No, it was actually won by Sweden. Very exciting final game. I was very proud of Corey and Corey for how they behaved and just held themselves. Look, being an Olympic medalist is an incredible achievement, whether that medal is gold or silver or bronze, which it occurs to me are three different colors. It's true. Bronze, though, is not an element. Oh, that's right. Bronze comes from smelting of some kind, right? That's why we have the Bronze Age. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The kind of fact-checking that I don't appreciate, for the record. Which reminds me that today's podcast is also brought to you by Hank's Fact-Checking. Hank's Fact-Checking. I've had about enough of it. This podcast is also brought to you by Failor Swift. Failor Swift. We know you're watching. We know you're listening. We know you're a fan. and also Bette Midler, who's also listening and is the wind beneath John's wings. Huge fan of the pod. Hear from Bette all the time. Yeah. Is Bette with us? I believe so. Let's double check real quick just to make sure we didn't hurt anybody's feelings. She's here. She's at it. How's she doing? She's in Honolulu, Hawaii. And she's 80. She's 80. That's a good run. Ooh, she's been married to the same person since 1984. Yvonne Hasselberg, no less. That, of course. I don want to say that it seems like from Wikipedia that Bette Midler has it figured out but it does seem like she has it figured out I mean she got a six career She 80 years old She been married to the same person since 1984 She has a Grammy. She's 5'1". I mean, that's a pretty good life. It's always good to be 5'1". Yeah. Martin von Hasselberg. I clicked on that, and it opened the Wikipedia page for The Kipper Kids. Oh. A duo. of which Martin Roches Sebastian von Hasselberg is one of. They're known for their extreme, often comedic performance art. Oh, they're comedic performance artists. I enjoy a comedic performance artist. One time I was at a performance art event with Sarah, and the artist was handing out candy that tasted intentionally bad. Oh, yes. He'd candied disgusting things. Sure. and um he was like eat it and i was like i don't i don't i don't want to and he's like it's part of the performance and i was like all right because i don't want to be a bother you know like i'll do anything to not be a bother and so it was crap it was crab crab flavored it wasn't great yeah yeah that's it that's the story it's not my best that sounds gross i wish i oh we have to end the sponsors though so the real sponsorship can play good show this episode of dear hang of john is brought to you by Lisa. Are you excited that you may soon be living the classic adult dream of getting a mattress delivered and feeling like your whole life is suddenly put together? Or maybe you got a guest bedroom mattress that's really kind of embarrassing. Well, Lisa has a lineup of beautifully crafted mattresses tailored to how you sleep. Each mattress is designed with specific sleep positions and feel preferences in mind. 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This next question comes from Audrey. It's been a loose one. It's been a loose one. You know, sometimes you get a tight 45 and sometimes you get a real loosey-goosey sleep podcast and you never know which one you're going to get. Dear John and Hank, I'm coming up on one year post-grad with my bachelor's in environmental studies. I do not currently have any interest or funds for more school. How do you decide what route to pursue? I deeply believe that it is never too late to shift track. So that's not necessarily where this trepidation is coming from. Nothing is permanent in a good way. But I am struggling to envision myself in any career right now. I recently interviewed for what I thought was my dream job. And not only did I not get it, but more importantly, I left the interview process not really wanting it. I don't know if it's the constant uncertainty in the political sphere or what, but I don't know what to do or how to decide. Might be joining the Peace Corps. Audrey, Audrey, join the Peace Corps. Yeah, that actually, I think you figured it out. I don't know. That's an option. That's what my best friend did. And then he came home and started a business based on his experience in the Peace Corps and did that for the next 30 years. And it was great. Yeah, I mean, it's 2026. Don't think that you're making a choice that's going to be the choice that you are stuck in for the rest of your life. Well, I don't think Audrey thinks that. Because it's going to change. I don't think Audrey thinks that at all. But I think it is hard to decide. I remember like when I was Audrey's age, I have this vivid memory of applying for like 20 jobs in one day. And it was like as a paralegal, as a religion teacher at a Catholic school, as a publishing assistant at a magazine, at a bowling journal. I had no idea what I wanted to do and no idea how to figure out what I wanted to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's so much like who – there's the instability of the world right now and of the job market and of like education and of everything. And then there's like – but there's also like the lack of knowledge of who you are and what you enjoy. Right. You know? And so you're going to have to try a lot of things to figure that out. But try them for sure. And literally, I think that the Peace Corps is a baller option. I think it is a winning move that a lot more people should consider. I don't disagree at all. I think that the other thing you can do, Audrey, is go through interview processes like the one you went through where you realized that my dream job is not my dream job or this is not my field. I thought I wanted to work in the nonprofit sphere, and it turns out that it moves too slowly, whatever it is. I think that's a really good thing to do. It's a cheap way to learn lessons, so I'd encourage that as well. Congratulations on being out in it. It's hard and messy out here. This next question comes from Matt, who asks, dear Hank and John, I work in pest control. I love this. This is such a cool question. I work in pest control and was told by my employer that moles have the ability to convert CO2 to oxygen due to their hemoglobin. Is that really possible? How can a mammal not be affected by pure CO2? Not gloss. Matt. I love it when I don't get it until I say it. Yes, I do too. Oh, man. That's happened twice today. Yes, Matt. This is not a thing, but there is a thing. So I love this. This is often the case where you hear a thing and it's like, that can't be right. And it isn't. But there's a thing underneath it. And moles kick ass and are very weird. They do a couple of things. And one of them involves their hemoglobin. But they do not convert carbon dioxide to oxygen. If they did, they would be plants. And that would be really weird. That would be awesome. I mean, just stop real quick and imagine with me a mole that is also a plant. Yeah, it just turned out one day we were like, holy moly. It turns out that those mole things, they've been plants the whole time. They're trees. They're little trees that move. That's why they're underground. Exactly. They're like roots, kind of. They're trees. They're like potatoes. They're like potatoes. They're like potatoes. They're like moving potatoes, movable potatoes. Turns out the whole time they were potatoes. So no, they cannot do that. There's a bunch of chemistry reasons why that's not possible. But the thing that they do do with their hemoglobin is that their hemoglobin is extremely good. It's better than ours at binding to oxygen. So even in very low oxygen environments, they can pull that oxygen out of the air and it can be theirs. And so it binds really well to oxygen. But there is another effect with CO2 that also matters. So you think that the reason that carbon dioxide kills you is because you're asphyxiating. And that's usually true. So usually when there's a bunch of carbon dioxide you're breathing in, it's because there's no oxygen. But that isn't actually the only way that CO2 can kill you. CO2 on its own, even if there's plenty of oxygen in the atmosphere, can kill you. If there's a high enough concentration of CO2, it can compete for space in your hemoglobin. So that's one thing I can do. But more importantly, it raises the acidity of your blood and that kills you. It just like your blood gets too acidic and you die. So you have to not be in a situation where there's too much CO2 in the atmosphere. Moles are in that situation all the time. So what do they do? They store the CO2 in their bodies. So they have a special molecule. Like trees. No, trees do chemistry with CO2 and turn the CO2 into carbohydrates that they then store in their bodies. Moles don't do any chemistry to the CO2. They just grab it and hold on to it. And then later when they're in a situation where they can exhale it, they exhale it. So they have a system for storing CO2. It's basically just like a molecule in their blood that's really good at binding up CO2 so that the CO2 isn't in solution and isn't acidifying their blood. So they can indeed survive in high CO2 environments and low oxygen environments, but it isn't because they can convert the CO2 to oxygen. Have we thought about using mole blood as a carbon capture strategy? You know, the things that we got right now are better. Certainly the ones that are plants. Oh, right. That's true. There is another form of life that captures carbon pretty effectively and turns it into wood. Yeah, which unfortunately can't, not even that will do it. Right. People will often say like, here's what we need to do. And the stat that is so upsetting but true is that if you burned every plant that exists on earth right now, so if you took all of the stored carbon that is in every living plant right now and you burned it, that would emit less CO2 than we have emitted from burning fossil fuels. and I think like less than half of the CO2 that we have emitted from burning fossil fuels. So, yeah. Yikes. If we're going to use plants, it's going to be part of a broader strategy, and then we will have to prevent the plants from decaying, which is not particularly easy, because when that happens, it re-releases the CO2. All right, let's stay on bummers, Hank. Let's answer this question from Jeff, who writes, Dear John and Hank, I've got a bummer question for you guys. So in the last five years, my wife's mother and grandfather both passed away. Our two dogs both died, and I lost both of my parents to cancer. Do you have any dubious advice for how to deal with grief piling on grief? P.S. Listening to your podcast helps. Thank you for the respite. Pumpkins and penguins, Jeff. Jeff, I feel like you've ruined it. How? Well, now your respite podcast has your grief in it. Oh, that's true. That's a really good point. I'm sorry. Yeah. We are sorry to pile grief upon grief. now upon grief. I'll say two things about this. First, Cheryl Strayed once said that when you're in a period of intense grief, it's like you are living on planet, my parents just died, and everyone else is living on planet Earth. And the disconnect there is so profound that it's just hard to navigate. And people make it even more awkward by asking you how you're doing or whatever. And you're like, well, not great. I mean, both my parents just died. So that was a that in a casual conversation. And so, you know, all kinds of reasons why it's disorienting, but it's also distancing. Like it distances you from the rest of the social order and the rest of, and all the people on it. Yeah. Yeah. It puts you into this other world. That's so, that's such a good, I hadn't experienced that really, uh, like that true alienation where like someone asks you, how are you doing? there's literally not a way you can answer. And like, it almost is a crushing question until I, until I got diagnosed with lymphoma. And then I was like, I was like, I cannot believe that these people are just in the grocery store and like just shopping and just living. Like nothing happened when like I have cancer. The other thing that I would say, Jeff, about this is that what you are going through feels like, I'm sure it feels very isolating for you and your spouse that, you know, because it's been so intense and so profound and the loss has been so multitudinous, but it's not right. Like most of us will, will bury our parents. Most of us will, will have a lot of loss in our lives and it doesn't make you distant from humanity. It makes you an intimate part of humanity is what I would say. I know that it often doesn't feel that way, But that because we don do a good job talking about loss and death and grief and we tend to brush it aside or try to minimize it or you know place it under the rug or whatever Do you think that we used to be better at this and got worse at it Absolutely We were so much better at it because death wasn't a foreign, distant thing. It was a natural, normal part of life. And the medicalization of death in many ways has been good, of course. but it also means I think that it's something that we're more distant from like a lot of us have never seen anyone die sure yeah yeah yeah or very few people you know only those who are closest to us or whatever I I mean obviously great like death and grief were always you know world shakingly uh like like it's it's almost like the world wasn't supposed to be shaped the way that it is now it was supposed to be shaped a certain it's it's like it's like an earthquake where suddenly the ground is moving and you're like that's not what ground does you know like what mom does is she exists and now mom doesn't exist and and that like that you know and you know the ultimate difficult to imagine existence is non-existence is like like i someday will not be here and yeah and you know it's i i we build technologies to deal with that and i think that sometimes those technologies are so powerful but we've i you know i am so focused on truth that i have a hard time um incorporating them the these systems for helping us deal with the trauma of reality you know that like yeah yeah it's more of a john thing than a hank thing for sure yeah I don't know. I feel like there's always an urge to want to go back to the world as it was before. I think Kurt Vonnegut said once that home is Indianapolis and I'm nine years old and my mother is alive and I can't get back there. Right. And there's always that feeling, especially after, you know, in the months and years after intense loss, there's always that feeling of I can't ever go back there. I can't get back to where I was before. And it's true, you can't go back, but you can go forward and you will. And that has to be the hope that you will go forward with the knowledge that not only is death possible, but it's inevitable. And you'll still find a way to forge hopefulness and a good life amid that knowledge. Yeah. And I assume that time is the thing that does the most good in this situation. like there's yeah but i also think processing it with friends talking to people like being open all that stuff helps too yeah thanks for your question jeff thank you our last question before we get to the all-important news from mars and afc wimbledon comes from chloe who writes dear john and hank a few weeks ago my roommates and i bought a sweet potato my apartment's kitchen is pretty dark and after a while of abandoning our sweet potato it began to grow upwards you know the way that potatoes do my question is this how does my potato know which way is up it grows upwards in the ground. So it must have the same reason to grow up in the kitchen. Right. But like, how does it know what up is trying to not be grossed out by potato growths? Chloe, how does it know what up is Hank? Your potato can sense things. And this is, yeah, like it's, this is, we actually, I think we have a side show about this that has been recorded, but it's not out yet, but there are ways that plants sense up and down and they are complicated and they are awesome and they can and it took us a while to figure out like it took us a while to figure out that it was a thing there was like there's like botanists putting plants and centrifuges and just like seeing if they grew toward the middle of the centrifuge or if there was a magnetic field thing like they didn't know what was going on but it's they are actually able to sense gravity and they know which way is down which is wild because they're plants but you know like they needed to be able to famously potatoes just like your potatoes are just potatoes full of blood that's so horrifying image it's like a horror movie like you're having a potato fight with your brother and they start exploding with blood and you're gonna have that dream tonight and you're gonna be talking in your baby voice I am gonna be talking in my little baby my little innocent, oh no, I'm so scared right now. It's like I can barely squeak out the words. What's the potato blood? And it's always when I'm terrified. Like I only speak in my dreams when like it's the last possible thing where I'm like, all right, I guess I've got to beg for my life now. Yeah. Well, Chloe, your question has been had for many years and we have gotten mostly to the bottom of it. And I hope the episode of Sideshow is out because it's complicated enough that I can't remember all the details. All right. Well, there you go, Chloe. At least an introduction. And then SciShow has your back if you need a further, deeper answer. Hank, it's time for the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. I'll go first. AFC Wimbledon had not won a game at home since September 27th until they just did. Hey! We won 3-2, all three goals scored by Nerdfighteria's own Marcus Brown. All three? Yes, the person I helped bring, you helped bring, all of us together helped bring to AFC Wimbledon. Marcus Brown scored three goals to win a football game, 3-2. And then we also beat Port Vale away from home 1-0, which means that suddenly we are only four, arguably five, hopefully four wins away from being able to stay up. And we have 18 games in which to get those four or possibly five wins. Now, I know what you're thinking. That doesn't sound like a tall task. But remember, we just lost 12 in a row. So it's not easy. You got to keep doing the winning. Did you also... You just won one game so far to break your streak of losses. We won one home game. But we also won an away game. So we have two wins on the bounce, as they say. Nice. Yes, I'm very excited. I really like this version of AFC Wimbledon. And I want them to succeed. Like, I like our manager and I like our players and I like our general manager a ton. And I think, like, they've got a great team around the team. And then also the team is full of really charismatic, wonderful young men. And I just, I want them to succeed so much. And it has been brutal to watch every home game since September knowing that a win is unlikely. So to break that streak was a huge moment for Plow Lane. And hopefully from here, we can move on. And you know my dream, Hank? My dream is that we play like two or three games this season where we're not at risk of being relegated. That's my dream. Just two or three relaxing games where it does not matter what happens. That sounds awesome. And you'll get there, buddy. What's the news from Mars? Oh my God. I'm going to do it, John. The news from Mars is that last year, Elon Musk tweeted, and let me find the quote for you. We are going straight to Mars. The moon is a distraction. Mass to orbit is the key metric. They're after mass to Mars surface. The former needs to be in megaton orbit per year range to build a self-sustaining colony on Mars. And then this year, which is a mere year later, He has, in fact, for those unaware, SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the moon as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20 plus years. Wow. Elon changing his tune. What's next? Doesn't sound like humans are going to get to Mars by 2027, Hank. I'm not a scientist, but I think your last best shot just went out the window. I knew. I got to believe that I knew that I was making a bet that I would lose, right? You didn't. I knew that. You didn't. I knew that, right? You didn't. Back then, you sort of believed in the Elon Musk timeline, which was a huge error on your part on a few levels. Especially on the level where I made it a thing we would have to talk about a bunch. just so i could keep experiencing the shame and regret oh man we are not going to the moon next year i'm almost positive much less mars oh i'm sorry we're not going to mars next year we're also not going to the moon next year we're gonna we're gonna fly around it hopefully in march maybe that is the other the other news is that uh the artemis had a had a a test filling and there was a leak in the space launch system yeah so they've they've pushed back the launch to at least march well i for the for the flyby of the moon i'm sorry that we're not going to the moon or mars i really am i genuinely am i wish i i want to live to see us go to mars i am so frustrated I have to tell you, by the way the news media and just everyone respond to these Elon Musk statements, because they're no more based in reality than they've ever been. And it's so frustrating to me to see this argument that we have to become a multi-planetary civilization in order to survive, be treated with any seriousness whatsoever. It is so overwhelmingly obvious that we should absolutely explore Mars and try to make it habitable for humans. And that should be a big goal. And we should have big dreams, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But the idea that we must immediately become a multi-planetary species or go extinct is so destructive to humanity. And I'm only saying this because nobody listens to the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. But like, to me, it's so destructive to the underlying human project, which is an Earth based project and will be for centuries to come. yeah i agree and and we just can't stop paying attention to stuff you know i don't know what it is that makes stuff so easy to pay attention to but like that guy's saying making claims making big claims is like whoa god i feel like we gotta pay attention to that can we just ban him from the podcast i mean can we ban him from the mars news like he isn't making we mostly have i i honestly I was thinking about just talking about Artemis, but I decided to do that anyway. And I guess it makes sense because it is a moment where the podcast name is going to change, like, officially. Yeah. So that's good for me. Yeah. I get to do the intro in the future. I'm excited about that. I've been revving up my intro voice. And are you going to have to do dad jokes? No, no, no. I'll still turn over to you for that. Okay. Well, John, thank you for making a podcast with me. Thank you. Thanks to everybody for their questions. You can question us or indeed ask us a question at hankandjohn at gmail.com. This podcast is edited by Linus Obenhaus. It's mixed by Joseph Tuna Medish. Our marketing specialist is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosiana Halser-Ohas and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Dabuki 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. you you are the women in my wings