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Moving to Hope from Hopelessness (3 ways)

2025-06-13 · letter vlog · Hank · 7:52 · watch on YouTube

Topic: US politics & society (also: Philosophy & meaning) · mode: Personal essay · tags: timely hook, heavy topic

Angry and hopeless after deportation raids and protests in Los Angeles, Hank describes how he moves to hope: hopelessness is the less rational position, no one knows the future, and, after the Taoist idea of effortless action, focusing on care and humanizing people instead of shoving on a wall; he closes by announcing that the $50 million for the Maternal Center of Excellence has been raised.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Hank's anger at the LA deportation raids and protests, the Trump strategy, and the first way to hope: hopelessness is the less rational position

  • ★★ Hank says that earlier this week (week of 9 June 2025), seeing images of deportation raids in Los Angeles and then protests, pushback against ICE, violence and vandalism, he got mad. — 00:00:00 · Los Angeles
  • ★★ Hank felt this was going exactly wrong: his government was violating people's rights and being inhumane, and the most visible response was burning Waymos. — 00:00:00
  • ★★★ Paraphrasing his hankschannel video, Hank says the Trump team widens rifts and capitalizes on chaos: infringing rights faster than courts can act makes people try to stop them, creating conflict. — 00:00:29 · Donald Trump, hankschannel
  • ★★ Hank says everyone knows one burning car gets vastly more media coverage than many peaceful protests. (playful) — 00:00:29 · sensationalism
  • ★★ Hank felt hopeless, frustrated and angry, as if nothing could stop the inevitable: Trump's insistence that process does not matter, against Americans' insistence that it does, would create conflict and deliver him more power. — 00:00:29 · Donald Trump
  • ★★ When someone asked who knows how this will go, Hank said he knew exactly how it would go, then corrects himself: no, he doesn't. (playful) — 00:00:58
  • ★★★ Hank's first way to hope: hopelessness is usually the less rational position, presented by a brain that cannot imagine the actual infinite and bizarre world. — 00:00:58 · hope
  • ★★ Hank reminds himself that every time in his life he felt hopeless there was hope; he just couldn't feel it. — 00:00:58 · hope

00:01:46 — Going for a walk; nobody knows the future: three cases about how the Trump strategy will go

  • ★★ Hank's first suggestion, often the hardest: if you can, leave the place where you experience the hopelessness and go somewhere else, as on his dumb little walk. — 00:01:46
  • ★★★ Hank's answer to a friend on how he has hope: a hard-to-believe truth is that no one has any idea what the future will be like, especially for a nation. — 00:02:15
  • ★★ Hank says one can argue the strategy is barely a strategy, driven by the whims of people not acting strategically and bad for them long-term, as Jamelle Bouie's video does. — 00:02:15

00:02:45 — The Taoist idea of effortless action: shoving on a wall versus looking for a door; what we do still matters

  • ★★ Hank says one can also argue that how this goes depends on how people act throughout it. — 00:02:45
  • ★★★ Hank turns to the Taoist concept of non-action, which he prefers to translate as effortless action because it is still action. — 00:02:45
  • ★★ Hank's metaphor: it is easy to spend a lot of time shoving on a wall to push it over when you could spend almost no energy looking for a door. — 00:02:45
  • ★★★ Hank says the way he is asked to think (controlling the narrative, playing the right chess move, 4D-chessing toward an outcome) is an illusion. — 00:03:20
  • ★★ Hank says the Taoist view holds that all the pushing and trying to control things pushes everything further from the natural harmonious path, where one ends up anyway. (hedged) — 00:03:20
  • ★★★ Hank doesn't think there is one natural path we will all land on: what we do matters, and even with a fixed destination it would matter because suffering now matters now. — 00:03:51

00:04:23 — Losing sight of what he cares about; power through crassness; humanize before they can militarize; hope versus fear

  • ★★ Hank says reacting to the news made him lose sight of what he cares about: his frustration was less worry for people than anger that a guy he dislikes runs a strategy likely to win him more power. — 00:04:23 · Donald Trump
  • ★★★ Hank says the man got powerful not in spite of being rude, crass, manipulative, deceitful, indifferent to truth and narcissistic, leader of a cult of himself, but because of it. — 00:04:52 · Donald Trump
  • ★★ Hank says focusing on interpersonal conflict and destruction is human but is just shoving on a wall; he could as easily focus on people who need care, community and what we love and build. — 00:05:22
  • ★★ Hank says that focus can look like conversation, protest, community building or a book club, and it creates a story above all about humans and their humanity. — 00:05:51

  • ★★★ Hank cites a TikTok's phrase 'humanize before they can militarize': militarization is easy once dehumanization occurs, and since dehumanization is a natural reaction we must build against it. — 00:05:51 · TikTok

    “humanize before they can militarize”

  • ★★★ Hank says the most powerful tool for dehumanization is our fear of each other, and asks whether those who stoke it want power or dehumanization, or whether these are the same. — 00:06:20

  • ★★★ Hank says acting out of hope and a vision of the world we want is humanizing; acting out of fear is dehumanizing. — 00:06:20 · hope

00:06:49 — Closing image of the building and the ant, sign-off, and the news that $50 million for the Maternal Center of Excellence is raised

  • ★★ Hank says all this is no longer pushing against a wall but understanding the whole shape of the building, and as any ant will tell you, there's always a way in. (playful) — 00:06:49
  • ★★★ After a call with Partners In Health, Hank announces they have raised the $50 million it takes to build the Maternal Center of Excellence in Sierra Leone and get it running. — 00:06:49 · John Green, Partners In Health, Maternal Center of Excellence, Sierra Leone
  • ★★ Hank says about a third of the money was raised by Partners In Health, a third donated directly by the community, one-time or recurring, and the final third mostly Good Store profits. — 00:07:18 · Partners In Health, Nerdfighteria, Good Store
  • ★★★ Hank says when they signed on they had no idea how to raise it, but many individuals chose how they wanted the world to look, it is now real, and he can return to it for hope. — 00:07:18 · hope

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description says Hank probably needs to stop thinking about whether he is winning or losing and ask whether he is acting in concert with his goals. (hedged) — video description
  • ★ In a channel comment Hank says criminals are among the easiest people to dehumanize, which is why prisons are among the worst things societies still do. — creator comment

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: dehumanization · despair · Donald Trump · hope · Maternal Center of Excellence · wu wei

Also: People: Jamelle Bouie

Projects: hankschannel

Organizations: Partners In Health · U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement · Waymo

Concepts: cult of personality · due process · fear · sensationalism · Taoism

Places: Los Angeles · Sierra Leone

Only in the description or credits: Good Store · Greenough Park · mass incarceration · TikTok

Also centred on dehumanization: An Army of Mindless Drones · What Does It Mean to Be Human? · Aida and Majeeda: Thoughts from the Azraq Refugee Camp · Zaatari: Thoughts from a Refugee Camp · The Psychology of Package Thieves · Uncertain and Afraid

Also centred on despair: The Seduction of Despair · taking a break · Gastrointestinal Hypermotility in Tuatara · Despair is Not Wisdom

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