There have been five Mass Extinctions in Earth’s history and right now, we might be in the middle of a sixth. Paleontologist Dr. Michael Benton studies Mass Extinction events. We talk the history of mass extinctions, what causes mass extinction and if humans will survive the next one. Then, we countdown a special “touchy” Top 5.
Dr. Michael Benton: 01:24
Pointless: 35:40
Top 5: 55:28
Interview with Paleontologist Dr. Michael J. Benton
Nick VinZant 0:13
Welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant. Coming up in this episode, mass extinctions, and human touch, only
Dr. Michael Benton 0:23
about five or 10% of species survive. So that was really huge. And the mass extinction usually is so sudden, and unpredictable. It's not something that has ever been experienced before. So there's no opportunity for a kind of learning or adaptation. It's amazing, you know, to go to a shop, or to go to locations in North America, where you can put your finger on the end of the dinosaurs.
Nick VinZant 0:51
I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, subscribe, leave us a rating or review, we really appreciate it really helps us out. If you're a new listener, welcome to the show. If you're a longtime listener, thank you so much for all of your support. So I want to get right to our first guest, because he studies mass extinctions. Why they happen when they happen, and why certain species survive. This is paleontologist, Dr. Michael Benton. When we look at mass extinctions, like what qualifies something as a mass extinction,
Dr. Michael Benton 1:29
I think it's important to realize that species don't live forever. So actually, each species lives for maybe a million years. And that includes humans, Homo sapiens, T Rex, but a mass extinction means that there's a whole lot of species going right at the same time. And the most famous one, of course, was when all the dinosaurs disappeared, or should I say the final dinosaurs? I mean, dinosaurs had been on the earth for 150 million years. So they weren't all living side by side. But a mass extinction is where there's an unusually large number of species disappearing at the same time. And not just one group like dinosaurs, but across everything, you know. So normally, they're kind of ecologically broad. So marine creatures, creatures on land, plants, etc, etc.
Nick VinZant 2:19
Are we in one now? Well, yes, and
Dr. Michael Benton 2:23
no. I mean, I think people commonly say yes, if we allow that a mass extinction could last over a few 100 years, a few 1000 years. You know, we need to scale what's happening at the present time back towards the past. But certainly some of the estimates would say we're pretty near it.
Nick VinZant 2:42
If we're in one, right, like, I guess the thing that question that would be then Okay, so if we're in one, it doesn't seem too bad.
Dr. Michael Benton 2:49
Yeah, this is because we're each person is only aware of what's happening in their particular place. And many commentators like you and me, we're living in urban settings. And so the living creatures we see might be grass and the tropics is where biodiversity is highest. And, you know, the, the rainforests in Brazil, in Indonesia, the coral reefs in tropical areas, they're buzzing with life, you know, in one field of view, you're not just going to see five species, you know, I look out my window, I can't really see anything, I can see an oak tree and a bit of grass and people and a dog. So that's four species. But if I was to move to a tropical reef or or the Brazilian rainforest, I could maybe see 100 species in one view. And then you see the sort of creeping threat of reduction of those forests or of the coral reefs and you think, yeah, this is, something's happening here.
Nick VinZant 3:54
My idea was kind of to run through the five big ones that have happened, but I'm going to absolutely butcher the names of them that I looked up. Feel free to be like, that's not even close, buddy. The order dough Vinci
Dr. Michael Benton 4:07
in Ordovician Not bad, not bad. So yeah, do you want to go through the big five? And I can? Yeah, so the way we talk about mass extinctions, paleontologists, the people who study fossils have recognized that there were these events and they're not in dispute, people accept these. But it's important to note that there are many other events. So the club this, this top club of the Big Five, could be joined, arguably by another four or five according to different people. So the Ordovician was one that it it was only observed in the oceans because there wasn't any life on land, really. There are big changes in the major beasts on the ocean floor. And it seems to be associated with a kind of freezing event. So this is Over 400 million years ago, the next one was in the late Devonian, and there were definite extinctions that we would notice like losses of armored fish, they were amazing fish in the earlier part of the Devonian, and they had heavy armor on the outside, there's nothing living really like them. And there are lots of changes of plants and so on on land. And that seems to be, well, it was in two parts, but one of them seems to be associated with big volcanic eruptions. And then two 50 million years ago was the really big one at the end of the Permian. And we identified as really big, because something like only about five or 10% of species survive. So that was really huge. All of the others, about 50% of species survived, but 5%, that's one in 20. And that's as near as Damn it to, you know, complete extinction of everything. And that was, that was the end of lots and lots of marine creatures that have been around for a long time, the corals, the reefs disappeared, or on land, the forests disappeared. So it's not just that you're losing species, you're kind of losing a whole habitat, a whole system. And like on the earth today, forests are really important as places for life. And in the oceans, of course, reefs are really important. So they went. And we can see the scale, the scale of it, excuse me, because it took 10 million years for them to rebuild. And then, at the end of the Triassic 50 200 million years ago, there was a further extinction event that affected life in the oceans and on land. And sometimes you you mark an extinction event by opportunity. And at this point, the dinosaurs took off. So the other groups had been wiped out, the dinosaurs were already there, they'd been doing quite well, but they're not really taken over, excuse me, and they took over completely. And then finally, at the end of the Cretaceous, the famous one that everybody knows about 66 million years ago, disappearance of the dinosaurs, also the pterosaurs, the flying reptiles, the marine reptiles, things like please your sores. Also Ammonites, if anybody is a fossil collector, the Ammonites, so these kiled fossils that are very common in the Jurassic, and Cretaceous they went, and lots of other things. And it's also marked by opportunity, because the loss of the dinosaurs enabled the rise of the mammals and the loss of various of these marine creatures, enabled the rise of modern time sharks and various other things like that. And the main feature that marks them out is that life was disappearing in all habitats, you know, in the oceans and on land?
Nick VinZant 7:52
Do we kind of ultimately bounce back in the sense that I'll just put easy numbers, right, like, Okay, we had 100 species before, had a mass extinction, we come back to having 100 species again, or have we like, fundamentally lost something each time one of these
Dr. Michael Benton 8:09
happens that life bounces back. And I think the way to think about it is if you think of an ecosystem, which is like the food, wherever, who eats who and all the different species that are living together in some sort of relationship, if you delete species at different points, normally something of the structure remains and other species will evolve to do whatever it is, you know, if you kill off the animal that specializes in eating a particular kind of plant, something else will take it over and keep the overall shape of the ecosystem. So we normally find that the before and after numbers are about the same life will recover.
Nick VinZant 8:53
Is there something that you would say that they all had in common, the
Dr. Michael Benton 8:57
ones that go extinct? People look for this because you would think that so you might think of a mass extinction as a kind of clear out of a, you know, like something in human history that you you have a massive catastrophe, and all the old fashioned stuff disappears, and everything gets better. Normally, it's not like that, because evolution is acting all the time. So species in the wild are acting on each other. And the competition for food or predator prey relationships, keep all the organisms in a sense on their toes. So they're evolving, they're evolving. They're responding to changing climates, blah, blah, blah. And the mass extinction usually is so sudden and unpredictable. It's not something that has ever been experienced before. So there's no opportunity for a kind of learning or adaptation and it may be unexpected So the comparison was Could it be that the weak organisms go, and the strong creatures live? Actually, what seems to be happening is it's more like what David Rob great evolution has said, was the field of bullets. And the analogy he gave was the First World War, where you have all these soldiers lined up in the trenches. And the order when the whistle is blown, they climb out of the trenches and run towards the enemy with their machine guns, who gets killed, no way of knowing. Because, you know, even if you are, if you're strong and physically fit, and you've, you've had a good diet, and you're highly intelligent, you're just as likely to be moan down as the guy down the road, who is poorly fed, smokes, like a chimney is completely hopeless. And, and it seems to be more like that. That is, unlike normal natural selection is the field of bullets, everything is equally at risk.
Nick VinZant 11:01
You just kind of get you just get lucky and
Dr. Michael Benton 11:05
more or less. Yes. And I think the features that make you lucky, I mean, there are certain there are a small number of things that are worth knowing. Number one, don't be too big, because big things need a load of food, and they need a big area to forage. And small population size. Number two, be worldwide live everywhere. Because if you only live in one part of the world, there's less chance that some population might survive somewhere or other. And I guess number three is have a fairly generalized diet, you know, don't be too fussy about your food.
Nick VinZant 11:39
I feel like we got those, like we those a little bit. Humans
Dr. Michael Benton 11:42
take a lot of the boxes, and there's lots of us and so, but we're quite big in the normal run of things better to be cockroach sized.
Nick VinZant 11:51
Like, I mean, is this a controversial field in the sense that like, there's disagreement about it? Or is this like, no, that we got this buttoned up?
Dr. Michael Benton 11:59
There's not disagreement about the events, I think people accept Yeah, you know, the evidence is so clear and overwhelming. And what do I mean by the evidence, there are many places in the world where there are a sector, there are rock successions, piles of rocks that span across these intervals of time. And the best section is in China at a location called Mei Shan, which is a kind of old quarry, and all the way up to a certain point, the rock is just stuffed full of fossils. And then at a certain level, the rock color turns much more black. And that's a general indication of the level of oxygen going down, because there's a lot of organic stuff being black, which is not being eaten, because normally, any organic matter on the ocean floor is eaten by something, there's all kinds of creatures moving around. And if suddenly, a lot of that is being preserved, that means loss of oxygen, and no fossils. So you can actually put your finger on the point, and above the level, almost nothing, and you only find maybe one or two species, these are the survivors. And that's how we talk about this, this sort of loss of 90%, or 95%, is based on you know, it's based on actual counting in actual locations. And
Nick VinZant 13:15
kind of a personal level, like when you see those sections, right, like what goes through your head, when you see one of those.
Dr. Michael Benton 13:22
It's amazing, you know, to go to me, Shawn, or to go to locations in North America, where you can put your finger on the end of the dinosaurs, here we are in this location in Montana, Kansas, or whatever. This is the point at which the dinosaurs disappear. And that's what gets young people excited about a lot of this kind of paleontology and geology. It's not all theory, you can actually see it and put your finger on it.
Nick VinZant 13:52
Like what would the world kind of those times be like? Because if I'm imagining a mass extinction, like I'm kind of imagining like a hellscape on Earth, you know, disaster movies, but would it be so unrecognizable to us?
Dr. Michael Benton 14:06
Probably not. I mean, the because a lot of the action is happening in the atmosphere. So I think for the end of the dinosaurs, yes, we would have seen a lot of really shocking stuff. So I'll tell you what it was like you're standing somewhere in modern, you're standing somewhere in North America, or Europe or whatever. Somewhere within reach of this, the impact happened in the Caribbean, on the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico. At that time, sea levels were much higher. And so this area was was underwater. The meteorite hits it is huge. It was many miles across it penetrated deep into the Earth's crust. And then the equal and opposite reaction is an enormous volume. millions of tonnes of rock and dust come back up, because they react to that huge impact. And the major pieces of rock would fall back, all around the crater. The crater is something like it's more than 100 miles across 150 kilometers, something like that. So it is huge. And the crater is formed partially from the rock falling back, as well as from that excavation process. But a large amount of the material going up is dust. And that goes high in the atmosphere and resides it doesn't fall back immediately because it is dust. And that encircles the earth, something like half an inch thick of dust was in the upper atmosphere, which was enough to cut out the light of the sun. And so on the ground anywhere in the world, you would have felt that you would have seen the lack of sun, and you would have felt the cold. And then more immediately close to it almost as from Mexico as far as the US Canadian border. Within minutes of the impact within hours of the impact, I should say, there will be a pattering of small glass beads. The beads are just about a millimeter in size, very tiny, you can see them but they're there at the limit. And they might be a little bit hot that by this point, they've flown them out two or 3000 Miles kilometers from the impact side. So they're probably quite cool. And what they are is melt product. So the two things that happen when the meteorite hits are I say meteorite asteroid, the same thing really a big rock. When the asteroid hits, it creates high pressure and high temperature. So there's a great deal of melting. So large blocks are not melted, they fall back, smaller stuff can be melted and fly into the sky. And it falls within that radius into Brazil up to the Canadian border across just into Europe. But because the Atlantic was not as wide down as it is now. And these are these are mold, these are melted from the impact side. And so they don't have the chemistry of volcanic lava. They have the chemical components of limestone, essentially, which is which is weird. At the same time a heatwave would radiate out from the crater in all dimensions. And this would be partly caused by the energy of the impact. And that would burn up the forests and burn up anything in its way. I don't know how far it would have gone wouldn't progress all around the world, but it might have progressed a few 100 or even 1000 miles away from the crater. So there's an awful lot of physical stuff going on, you know, black sky cold, if you're within reach of it, you'd be aware of the material falling back to Earth. But all around the world, even on the opposite side of the world, you know, in what is now China, what is now Australia, whatever it us, you'd be very aware of something very, very horrible, nasty going on, and creatures would be dying everywhere. A lot of it isn't instant, the plants may die because of cold. They'll die eventually because of the lack of daylight. But that would take a little bit longer.
Nick VinZant 18:22
And in some of the other ones that weren't maybe just because of that direct kind of immediate cause. Would it have been really different? Like? Yeah, I
Dr. Michael Benton 18:31
think all the other events wouldn't have seen so immediately, dramatically, amazingly apocalyptic. All the other ones that I mentioned, are caused, it seems by earthbound processes, not by some extraterrestrial thing. And the most of them are, most of them are explained by volcanic eruption. And so this has become clearer in the last 10 or 20 years that and they're called hyper thermals meaning very high temperature, because that's the key feature. I should have stressed that with the impact you actually get cooling. So it's important to bear in mind that that at the end of the dinosaurs is associated with lowering temperature because of the blacking out of the sun. But when it's a volcanic cause event is warming mainly. And this is because of the gases. So of course we think of volcanoes you don't want to get too close to an erupting volcano because you get washed out you'll get swept away in molten lava. Well, yeah, of course. And with a big volcanic eruption that would have a big effect, but not worldwide. The worldwide effects come from the gases that come out of the volcano and there are multiple kinds of gases come out of all volcanoes. Some of them like sulfur dioxide has a quick effect it has a cooling effect. But when sulfur dioxide mixes with water and oxygen in the atmosphere, it puts uses sulfuric acid which isn't good. And it has a bad effect not only in killing the trees, but it leeches away nutrients from the soil. And so that part of forests that are may be affected by acid rain can stay blasted and bleak for centuries because it takes a long time for the soil to redevelop and acquire the minerals that are needed by the plants and so on. But when you have a volcanic eruption on a global scale, but let me reword that, when you have a huge volcanic eruption, that it can actually have effects over the whole whole of the earth. And most of those effects are partly from the sulfur dioxide, but partly from the greenhouse gases. And there's a whole bunch of greenhouse gases that come out of volcanoes, particularly carbon dioxide, but also methane, and water vapor. And all of these greenhouse gases have a warming effect. And although the sulfur dioxide has a cooling effect, it's fairly transient, that's quick that that's done. And the warming effects can last for much longer, not not just a few days, they can last for months. So this is what is happening, the two things combined, give you the killing effects of the hyperthermal. The heating, the warming is the key thing coupled with acid rain. So this is what was happening at the end of the Permian. And at the end of the Triassic, and probably at the end of the Devonian, at least those other big five. And the killing then on land is because the trees and other plants are killed by the acid rain, the warming has a huge effect, because if you raise the temperature by five degrees, 10 degrees, life can't survive that, you know, we think that many, many plants and animals are happy at hot temperatures, well, not really. Anything above 30 C is really not acceptable 35. And so life will move. But then they get crowded because you're clearing out the very diverse tropics, which have much more life in them than any other part of the world. And in the oceans, the main effect is from high temperature and acid, the acid will acidify the waters. And a lot of marine animals have shells that are made of calcium carbonate. So things like mollusks, shellfish, and even crabs and lobsters, their shell is made of calcium carbonate, and many others and the acid will just eat away at that and they can't really survive. So how long it would all take to kill we don't know. But the nonetheless, the killing effects of huge volcanic eruptions are deadly. And they've happened many times.
Nick VinZant 22:53
How come it hasn't happened for so long, though? Or at least another big one? I mean, it seemed like it was kind of close together. And now it's been? Well,
Dr. Michael Benton 23:01
not really. I mean, if the first one was, you know, between three and 400,000,003 50 million years ago as the end Devonian 250 266. So they're spaced apart by 50 or 100 million years. So another one could come along, anytime. People used to think there was a kind of regular pattern that we've Zoia, there's one of these every 30 million years, we can kind of predict, you know, the last one was whatever, 16 million small one. The next one is going to be 9 million 10 million years in the future. But I don't think there's a good evidence for a regular repeat.
Nick VinZant 23:42
Are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions? Indeed, yeah.
Are you more surprised by life's fragility or ability to endure?
Dr. Michael Benton 23:52
That's a fantastic question. No, I don't know how to answer it. Really? I think you can answer it both ways. Somehow, I think you can say Well, life is amazingly resilient, that you know, many of the plants and animals we see around on Earth today have been on earth for a very long time, hundreds, 1000s and millions of years. And yet, it just takes a yet it just takes something like one of these volcanic eruptions on the scale I was mentioning, to have that devastating effect. And of course, we can see the impacts of human activity, showing how fragile nature can be. So, you know, I can't really give a single straight answer to that, but it's a great question.
Nick VinZant 24:36
Domino are all at once and I think what they mean by that, is it usually kind of, okay, it affects this thing. And then that thing follows through and then it creates all this or is it like get everybody all at once?
Dr. Michael Benton 24:49
I think the Hypertherm also the majority of mass extinctions were dominant, because I think that certain species would go quickly. For the ones that were most affected, in the part of the world that is most affected, which is a little what we see today that around the equator, think of Africa, the Sahara Desert, because of global warming, Thisara desert is getting bigger. And therefore species that live in and around the desert are going to be hit first. And then I think consequences would flow out. And I think that's the same with most of the past extinctions. The only difference being the end Cretaceous the impact, that was much more instantaneous. I think that was like, all done within a week. You know, it's not like all done within an hour. Because the reverberations, the movement of dust, and so on takes days, maybe a week.
Nick VinZant 25:47
Oh, it was that fast. The
Dr. Michael Benton 25:51
the dust in the upper atmosphere that might just stuck around for months, and kept the earth black. But I think the worst of it would be over in a week, would
Nick VinZant 26:01
we have survived any of them? We
Dr. Michael Benton 26:03
might have done in certain parts of the world. But whether we're allowed our technology or not, if we had none of our technology, probably not. organism,
Nick VinZant 26:14
you miss the most organism, you missed the least. And I think what they mean by that, in the sense is like, Oh, we lost this. And this thing was really cool. Versus Oh, we lost that. And that was probably really good for us.
Dr. Michael Benton 26:29
That's a difficult one to answer, because I think everybody would have a different opinion. I love dinosaurs. So I'm very sorry, we lost the dinosaurs. But then I don't want them back. You know, we've seen the Jurassic Park movies. You think why do they persist? You know, come on, this is the most stupid thing in the world. Having tea racks wandering around with not be good, I don't think what would you what would one regard as a species, we can do that that's a terrible thing to have to even try to answer, I think. I think most people would respond and say every species has equal value, even though we may not much like the mosquito or the rattlesnake. Nonetheless, you know, we would say they have a beauty, they have something about them. And many would say, Let's wipe out all the rattlesnakes, it will make people happy. But it's not for us to judge.
Nick VinZant 27:24
The species ever go extinct just because they're dumb.
Dr. Michael Benton 27:28
I think, I suppose you could point to the something that we see in, we've seen in historical time that when people first went to certain islands that had never had human beings on them before. A lot of the species, the animals were naive, not exactly dumb, but they're naive in the sense they didn't run away. They were just curious. And we've all read about or seen stories of, I don't know, penguins, you know, you go to Antarctica, the penguins are curious, they'll come up and have a look, even though you might shoot them. And in the early days, probably people did shoot them. And I hope nowadays people would not, but nonetheless. And I suppose the story of the dodo people arrive on the island, they see this dumb looking bird wandering about it couldn't fly, it didn't need to. And it didn't need to run away because there were no predators until humans arrived. And then we go around, hitting them on the head with with sticks and shooting them. And you could say they're dumb. But they're just dumb because of our bad behavior. And presumably, without us they were doing just fine. What
Nick VinZant 28:38
animal of today animal organism today, do you think is going to be the best survivor?
Dr. Michael Benton 28:43
I think I would just give the usual answer, which would be the cockroach. And the the argument there is they can kind of live anywhere. They're all over the world. They've adapted to humans very well. That's why we see them so much. They're quite small. They're huge, you know, millions and millions of them. And I think they're kind of difficult to kill. If you've had cockroaches in your house, you can't stomp on them. They're quite thin and they seem to survive. You want to make a special effort to kill them. So they would do well. Rats and mice I think would do very well because they kind of live everywhere. And all of those beasts you know, they're willing to eat anything that they'll eat plants will eat other animals that eat decaying stuff. They'll eat paper, though, seems to survive on almost anything.
Nick VinZant 29:33
Last one, kind of the big one, I guess. Do you think that we survive?
Dr. Michael Benton 29:38
I think the most people are optimistic and would say that we will find a way. And it's easy to be loud and shouty about these topics, but it's better to reflect and I think we can we can survive because we can I hope optimistically that decision makers will accept that there are certain changes to human behavior that would be good for the the earth and would slow down some of the changes that are happening. But of course, the other argument would be we have a certain amount of ingenuity, we have technology. So if Armageddon faces us, and we rather hope it does not, you know, that we can somehow find a better way to live in harmony with the wonders of the earth. But even if Armageddon hits us, we have technology, I'd be a little more cautious about that. Because of course, people, it's easy for people who are not in the field to think Oh, yes, those, those science guys will invent something. And you're going to you're going to take a slightly more nuanced view and say, Well, what is it you want them to invent? And is it really possible to do that? But yeah, there's ingenuity. But of course, I guess the thing is, how many people would be preserved? Would it just be the people with the money to buy the technology? I just don't know. And I suppose you can answer it both ways. And both of them are positive in their own way. And we'd give you a little bit of hope.
Nick VinZant 31:13
I don't know if I have faith, but I do have hope. Yes.
Dr. Michael Benton 31:19
We have to hope that humans are decent, and that they will work together in a good way.
Nick VinZant 31:24
What are you? What are you studying? Now? What's kind of the focus of your research? Now?
Dr. Michael Benton 31:29
I'm focusing very much on the end Permian mass extinction, but I'm very interested in the recovery of life. So how did life get back? And there's a lot of very good tools we have now for kind of modeling ecosystems and understanding how all that process of recovery happens, and how good how the new groups fit into the system, and kind of build a whole new world. So yeah, that's what we're looking at at the moment, when we
Nick VinZant 31:57
get into that recovery, is it kind of nature goes wild in the sense that like some crazy organisms pop up, or do we kind of go back to the base a
Dr. Michael Benton 32:08
bit of both. And there are certainly, there are certainly some crazy things going on. And we sometimes call these disaster or species because they are the things that take advantage of tough conditions. And they're they may do well in times of perturbed environments. But eventually things do settle. And it may be a different cohort of species that come along and create that longer lasting ecosystem. And a good analogy is, we can see it in nature today, if they're building a road, for example, you you rip up everything and cut through the landscape. And then you can see the way life comes back on the margins of the road. And the first thing is to come back, there are certain kinds of herbs, plants that just grow very quickly. And you might get one species in Europe is rosebay willowherb, which is a kind of purple flower, and it just covers the bare soil very quickly. And it does fine for a year or so. And then bushes and small plants like that come back, and they gradually get better established. And eventually you'll get trees. So this is something that ecologists look at a lot such cetera. And it may take 100 years for the disturbed landscape to recover. So that's the sort of concept within human lifetimes within ecology. And I think it's something similar on the world scale, that you get this sort of opportunistic species that come in quickly, they're fine. They do well, for a little while, but then they get supplanted and replaced, and you get, the gradual build up of the ecosystem usually is kind of starting at the bottom with various plants and bushes, and eventually trees. And species, animals come back in and in a similar sort of way, when they get the opportunity.
Nick VinZant 34:05
That's pretty much all the questions that we have what's kind of coming up next for you, I know you have a relatively new book out that covers a lot of these things
Dr. Michael Benton 34:13
I do, I was going to wave a copy, but I don't have a copy to hand. But it's called extinction, how life how life finds a way. So it's a bit about both sides, the sort of negativity, but also the positivity of how life can recover. And you know, looking from the present viewpoint, the most obvious example was the end of the dinosaurs gave the opportunity for mammals. We are mammals, so we better celebrate that extinction event. Otherwise, we might not be here quite in the way we are. And looking back at older events, they triggered recoveries of life that built parts of the modern types of ecosystems we see today. So there's always been that bounce back, which is nice. If we take a broad philosophical view Taking a narrower view to survival of Homo sapiens, as we were discussing a moment or two ago, you can't be so sure about that, of course, life will come back. But whether humans are part of that is up to us really.
Nick VinZant 35:12
I want to thank Dr. Benton so much for joining us if you want to connect with him, we have linked to him on our social media sites were Profoundly Pointless on tik, Tok, Instagram and YouTube. And we've also included his information in the episode description. If you want to see more of this interview, the YouTube version of this episode will be live on March 28. At 12:30pm Pacific. Okay, now let's bring in John Shaw and get to the pointless part of his show. How long does it take you to get out of the car?
John Shull 35:49
Probably less than five seconds. Good.
Nick VinZant 35:51
I also get out of the car very quickly. But I have noticed some people that seem to just be in there forever.
John Shull 35:57
I mean, I'm already ready to go. I guess I kind of understand people who need to grab wallets or key fobs or something but like I'm when I pull into a spot. I'm ready to go. As soon as I could shut off the car.
Nick VinZant 36:10
Do you ever just linger and sit in the car?
John Shull 36:13
No, actually, there are moments in my life where I don't even want to spend the time to get my kids in buckled. I just want to go.
Nick VinZant 36:21
Yeah, I mean, I generally Watch out for my children a little bit like I'm not going to leave them in the car. But I'm still like, let's get out of here. Even if I have a bunch of stuff that I have to grab, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that it has never taken me. Even as a parent with two children. It has never taken me more than 30 seconds to get out of the car.
John Shull 36:43
It's taken me more than 30 seconds, but just because of the kids, but if I was by myself, I would never be more than 10 seconds ever. How
Nick VinZant 36:52
do you feel about people who take a long time to get out of the car? I'm going to Can I Can I interject really quickly before you answer this question that I just asked you. Um, I have a neighbor that I timed, single person a minute and nine seconds to get out of their car. I was like, What are you possibly doing? What are you possibly doing? And this was a person that was in their own driveway a minute and nine seconds. I was appalled.
John Shull 37:21
I mean, I'm to me getting out isn't I'm not more as concerned as with that, as I am people who are, you know, ready to leave and they just sit there in the spot that bothers me more. Oh,
Nick VinZant 37:35
but if some okay, if you know that somebody is waiting for your spot, do you move faster or slower?
John Shull 37:41
I get parking lot anxiety. So I sometimes I won't even be buckled and I'll be out of the spot. I don't want to take up any more time. I don't want to I don't want there to be a conflict.
Nick VinZant 37:52
I also move faster. But apparently there is some research that shows that most people move slower. If they notice somebody is waiting for them all move faster. Like alright, you gotta keep you gotta keep traffic moving, right? Like I look at traffic is the greater good. Everybody's got to do their part and get going.
John Shull 38:10
I would be why did you ever have solution for your neighbor? Did you ever figure out why?
Nick VinZant 38:16
No, they were just there. And that was after I started timing. I was watching them like they're still in the car. What are they doing in the car?
John Shull 38:26
Would you say you're the watcher neighbor? Because you sound like one?
Nick VinZant 38:30
I am kind of No, I'm aware of my surroundings because I work from home. And my house is on a corner and the house kind of sits up a little bit. So I have like great neighbor watching. I'm aware of the comings and goings in my neighborhood. I know when somebody new is in the neighborhood. I know when a car is parked in a place that usually is not. I'm aware of my surroundings.
John Shull 38:54
You kind of sound like Paul Blart Mall Cop a little bit.
Nick VinZant 38:57
I've never seen that movie.
John Shull 39:00
I mean, it doesn't surprise me. It's not a good movie, but it is. It is a fun 90 minutes just to not think and laugh.
Nick VinZant 39:06
I mean the name. The name is the best part of that movie. Paul Blart that was once after you heard the name of it, that movie sounded like it was probably all downhill from there, there was nothing funnier than his name of Paul Blart.
John Shull 39:21
Well, and Kevin James at that point in his career, I mean, he was one of the hottest comedic actors or was kind of fallen off now though. Yeah, that's weird.
Nick VinZant 39:30
I feel like comedians only comedians only have a certain stretch. I feel like there's a comedian that just blows up. And then they're gone. I polled the audience about our get out of the car question. Nobody is taking very long our entire audience is very fast. 67% said five to 10 seconds 33% said less than 10 Less than five seconds. Nobody said 10 to 30 and nobody said more than 30 seconds. So if you're taking a long time to get out of the car you are in
John Shull 40:04
an anomaly. Like I said, I don't even think on accident. I've stayed in the car longer than 10 seconds.
Nick VinZant 40:10
I don't know if I've ever agreed with you more. I have more respect for you about your decisions and getting out of cars right now. I'm like, Yeah, John's got this. I know we
John Shull 40:21
don't get we don't usually see eye to eye on much. So let's we should just count that as a when I first first time and almost 300 episodes. This is
Nick VinZant 40:28
a big deal. Like I've never I feel like we've never been in more agreement about getting out of the car. Get going in life. Get going.
John Shull 40:36
slam the door in don't look back. So many good analogies that can come from it really?
Nick VinZant 40:41
Exactly right. I can't think of any more.
John Shull 40:46
Turn off the ignition. And just keep running. I don't know.
Nick VinZant 40:51
Yeah, you should have just left it at bay stopped.
John Shull 40:54
Yeah, it's
Nick VinZant 40:55
hard to come up with some there is what I tried. I went to the well on the well was dry. Yeah. There wasn't water in there for a long time either. Okay.
John Shull 41:06
All right. We on to shout outs that we're gonna go into here. Sure. Yeah. All right. Let's do let's start off with Sydney mayor. Like a Dude Sydney. That's a That's a cool name. Boy or Girl. Girl actually, it's a female and I don't know if they want their handle out there. But it's said the kid of all things. Hmm. So Hmm.
Nick VinZant 41:29
Interesting. Women don't generally really abbreviate a lot of their handles.
John Shull 41:35
Not really no more of a guy thing. Okay. Bri Wenzel? Renee again, DIA. Carly, Diane, apparently a lot of the female gender listen to her last episode, which is a good thing. James SACCOs. Sam frenzy. Lindsay roast. And her handle is mama Lindsay Lou. So another kind of abbreviate. Are there. A lot of those this time around? How they're received. Marco Christian, Sean Howard. And we're going to end with a pretty simple common name. Kimberly Marie. Appreciate all of you,
Nick VinZant 42:19
huh. Kimberly Maria, I'm going to say is I wonder if that's a full name. I don't think that you want that. Your that to be your full name. That's probably like, first name Latin middle name.
John Shull 42:32
Yeah, I think so. Okay, all right, brilliant. 10 bangers here for you. Oh, let's see. First thoughts. First things that come to your mind. Let's try to keep a movin today. We're going to start off here with P Diddy.
Nick VinZant 42:48
Oh, what's going on with him? Well, that's like he's done something. I can't keep track with all of the scandals that are now happening involving certain people. Basically, if you're a famous person, you have probably done something terrible. There's not like, let's we should just now have a list of famous people who have not done something terrible.
John Shull 43:12
I guess Long story short, from what we know it's very early. But facts are that at least two of his homes. One in Florida and one in California. We're rated by Homeland Security. And there's lots of different things going on. Lots of rumors don't know why they were rated. But I guess we'll find out in the next couple of weeks. I mean, they're the the consensus seems to be something to do with sex trafficking. But that's a pretty hefty claim just to throw out there if you don't know so.
Nick VinZant 43:43
Yeah, like once you start getting raided by agencies, and not just the police, like you've probably your urine urine for something right runs. It's not like the local law enforcement like oh, it's the DEA, like, oh, you hear kinda, you've done something.
John Shull 44:01
Yeah, your Believe it or not, I don't think that's a very big list of people that get raided by the federal government.
Nick VinZant 44:08
The federal government evading you You're, you're going to be answered. You need to retain a lawyer.
John Shull 44:15
So the next two are movie, just movie topics. I'm gonna start here with the new Ghostbusters. Oh, I've lost
Nick VinZant 44:23
track of how many times they've made different team different Ghostbusters movies. I've lost track. Like Which one is this one now. Now they got the old cast in than the old cast before. Once you've lost track like I'm out. I'm out. I'm out of all future ghost movies. All of them. I don't whatever happens out of all of them.
John Shull 44:42
I will say this and I don't know why this is but they made it. I don't know if you remember they made an all female cast. But
Nick VinZant 44:48
that was like three or four Ghostbusters. ago, wasn't it? Yeah, so
John Shull 44:53
it was before this. The Paul Rudd ones I guess you could say which are the current ones and I don't know why that movie nobody liked it or saw it. But people are back on the Ghostbusters train now.
Nick VinZant 45:06
Oh, they like it. This one. Okay, yeah,
John Shull 45:07
good. They're all about it. I'm actually I have two more apparently. Speaking of Adam Sandler, as we talked about earlier briefly. Happy Gilmore to is in the works. I don't think you need to make a sequel 40 years later to Happy Gilmore, but that's just me. No,
Nick VinZant 45:26
I don't like leave it alone. I guess you got like they got to do something. The only thing that bothers me about these kinds of movies, I get the idea. They got to do something. But like what ideas get put forward? Like take some risks. Give us something new. It's just the old stuff all over again. Like we just want something new.
John Shull 45:47
Well, this isn't gonna be new than for you. But apparently Michael Keaton not apparently this is happening. Michael Keaton and Wynonna are in the new Beetlejuice trailer or our movie agency.
Nick VinZant 46:01
That's was the how many Beetlejuice movies were there originally was there one? Just one Beetlejuice
John Shull 46:08
from I believe so. I there may be a two but I don't think that's recognized officially. But for sure there was just the original.
Nick VinZant 46:16
I'm okay with that. The most? Okay. I'm okay with that the most but this because like maybe they've got something new, as opposed to like something that's been going on and on and on. There's gonna do it again. I just want new movies, man. Give me something new.
John Shull 46:36
All right. This one's a completely change of topic here. But say you're on a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean. And it starts on fire. Let's say an electric or electric. Let's say a lightning strike, hits a piece of the ship and start stirring fire. Do you freak out? Do you stay calm? How do you handle it? How do you think you would handle that?
Nick VinZant 46:58
I'm going straight for the lifeboats. That's what I'm doing. I'm going right to where the lifeboats are and I'm going immediately. Okay. Yeah, I don't think that that's one of the things like fire on a boat is not a good thing. I just the boat catches on fire. Where are you going?
John Shull 47:16
Well, I mean, that's, I mean, where do you go? I can only imagine looking up and seeing that and just being like, well, I'm dead doesn't matter. Game over.
Nick VinZant 47:26
I don't like modes of transportation with no way out. Like where there's not really any options for you. Like flying. I don't like flying. Because if something goes wrong, like there's only one way you're going, you're not going up. And like the ocean, you're not Where are you going? I like options.
John Shull 47:45
You're going down as the funny that you're either going down or up? There is no like in between? Well, yeah,
Nick VinZant 47:53
I mean, that's just like, gravity. Just that's just how it works. Right? You're either going forward or backward. There's not like a lot of other options. It's just up or down. Alright, no other options, man. All right.
John Shull 48:06
Let's see. Quiet onset, the new documentary. Have you seen? Have you seen it? No,
Nick VinZant 48:13
I just that's one of those things that keep hearing about it. And I don't really want to hear about that. I don't I don't I don't I don't want to be I don't want to know, is where my official position is with that. Obviously, that's terrible. If these things happen to people, it sounds terrible. I don't want to know.
John Shull 48:31
Well, if anyone's if anyone doesn't know what it is the brief one liner is it's a documentary, basically based upon the Nickelodeon shows of the early to mid 2000s. Like Drake and Josh and a couple other ones. And like the lead writer, lead producer, was basically a terrible human being. He's in prison now, by the way. But anyways, it kind of people, people come out in terms of they, you know, like, Drake, Drake, and Josh comes out and talks about how he was kind of groomed and molested and things and there's other actors. And you just kind of realize that these kids and their kids don't really have any control over any of it. And it's pretty scary. Actually, it's a not a healthy way of doing things when you really think about it.
Nick VinZant 49:16
If the movie TV industry was to come forward and say we're going to CGI or AI, all childhood actors from now on, I would not care about the quality of it whatsoever. Like that just doesn't seem like a thing that kids should really be doing. It doesn't really seem like something that works out very well for them. And if they were like, look, this is going to look terrible, but we're going to CGI all childhood actors. Like okay, cool. Sounds good.
John Shull 49:41
I mean, we've kind of talked about it before about childhood actors. Most of the unfortunately don't go on to live very healthy lives. I mean, yeah, they might have money and fame, but they're not like happy.
Nick VinZant 49:53
Your whole perception of reality would be warped. I think I
John Shull 49:57
would just be just be absolutely terrible. Well, so we've pretty much gone left and forth, left, right and center here. Shohei Otani and his interpreter stealing millions of dollars from him to pay off a gambling debt.
Nick VinZant 50:12
Oh man, like, look, then the demon gets you you got to do what you got to do. Yeah, that's like Amen. Don't Don't steal from people. Right. Like, that's kind of that's a crazy story.
John Shull 50:30
It's yeah, once again, if you aren't familiar with that whole thing. Sure your time is probably the biggest baseball player in America. Just google him and it'll come up for you. What's going on with him? Let's see here. March Madness, I got to bring up a local Michigan team.
Nick VinZant 50:46
Oh God, who
John Shull 50:47
is it kind of kind of the Cinderella of the tournament, and then they got eliminated. But Oakland University took out Kentucky.
Nick VinZant 50:54
So wait a minute, one, one game, and then there's Cinderella the tournament?
John Shull 50:58
So far? I mean, there'll be somebody else. But I mean, there's, you have a college of 5000 kids that took out Kentucky. I mean, that's a pretty big deal. Regardless, my question is to you, a kid that basically nobody knew had 30 points. They were off from three point range, blah, blah, blah against Kentucky. My question to you is, within hours of him doing that, and not having one add nothing. He had signed like seven NIHL deals, which in college are you're okay to do that. And that's how some of these athletes make money. But essentially, he made more money because of one game that he made his entire basketball career. It's nuts. To me. It's insane. Well,
Nick VinZant 51:41
I mean, strike when the iron is hot, right. Like, if you get an opportunity, take it, take it as far as you can possibly go Good for him. Yeah,
John Shull 51:48
I mean, yeah,
Nick VinZant 51:49
I mean, I think you just have to be careful that like, you don't know exactly what you're signing up for. But like go, Yeah, do it. Man. I think it's I think the one thing about March Madness is it's a great example to me, of what people can do if you just give them an opportunity.
John Shull 52:04
All right, ankle socks,
Nick VinZant 52:07
or ankle sock. What's the point of having ankle socks when you can have no show? I'm not a fan of ankle socks. If you're going to wear socks that are going to be there's no reason to wear ankle socks. either hide the socks completely get no show socks, or pull them up and get crew socks. There's no reason to have ankle. Why are you showing a little bit of sock? No reason for it.
John Shull 52:28
I actually prefer it but it's fine. You
Nick VinZant 52:30
prefer an ankle sock? You're like, oh, no, I just want them to be down there a little bit. I want people to slightly see my socks. Either show it or don't.
John Shull 52:39
Sometimes you're a grower. Sometimes you're a show or we don't know.
Nick VinZant 52:43
What does that have to do with socks?
John Shull 52:45
Absolutely nothing. Final question here? pant size. Are you Are you the kind of person are you going to? Are you going to push it and get into pants? That might be a little too. Too tight? Are you just gonna go a waist size up and just be comfortable and deal with it?
Nick VinZant 53:01
All I want to do is be comfortable. Now at this point in my life. All I want to do is be comfortable and there's nothing less comfortable to me than having clothing that doesn't fit around your waist. That's so uncomfortable. I don't care if I had to wear 50s Oh, I would be I would rather be comfortable.
John Shull 53:26
While you're getting into my neck of the woods you put on 50s
Nick VinZant 53:29
I think jeans are one of the worst. Worst clothing things that we've ever invented. They're not comfortable to me at all. I don't understand why people like jeans at all. I think they're awful.
John Shull 53:42
They're fine. I mean,
Nick VinZant 53:45
I would work I would go I would go dress pants before I would wear jeans
John Shull 53:53
Yeah, I do. I do like a good dress pant actually. And
Nick VinZant 53:58
I'm jeans are the least comfortable type of pants. Are they not our jeans, not the least comfortable kind of pants that you can wear. I'm
John Shull 54:07
gonna say this just because I think it's evident but I'm not sure you and I should be talking on pants because I feel like we only wear three types of pants. I
Nick VinZant 54:16
don't even know if there's well there's sweat pants, track pants, jeans and like dress pants. Okay, so four kinds than four kinds of pants and I would make a strong argument that jeans are the least comfortable kind of pants that you can have
John Shull 54:29
out of those by far. Absolutely.
Nick VinZant 54:32
So why does everybody wear jeans? I think they're awful.
John Shull 54:36
Because I think we've made it a cultural thing to wear jeans are acceptable. I wish I could wear sweatpants to work every day. You know how comfortable I'd be.
Nick VinZant 54:44
I think that we should go back to comfort. Maybe we should always just be good look like if I had my ideal kind of dress. It would be Roman times type dress where you're just basically walking around in a bathrobe like The Romans had it right. And they like, just minimize the amount of stuff that you have to be wearing. Whenever I see like historical things from like the old west or stuff like that, that looks so awful that they had to wear all those clothing all the time. Oh, it'd be terrible. I wouldn't wanna do that at all.
John Shull 55:19
I was going to try to do a cowboy accent but anyways, let's just shoot it. I appreciate let's just move on.
Nick VinZant 55:24
Okay, is that your whole thing? That's it, man. Okay, so our top five is top five places we don't like to be touched. not sexual. Just places. I don't want to be touched. What's your number five.
John Shull 55:39
I'm gonna I just want to put this out there that I'm gonna sound like a real crazy person.
Nick VinZant 55:42
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. This is gonna be enlightening about our real personalities.
John Shull 55:49
So here we go. So my number five is my stomach.
Nick VinZant 55:55
Oh, I don't want to be touched on my stomach at all. I agree with you. I don't know, wait a minute, is it your stomach? Or the sides? Stomach or the sides of your stomach? How do you feel about that?
John Shull 56:04
It's the front of my stomach. Pretty much around the belly button area. I don't want to be touched around there at all. I don't want to be. It's not even because like I'm a bigger person, I have nothing to do with that. Like, I just don't want anyone to get near my belly button.
Nick VinZant 56:19
I don't want anyone touching my stomach either. It's not on my list. But I don't want anyone touching my stomach. My number five is feet. If that's your thing, that's your thing. That's fine. But I don't want to touch anybody's feet. And I don't want anybody touching my feet. I have no desire to have my feet touched or to touch feet.
John Shull 56:40
I think that's actually kind of low my feet on my list, but it's a bit higher. Oh, you
Nick VinZant 56:45
have it higher. Okay, what's your number four.
John Shull 56:47
So my number four are my ears. I do not like when people touch my ears around my ears. I just don't like it. It doesn't feel good. It's just I don't know. Like, there's no reason to invade my space and touch my ears. And I have these gigantic ear lobe things. Like you don't get to flick them. I get it through there. Oh,
Nick VinZant 57:08
I don't. I mean, I don't know if people have really ever touched my ears. But I don't want people touching my ears either. Like Don't touch. Don't touch my ears. My number four is your Achilles tendon. Like have you behind your heel? Like, I don't want anybody touching that area behind my heel like right where your akin Achilles tendon is. Don't Don't touch that. Yeah, I don't. Any place a tendon is I don't want you touching it. Don't Don't touch it. If you
John Shull 57:38
want to be grossed out for 30 seconds. Do y z like how gross we talking? Not that gross. Okay. I was playing baseball. I was playing first base and I had my foot on the bag. And a kid came running through and completed my left Achilles. Oh, to the point to where I had like, I had to go get stitches on my I didn't tear my Achilles. Oh, it didn't sever the Achilles. But like, I got cleated on my Achilles and I'll never I'll never forget that sensation. It was one of the weirdest sensations I've ever felt.
Nick VinZant 58:12
I don't like anything with a tendon like new. Yeah, that's I don't want anybody near that at
John Shull 58:18
all. Never forget that say no to hostile but we'll move on. I don't want
Nick VinZant 58:22
to watch horror movies because of things like that. Anyway, sorry. Go ahead.
John Shull 58:26
So my number three is like your pressure points.
Nick VinZant 58:31
Oh, yeah.
John Shull 58:33
I don't like to people that come up. And they're like, Hey, let me feel your pressure point. They like jab you in the throat or like, stick their thumb in your armpit or like, get you on the sides or something. I just I don't I don't want to feel that. No,
Nick VinZant 58:46
just like stay away from the vital parts of my body.
John Shull 58:52
Like, let me deal with it. I'll be fine.
Nick VinZant 58:54
I didn't put it on my list, but I would put it on honorable mention like my wrist. I don't like when people touch the underside of the wrist. That that bothers me as well. Like don't Don't Don't touch that.
John Shull 59:05
Alright, what's your number? Three
Nick VinZant 59:08
anything around my nipples. Stay away from my nipples. Like not even my I don't even want my wife really like touching in that area. You can go higher up on the chest. But Don't Touch don't go below the nipple or around the nipple. I don't want any touching there. Yeah.
John Shull 59:23
So I'll come back to that one. My number two our feet. Oh, you
Nick VinZant 59:29
put it pretty high. Yeah, I
John Shull 59:31
don't. I just once again, kind of like what you said you said it perfectly. Don't touch my feet. I don't want to touch your feet. If that's your thing. That's great. You know, I also am pretty ticklish. So even if I'm trying to get like a foot rub, I'm going to take it like laugh half the time it's just snap good. Not a good thing. And you had a foot rub. Ah and high school and college but when like I toured like ligament or tendons but oh like a medical thing. Okay, yeah, not not like an actual like Massage. I'm actually I don't go I don't go get massages because I don't want people touching me.
Nick VinZant 1:00:06
Hmm. My number two is the area right above your elbow. Like right around your elbow in there.
John Shull 1:00:14
Like oh no headed up towards your tricep. Yeah,
Nick VinZant 1:00:18
like right in there on your elbow. I don't want anybody like that area and the armpit no
John Shull 1:00:26
new that's one of those areas where if someone pinches you, you're gonna just turn around his elbow them right in the face. Oh,
Nick VinZant 1:00:33
yeah. Don't I feel like anything on kind of the inside of your body like, right? Okay, so I'm talking about like, you look at your hand, I would consider that in the outside. And then your palm is like the inside any of the inside part of your body. I don't want people touching that.
John Shull 1:00:49
Yeah, I don't. So far you and I felt like we don't want to just be touched by anybody
Nick VinZant 1:00:54
don't really want to be touched by anybody to be honest with you. Unless you're like my immediate family members and you want a hug? Or you're my wife. Like I don't really want to be touched.
John Shull 1:01:07
So my number one is basically my face. Yeah, eyes my nose like I don't want I just don't want to be touched there. Like I just don't want to be. No,
Nick VinZant 1:01:20
I would put my number one is also face but I would go specifically my eye. Like don't even put your finger near my eyes. I don't I don't want anything to do with people putting their fingers my eyes.
John Shull 1:01:33
No, I probably go eyes and then my mouth and specifically thinking of the dentist because I just want to like, run away from the dentist. I wish I didn't have to
Nick VinZant 1:01:43
go. No, I agree. I agree. What's your honorable mention?
John Shull 1:01:46
So I
Nick VinZant 1:01:48
have the whole body basically.
John Shull 1:01:49
Yeah, right. I have the chest. The nipples. I mean, I don't do that. That bothers me. I have my head the top of my head. Like the top of my head. But that's more of like just being weird thing. And then this one's kind of weird, but I don't like touching fingers.
Nick VinZant 1:02:11
Oh, yeah. I
John Shull 1:02:14
like a good example, isn't it? Maybe I'm not touching. But like, say you're at a drive thru and you go to like, get something from the person giving you it. And you like have to touch their hand or like, you know, they have to touch your hand. It's just, it's just yeah, I don't do that.
Nick VinZant 1:02:28
Oh, I don't like a handshake when you get just like fingers. That's really weird to me. Yeah, I would agree. I don't want to touch people's fingers. I need to I'm okay with the whole hand. But I don't want to just like catch fingers. That's kind of That's strange. Yeah, I don't want to touch people's fingers. Um, I have definitely like the top of my head, the hair any kind of like the hair area? Like, I don't want you touching that. behind the knee? That kind of creeps me out. I don't want Yeah,
John Shull 1:02:59
I mean, yeah, I'm good with that. Especially if you've had surgery done on your knees. You know, I mean, I would say if you had surgery done on any part of your body, you don't want anyone to touch it ever.
Nick VinZant 1:03:10
I don't really have that much of a problem with my nose though. Like, I don't really care if people touch my nose. I don't want people touching my nose if you haven't done to me, but like,
John Shull 1:03:21
like, I would say I'm okay with touching my back. Maybe my butt. And like my shoulders. Those are probably the three areas I'm okay with.
Nick VinZant 1:03:31
I don't mind the shoulders. Shoulders are okay. I'm not too sensitive about my neck either. That doesn't bother me that much. I don't want the front. But if you're like, the back of your neck or something like that, but that'd be kind of weird for another adult to come up to you and be like, hey, touch America. Come here, like your dad used to do and they just grab you by the neck like that.
John Shull 1:03:56
Like you're a dog and they just like pick you up. Oh my god, that let me go. Yeah,
Nick VinZant 1:04:01
the only other honorable mention I had would be like, when somebody touches that, I think it's your sternum. Like the middle of your chest where that bone is right there. That's a very quick way to get in a fight. Like poke somebody in that and then I call Yeah, I feel like it's one of the laws of one of the commandments. Like Well, now we gotta get
John Shull 1:04:25
you got any other ones? No.
Nick VinZant 1:04:27
Ah, okay, that's gonna go ahead and do it for this episode of Profoundly Pointless. I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, leave us a quick review. We really appreciate it really helps us out and let us know what you think are the worst places to be touched. keep it PG. But for me, I don't want anyone touching my face. I don't really even want my wife touching my face. Honestly, I don't even want to touch my own face.