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If Hank and John Were God for 15 Minutes

2024-10-29 · collab / interview · John, Hank · 5:30 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Philosophy & meaning (also: Health, Everyday life) · mode: Curiosity & trivia · tags: guest or collab, self promotion

Together for a reunion video, John and Hank imagine being an omnipotent God for 15 minutes: John would end serious infectious diseases, Hank would make everyone small and make hurting others hurt oneself; they decide being God would be hard, John offers Bonhoeffer's weak God, and says people who want such power are unfit for it.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Reunion opener; a stand-up comedian's 'God for 15 minutes' hypothetical; John would end infectious diseases despite his TB book

  • ★ Hank says they saw a stand-up comedian last night whose hypothetical was being God for 15 minutes, and John suggested it as their video topic during the intermission. — 00:00:05
  • ★★ As God, John would first eliminate tuberculosis and all serious infectious diseases, maybe leaving a little of the common cold so people remember what being sick was like. (hypothetical) — 00:00:25 · tuberculosis
  • ★ John jokes that ending serious infectious diseases would be catastrophic for his new book, Everything Is Tuberculosis, which he would have to update fast. (playful) — 00:00:44 · Everything Is Tuberculosis

00:00:50 — Whether to end aging

  • ★★ Asked about ending aging, John says he likes aging and does not want to get rid of it, though he would stop it at some point: you age until your "full handsomeness" at 47. (hypothetical) — 00:00:58

00:01:17 — Hank's plan to make everyone small so four feet is tall

  • ★★★ Hank's 'obvious answer': make people small so that four feet counts as tall, so humans consume fewer resources, cars and planes carry more people and house prices fall. (playful) — 00:01:17
  • ★★ both: Hank adds that small people would use a third of the consumption; John that with fewer cells they would probably live longer; and Hank that they would get less cancer, as a chihuahua outlives a mastiff. (playful, hedged) — 00:02:00 · cancer

00:02:16 — World peace: Hank's rule that hurting someone hurts you, and how it spirals

  • ★★★ For world peace, John recounts Hank's proposal from last night, which he found brilliant: if you hurt someone, it hurts you the exact same amount. (hypothetical) — 00:02:22 · Hank Green
  • ★★ both: Hank says killing someone would not kill you but would just hurt really badly; John adds that it would last forever, like chronic pain, and that ordering someone else to hurt a person brings at least as much pain. (hypothetical) — 00:02:36 · Sarah Urist Green
  • ★★ Hank worries that in a world without aging, if a man he hired to clean his gutters fell off the ladder, he would have to feel the pain because it was his fault. (hypothetical) — 00:03:14
  • ★★ both: The brothers note the rule spirals: it ends war because no one can kill anybody, but no one could hurt anybody or put them in prison, or do anything bad, even financially. (hypothetical) — 00:03:33

00:04:01 — Being God would be hard; God need not be omnipotent (Bonhoeffer, StarClan); people who want to be God or dictators are unfit

  • ★★★ both: The brothers conclude that actually being God would be very hard. — 00:04:01
  • ★★★ John says, for the record, that thinking of God as inherently omnipotent and moving all the chess pieces around is not the only way to think about God. — 00:04:21
  • ★★ John cites Dietrich Bonhoeffer: God is weak and powerless in the world, and that is the only way God is with us to help us. — 00:04:35
  • ★ Hank likens this to the Warriors books, where StarClan guides the cats in the forest but cannot control what happens to them. (playful) — 00:04:44
  • ★★★ John is glad they are not God, since they would be bad at it, and says people who really want to be God or dictators are inherently unqualified, because wanting that is weird. — 00:04:55

Humor (significant)

  • On ending aging, one brother says you'd go full vampire. — 00:00:50

    “You're going full Twilight.”

  • John imagines a world of four-foot people living in old buildings. — 00:01:30

    “People would be like, “Six foot ceilings?! What am I gonna do with all the space?””

  • John sums up the plan as everybody being four feet tall; Hank corrects him. — 00:01:46

    “No, four feet is tall. So a lot of people are 3'6".”

  • As the brothers conclude being God is hard, Hank interjects his plan again. — 00:04:01

    “Four feet tall! You've decided that this is the hill you're gonna die on.”

  • After the Bonhoeffer quote, the Warriors books, flagged in a quick aside ("You gotta keep that in"), come in as a comparison about cats in a forest. — 00:04:33

    “Which is very similar to the situation in the Warriors books where StarClan, they cannot, they are there to guide the cats in the forest”

  • Hank agrees power-seekers lack good ideas like making four feet tall, then decides he would be qualified. — 00:05:19

    “And actually maybe I would be good at it. Oh, Jesus Christ.”

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: God

Also: People: Dietrich Bonhoeffer · Sarah Urist Green

Works: Everything Is Tuberculosis · Twilight · Warriors

Rituals: Reunion video

Concepts: cancer · chronic pain · common cold · infectious disease · life extension · stand-up comedy · tuberculosis

Characters: StarClan

Myths: vampire

Also centred on God: My Religion

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