Hello!

I spent part of this week at a meeting of cool folks discussing the future of civics education in the US. The vibes were not always great, as you might imagine, but it was absolutely inspiring to be around a bunch of smart people who care a lot about important stuff. Ultimately, there was a lot of really hopeful stuff. But one thing I (as the resident YouTuber) kept saying when we talked about leveraging content platforms like YouTube was, "Just because something is important doesn't mean that it's interesting."

This seemed helpful because I felt like everyone in the room knew this was true, but it was also hard for us to keep it in our heads.

Eventually, I realized that there's a really direct correlation between how I feel about nutrition and how I feel about information. Of course, I've heard the "junk food" to "junk information" analogy before. But it's more significant than I realized. See, I don't think junk food is bad for me because of the ingredients (I know this is controversial). I think junk food is bad for me because it is SO PLEASANT TO EAT. There's no such thing as an "empty calorie," but there is such a thing as "Wow, this Coke tastes better with these Doritos and these Doritos taste better with this Coke."

Nutrition people, thus, sometimes talk about these foods being "hyper-palatable." They just taste...really freaking good.

So, I'm working on an idea here. I think that we are now in a world of "hyper-palatable information." It isn't necessarily the information that's bad (though, certainly, it can be), but even if the information is good, there might be something inherently bad about its hyper-palatability. That's both because the tricks you use to make something irresistible often involve using ingredients that...aren't the best...but also because using every trick in the book to keep someone consuming is never going to be good for people.

That's the idea I'm working on right now, and I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on it.

Hank

You can always email us at [email protected]

This Week in Stuff

• John wrote a love letter to May in Indianapolis. (Instagram)

• Japanese dwarf flying squirrels are pros at making new friends. (TikTok)

• Hank was a presenter on Dropout’s Smartypants! Dropout offers a 3-day free trial, and we think it’s well worth the monthly subscription. (Dropout.tv) 

• Cornell University’s Ornithology Lab hosts bird live streams. (YouTube)

• A conductor filmed her DBS surgery (Mayo Clinic) and shared the moment she could conduct with a baton again. This is footage from the operating room, but the surgery site is not shown. (TikTok)

Please send us stuff you think we should feature to [email protected]

How old are you compared to the rest of the world?

Pablo Rosado

Describing someone as “young” or “old” is rather arbitrary. However, something we can quantify is whether a given person is “young” or “old” compared to the rest of the world.

Imagine we sorted all 8 billion people alive today from youngest to oldest. The person standing right in the middle would be about 30 years old; that's the median age today. The chart shows the global median age and the UN’s projection to 2100.

In 2025, if you are over 30, you are older than most people in the world.

The chart also shows that if you were born in 1950, you stopped being “young” when you passed 20, as that was the median age in 1970.

As birth rates decline and life expectancy increases, the median age is expected to keep rising until the end of the century.

Whether you’re younger or older than most, the world is still relatively young, and this matters for many aspects of society, from the demand for resources and jobs to long-term planning for healthcare, education, and infrastructure.

Our World in Data is a UK-based non-profit organization that publishes research and data to make progress against the world’s largest problems. You can find more of their data insights here.

This Week at Complexly

Native American history is all around you. But between misinformation, stereotypes, and glaring gaps in history classes, it’s common for the average American to have little more than a blurry snapshot of Native American history: one that begins in 1492 and ends in the late 1800s. But Native Americans aren’t history. They’re here and now.

In 24 episodes, Crash Course Native American History will explore as many philosophies, stories, and traditions as we can from the hundreds of distinct Native nations in the U.S. With Che Jim as our host, and help from Native experts including scholars in federal Indian policy, curriculum developers, and artists, this important series embraces the idea that "laughter is medicine" to create space for healing, growth, listening, and learning.

Ludwig asked Hank how his laptop could affect his fertility, what would happen if he shaved his head, and why he has to register his car in the newest episode of Ask Hank Anything.

Some Games to Play!

Squeezy (by Jeff Chen)

SpellCheck.xyc (by Answer in Progress)

Download Gubbins on iOS or Android!

If you post your results on social media, we’d love it if you post a link for folks to subscribe to “We’re Here” (https://werehere.beehiiv.com/subscribe)

Poems about Earth

Last week, we asked you to write poems about Earth. Thank you to everyone who sent us one! They were a great reminder of how cool our home is.

The end!

Have you made new friends recently? Tell us how you did it! We want all of your friend-making tips and tricks.

Send your advice to [email protected].

We're Here is the newsletter of Nerdfighteria; the community of people that sprung up around Hank and John Green's YouTube videos. That community has many focuses and has spawned many projects but the overarching theme is that hopelessness is the wrong response to imperfection. What makes the world better is groups of people trying to understand and solve problems, and people can only do that for an extended period if they're having at least a little bit of fun.