|
Stu defends GTA4... with extreme prejudice.Glenn: We're living in a different world, man, a different culture, when Grand Theft Auto can be selling out in just ‑‑ I mean, people standing in line for Grand Theft Auto, a game where you can have sex with a prostitute and then beat her to death with a baseball bat. I don't even recognize our society anymore and I said this during the break to Dan and Stu and they both had virtual sex with a prostitute and then beat her to death with a baseball bat.
Dan: No. That's not true. I ran her over with the car once ‑‑
Stu: There are a lot of incidents and things happen. You know, it gets messy out there, Glenn.
Glenn: You guys don't have any problem, you see no problem with this? You can take a cop and you can set him on fire?
Stu: Yeah. I haven't played the new game yet. It just came out Tuesday, but, I mean, that is the general concept of these games.
Glenn: Sarah, please, tell me you have a problem with this game. You're pregnant. Please tell me you're not going to let your children and you're not going to let your husband ‑‑
Stu: Yeah. It's more specifically ‑‑ does your husband Jim have a copy yet?
Sarah: My husband has a copy and plays it all the time.
Glenn: What do you think about having your husband playing a game where he can have sex with a prostitute and then beat her to death with a baseball bat or take a chain saw and saw her in half?
Sarah: I see no problem with it, because there is a distinction reality and the game.
Glenn: There is no distinction between reality and a game anymore. Doesn't anyone see what is happening to ‑‑ no ‑‑ tell me the distinction ‑‑ tell me that people get the distinction between reality and games or reality and television when they're beating kids up so they can post it on YouTube.
Stu: Some people don't get the distinction, but they are going to sell 11 million copies of this game this week. My guess is you don't see 11 million cops run over.
Dan: You're exactly right. You don't.
Stu: Some people, who are obviously not able to handle reality in their own ‑‑ and most of them ‑‑
Glenn: So, how do we know, because that's kids ‑‑
Stu: Some people take guns and start shooting people. That doesn't mean we don't sell them guns.
Glenn: There's a difference. There is a difference. I mean, Stu, how many times have we ‑‑ I gave you this last research project that showed that people who were ‑‑ they did a study on people in virtual reality and they just changed that you could pick out your ‑‑ not your icon but your ‑‑ oh, the little ‑‑
Stu: Avatar.
Glenn: You could pick out your avatar. If you were better looking and taller, you became more aggressive in the virtual chat rooms. If you were shorter as the avatar and fat or ugly, you become less aggressive and they said, just with 30 minutes' exposure, people took those traits out of virtual reality. They saw themselves differently.
Stu: I think there is a ‑‑ I think there is a slight difference, not ‑‑ it does not make you think that cops are disposable and they should be shot. Absolutely. It might give you an energy rush or it might give you ‑‑ you've played that game long enough, Dan, you can back me up on this. You play that game long enough and then go out an drive, you feel like you do have a little vibe a small percentage of you that feels like driving more aggressively.
Dan: Or you could just drive up on the sidewalk.
Stu: You don't do that, though, shockingly, because he realize what reality but you're right. You can see there is a slight influence and this is why ‑‑
Glenn: A slight course change. Remember, we're talking 3 hundred million people just in America alone.
Stu: Right.
Glenn: So, a slight course change is like a 1 degree difference taking off in JFK and your pilot is off by half a degree, you don't make it to Los Angeles.
Stu: Well, I ‑‑ I mean, if this were proving out over time, to some degree, you know, I can understand it.
Glenn: Where is your evidence that it's not?
Stu: The crime rates are dropping.
Glenn: Stu, I'm not talking about ‑‑ I'm talking about our coarseness. Again, slight, slight change. I mean, when you understand why video games were ‑‑ I mean, who developed the video game?
Stu: I know. The government.
Glenn: The government Pentagon.
Stu: Sure, yeah.
Glenn: And they went from the ‑‑ and I'm pulling these ones out of the air. I'm looking them up because I'm having this discussion later tonight on television with some actual guests that, you know, study this stuff, but the ‑‑ my best recollection is, there was about 20 percent in World War I would pull the trigger. They would bring all these guys, you know, from the farms and everything else in America. They would send them over for World War I. They would drop them right at the front lines and only 20 percent of Americans would squeeze the trigger. They wouldn't do it. They would have an enemy rushing them and they wouldn't squeeze the trigger and it was the seasoned guys were, like, shoot, shoot! And they wouldn't do it. They figured that ‑‑ their training was just on bull's eyes and everything else and they didn't ‑‑ they wouldn't ‑‑ there was something in man that said, don't kill man. So, what they did is they changed the bull's eye and put a silhouette there, just changing that, it went from, like, 20 percent to 50 percent first time squeeze the trigger and try to kill somebody, just putting a silhouette. The next step was to put a face. You know how you go to a shooting range and, you know, you've got Osama Bin Laden there or you've got a face, just changing that brought it up at 15 percent. The Pentagon studied this and said, if we can make it more and more realistic, we can get people to do it. They started developing virtual reality simulators so the soldiers would, in training, see a situation and they would see, okay, I can ‑‑ and they had to get past the natural instinct to not kill someone. Now the kill rate, the first time shoot rate, you're dropped on the front lines, you drop an American soldier in, and they go behind ‑‑ right into the front line, the first time they're exposed to hostile fire or an enemy coming in, 100 percent squeeze rate.
Now, we have buried something ‑‑ and we did it intentionally for war. Now we are burying that natural tendency to not squeeze the trigger, to not hurt someone. You tell me that we don't ‑‑ you know, show me the evidence. Let me show you the evidence. Let me show you what's on television with the stuff that we've been talking about this week, the OMFG commercial.
Stu: Yeah.
Glenn: Where the high school students are having sex. Let me show you how the students are now having sex. Let me show you the rates of colleges that are having these pimps and hoe parties.
Stu: Sure. And this is why I would say it's not an appropriate thing for a kid, but the average video game player is over 30 years old and that shows how pathetic we are, but it also ‑‑
Glenn: That shows you you're a loser.
Stu: I'm happily in that group.
Glenn: I am ‑‑ I know I'm in probably ‑‑ I'll bet you the 10 percent minority.
Stu: With this audience? No, no way.
Glenn: You don't think so?
Stu: No. I think most people ‑‑ and I agree there are ‑‑ look. You wouldn't have candle light, wine, and Barry White if outside influences don't change your behavior. I agree it can influence you, but there is still a major distinction from ‑‑
Glenn: No, there's not. The society is going ‑‑ the society again, Stu, is slowly course changing.
