Q&A with Destin - Smarter Every Day 148

Hey, it's me Destin. Welcome back to Smarter Every Day. I get a lot of questions because of Smarter Every Day. Some that are personal, some that are about the channel, all different kinds of things, and I've never really addressed them in a formal way. So today, on Smarter Every Day, we're gonna do a question and answer video.

I've blasted out to all the different types of social media that I use the fact that we're doing a Q&A, and people have sent in questions. So without further ado, let's look at the questions that my sister Briley has prioritized and categorized by different things, like controversial questions, funny, video answers, personal, channel specific questions, scientific, or advice.

Let's start with a question from the Smarter Every Day Facebook page, where I literally post something so that I get Smarter Every Day and share that with other people. "Where did you get the idea of doing Smarter Every Day, was it a project that you created with your buddies?" The answer is, no. I wanted to make a video about how to light a bonfire with rockets. My wife got a new computer that had video editing software on it. I like to communicate and I like to learn.

So, I created the video, it was fun, we enjoyed it, and people started watching it. I thought that was pretty cool. Later on, I decided to actually formally create Smarter Every Day. I initially called it Pennywhistle Productions. Smarter Every Day was an attempt to start creating videos before any monetization happened or anything. I wanted to figure out a way to pay for my kids' college.

The next question comes from the Smarter Every Day Instagram page, which I'll admit is not very good because I'm not a body builder and I'm not very good at filters. But anyway, you can check me out there if you like too. This question is from Justin. "What did you go to school for and what are your degrees?" My undergraduate degree is in mechanical engineering from the University of Alabama. I got a business minor while I was there also. My master's degree is in aerospace engineering with an emphasis in rocket propulsion.

The next question comes from Lewis on Snapchat, which is like a stream of consciousness for me. I am ilikerockets on Snapchat, and I just post pictures and videos of whatever I'm thinking at the moment. It's pretty fun. Anyway, here's his question. "Hey Destin. This might be not only my question but a question from a lot of people. Can you tell us what do you work with and what is your relation to rockets?" I am a flight test engineer for the Department of Defense; specifically, I'm a civil servant for the Army. I don't work in the Army, I'm not a soldier, but I work for the Army. The best thing to do here is just Google the place I work, Redstone Test Center. You'll learn everything you want to know.

The next question comes from the Smarter Every Day Twitter page, which is something where I'm active pretty much all the time. It says, "How did I meet my wife, who happens to be in the room, so how did we meet?" "We met in physics at college." "We met in physics at the University of Alabama." Yaaaayyyyy. [laughs]

The next question comes from Instagram. "Hey Destin, what would a fish do in the ISS in a water bubble?" Well, Dr. Mark Weislogel at Portland State University actually does experiments with this in a drop facility. It's pretty cool, check it out. Fish tries to leave, but it can't. Eventually, it does. That is cool science. [laughs] She sees herself. She doesn't know what to do. You're locked in.

Ricky wants to know from Instagram, "Can you put up daily videos please?" I do, on Snapchat. From Twitter, "How do you deal with the pressure of presenting all of your thoughts in video to very skeptical and sometimes mean commenters?" What do we do? People are saying mean things. Do we let it upset us? No. Say no.

Next question, from Facebook. "Oh, my sister, I see what she did. You're called the biggest blank-hole on earth and as ugly as a turd hope you like it." [laughs] Ahh, next question, from Instagram. "Do you have any pets?" Yes! We have three pets. We have Spotsy, who is a cat who has 21 spots. We have Buckshot, who is a dog. She's a mutt, and I love her. And then we have a third dog named Cody. She is a three-legged dog, we adopted her and we like her a lot, don't we? She's pretty cool. Can I get a kiss? Kiss? Nope, no kisses. [laughs] No kisses, alright.

So, the next question is from Snapchat, from Keira. "My name is Keira, I'm from New York, and I was wondering if you ever had a career in the Army because I saw your Snapchats; you wear army uniforms." Very good question, Keira. Like I said, I work for the Army, I'm not in the Army, but I do fly as an aviation flight test engineer. Sometimes I fly in helicopters. And when I do that, I wear a uniform basically. It's a flight suit, and that flight suit keeps me from catching on fire.

Next question from Twitter. "Were you scared of not knowing anything when you were about to graduate because I am?" No, I think you're in a good place. I think it's OK to not be sure of the things that you know, but you should be confident in your ability to learn new things.

Okay, a lot of people asked this question. "Am I submitting an application to be an astronaut?" Of course, I'm gonna apply to be an astronaut. I'd love to be on the space station or wherever we go explore next doing blog style updates, Mark Watney style if you will. That'd be a dream of mine. Now I'm gonna apply. I encourage you to do the same. You've gotta chase your dreams. There are so many qualified people though, but I'm gonna give it my best shot. I think it'd be really cool. Also, say hello to Robonaut, here on the space station.

Here's a question from Mike on Snapchat. "Destin, what is the coolest experience you've had making a video?" Man, there are a lot of cool experiences. I don't know, two things that stick out are diving on the Great Barrier Reef and something that is not out yet, something I'm editing now. I had an opportunity with the Air Force. [jet sound]

Mr. Almostcool wants to know if gravitational waves are real. Possibly. Toilet paper roll: over or under? Definitely over. Do you like potatoes? Love 'em.

Here's a Snapchat question from Eleana. "Hi Destin. I'm Eleana. I'm in Philly and my question is what does being a father mean to you?" When I became a father, it changed my perspective on life in general. I realize that there are these people that not only am I in charge of providing food and shelter for and stability for their lives and protecting them, but it's more than that. It's about modeling character for them, right? Because these people are going to make decisions based on how they observe their leader.

Fatherhood is about giving my children a safe place, encouraging them to bloom, and hopefully help them build into people that are much greater than I am. I want them to seek truth in everything that they do, even if it is a negative thing in the short term. In the long term, I want them to focus on truth.

From Twitter, "How do you go from an idea to the video itself?" Interesting question. I don't script things. I shoot footage of things that interest me, and I learn about it, over several years in some cases. Like the most recent video, the Mars rover, I had footage of the Mars rover before other people did. I did not put it up because I didn't understand it completely.

So, I don't go for the quick wins. I'll have the footage and not put it up. I will focus on understanding the topic. And when I understand the topic, and it's solidified in my mind, and only then do I put the video together and try to tell the whole story of my journey from knowledge to understanding.

From Instagram, "What's the biggest mistake I've made in a video?" I can specifically remember two that hurt me even now. I misspelled viscosity in the honey coiling video. In the dragonfly video, I spoke to an expert in the UK who said that there was a dorsal trachea and that's where respiration happened on the dragonfly. I immediately got a call from a true dragonfly expert who challenged me on this, and it was wrong.

That one hurts because I can't go back and change the video. I got it from everywhere.

The religion question. Here's the deal. From what I've read on the internet, people think that there's the smart, rocket side of Destin's brain and then there's this really stupid Jesus side. And I get it. People think that faith is a departure from reason. But I think differently about that. I feel like personally my faith journey has been propped up by reason.

I know that sounds strange if you're not there with me, but that's where I'm at. The most important thing is to remain intellectually honest and not just believe something because you're scared of what's gonna happen when you die and all this stuff, but does it make logical sense? And I have arrived at a point in my life where yes, it does to me.

People really want to have this discussion and argument on the internet, but I'm not interested in that because the world is already polarized enough. I want to bring people together, and so I think the fact that I'm just there, doing my thing, and people know that I'm a Christian, I think that's OK, and I'm not trying to convince anybody of anything. I just want people to look at the world differently and use their own minds to draw rational conclusions. That's all I want.

I know this didn't fully answer the question. I spoke at Skepticon, and I think they're gonna put a video up about that, so feel free to check that out. People on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook all want to know about the postcard project, and I owe you an apology. Yes, I did coat the inside of an entire room of my house with nothing but postcards that you sent me and I read, and they're fantastic.

People sent clever stuff from all over the world. People from Bahrain, from England, from Africa, you cannot imagine. I read so many delightful things. It was amazing. I had a management problem though. I tried to digitize all these things and build a website based around it, but the problem is you have to remove the personal information. I can't show you that because it's got somebody's address on it. I had to remove the personal information before I could do that.

So, that's why I haven't provided an update. If you want to send something, go find the address, send it. Somebody sent a space pen the other day; that was amazing. Anyway, thank you so much. I owe you an apology for not doing an update on that, but I'm very, very, very thankful. I look at them every time I leave my house.

Question from Twitter. "What's your best dad joke?" Don't really do dad jokes.

Question from Instagram. "Have you ever been to Eufaula, Alabama?" Well, if Eufaula me on Facebook you'd know, 'cause I update it more. There is a Smarter Every Day sub-reddit, and leakycauldron says, "What do your kids want to be?" I don't know. Hadn't asked them in a while.

"What do you want to be when you grow up?" "I don't know. A teacher." "A teacher? That's a good answer." "What do you want to be when you grow up?" "A cow." "She want to be a cow?" "What do you want to be when you grow up?" "An astronaut." "Who told you that you had to be an astronaut?" "I guess... [unintelligible]" "You what?" "[unintelligible]" "You wanted to?" "Mm hmm." "Did I tell you to be an astronaut?" "No." "That's just what you want to be?" "OK."

"What do you want to be?" "Batman."

[laughs] You seem to be so well put together as a husband, father, and a scientist. What are some of the things that you struggle with? I struggle with selfish ambition. I do. I put that in front of my family sometimes. And that's horrible, but it's a fact; I do. You don't see me looking for my keys every morning. My wife makes everything happen in our family, everything.

Anybody that knows us as a couple knows that if they want to get something done, they contact her because I'm busy chasing squirrels, or sometimes literally. So.. [baby cries] There she is right now. Hey babe, come here.

"I need baby food." "You need baby food? Hey come here." The question just came up, what do I struggle with. You can probably answer that better than me.

"Finding his keys." [laughs] I said that, what else? "I struggle with all kinds of stuff. Don't I?" "Saying no." "Yeah, I do. But I struggle, and she makes everything happen. True or false?"

"I make a lot of things happen." [laughs] So yes, if I'm ever on anybody's pedestal please smack me off, 'cause I don't need to be there.

OK, from Instagram, donskoi92 wants to know what that flashy thing is. "It's a clock. Right now it is 7:35. It's pretty easy to read once you know what you're doing. I think it's cool because I can go back and look at a Smarter Every Day from five years ago, figure out what frame of mind I was in when I was doing it, because I can tell if it's like 3 AM and it took me four or five takes because I can look at the time between cuts. It's my way of getting back into my brain in the past."

Mark from Facebook wants to know, "Why always the same hat?" I have no idea really. This was the first hat I wore on the channel; I got it out of the garage. It says Hurricane Creek Park on it, a local park I like to hike at. It's got ventilation in the back, it's got white on the front for low solar loading; I really liked it.

When it started falling apart, I was like, "Oh man, my hat looks trashy, what do I do?" So this was the closest thing I could find. There's no real reason, it's just something I enjoy. I bought five of these hoping they'll last longer, and I'm on hat number two. So they're lasting me about a year and a half to two years each.

Gashal from Reddit, "Could you tell us a bit about your childhood?" Yes. Really fun family. Four kids, my parents were auto workers. Doers. My mom is hilarious. She's on Instagram actually, motherofallgoats. My dad always took me with him when he would work places at night so I got to see things about engineering. He wasn't an engineer, but he did engineering.

My mullet was incredible. Nobody could compete with it, even to this day. I think it made me better at karate. So yeah, there you go. Normal kid, really thick accent.

OK, last question from Christie on Patreon. Patreons are the people that make Smarter Every Day happen. They literally give for every video that I make. "Do you feel like you're spreading yourself too thin in any of the myriad aspects of your life, for instance are you getting any sleep?" Christie, I know you well. You're in Florida, you were a doctor in the Air Force, you played wheelchair soccer, you've got MS, you're an amazing person, you can look at my eyes, you're intelligent.

You know that I'm tired. But the reason I'm able to do so much, and you're not the only person that asks this question, is because of my wife. With our relationship, the whole is really more effective than the sum of the parts. My wife, week after week, sets the ball on the tee and just lets me hit it out of the park and she just makes it all happen. She makes Smarter Every Day happen.

I hope you enjoyed this episode of Smarter Every Day. Q&A was kind of fun. First time I've ever done that. Feel free to subscribe if you're interested in that sort of thing. Support the sponsor, casper.com/smarter. That's it. I'm Destin, you're getting Smarter Every Day. Have a good one.