The History of the Wealdstone

Hello everyone. Before we get started, I want to tell you about humans. Humans is a podcast where I talk to people about the questions that I have about being a person. And sometimes those conversations are with people who have just had experience being people. like my brother or the editor of the New York Times Game Connections. These are just people who've like done it and tried weird stuff. and so I want to talk to them about how they do it. But I also am talking to people who have maybe some special insight into what's going on with humans like Hannah Ritie, who is a data scientist who studies our impact on the climate, or Jennifer Schuba, who studies demography and what it means for humans that people are having fewer kids than they used to. I also just had a conversation with the author of the Warriors books. These are books about cats that live in the woods I did not realize that this was a person who would have so much insight into humanity, and also into the responsibilities that we have when we create content for children that conversation was so good. It's gonna be a while before it comes out. but oh my go. So yeah, I'm talking to authors and actors and astrophysicists and it's cool and it's really interesting and fun and I've really been enjoying it. I'm so glad it's finally out into the world The overall conceit is just that like it's good to take a little time to zoom out sometimes, to understand that the thing that we are is very weird and unique in the history of our Eth and also the known universe And we don't know how to do it. No one's ever been the kind of thing that we are. And so we have to figure this out And so I want to talk to people about figuring it out New episodes come out every Thursday. You can find it wherever you get podcasts. All you got to do is search humans and then if that doesn't work, add my name ono the end and you'll find it. First episode is with John Green, a guy you've probably heard of Pretty sure It's out now You're listening to a Complexly podcast. Hello, and welcome to dear Hank and John. I prefer to think of it, dear, John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you Dbis advice and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbled, and John, do you know how farmers party? How do they party, Hank? They turn up the beats Oh they do. Yes, of course. Yeah. I don't know how you would turn up a beat. I guess it's like a turducken, but it's a T beaten Well, we're currently growing turnips and beets in the same bed in our garden alanized gardens. so it's not impossible I don't think that you could cross a turnip in a beet. they seem pretty different to me. Yeah, I don't think that you'd want to. Like the last thing I don't like turnips or beets that much. The last thing I want is the worst of both of them together. But maybe it's the best of both of them. I love beets and I hate turnips, so maybe we could do something about those turnips Well, heank I got my author photo taken today Oh, you got a new one instead of just going with the same one forever, like every other author who wants to remember the way that they were once young. Yeah, well, it's I think somewhat precipitated by the fact that my best friend Marina is a photographer. And so every time I have a new book out, she's like What an opportunity to take your picture Well, that's good. So I like I like a good photo shoot Do you? I find them even when it's my best friend taking my picture a little excruciating, but I did my best. I did okay, I think U I, you know, at least Marina can tell me honestly like when I look like there's a gun pushing against the back of my back Yeah. I do I do feel like that's what I kind of ended up with for the cover shot for the new podcast for humans. I still look a little bit like I'm not sure how to be a human Yeah, there's something weird that when a phhotographer enters the room, you forget what you do with your hands and you forget what your face is supped to do. Yeah Yeah I don't know, I think that my face always looks a little funny, which not not because my face looks funny, but because I'm always doing something funny with it And it's hard for me to turn that off. But a good photographer most of their job is to try and make you comfortable and say things Like Tell me a joker. Yeah you have for breakfast. Right. A lot of the job is to be comfortable, but then some of the job is to understand like light and shadow. there's also lot that job. Yeah, So Marin is great at that and it was it was a fun, it was a fun couple of hours But it was aice it was a nice break from signing my name over and over again, which is most of what I've been doing for the last week Yeah In an attempt to sign eighty five thousand copies of my new book Hollywood Ending coming out on september twenty second. I'm so nervous about Hollywood Ending. I can't it's like all that occupies my thoughts right now. Okay It's been so long since you've written fiction. It's been alost you are you even fiction writer any It's Jn're you're you are an infectious disease writer, John Green. I know. And so will anybody remember there positive feelings for my fiction? or does anybody even hold positive feelings for my fiction anymore? O or have they just moved on? Wouldn't it be fun though, John to like just do and I know that the answer to this question is no, but just to just do some looking for Alaska numbers What do you mean Just like Like like when are you looking for Alaska came out as like six thousand copies? Yeah. No, that would not be fun, Hank. That would feel terrible That would mean that they would pulp seventy nine thousand copies of Hollywood Ending that I signed. That would be a terrible outcome. So you've signed eighty thousand copies No, I've signed about forty seven thousand five hundred my way to eighty five. Wow, jeez. I don't know, man. I don't think I could ever do this Iow I will never be a successful author. No, simply cannot. Because I'm the only person who does this and lots of authors are successful. In fact, I just read it in Vanity Fair and Patchet complaining about signing seventeen thousand. That's one seven, not seven zero. And I was like, Anne Come on now. seventeenight work. I've heard people complaining about like five hundred. Yeah. and they're like, o, I just gott to sit in front of the TV and sign my name five hundred times. And I'm like, that's forty five minutes. Yeah, no. I just did that for the Crash courseourse coin donors. I know, I did it too And it was fine. I did that amid signing eighty five thousand times and it was totally fine. I don't even remember I honestly don't even remember those thousand signatures that I did for the Crash courseour Ghe. Yeah Yeah. now I listened to half a podcast Exactly. can' even you can't even get through the first months of World War one in your audiobook. Yeah. People are like, how do you do so much research for your podcast? And I'm like, I listen to podcasts while I sign things. Yeah, that's fair. I't know fair When does humans come out? Is it out yet? It's out Oh, I haven't listened to ourur episode Well you haven't you haven't listened to it because it's not out for you, but it's out for everybody else What do you mean it's not out for me Because this podcast is recorded before it comes out John U Wait, so you're telling me that when people are listening to this, they're in our future Every time Oh my go, I wonder what terrors have I know you struck in the last three days that we're fing really keep on to getet to it you head about it because if you do, it starts to it freaks me out. It's like I can't I can't talk to these people. They're in there' in a future where maybe the machines have taken over. Yeah, who knows I mean, they could be in a future where I'm gone D What if somebody listens to this episode in thirty years after I die? What if I don't even live for thirty years Oh yeah. well, first of all There's a time in which you will no longer be alive. And I hope like to the person who's listening Yeah John are dead. What the heck are you doing That's a wild. We' twenty one hundred likeike. It's like me going back and listening to some soupy sales Yeah Yeah, totally. It's like watching a Buster Keaton film, but worse. Yeah yeah. Yeah except like really designed for quantity rather than quality Yeah, so what questions do we have for the people of twenty one hundred Hank? I guess my first question is like, I'm a little surprised to know that you made it. did How did you make it? How that go? Do you still get colds Yes, that's Hank Green thought you would stop getting colds I would love to hear if you still get colds. Hows You know, how how you dealing with u but But stuff. Just say hemorrhoids. So yeah, that's what I meant How are you dealing with hemorroids? Yeah Well, how are you dealing with the yeah U Is tuberculosis still a thing? God, I hope not Yeah, here's what here's what here's like my grim prediction Okay I think people like healthy people in the developed world won't get colds anymore, but other people will still get tuberculosis So I disagree I actually rank The world will be much more equitable in twenty one hundred than it is today Okay And I'm making that prediction entirely based on a little thing called There's there's you could see a little bit of trajectory, but like, I don't know a little bit. not a lot. only it went. The thing is that there's so much more for the people who have. Right so much. And like it's very hard to understand the difference between like u having less poverty in the world and like have like being able to get on a plane five times a year. Right. It's just like a huge difference in the amount of wealth. Yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I don't know what twenty one hundred is going to look like, but I love the idea that somebody's going to be listening to this particular episode of the podcast in what is for us seventy four years into the future. And I just hope we figured out hemorrhids by then becauseeez Well, they're uncomfort John, you have any questions for our listeners? I don't actually because I don't have the document up. Do you have any ye, I got plenty. All right, this first one comes from Elena, who asks, deear Hank of John, my sister has smoked cigarettes and vaped since she was twelve years old. Now as a twenty four year old, she has decided to quit. It's been four months and my whole family is insanely proud of her. However, she is still really struggling. She used vaping and smoking to mask a lot of her difficulties with ADHD and depression, and I'm worried for her. John You have been open about how difficult it was for you to quit smoking. Do you have any tips for my sister or on how to best support her? Hank, do you have any tips on operating in the adult world successfully with ADHD tendencies? Any advice, dubious or otherwise is greatly appreciated, Pumpkins penguins Elena Well, the thing about quitting smoking is that it does get easier. So I quit smoking in two thousand. O or two And I don't think about smoking anymore. I don't think about cigarettes at all and I don't yearn for a cigarette and I don't feel anything U So it will get easier. and four mononths is really, really good return on your initial investment Um But like I remember once I quit smoking for a year and then started again on the three hundred sixty fifth day. I smoked like one cigarette on the three hundred and sixty fifth day because I kind of thought I was in the clear. I have a very addictive part of me. Like my brain latches on to uh pleasure buttons that I can hit and I hit the pleasure button as many times. Like if you put me in a, if I was one of those like rats in a cage and you give them a little bit of cocaine every time they hit a button or whatever, Yeah, I would I would hit the button until I die. Like I love to hit the button Um And so I smoked one cigarette one day and I woke up the next day and I smoked twenty five cigarettes the next day. Oh yeah. because I just I was like, oh, I miss hitting that button. Oh God, yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah. just the flood. There's there's no way to take your finger out of the dam without all the water coming through. Yeah. So that I think that You know, it's great Of course, it's a struggle because It's something that's Like my therapist always says like this must have been useful to you at some point, which is why you do it, but maybe it's not useful to you now. and so maybe you shouldn't do it anymore. I think that's very much the case for using substances as a way of coping with other stuff in our lives. Yeah, yeah I mean, I don't know why I hadn't thought about that with cigarettes, but I hadn't really thought about that with cigarettes. I think they were just more judgmental about them it seemed so trivial and we've sort of tabooed, which of course, is a good thing. I'm glad that we've made cigarettes more taboo because they're very dangerous and silly. but but yeah, as as a way of dealing with stuff, like Now you got to find other ways to deal with this stuff. Yeah. that might be professional treatment, you know, that like When it comes to ADHD and depression, there are people who can help with these things like for me, it's really like u as far as my like hitting the button, it's like finding stuff to always be doing Right. And that can be hard. You know, one of the great privileges I have had in my life is being able to figure out something to do Yeah And I feel like that's denied to a lot of people And And it is it is One of those invisible privileges that that like we don't get when when we talk about privilege, where it's like, well, I don't really see it. And it's like, well do you see that just having the opportunity to try stuff or is society denying denying you that are making it more difficult. The opportunity to take risks, the opportunity to do lots of things withith your time, the opportunity to not have to engage in subsistence agriculture in order to survive, et cetera. All of that And and also the opportunities that come with speaking the dominant language, like simple stuff. Yeah, that's huge, man. If I didn't write in English, if I were a Latvian author of the Fault Nur Stars, my life would be very different. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But the Latvians, they'd love it I hope it would have crushed Latvia In some ways, it's better to be big on your block than it is to be big globally And so you know Maybe into the Lat me mayaybe the Latvian me would be living in the dream. I don't know. Brian. Yeah. I It does it does benefit you a lot to speak speak and write in the dominant language So so all of that stuff if she has opportunities to keep keep busy and also maybe there are opportunities that you can add to the world of her life, whether it's going for a nice little walk or taking up u professional coffee salering or something where you just like get get some hobbies because I love a hobby, man. If you can find something that you care about and that you care about together, it's It's really great to care about a thing together with your sibling. I speak from experience. It is pretty great. We got to the question. I have personal experience here from Bex, who asks Steer Hank and John, I have had migraines for as long as I can remember, though they vary in frequency and severity through my life. But they have always come with auras. Often I experienence them with my eyes open, but closed is a light show I did not sign up for. Over the last ten years, I've experienced auditory auras, which from what I can tell don't seem to always be fully recognized as a feature of migraines This is This most often sounds like my brain latching onto a brief sound, like a fire truck going by and looping it for ages. This is crazy. I've never heard of that, but I believe it because migraines are super weird. This all seems incredibly rude of my brain, since famously light and sound are bad for a migraine ges Why do scientists think migraines induce such weird activity in the brain? Is it functionally similar to syesthesia? How do we even study these experiences? Mirages and migraines Becks I also, this is relatively new for me when I was doing chemotherapy. I started to get migraines with Aura And I still get them occasionally. Wow. And and I mentioned this to our father who was like, oh yeah, that happens to me. Oh, interesting. So it happened to me It happened to me once and it was freaking terrifying. Yeah yeah, yeah, the first time it happens, you're like, okay, so that's a stroke. I was gardening and I was like suddenly was seeing auras everywhere And I stood up, I went inside and like twenty minutes later, I was still seeing Ouras. so I went to the emergency room. Yeah because ye, yeah, yeah. I I didn't know I didn't know if I was having a stroke. I didn't know if I was having some kind of U, you know, mental health crisis, I didn't know what the hell was happening Yeah, so as a very important piece of the medical advice, Uvra, which is our podcast. Yeah always come to us for medical advice. You can trust. If you think that there's like a one percent chance that you might be having a stroke, there's like a hundred percent chance that you should be in a car on Yeah. strokes are not to deal with and minutes really matter in that sort of situation. Right. And wildly when this happened to the first time, I was like, is this a stroke? And I sat there for like five or ten minutes Yeah before I finally was like, I should go to the hospital. which is so dumb Yeah. But anyway, now I know what they are like and u and We're not sure But we have taken people who frequently get these kinds of migraine headaches them near a hospital when they start having one, we put them in what's called a functional MRI machine, which images your brain and where the blood is in your brain and that can show you what's going on in the brain. And what they see is a wave of something of some like I mean, I don't know what this means, but they call it a wave of depolarization happening through the brain that moves at three point five millimeters per minute. but it hasate a speed at which it moves across the brain. And this is what we think migraines are. And we think, this is definitely like even more caveats here, that when that happens in a sort of area of the brain that processes perceptual information You perceive stuff that are not actually there. And so the aura and also potentially the auditory phenomenon that you're hearing is like the migraine passing through the section of the brain processes that. And then the pain is not entirely clear where it comes from and some people including me, get these auras and then the headache is relatively mild compared to one of the people. So I get a headache but I don't get a headache that's debilitating. Like maybe I want to like go lie down and close my eyes for a while, but like I've never had a migraine that is disabling and Uh, so Like it's's it's a it's a very weird mysterious thing. and yeah and and kind of cool if you can let it be. But it seems like I would say it's not that cool. It's pretty annoying. It's annoying.' accom if it's accompanied by disabling pain, it's even less cool. Right, right. But but like there's something in terms of the aura, that's like what you're saying is there's a physical wave of a phenomenon passing through my brain and I can see it. Yeah, no, that's terrifying, Hank. Yeah, okay. well, I think it's cool Uh I love that you got this as a result of chemotherapy. You've gotten so much as a result of chemotherapy. Not many gifts, but many Oh, many results. No, yeah, it's interesting. I talked to my doctor about the migraine and he was like, bot That's not normal Why Why do you think that your cancer treatment resulted in only negative side effects? Why didn't you get any spider m powers? I did. My ulcerative colitis symptoms are far less severe Well, I guess that's and that be huge. Would you trade that for orura migraines that aren't painful? I'd trade it for aura migraines that aren't painful, that happen at this frequency that they happen to me, for sure. Okay There's other things, like like a lifelong increased risk of a number of very dangerous cancers that I would not trade Yeah, no, I understand I understand that you wouldn't come out in favor of Ppylactic chemotherapy Oh man, um I had meningitis in twenty fourteen, which is very uncomfortable, terrible headaches. And the great thing about meningitis, the gift of it in my life, is that U I still can't feel other people's pain, of course, and like that's a barrier past which no human I know of can go By it I am really inclined to believe people when they say that their pain is really, really bad. because Having had really, really bad pain, it is Yeah it's the only thing I had. It's the it was my whole frreaking life. for that time Pank, Wh are dead people and animals in cartoons often depicted with X's for eyes. This is from Molly. Where does that trend come from? and when did we start doing this? Curious to hear your thoughts on this dubious or otherwise, Memmento omnis ocuus X Bibimus Molly I believe that remembers all of our eyes will die All all of our eyes will have X's I don't know the answer to this. I didn't pre research this topic I Think. that it is purely a cultural thing. peopleople were doing were like needed to represent this somehow that was relatively non threatening. like you don't want to show a bunch of gross stuff. And so you're like, man, probably they don't exist anymore. But I don't think that like there I don't think that we ever We put coins on people's eyes. That was a real thing I don't think that we ever did X's on I's Do Do you know anything, John? This is correct, Thankank. has long been used as like canceled or don't or no or no longer. And it was a relatively simple way to do this Yeah and And so that is why it is done. it was done by Disney. It was done by lots of other people, and it was done early on in cartoons because it was easy. and because it was clear to the audience that this person was dead or otherwise incapitated it happen. R R unconsciousness also, ye. Not all the time. Sometimes they would recover from the ex's over their eyes U they would clear their heads after falling ten thousand feet or whatever and Um Do you think that in the early days of cartoons, there were all sorts of people who were like, kids are going to think this is safe and they're going to jump off of canyons Oh yeah. Okay. I sure that just occurred to me anyway. And the other thing about it is that there's no gore, right? There's no blood. There's no other there's nothing there's nothing that could be seen as antii It's like a child like a safe way to represent it. Yeah. Right And I bet that like in other cultures, it wouldn't be immediately clear what is being represented, but we've all just been raised inside of that breath, you know, Yeah And so it's just like in our brains and that's what it looks like to us Have you ever gotten your bell rung Oh yeah Because it does feel like that a little bit. It does feel like can like lose vision. Yeah. Yeah That's that's wild. They getting your head hit hard enough that you're like like suddenly can't see. It's like, o, shoot Yeah. It' only I got to be dealing with this. It's only happened to me once when I got hit by that bike messenger around a corner deearborn in Maple in Chicago And, uh pretty pretty N. 's happening happened to mece when I was a kid when I fell off a swing It also happened to you once, I suspect when you got tackled into a tree when we were playing tackle football and mom never really forgave me for being the one who tackled you. I don't remember that. I defly don't John do you want to know another reason that I found out on Reddit, why why eyes turn into exes? Why Because when things die, sometimes they turn into X, like Twitter Good joke, good joke That's true. That's true And and then they're just dead but somehow still going. Oh my ye like tuml in twenty sixteen just a zombie Twitter sort of like struggling along and then even Tommy Innet is like, I don't think I can take this anymore. Tomm T me just quitwitter I saw. Oh my God, that's hilarious. It's like actually. it's so weird how the fracture has gone where I'm like I like go on bllue skky and it's all of my like journalist friends and I go and then it's like if I want to hear from Marquz Brownley, I have to go on threads and I'm like, this is weird Yeah, but then if you want to that if you want to hear from like u three hundred thousand chat bots talking to each other, you go on Twitter Yeah, if I really want to hear from somebody who thinks that the singularity is currently occurring. Yeah. is who is being supported in their belief by a bunch of really dumb bots then I can find that Yeah Dam Oh, if this is the singularity, it's so disappointing. Oh man. Well, that's what I'm saying. A week from now when this podcast comes out, maybe will have changed. That's true. That's true All right, we got another question Hank, it's from aand who writes dear John Hank. We moved to our house almost six years ago, shortly thereafter, we noticed that there was a headstone in our backyard. Our house was built in eighteen ninety, but the headstone is dated eighteen eighty five to eighteen eighty six Our best guess is that it was brought by the original family who built the house because it is not attached to a base or in the ground At this point, we are several generations removed from people who would have been related to this child This begs the question, what on earth should we do with it? I'm scared to remove it or put it somewhere more sacred because of ghosts We also just have this random headstone in our yard and it feels like it deserves to be somewhere more worthy. pictures attached for reference looking for real or dubious advice, Amanda Amanda, I think there's a body in your backyard. Yeah. I think that there's a body in your backyard. I think you have missed the most obvious possibility, which is that somebody knocked over the headzone at some point and like put it off to the side, but there's a body in your backyard Yeah, but like an eighteen eighty five body. Yeah But still no I wouldn't move that headstone I would I would keep it right where it is. Yeah, I'd prop it up and be like, I guess there's a Baby here. Oh ye, y. one year old. was such a different world. I think about this all the time that like the death in the eighteen eighties, which was not that long ago. L I realize that it feels long to our younger listeners, but To those of us who've been around for half a century, we're talking about, you know one and a half centuries Yeah. So not that much longer than I've been here. And trust me, I haven't been here that long. I have no idea what's going on. And yet back then we were losing like twenty five percent of all people born before the age of five in the United States. And that was a dramatic improvement It was twice as good as it had been historically It was twice as it was, you know, a third as good as it had been like forty years before Yeah Yeah. so There's just, it is mind blowing how routine Yeah child death was in the entire world one hundred and forty years ago And yet remember it hurt You know like absolutelysute There's there's no that I can have in my heart where I'm like well, if it was happening so often, maybe maybe it was like less awful than it would be for someone to lose a child today. And I'm like I don't like I don't, I think it was just bad No, I think it was seen as natural. Like in all the reading I've done, it was definitely seen as natural. So it wasn't seen as abnormal or it wasn't seen as like troubling to the social order, but it was personally devastating to people. I mean, people would never recover. That's why they had these that's why they made these beautiful headstones is because it was impossible, you know, it was impossible to recover from these losses. And And so I absolutely agree with you, Hank. att any rate, point being Amanda You got to keep that headstone in the backyard, man. I'm sorry, but like and I know it's weird and I know you're going I know it's weird to like like mow the lawn over it or whatever and like have porch parties in the backyard and have people come over and be like, and this is our headstone Yeah, but you you're taking a real risk by moving it Yeah, yeah. I think it's important to note that like a ghost of a one year old can't cause that much trouble So I'm not worried about the ghost issue. Yeah. I just don't you think though that like people in general should be relatively near their headstones if they were if that's how They were originally buried Yeah Yeah, and I also think that it's like a great like little reminder of u human ability and sacrifice and pain and innovation and all of the stuff. But yeah, I think I don't know. I think you got to like put it back up and like it's not going to be right where And I and I think based on what I know of how this works, I don't think there's any way of finding where It actually wasn't maybe, you know, it could have been carried there by a flood or something. I don't know. very unlikely. unlikely. But I don't think it was carried there by a person. I think that it was No, I think what happened is that the child died in eighteen eighty six and when they built the house Theyed to be They wanted the child to be near them. and so they reinterred the body. Yeah, yeah, yeah. like eighteen eighty six was like different, we did different things with the bodies. We didn't have rules. Yeah. well, they would reinter the body in eighteen ninety. That wouldn't even be that weird at the time I don't or they were in the house at that moment Or was that not the house wasn't built then? The house wasn't built until four years after the child died. Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah. Which is just to me a reminder of like how profound the grief is that you would want to be near your near your child and reinter their body and everything. That's what I suspect happened, but it's pure guesswork. Like I have absolutely no idea. I just I wouldn't take the risk, man. L Poof Yeah Anyway, it reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by ghosts, Ghosts. Steer clear I guess like like honor honor them and they they shall behave. Yeah, you know, I you know man, you know. Yeah this podcast is also brought to you by migraine with Aura. Migraine with Aura That's the tagline that you gave migraine with Aura aailable available. Yeah. Speaking of which, today's podcast is brought to you by cigarettes, also available unfortunately But like twenty dollars a pack now Yeah and really bad for you. So steer clear And this spodcast is brought to you by Tommy innet. Tommy inn. He always seems like a really nice guy to me. I mean, I don't know, I like it. Yeah. lovely man. from everything I've seen And this podcast is brought to you by qualifying every time you say you like a creator, just in case. It doesn't come out for five days, so anything could happen. this episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by Quintince. Summer changes the way I want clothes to work. I want things to be lighter, more breathable. 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I personally have a complicated relationship with business news because it can feel like either it was written for people who already know everything or for people who want to be angry before nine AM. Morning Brew Daily though is trying to do a different thing. It gives you the biggest business stories of the day in a way that is actually understandable and also enjoyable to listen to The hosts, Neil Freimman and Toby Howell, cover stuff that actually shapes your day and your world. Tech headlines, housing costs, markets, companies, weird consumer trends, the economy doing whatever the economy is doing this week. It's witty, it's fast moving, it's informative, It does not feel like Homework You can listen while you're commuting, making breakfast, exercising, walking around the house, holding one shoe because you cannot find the other shoe. However your morning happens. You leave each episode knowing more than you did before, but you don't feel like you've been hit in the head with a Bloomberg terminal. Millions of people already listen because business news does not have to be boring Tune into to Morning Brw Daily every weekday, morning, wherever you get your podcasts This episode is brought to you by NoCD. Have you ever had a thought pop into your head that feels so foreign or distressing that you just can't move on from it? like suddenly wondering if your headache means you have a brain tumor and then googling symptoms for hours, or having the inexplicable urge to swerve your car while driving, feeling horrified, and then spending hours trying to figure out why you had that thought Well, that's what OCD is like. It's nothing like the stereotype about enjoying things being neat. Real OCD causes relentless unwanted thoughts that make you question everything about yourself and the world around you. It is scary and exhausting and can really take over your life I have OCD and it is highly treatable when you get the right care. I am living evidence of that. The thing is standard talk therapy, the kind you hear about a lot online, is not recommended for OCD and can even make it worse. OCD needs specialized treatment, and that's why I wantna tell you about noCD whichich is the largest provider of specialized OCD treatment, connecting people with licensed, highly trained therapists for convenient virtual sessions. Their therapy is covered by insurance for over one hundred fifty five million Americans, and they provide support between sessions, so you're never facing this alone. If any of this sounds familiar, go to nocd dot com and book a free call to learn how they can help. That's NOCD All right, Hank, weve got another question. This one from MK, who writes,ear Jhn and Hank, I've been a nerdfighter since the Brotherhood two point era. MK, thank you so much. That is incredible. And we are so grateful that you have spent nearly twenty years of your life following our work. That is the coolest. As such, I've amasked it quite the collection of nerd fighter Ephemera. This includes a signed so jokes CD. your album so Jokes Holy crap. Yeah, no, I think I have a copy of it.. Didt you like hand make those on a CD burner No, no, no, these that was u that was songs from Hank Greens' pants which Okay I also have a copy of someone. this is so jokes, which was made buy a real a real place that makes CDs and it an envelope with a CD in it Well, MK also has a Tiffios tour booklet, a number of P for APks and so on. manyany of these items were purchased by her with my lovely sister who introduced me to Y'all. These objects serve not only as representations of this community in Y'all's work, but also of my relationship with her Also, since becoming a fan of y'all when I turned around ten, Ten Ten. Yeah I acquired degrees in both archaeology and museum studies. MK, I hope this doesn't sound weird But I am proud of you. This is how I feel every time someone tells me that they like grew up with our stuff Yeah and now they are doing adulthood. It makes me feel proud of them. And I don't mean that in like a paternalistic or condescending way. I just mean it like that's how it makes me feel. It makes me feel Like you're doing the thing And you let us be part of your process of doing the thing, and that's an amazing feeling Yes, it's great to hear, it' great to hear and it it like changes the way that I am in the world. It's Totally totally. All right. MK asks. So I find myself at an impasse which presents itself to most folks who study material culture. How do I both protect and lovingly display these pieces of personal slash nerd fighter history, caution and curation and confusion? MK. PS shout out to my sister, You stink and I love you I you have a thing that I really like, John, which is there's an area of hallway that just has a bunch of things That are like things Yeah. They're not just photos, someome of them are photos, but they're also like like something that happened once Yeah. you know, and I've I've got like like like my framed first badge from Vidcon Right. Like just like moments that occurred that seem important to have out. Right. We have a hallway CD like within reach of my desk chair We have like a hallway that has family photos, but it also has little works of art and little ephemera from over the years It's often framed and it has a picture of Cara D Leine tickling me with a rose beneath the Eiffel toower. Jeez. It's got all kinds of stuff there. Most of it is not nearly as embarrassing as that. I'm not sure why I mentioned that particular piece anywhere. some really lovely things from from like notes from people who have passed on and like all kinds of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you could do that, MK, or you could and like mix it up though Like Yeahah, donon't make it all nerd fighter. That's that's that's gonna to feel too much, but make it nerd fighter, but like with pictures of your sister and stuff Yeah or Donate it to a museum so they can begin the first ever Vlog Bothers stududies collection. Yeah We're working hard to become worthy of a museum Oh my God, that would be so embarrassing, actually. would Well, here's what it should be, John. eventually we are going to buy that biggest ball of paint. Yeah It's gonna be the biggest ball of paint and vlogaters ever a museum biggest ball of paint at M Algrth's Museum. and it's going to be in rural Indian. You're gonna to drive a couple hours from Indianapolis to get there. Itsot that far. It's not that far It like I I went because I was at your house and I was going to Ohio for a thing, you know? It was just like on the way. Right I mean, it was a little longer to go, but Yeah I can't wait. I can't wait for our dootage where we are Ball cururators I used to be the seventy seventh most popular podcast in America, but now now I take care of a big ball Yeah, it's going be it's going to be lots of old YouTubers, you know, Grace Heelbig's going to have a big ball. Oh Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah Tyler is going to have a big ball. sure. Sure. Yeah Now they're going to stream They're all going to stream on Twitch in front of their huge balls Yeah, there'll be a separate platform for that I think we u I think we addressed that question, I think so as well. Yeah All right, John, this next question comes from Kat who asks Dear Hank and John. My daughter, Alma is three years old and her favorite stuffed friend is Baby Duck She recently asked us if ducks have ears, and we weren't sure if they did. Obviously they can hear, but do they have ears? Stuffed animals in toddler Tutus It depends on what you mean by ears Yeah, this is a great question for dear Hank and John because you actually can't Google it. Because if you Google it, it's like buucks have ears. The AI will be like confident That's wrong. this is an issue in which you should have no confidence. Right. Well here's the situation. There's no good answer. This is the thing that I love about the job and hate about how a lot of people do the job, which is like You're like a lot of people are trying to find the space where there is a clear answer. and of course Ducks have ears They have a system through which they can hear vibrations that pass through the air. But that's not an ear. That's not what I call an ear. No, that's not an ear to me. Yeah We call that an ear in science. really? So like if you have no ear, but you have a hear but you can hear, you have an ear. see, if for a human, that's a totally different thing. And this is really important. We have much more open systems when it comes to dealing with people because we people and we're different from science Right We're dealing with like human stuff. And so if if someone's had their ear cut off and they went a prosthetic ear, you're not going to say that that person has an ear because they don't have an earntil they gett to give it to them by the prosthetic doctor. I can't give you a prosthetic ear because you already have an ear Yeah, you could still hear there's still a like a like a like you know, all of the labyrinths and stuff in there doing the work But no, And I think that this is important because I often see scientists sort of being like, well, in biology, X,Y Z,. and it's like, well, that has nothing to do with humans Bro Right It's also true that you can like have an ear and also not have an ear. so we need to talk about being a human differently because we're solving human problems, not like biological categorization problems. It's a bit of a complicated answer to it for a three year old. But the answer is there's no physical ear on the outside, but they do have a hole in the side of their head that air goes through and they perceive sound through it Do you think that they get water in their ear the way we do Oh! That's a great question. And then they have to be like, I'm going to try to get it out D ducks get water in their ears. I mean, you see them shaking their heads sometimes. Yeah, that's what I was thinking is when they shake their heads, are they just trying to get the water out of their ear like we are when we go swimming Yeah, I don't know what they do I don't know what they do. Yeah have I mean I found no websites about this, but the AI summary is confidently telling me that ducks get water in their ears. Well, I mean, it's probably confidently tells you that because it's like, of course dogs get water in their ears they swim underwater. Yeah, and then the water touches their ears. But that's not what I mean. I mean, do they get water in their ear canals that they then have to go like's like jump up and down. Right, right. That's a great image turn their heads to the side. Yeah It's like a duck hopping is good. Yeah. Hopping in place, especially a very unusual sight You don't usually see that from a duck which makes you think maybe they don't get water in their ears I don't know. maybe they don'taybe they don't because they got like waterproof feathers all over their body and they just like close up close up shop Maybe Maybe So you know this is an area that is ripe for study. I mean, when I think about the problems that we face as a species, it seems to me that a significant one of them is not knowing whether or not ducks get water in their ear canals that they then have to clear somehow. Well, I mean, an actual problem that we do have that I really wish we had solutions to is being able to say to a duck, what's it like to be a duck Which includes whether or not you get water in your. But like I so desperately want to know what it is like to be a duck and I just I don't think that we'll ever figure that out. Would you take the risk to become a duck for ten minutes to be able to come back and report to humans what duckness is like is the risk that I get predated Yeah, of course, man. The risk is that or like what if what if the science only works one way and you're just stuck being a duck If if I'm not guaranteed that the science works both ways, I'm not it So you wouldn't be the one. You wouldn't be the first one to go someone else to do Yeah and I I I am worried though that that even if it were guaranteed, I would fail so hard at being a duck. That I would die in that ten minutes. It's not that I think that the probability of the duck dying in that ten minutes is too high. It's that I think the probability of me as a duck dying Yeah would be too high. Right? Like you just try to like you're in a lake somewhere and you try to get your balance, but you can't so you just flip over like just come back and drown And all the other ducks are like, Steve, what is going on? And Steve's just like in the back of the brain being like, I don't know. I can't control him. He's in me. Or maybe Steve's in my body and I'm dying because Steve can't figure out how to do anything Yeah, mayaybe the only way to do it is you become a dog Steve And then Steve becomes you Yeah. And then Steve with your brain is like real quick, I have ten minutes. Here's what it's like to be a duck Yeah, he just tells me while I can't No he tells all the scientists, Well, you're busy being a duck Yeah. Yeah he sort of gives a quick Ted talk, you know, like Yeah. now, that'd be amazing. Put them on stage. It would be called on duckness. Yeah. it'd be hard to translate the quacks, but Now we'd figure it out. I love this. I have also I have also long been fascinated by the question of what it's like to be a non human animal. and how that shifts when you're a dolphin versus when you're a duck versus when you're a single celled organism Yeah, I don't think that there's anything that it's like to be a single celled organism. I've thought about this. But people disagree Yeah So what do I know? Yeah Oh man, I was at a book signing last night where there was a fight over whether eating oysters is vegan and I wanted to just hide behind my seat Oh, that's a strange It's a strange thing to think as a plant Well, it doesn't have a nervous system was the argument Yeah, I mean, I guess vegans eat living things all the time. likeike it's hard to avoid eating animals completely Well there's got to be like micro bugs getting into your mouth sometimes. Right, yeah. I mean, that's. That's incidental, I think if you swallow a mosquito here or there. I don't think that I don't think that invalidates the project I agree Okay, thank you. I'm glad you weren't coming in with a really bad hot take there. There's no such thing as vegans. Oh go. Oh god Oh Godd, panic at the desco. Yeah,'s I got that one' straight off dot com. . Oh man. the X out corpse The out corpse of Twitter. Yeah I love it All right, hey, it's time to move on to the all important N news from Mars and Nancy Wildon. What's this week's Mars news? Well, you heard from us a little while back that the Maven spacecraft, which has been hanging out around Mars for over ten years now lost contact with us here on Earth. We've been trying to figure out what's going on And the official news is that the Maven mission has ended. So data from the deep Space Network shows that before signals were lost, the spacecraft was rotating. at a high rate and that drained the batteries as it was trying to stop doing that. And also it led to the communication system losing power. Also it's hard to communicate with a satellite that is spinning unpredictably. We were also able to get One of the Mars Rvers to image the sky at a moment when Maven would be being lit up by the sun and thus visible in the sky, which is amazing. And it was not there So We don't really know what happened. Something went wrong, probablyably a thruster fired when it shouldn't have fired. and made it spin and change orbit in such a way that we have not we have not been able to and will not be able to regain contact. This happened at a bad moment also. so we it was there's like moments when spacecraft communicate with Earth. And so it this began right at a moment when we couldn't send signals to correct it and so bad luck there, but in general, you know, these missions tend to be expected to not last for ten or eleven years, which Maven did. So great. Right, so you celebrate the win that is not the last that it's expected mission lifetime even as you mourn the loss of Maven. Yeah So it was part of Mven was also part of the Mars relay network, which uses orbiting spacecraft to help scientists communicate with other spacecraft in orbit or on the surface of Mars. So we've also lost a little bit a little piece of that though. it's still work. And I just likek that the fact that they're all kind of talking to each other Yeah, that's pretty cool. We're trying to take a picture of the sky where maybe it would be like that feels like