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Dinosaurs and Harsh Truths

Dinosaurs and Harsh Truths

Payton Mitchell & Hank Green
December 20, 2024

Hello!

I often do not feel particularly good at stuff. I don’t think this is imposter syndrome. It's not that I think I shouldn’t be working on the problem or that I'm not qualified in some way, it’s that the problems I sometimes work on are very hard. There are lots of different groups of people with competing interests and different understandings of reality, and no one ever has perfect, complete information sets. But when you're trying to do interesting, impactful things, you don't get to just do the stuff you feel like you're good at!

BUT

I am very lucky that my job also involves things that I feel I have, over the years, become very good at. I have found myself saying in my head a lot this week, "I may not always be good at running a company that sells socks, but I am very good at selling socks." Whatever the opposite of imposter syndrome is, I now have that with making YouTube videos and that is one of the greatest gifts of my life. To sit down and write, perform, edit, and upload a video that I think will help people understand their world better AND that I'm pretty sure will get a TON of views lets me feel, in really hard moments, that I am good at something!!

Importantly, this isn't just a professional thing. I also get this feeling when I am talking with a friend about how hard their relationship with their father is, or when I make Katherine laugh, or when I wrestle with my son. That feeling of, "Oh, I know what I'm doing here, and I'm pretty dang sure I'm doing a good job" is something I really need, especially when other things are very hard.

When I think of what I want my son to feel as he grows up, it's not "successful, capable, and impactful." I think all of those things are surrogates for, "I want you to have abilities you feel secure in, even if that's as simple as ice skating or enjoying the company of your friends."

I hope everyone has a happy, happy holiday (if this is a holiday time for you). Also, thank you deeply from the bottom of my heart to the person who did "The Twelve Days of Gubbins" (see below). It made my day!!!

Hank

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This Week in Stuff

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TBFighters are organizing a tuberculosis Hill Day (April 8-9, 2025) in collaboration with Partners In Health, TB Roundtable, and We Are TB! If you’re committed to attending in person, complete this form by December 31st. You can also support by donating!

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

Rich countries have ten times as many doctors per person as poor ones

Hannah Ritchie

There are considerable differences in access to healthcare across the world.

Rich countries have around ten times as many doctors per person as poor countries. You can see this in this chart, which shows the number of medical doctors per 1,000 people in a population. This includes generalist physicians as well as specialists.

The global average is around 1.7 doctors per 1,000. In low-income countries, the figure is around five times lower.

Explore more data on healthcare spending and access

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.

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Take charge of your financial aid journey with the FAFSA! Check out the video and then go to FAFSA.gov to get started!

In the latest episode of Study Hall: College Journeys, bestselling author and educator John Green interviews Dr. Clint Smith fellow author, renowned poet, scholar, and writer for The Atlantic.

SciShow just wrapped up an awesome collaboration with the one and only Tom Lum. Tom stopped by Complexly's studio to record a series of episodes for this very special takeover. All of the episodes are out now! Tom will teach you about a variety of topics like why flights are getting bumpier, and if butterflies remember when they were caterpillars.

Some Games to Play!

Real Bird Fake Bird (by Studio Folly)

SpellCheck.xyc (by Answer in Progress)

Download Gubbins on iOS or Android!

This Gubbins postcard was made by Sarah. Send yours to [email protected]

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Your favorite desserts

Our inbox this week made us very hungry. Thanks to everyone who sent us recipes to try and photos of desserts to stare at longingly. If you try any of these recipes, let us know how it goes!

Aunt Kay’s Cranberry Salad

Ingredients:

a bag of frozen cranberries

like a half cup of chopped walnuts

a chopped orange or two (mandarins if you're lazy)

a can of crushed pineapple (drained)

two apples, chopped large

two boxes of jello (one strawberry, one raspberry)

two cups of sugar

about two cups of boiling water

The cranberries, apples, and pineapple are put through a meat grinder (we use the grinder attachment on a kitchenaid), the residual liquid is poured off but not squeezed out. Mix the jello, water, and sugar. We're using half the normal amount of water for the jello to account for all the water in the fruit. Use a spatula to scrape the bottom of the jello as you stir it (prevents a weird film from forming on the bottom). After you've dissolved the sugar in the jello, add the fruit sludge, chopped oranges, and chopped walnuts. Set in the fridge overnight on top of a dish towel (also helps prevent that weird film).

Andrew

Kahlua Cake

Ingredients:

One box dark chocolate cake mix

One (4 oz) box chocolate pudding mix

¼ cup cooking oil ½ cup Kahlua

2 eggs

12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips

16 oz sour cream

Preheat oven to 325 degrees and move the rack to the bottom position.

Mix all ingredients until combined (fold in the chocolate chips last).

Pour into a greased bundt cake pan.

Bake at 325 on bottom rack of oven for 70 minutes.

Let cool for 10-20 minutes in cake pan, but then transfer to cooling rack. If it isn’t cooled enough when you cut into it, it’ll smush down, so give it at least 30 minutes before cutting. Voila! Kahlua cake.

Beth

Cream Wafers (makes 5 dozen)

Dough:

1 cup soft butter

1/3 cup whipping cream

2 cups flour

Mix all. Chill 1 hour. Heat oven to 375ºF Roll dough 1/8” thick. Dough will be very firm. Cut into circles (here, the recipe says “cheese glass” but we have long since forgotten what glass that was! Anything round and about 1.5” will work to cut the dough). Transfer to a bowl of granulated sugar, coat both sides (if the sugar won’t stick to the cookies, warm them up in your hand for a few seconds before coating). Place on ungreased sheet and prick with a fork four times (if you want to be fancy, you can make a design like a star or a letter out of the holes). Bake 6-9 min.

Filling:

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup shortening

1 tsp vanilla

3 tbsp milk

1 lb powdered sugar

Beat together everything except the sugar. Add sugar until the icing is your desired consistency (at this point, we separate the icing into two bowls and color it red and green for Christmas). Match cookies of similar shapes/sizes. Fill with icing.

Emily

Vegan Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake- Submitted by Zeel

Gluten-free Ube Amaretti Crinkle Cookies- Submitted by Alli

Cardamom Black Pepper Cookies with Cognac Glaze- Submitted by Heidi

Chocolate Chip Cookies- Submitted by Andrew

Hazelnut Plum Tart- Submitted by Sharidan