Adam Ruins Everything (2015) s03e03 Episode Script
Adam Ruins Games
1 [BELL JINGLING.]
Hello? Are you open? I came for the two-for-one! Wait.
This isn't a cupcake shop.
Huh.
A jar full of eyes.
A monkey's paw.
Ooh, a skull! [LAUGHING.]
Did you know that teeth aren't technically considered bones? "No, I did not.
I don't have a brain.
" Oh, man, this place is fun! [MAN LAUGHING MANIACALLY.]
The fun we're going to have hasn't even begun.
[THUNDERING.]
Hi there! Is this place new? I could've sworn there was a cupcake shop here.
Oh, no.
I've been here quite a while.
Oh, how long? I love supporting local businesses.
Do you get a lot of foot traffic? Don't worry about it.
Instead, let's play one of my little games.
Ooh, sounds fun! You will face a series of challenges.
The first, so deadly and violent Violent? Violent? Got it! The first challenge is to debunk the common misconception that video games cause violence.
Can do! Wait, that wasn't a riddle.
Where'd he go? Who was that guy?! That was Adam Conover, and this is "Adam Ruins Everything.
" Ahh! Uh Closed Captions Provided by truTV [SCREAMING.]
'Sup, fam?! It's Reaper666 streaming for you live from the reap den.
Today we're going old school with a classic! "Gut Cruncher III: Blood-pocalypse Rising.
" Henry, it's time for lunch.
Dad?! Get out! Wait.
What is this? Are you playing violent video games again? You're gonna wind up on the 6:00 news.
[ADAM.]
Don't worry, Dad.
The idea that video games cause violent crime is a total myth.
That is disgusting.
They're trying to brainwash you into thinking that video games are safe.
[ADAM.]
Nope.
You're the one who's been brainwashed.
For as long as video games have existed, they've sent American parents into a frenzy of fear.
In 1976, the National Safety Council panicked over the arcade game "Death Race," calling these tame little pixels, "Sick, sick, sick.
" Actually! And in the '90s, politicians had a full-scale freak-out about a little game called "Mortal Kombat.
" Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman claimed it taught kids to, quote, "Enjoy inflicting the most gruesome forms of cruelty.
" But despite these repeated parades of pearl clutch and panic, there is still no actual evidence linking video games to violent crime.
I don't know.
I'm still not convinced.
[ADAM.]
Well, let's look at the facts.
As video game sales in America have spiked, violent crime has actually gone down.
And other countries where games are popular have even lower rates of violent crime.
[SPEAKING JAPANESE.]
[ADAM.]
And despite the lazy media narrative connecting mass shootings to video games, multiple studies, including an analysis by the Secret Service, have found that school shooters actually consume significantly lower amounts of violent media and video games than their peers.
So you're saying video games don't have any effect on our kids at all? Not even that game "Fork Knife," where you kill people with pickaxes? It's called "Fortnite," Dad! [SIGHING.]
A pickax is a harvesting tool.
[ADAM.]
Well, some studies do show that violent video games can cause a temporary increase in aggressive thoughts and behavior.
But those studies are pretty flimsy.
Because they didn't measure anything the average person would actually consider aggression.
One study just measured whether or not people who played video games were more likely to feed their opponents hot sauce.
Hey! And even if these studies had tested real-world acts of aggression, the change in behavior they measured was tiny.
Just 2% on average.
Other studies have shown a similar effect in racing games and even real-life sports.
Dad does rage out whenever I beat him at ping-pong.
That's 'cause you play dirty, Henry! Oh Uh, I see it now.
Guys, meet video game researcher and level-30 demon slayer, Dr.
Patrick Markey.
'Sup, Reaper666? Hope you don't mind, I already defeated that final boss.
Blaming video games for real-world violence really took off after the Columbine shooting, and it was an understandable mistake, because we all desperately wanted some reason why someone would commit such a horrific act of violence.
But today we know video games actually aren't what's to blame.
And yet politicians across the political spectrum still scapegoat video games.
As recently as the 2018 Parkland tragedy, the president of the United States was saying things like And reporters parrot this lazy narrative right back.
After the Newtown school shooting, it was widely reported that the gunman played video games.
But what they left out was that his favorite game, the one he'd play up to ten hours a day, was "Dance Dance Revolution.
" The fact is, it's just easier to blame video games than to tackle societal problems that actually impact rates of violence.
Things like educational and employment disparities, stigma against seeking mental health treatment, and, especially in the case of shootings, access to guns.
[ADAM.]
Instead, we're wasting time and tax dollars on even more research to try to prove a link between violence and video games that just doesn't exist.
That's right.
I'm a video game researcher, and even I think this is a waste of time.
And that's why I'm taking a break to beat the next level.
Oh, man, it's underwater! See you, guys.
The truth is, scapegoating and banning violent video games doesn't protect kids; it just distracts us from figuring out what we really need to do to keep people safe.
Ah, you're right.
Henry, you can play that gut game, with supervision.
[SIGHING.]
Okay, Dad.
You just gotta narrate everything for the stream.
Mm-hmm.
Let's see what we got.
[GASPING.]
Did you just shove that gun up his [GASPING.]
Oh, God! Doh! First challenge complete.
No! You were supposed to fight a demonic You know what? Never mind, it's fine.
[CLEARS THROAT.]
The second game we're going to play won't just monopolize your time Oh, Monopoly.
You want me to ruin Monopoly by explaining how it was originally intended to be an anticapitalist teaching tool.
Sure thing.
What?! No! Come back! [SIGHING.]
You do realize he's going to be like this the whole time? [SIGHING.]
[WOMAN LAUGHING.]
And you're bankrupt.
And that's how you do it.
Wow, Gail, you win.
Again.
Hell, yes.
Corporate-mandated team-bonding night just got started.
How about this? If either one of you can beat me in the next round, I'll give you back your health benefits.
Really? Come on.
If you can't make it in Monopoly, you can't make it in life.
The point is to make enough cash to crush anybody that can't compete.
[ADAM.]
Actually, that's wrong.
The original point of Monopoly was to teach players that accumulating wealth at all costs is terrible for society.
Here, I'll show ya.
Whoa.
In the version of Monopoly you know, you collect as much property as you can until you've bankrupted all the other players.
[LAUGHING.]
Mine! Pay up, bozos.
But this isn't how the game was meant to be played at all.
When Monopoly was first invented, these monopolist rules were just one of two ways to play.
The second was called the prosperity rules.
Here, take another turn.
Ooh, heck, yeah! I got Boardwalk, baby! Hey, congrats.
Under the prosperity rules, when you buy a property, you share a portion of the wealth with all the other players.
Thanks, Gail.
Thanks, Gail.
Wait, what? But this is my money.
Who wants to play a version of Monopoly where everybody wins? Well, originally, it wasn't just a game.
What we know today as Monopoly was invented in 1903 by a social activist named Lizzie Magie, who meant for it to be a teaching tool about the evils of capitalism.
How can I make people realize that Carnegie and Rockefeller are swimming in money while their workers struggle? And that's a bad thing.
Ah, a board game.
Magie called her idea The Landlord's Game, and it was meant to demonstrate that while the winner-take-all system of capitalism forces everyone to fight against each other, when wealth is equally distributed, all of society wins.
And lots of people loved it.
Using a board game as a teaching tool for economic justice? How keen.
Your turn.
Sounds like a pretty boring game to me.
But I love a badass female innovator as much as the next CEO.
Go make bank off that socialism, girl.
Oh, even if she'd wanted to make money off of it, she never had the chance.
Magie's game was ripped off by a destitute Depression-era deadbeat.
His name was Charles Darrow, and he was introduced to The Landlord's Game at a party.
He didn't think anyone owned the idea, so he passed it off to Parker Brothers as his own.
Hey, Parker Bros.
Check out this game I definitely made up all by myself.
It's called Monopoly.
It's about making money, and it's gonna make us all a ton of money.
Oh, heck, yeah.
We're in.
But then they discovered that Lizzie Magie already had a patent.
Hey, according to the patent office, some lady came up with this game.
But don't worry.
That won't stop us.
What?! I hope she sued the pants off of them! And then I hoped they all got slapped with HR violations for being pants-less.
She couldn't and didn't.
Parker Brothers convinced her to sell them her patent for just 500 bucks.
Say, dame, what do you say you let us make your little game for you? And in exchange for sharing, here's an amount of money that's definitely not lowballing you.
Oh, I don't care about the money.
I'm just happy more people will learn how dreadful capitalism is.
[ADAM.]
But Parker Brothers only made a few copies of Magie's Landlord's Game.
Instead, they mass-produced Darrow's version, which only included the monopolist rules.
And when Monopoly took off, it made Charles Darrow a millionaire.
While Lizzie Magie never saw a penny in royalties.
Oh And even worse, Parker Brothers completely erased her name from the game's history, giving full credit to Darrow.
Step right up to buy America's favorite board game! It'll take you from rags to riches just like its inventor, Charles Darrow.
Ironically, what Darrow and Parker Brothers did actually proved Magie's original point.
Capitalism can be a cutthroat competition where one person winning means someone else has to lose.
And maybe that's something to think about the next time you play Monopoly or do business.
Bye-bye.
Wait, you're gonna leave me in here? Guys, you still there? Can you hear me?! Help! Oh, great, you're back.
Don't care where you've been.
Let's just cut straight to the most sinister, vile, and destructive game of all! That's an easy one.
The Olympics.
Really?! That's what you got out of that?! [WATCH ALARM BEEPING.]
Oh, my God! Oh my God, oh my God, it's starting! [TV ANNOUNCER.]
Good morning to whoever is crazy enough to watch sports at 3:00 a.
m.
Today's women's weightlifting finals will make or break dreams of Olympic gold.
Oh, there she is! Go, Bethany! You're a winner just by being here, girl.
[CHANTING.]
USA, USA! Actually, in the Olympics almost everyone loses.
Come on, I'll show you.
Even though the Olympics are a multibillion-dollar industry, everyone from the athletes to the cities that hosts the Games gets screwed.
This is so cool.
But wait, what do you mean? I mean, making it to the Olympics is like a dream come true.
Yes, but to achieve that dream many athletes are living a nightmare.
[ADAM.]
Even some medalists are unable to make ends meet and live close to the poverty line.
Tell us, what's it really like to be an Olympic athlete? Uh, we often have to pay for our own training, travel, and equipment.
[PANTING.]
It costs tons of money.
Often tens of thousands a year.
[CROWD CHEERING.]
Wow! An incredible performance while speaking an incredible truth.
What are you gonna do next? Oh Sleep in my car, I guess.
I can't afford to pay rent.
Heartbreaking.
Just like Ronda Rousey, who had to live in her car even after she won a medal in judo in 2008.
[WOMAN.]
Wait a minute.
Olympics athletes aren't paid? But millions of people are watching them on TV.
Well, they might get some pay but hardly enough to live on.
Sometimes their only compensation is team swag.
I can't eat this.
Ugh, I guess I could try.
Okay, what about Michael Phelps? He makes tons of money.
Yeah, but most of that sweet sports scratch comes from sponsorship, and only the megastars can get those because the International Olympic Committee bars anyone but the biggest names from using phrases like the "Olympics" or "Team USA" to earn money.
Hulko Puffs puff me up for the [BLEEP.]
.
What the? For the [BLEEP.]
.
You know what? Never mind.
Okay, why don't their teams just pay them? Because they'd rather spend the money they get from the Olympics on overpaid coaches and administrators.
[ADAM.]
In 2016, the executive director of U.
S.
Swimming made $854,000.
But most of his swimmers only made 5% of that.
What? But the athletes do all the work.
[MAN.]
Exactly.
Sweet baby Costas! It's shot put gold medalist Adam Nelson! Always a pleasure to meet another Adam.
So, tell us what it feels like to be an Olympic athlete.
Sore mostly, but seriously, it's a struggle.
Athena, I was the number-one-ranked shot putter in the world for a number of years and my family still lived competition to competition, oftentimes barely able to get by.
What?! That is terrible.
People idolize you guys, and you didn't get anything out of it? Well, don't get me wrong.
I love the Olympics Games and and the fans that support it.
But the bottom line is that the IOC exploits the athletes.
It's our work, our dedication, and our competition that allows the IOC to generate billions of dollars in revenue every year, yet for some reason it's the athletes that are still struggling to make a living.
That's why I've tried to organize a Track & Field Athletes Union to empower the voice of the athletes within the Olympic movement.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I've gotta go find that shot put.
They are not cheap.
Man.
I always thought that Olympic athletes' lives were all Wheaties boxes and Olympic village orgies.
I'm afraid not.
And if you think the athletes are treated poorly, wait till you hear what the Olympics does to its host cities.
To host the Games, cities have to spend billions on accommodations and upgrades.
And that investment almost always loses money.
At the 2012 Games, London only made back 29% of what they spent.
[BELL TOLLING.]
Beijing spent almost half a billion dollars to build a new stadium, and they're still spending 11 million a year to maintain it, even though most of the time it's empty.
Whew! Analysts even believe that Greece is dead after the 2004 Athens Game helped lead to its economic crisis, which has had a ripple effect all over the EU.
And not only are taxpayers footing the bill, the impact on the residents of those cities is more destructive than Ryan Lochte in a Rio gas station.
When local governments start suping up their cities for anticipated tourists, rents skyrocket, and many people are forced from their homes, even into homelessness.
Sometimes citizens are straight up kicked out under the guise of "cleaning up the city for the global spotlight.
" Before the Rio Olympics, business leaders spent $12.
7 million on private security to force over a thousand homeless people and young black men out of high-tourist areas.
For Seoul, almost 750,000 people were displaced.
And in Beijing an estimated 1.
5 million people were kicked out of their homes to make room for Olympic construction.
Oh, my God.
All those people, just for a game? Yeah.
Which is why people around the world have fought against the Games coming to their city.
[ALL CHANTING.]
No Olympics here! No Olympics here! Organizers in Boston, Budapest, Hamburg, and Rome have all successfully lobbied their governments to drop bids to host the 2024 Games.
And in Los Angeles, right now, activists are fighting to try to get their mayor to pull out of the 2028 Games.
This is horrible.
Why do we even do the Olympics if it's this bad? Because the people who organize them make too much money to care.
[ADAM.]
In the last Olympics, the International Olympic Committee made over $3.
5 billion in TV rights and company partnerships.
While businesses and developers make billions building flashy new stadiums, hotels, and high-rises.
[CASH REGISTER RINGING, CROWD CHEERING.]
And of course, the prestige of hosting the Games is a huge boost to the careers of ambitious politicians.
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE.]
And the IOC encourages and exploits all of this.
Even going so far as to accept bribes.
So the people who run the Olympics are making all this money and everyone else is getting screwed.
Yup.
Until those who benefit use their power to change the system, this is the true Olympic spirit.
Guess I'm going back to watching football.
Actually Eh, never mind.
You've had enough for one day.
Ah, I figured you weren't coming back.
I'll take my prize now, please.
Do you really have no clue what's going on here?! Fine.
This was supposed to be a big reveal, but I'm the devil! And I was doing this whole thing more like, you know, if you didn't win my games I was gonna steal your soul, but, uh doesn't really matter now because you didn't play by the rules! So I get to steal your soul anyway! [LAUGHING MANIACALLY.]
Actually, that's not how rules work at all.
[LAUGHING MOCKINGLY.]
Hey, Adam, thank you so much for coming on the show.
We really appreciate it.
It's a pleasure to be here, Adam.
Are you optimistic about the chances for athletes in the Olympics organizing and and being able to fight for better treatment? I am an eternal optimist, which is why I think I was pretty good as an athlete.
I always believe that there's something more to achieve, and that we can achieve it.
But in order for that to happen, the athletes are gonna have to bridge the gaps that exist between them and see that they have this common bond.
Unfortunately, they are actually exploited.
But the German athletes have done a good job of organizing over the last year and a half and earning recognition for their independent athletes group.
We in the U.
S.
have still struggled to To get to that point.
And I'm optimistic about it but I know it's always gonna be an uphill battle.
Well, for folks at home who are hearing about this issue for the first time and wanna support the athletes but still, you know, love Love watching the Olympics on TV, what can they do to help the athletes fight for better treatment? I don't have an answer for that, Adam.
[LAUGHING.]
That's fine.
There isn't always something that people at home can do.
You know, I think everything that the culture can do, everything that the fans can do to empower athletes, to recognize their value is gonna help.
Right.
And that's that's the big change that has to happen is the athletes have to understand what the value is that they're actually giving up and then not be afraid to say, "It's not un-American for me to ask for what I'm worth.
" In fact, it's the exact opposite.
Right, that's a real foundational American principle.
That you you have value and you should ask for, and you should negotiate, damn it! Exactly, exactly.
And a negotiation doesn't involve you giving me a contract that I can't change.
Right.
Well, I really appreciate you being out there fighting for it, Adam, and and thank you for coming on the show to talk to us about it.
Oh, thanks for having me, guys.
Read the contract.
According to the rules, your soul is mine.
But I never agreed to those rules.
And games are better for everyone when we all get to decide what the rules are.
Just like society.
Hell isn't society.
It's hell.
For instance, we've ignored all the positive things that video games can bring just 'cause a few people wanna make rules about which games we get to play.
You know, I somehow feel like you haven't been listening to anything I've said this entire time.
And we never learned Lizzie Magie's lesson about capitalism because Charles Darrow and the Parker Brothers threw her rules in the trash.
I I I don't think I even want your soul anymore.
You're too annoying.
And the Olympics can't truly live up to their ideals of bringing people across the world together if the rules we use to govern them are so unfair and destructive.
Yeah, uh-huh.
Great.
You done? Games are important.
They're often how we first learn to interact with others, and they're a reflection of the world we live in.
So, in games and real life, when we see that the rules aren't working, we have to change them.
Yeah, right! Bye! [BELL ON DOOR JINGLING.]
Oh, man.
This was so much easier when I was just selling cupcakes.
[SIGHING.]
[LAUGHING MANIACALLY.]
Thank you for joining me.
Thanks for having me.
So, Maria, we just talked in this episode about how the Olympics negatively impacts cities that host it.
Your group, Strategic Actions For A Just Economy, is working here in L.
A.
to try to mitigate those negative effects.
Absolutely.
That's exactly what I do.
If you look at the Olympics that happened in London, Sweden, Geneva, usually what you see is rental prices increase between 30 to 40%.
You have a developer who says I can make an apartment there, or I can make a boutique hotel or a big luxury hotel that's gonna hold all of the athletes that are gonna come and be a part of the Olympics and they'll try to get permits for hotel, restaurants and whatnot.
Evict everybody, knock it down, build a hotel there.
Absolutely.
And then what you have is these families who can afford very little rent suddenly thrown out into the street, where rents are between $1,500 to $2,500.
Oh, wow.
So, often we see that homelessness raise Rise two to three times what they normally are.
And in L.
A.
we wanna make sure that that doesn't happen.
What is your group doing and what can folks at home do to, you know, push back against this trend? Either in L.
A.
of if the Olympics comes to their city.
Absolutely.
Some of the ways that people are countering that is they're forming groups.
For example, here in Los Angeles we have a group NOlympics, and they're It's a consortium of different groups that have come together to basically say here is how the Olympics are gonna negatively impact our society, our communities, our homes, and we're not going to take that.
They write letters, they stage rallies, they go to decision-makers and they let them know exactly what their worries are and what they would like to see in place of the Olympics.
That's democracy in action.
To take that action Absolutely.
and lobby the government directly, as citizens.
Absolutely.
You cannot wait for the answers to be written for you.
You have to take part in a democracy.
It's a full-contact sport.
Well, thank you so much for doing it.
Thank you so much for coming on the show and talk to us about it.
Hello? Are you open? I came for the two-for-one! Wait.
This isn't a cupcake shop.
Huh.
A jar full of eyes.
A monkey's paw.
Ooh, a skull! [LAUGHING.]
Did you know that teeth aren't technically considered bones? "No, I did not.
I don't have a brain.
" Oh, man, this place is fun! [MAN LAUGHING MANIACALLY.]
The fun we're going to have hasn't even begun.
[THUNDERING.]
Hi there! Is this place new? I could've sworn there was a cupcake shop here.
Oh, no.
I've been here quite a while.
Oh, how long? I love supporting local businesses.
Do you get a lot of foot traffic? Don't worry about it.
Instead, let's play one of my little games.
Ooh, sounds fun! You will face a series of challenges.
The first, so deadly and violent Violent? Violent? Got it! The first challenge is to debunk the common misconception that video games cause violence.
Can do! Wait, that wasn't a riddle.
Where'd he go? Who was that guy?! That was Adam Conover, and this is "Adam Ruins Everything.
" Ahh! Uh Closed Captions Provided by truTV [SCREAMING.]
'Sup, fam?! It's Reaper666 streaming for you live from the reap den.
Today we're going old school with a classic! "Gut Cruncher III: Blood-pocalypse Rising.
" Henry, it's time for lunch.
Dad?! Get out! Wait.
What is this? Are you playing violent video games again? You're gonna wind up on the 6:00 news.
[ADAM.]
Don't worry, Dad.
The idea that video games cause violent crime is a total myth.
That is disgusting.
They're trying to brainwash you into thinking that video games are safe.
[ADAM.]
Nope.
You're the one who's been brainwashed.
For as long as video games have existed, they've sent American parents into a frenzy of fear.
In 1976, the National Safety Council panicked over the arcade game "Death Race," calling these tame little pixels, "Sick, sick, sick.
" Actually! And in the '90s, politicians had a full-scale freak-out about a little game called "Mortal Kombat.
" Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman claimed it taught kids to, quote, "Enjoy inflicting the most gruesome forms of cruelty.
" But despite these repeated parades of pearl clutch and panic, there is still no actual evidence linking video games to violent crime.
I don't know.
I'm still not convinced.
[ADAM.]
Well, let's look at the facts.
As video game sales in America have spiked, violent crime has actually gone down.
And other countries where games are popular have even lower rates of violent crime.
[SPEAKING JAPANESE.]
[ADAM.]
And despite the lazy media narrative connecting mass shootings to video games, multiple studies, including an analysis by the Secret Service, have found that school shooters actually consume significantly lower amounts of violent media and video games than their peers.
So you're saying video games don't have any effect on our kids at all? Not even that game "Fork Knife," where you kill people with pickaxes? It's called "Fortnite," Dad! [SIGHING.]
A pickax is a harvesting tool.
[ADAM.]
Well, some studies do show that violent video games can cause a temporary increase in aggressive thoughts and behavior.
But those studies are pretty flimsy.
Because they didn't measure anything the average person would actually consider aggression.
One study just measured whether or not people who played video games were more likely to feed their opponents hot sauce.
Hey! And even if these studies had tested real-world acts of aggression, the change in behavior they measured was tiny.
Just 2% on average.
Other studies have shown a similar effect in racing games and even real-life sports.
Dad does rage out whenever I beat him at ping-pong.
That's 'cause you play dirty, Henry! Oh Uh, I see it now.
Guys, meet video game researcher and level-30 demon slayer, Dr.
Patrick Markey.
'Sup, Reaper666? Hope you don't mind, I already defeated that final boss.
Blaming video games for real-world violence really took off after the Columbine shooting, and it was an understandable mistake, because we all desperately wanted some reason why someone would commit such a horrific act of violence.
But today we know video games actually aren't what's to blame.
And yet politicians across the political spectrum still scapegoat video games.
As recently as the 2018 Parkland tragedy, the president of the United States was saying things like And reporters parrot this lazy narrative right back.
After the Newtown school shooting, it was widely reported that the gunman played video games.
But what they left out was that his favorite game, the one he'd play up to ten hours a day, was "Dance Dance Revolution.
" The fact is, it's just easier to blame video games than to tackle societal problems that actually impact rates of violence.
Things like educational and employment disparities, stigma against seeking mental health treatment, and, especially in the case of shootings, access to guns.
[ADAM.]
Instead, we're wasting time and tax dollars on even more research to try to prove a link between violence and video games that just doesn't exist.
That's right.
I'm a video game researcher, and even I think this is a waste of time.
And that's why I'm taking a break to beat the next level.
Oh, man, it's underwater! See you, guys.
The truth is, scapegoating and banning violent video games doesn't protect kids; it just distracts us from figuring out what we really need to do to keep people safe.
Ah, you're right.
Henry, you can play that gut game, with supervision.
[SIGHING.]
Okay, Dad.
You just gotta narrate everything for the stream.
Mm-hmm.
Let's see what we got.
[GASPING.]
Did you just shove that gun up his [GASPING.]
Oh, God! Doh! First challenge complete.
No! You were supposed to fight a demonic You know what? Never mind, it's fine.
[CLEARS THROAT.]
The second game we're going to play won't just monopolize your time Oh, Monopoly.
You want me to ruin Monopoly by explaining how it was originally intended to be an anticapitalist teaching tool.
Sure thing.
What?! No! Come back! [SIGHING.]
You do realize he's going to be like this the whole time? [SIGHING.]
[WOMAN LAUGHING.]
And you're bankrupt.
And that's how you do it.
Wow, Gail, you win.
Again.
Hell, yes.
Corporate-mandated team-bonding night just got started.
How about this? If either one of you can beat me in the next round, I'll give you back your health benefits.
Really? Come on.
If you can't make it in Monopoly, you can't make it in life.
The point is to make enough cash to crush anybody that can't compete.
[ADAM.]
Actually, that's wrong.
The original point of Monopoly was to teach players that accumulating wealth at all costs is terrible for society.
Here, I'll show ya.
Whoa.
In the version of Monopoly you know, you collect as much property as you can until you've bankrupted all the other players.
[LAUGHING.]
Mine! Pay up, bozos.
But this isn't how the game was meant to be played at all.
When Monopoly was first invented, these monopolist rules were just one of two ways to play.
The second was called the prosperity rules.
Here, take another turn.
Ooh, heck, yeah! I got Boardwalk, baby! Hey, congrats.
Under the prosperity rules, when you buy a property, you share a portion of the wealth with all the other players.
Thanks, Gail.
Thanks, Gail.
Wait, what? But this is my money.
Who wants to play a version of Monopoly where everybody wins? Well, originally, it wasn't just a game.
What we know today as Monopoly was invented in 1903 by a social activist named Lizzie Magie, who meant for it to be a teaching tool about the evils of capitalism.
How can I make people realize that Carnegie and Rockefeller are swimming in money while their workers struggle? And that's a bad thing.
Ah, a board game.
Magie called her idea The Landlord's Game, and it was meant to demonstrate that while the winner-take-all system of capitalism forces everyone to fight against each other, when wealth is equally distributed, all of society wins.
And lots of people loved it.
Using a board game as a teaching tool for economic justice? How keen.
Your turn.
Sounds like a pretty boring game to me.
But I love a badass female innovator as much as the next CEO.
Go make bank off that socialism, girl.
Oh, even if she'd wanted to make money off of it, she never had the chance.
Magie's game was ripped off by a destitute Depression-era deadbeat.
His name was Charles Darrow, and he was introduced to The Landlord's Game at a party.
He didn't think anyone owned the idea, so he passed it off to Parker Brothers as his own.
Hey, Parker Bros.
Check out this game I definitely made up all by myself.
It's called Monopoly.
It's about making money, and it's gonna make us all a ton of money.
Oh, heck, yeah.
We're in.
But then they discovered that Lizzie Magie already had a patent.
Hey, according to the patent office, some lady came up with this game.
But don't worry.
That won't stop us.
What?! I hope she sued the pants off of them! And then I hoped they all got slapped with HR violations for being pants-less.
She couldn't and didn't.
Parker Brothers convinced her to sell them her patent for just 500 bucks.
Say, dame, what do you say you let us make your little game for you? And in exchange for sharing, here's an amount of money that's definitely not lowballing you.
Oh, I don't care about the money.
I'm just happy more people will learn how dreadful capitalism is.
[ADAM.]
But Parker Brothers only made a few copies of Magie's Landlord's Game.
Instead, they mass-produced Darrow's version, which only included the monopolist rules.
And when Monopoly took off, it made Charles Darrow a millionaire.
While Lizzie Magie never saw a penny in royalties.
Oh And even worse, Parker Brothers completely erased her name from the game's history, giving full credit to Darrow.
Step right up to buy America's favorite board game! It'll take you from rags to riches just like its inventor, Charles Darrow.
Ironically, what Darrow and Parker Brothers did actually proved Magie's original point.
Capitalism can be a cutthroat competition where one person winning means someone else has to lose.
And maybe that's something to think about the next time you play Monopoly or do business.
Bye-bye.
Wait, you're gonna leave me in here? Guys, you still there? Can you hear me?! Help! Oh, great, you're back.
Don't care where you've been.
Let's just cut straight to the most sinister, vile, and destructive game of all! That's an easy one.
The Olympics.
Really?! That's what you got out of that?! [WATCH ALARM BEEPING.]
Oh, my God! Oh my God, oh my God, it's starting! [TV ANNOUNCER.]
Good morning to whoever is crazy enough to watch sports at 3:00 a.
m.
Today's women's weightlifting finals will make or break dreams of Olympic gold.
Oh, there she is! Go, Bethany! You're a winner just by being here, girl.
[CHANTING.]
USA, USA! Actually, in the Olympics almost everyone loses.
Come on, I'll show you.
Even though the Olympics are a multibillion-dollar industry, everyone from the athletes to the cities that hosts the Games gets screwed.
This is so cool.
But wait, what do you mean? I mean, making it to the Olympics is like a dream come true.
Yes, but to achieve that dream many athletes are living a nightmare.
[ADAM.]
Even some medalists are unable to make ends meet and live close to the poverty line.
Tell us, what's it really like to be an Olympic athlete? Uh, we often have to pay for our own training, travel, and equipment.
[PANTING.]
It costs tons of money.
Often tens of thousands a year.
[CROWD CHEERING.]
Wow! An incredible performance while speaking an incredible truth.
What are you gonna do next? Oh Sleep in my car, I guess.
I can't afford to pay rent.
Heartbreaking.
Just like Ronda Rousey, who had to live in her car even after she won a medal in judo in 2008.
[WOMAN.]
Wait a minute.
Olympics athletes aren't paid? But millions of people are watching them on TV.
Well, they might get some pay but hardly enough to live on.
Sometimes their only compensation is team swag.
I can't eat this.
Ugh, I guess I could try.
Okay, what about Michael Phelps? He makes tons of money.
Yeah, but most of that sweet sports scratch comes from sponsorship, and only the megastars can get those because the International Olympic Committee bars anyone but the biggest names from using phrases like the "Olympics" or "Team USA" to earn money.
Hulko Puffs puff me up for the [BLEEP.]
.
What the? For the [BLEEP.]
.
You know what? Never mind.
Okay, why don't their teams just pay them? Because they'd rather spend the money they get from the Olympics on overpaid coaches and administrators.
[ADAM.]
In 2016, the executive director of U.
S.
Swimming made $854,000.
But most of his swimmers only made 5% of that.
What? But the athletes do all the work.
[MAN.]
Exactly.
Sweet baby Costas! It's shot put gold medalist Adam Nelson! Always a pleasure to meet another Adam.
So, tell us what it feels like to be an Olympic athlete.
Sore mostly, but seriously, it's a struggle.
Athena, I was the number-one-ranked shot putter in the world for a number of years and my family still lived competition to competition, oftentimes barely able to get by.
What?! That is terrible.
People idolize you guys, and you didn't get anything out of it? Well, don't get me wrong.
I love the Olympics Games and and the fans that support it.
But the bottom line is that the IOC exploits the athletes.
It's our work, our dedication, and our competition that allows the IOC to generate billions of dollars in revenue every year, yet for some reason it's the athletes that are still struggling to make a living.
That's why I've tried to organize a Track & Field Athletes Union to empower the voice of the athletes within the Olympic movement.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I've gotta go find that shot put.
They are not cheap.
Man.
I always thought that Olympic athletes' lives were all Wheaties boxes and Olympic village orgies.
I'm afraid not.
And if you think the athletes are treated poorly, wait till you hear what the Olympics does to its host cities.
To host the Games, cities have to spend billions on accommodations and upgrades.
And that investment almost always loses money.
At the 2012 Games, London only made back 29% of what they spent.
[BELL TOLLING.]
Beijing spent almost half a billion dollars to build a new stadium, and they're still spending 11 million a year to maintain it, even though most of the time it's empty.
Whew! Analysts even believe that Greece is dead after the 2004 Athens Game helped lead to its economic crisis, which has had a ripple effect all over the EU.
And not only are taxpayers footing the bill, the impact on the residents of those cities is more destructive than Ryan Lochte in a Rio gas station.
When local governments start suping up their cities for anticipated tourists, rents skyrocket, and many people are forced from their homes, even into homelessness.
Sometimes citizens are straight up kicked out under the guise of "cleaning up the city for the global spotlight.
" Before the Rio Olympics, business leaders spent $12.
7 million on private security to force over a thousand homeless people and young black men out of high-tourist areas.
For Seoul, almost 750,000 people were displaced.
And in Beijing an estimated 1.
5 million people were kicked out of their homes to make room for Olympic construction.
Oh, my God.
All those people, just for a game? Yeah.
Which is why people around the world have fought against the Games coming to their city.
[ALL CHANTING.]
No Olympics here! No Olympics here! Organizers in Boston, Budapest, Hamburg, and Rome have all successfully lobbied their governments to drop bids to host the 2024 Games.
And in Los Angeles, right now, activists are fighting to try to get their mayor to pull out of the 2028 Games.
This is horrible.
Why do we even do the Olympics if it's this bad? Because the people who organize them make too much money to care.
[ADAM.]
In the last Olympics, the International Olympic Committee made over $3.
5 billion in TV rights and company partnerships.
While businesses and developers make billions building flashy new stadiums, hotels, and high-rises.
[CASH REGISTER RINGING, CROWD CHEERING.]
And of course, the prestige of hosting the Games is a huge boost to the careers of ambitious politicians.
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE.]
And the IOC encourages and exploits all of this.
Even going so far as to accept bribes.
So the people who run the Olympics are making all this money and everyone else is getting screwed.
Yup.
Until those who benefit use their power to change the system, this is the true Olympic spirit.
Guess I'm going back to watching football.
Actually Eh, never mind.
You've had enough for one day.
Ah, I figured you weren't coming back.
I'll take my prize now, please.
Do you really have no clue what's going on here?! Fine.
This was supposed to be a big reveal, but I'm the devil! And I was doing this whole thing more like, you know, if you didn't win my games I was gonna steal your soul, but, uh doesn't really matter now because you didn't play by the rules! So I get to steal your soul anyway! [LAUGHING MANIACALLY.]
Actually, that's not how rules work at all.
[LAUGHING MOCKINGLY.]
Hey, Adam, thank you so much for coming on the show.
We really appreciate it.
It's a pleasure to be here, Adam.
Are you optimistic about the chances for athletes in the Olympics organizing and and being able to fight for better treatment? I am an eternal optimist, which is why I think I was pretty good as an athlete.
I always believe that there's something more to achieve, and that we can achieve it.
But in order for that to happen, the athletes are gonna have to bridge the gaps that exist between them and see that they have this common bond.
Unfortunately, they are actually exploited.
But the German athletes have done a good job of organizing over the last year and a half and earning recognition for their independent athletes group.
We in the U.
S.
have still struggled to To get to that point.
And I'm optimistic about it but I know it's always gonna be an uphill battle.
Well, for folks at home who are hearing about this issue for the first time and wanna support the athletes but still, you know, love Love watching the Olympics on TV, what can they do to help the athletes fight for better treatment? I don't have an answer for that, Adam.
[LAUGHING.]
That's fine.
There isn't always something that people at home can do.
You know, I think everything that the culture can do, everything that the fans can do to empower athletes, to recognize their value is gonna help.
Right.
And that's that's the big change that has to happen is the athletes have to understand what the value is that they're actually giving up and then not be afraid to say, "It's not un-American for me to ask for what I'm worth.
" In fact, it's the exact opposite.
Right, that's a real foundational American principle.
That you you have value and you should ask for, and you should negotiate, damn it! Exactly, exactly.
And a negotiation doesn't involve you giving me a contract that I can't change.
Right.
Well, I really appreciate you being out there fighting for it, Adam, and and thank you for coming on the show to talk to us about it.
Oh, thanks for having me, guys.
Read the contract.
According to the rules, your soul is mine.
But I never agreed to those rules.
And games are better for everyone when we all get to decide what the rules are.
Just like society.
Hell isn't society.
It's hell.
For instance, we've ignored all the positive things that video games can bring just 'cause a few people wanna make rules about which games we get to play.
You know, I somehow feel like you haven't been listening to anything I've said this entire time.
And we never learned Lizzie Magie's lesson about capitalism because Charles Darrow and the Parker Brothers threw her rules in the trash.
I I I don't think I even want your soul anymore.
You're too annoying.
And the Olympics can't truly live up to their ideals of bringing people across the world together if the rules we use to govern them are so unfair and destructive.
Yeah, uh-huh.
Great.
You done? Games are important.
They're often how we first learn to interact with others, and they're a reflection of the world we live in.
So, in games and real life, when we see that the rules aren't working, we have to change them.
Yeah, right! Bye! [BELL ON DOOR JINGLING.]
Oh, man.
This was so much easier when I was just selling cupcakes.
[SIGHING.]
[LAUGHING MANIACALLY.]
Thank you for joining me.
Thanks for having me.
So, Maria, we just talked in this episode about how the Olympics negatively impacts cities that host it.
Your group, Strategic Actions For A Just Economy, is working here in L.
A.
to try to mitigate those negative effects.
Absolutely.
That's exactly what I do.
If you look at the Olympics that happened in London, Sweden, Geneva, usually what you see is rental prices increase between 30 to 40%.
You have a developer who says I can make an apartment there, or I can make a boutique hotel or a big luxury hotel that's gonna hold all of the athletes that are gonna come and be a part of the Olympics and they'll try to get permits for hotel, restaurants and whatnot.
Evict everybody, knock it down, build a hotel there.
Absolutely.
And then what you have is these families who can afford very little rent suddenly thrown out into the street, where rents are between $1,500 to $2,500.
Oh, wow.
So, often we see that homelessness raise Rise two to three times what they normally are.
And in L.
A.
we wanna make sure that that doesn't happen.
What is your group doing and what can folks at home do to, you know, push back against this trend? Either in L.
A.
of if the Olympics comes to their city.
Absolutely.
Some of the ways that people are countering that is they're forming groups.
For example, here in Los Angeles we have a group NOlympics, and they're It's a consortium of different groups that have come together to basically say here is how the Olympics are gonna negatively impact our society, our communities, our homes, and we're not going to take that.
They write letters, they stage rallies, they go to decision-makers and they let them know exactly what their worries are and what they would like to see in place of the Olympics.
That's democracy in action.
To take that action Absolutely.
and lobby the government directly, as citizens.
Absolutely.
You cannot wait for the answers to be written for you.
You have to take part in a democracy.
It's a full-contact sport.
Well, thank you so much for doing it.
Thank you so much for coming on the show and talk to us about it.