Demonizing Dungeons & Dragons
Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford
Pushkin Industries
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 16 April 2021
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When James Dallas Egbert III was reported missing from his college dorm - one of America's most flamboyant private detectives was summoned to solve the case. "Dallas" had many of the same problems that most teenagers face - but P.I. William Dear stoked fears that he might have fallen under the evil spell of a mysterious and sinister game.... Dungeons & Dragons.
The global panic about the dangers the role-playing game posed to impressionable young minds may seem quaint 40 years on - but again and again we show how fearful we are of creative endeavours we don't quite understand.
Read more about Tim's work at http://timharford.com/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Pushkin |
| 0:13.0 | This episode discusses death by suicide. |
| 0:16.0 | If you're suffering emotional distress or having suicidal thoughts, |
| 0:20.0 | support is available. |
| 0:22.0 | For example, from the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. |
| 0:30.0 | In Raymond Chandler novels and in Humphrey Bullgart movies, |
| 0:34.0 | it often begins with a telephone call. |
| 0:37.0 | Strange to say, in real life, it often begins that way too. |
| 0:43.0 | Those are the words of William Deere. |
| 0:46.0 | He's going to take us on an adventure that's full of thrills, |
| 0:50.0 | and terrors. |
| 0:52.0 | William Deere is one of the most famous private detectives in the world, |
| 0:56.0 | dashing, moustache-yode, sporting a vast gold ring. |
| 1:00.0 | He's a star with his own private play. |
| 1:04.0 | And this telephone call, in August 1979, |
| 1:08.0 | was going to get him started on one of his most infamous cases. |
| 1:12.0 | On the other end of the telephone was a surgeon from the same part of North Texas as William Deere. |
| 1:18.0 | The two men had met a few times. |
| 1:22.0 | My nephew has disappeared. |
| 1:24.0 | He was taking a summer course at Michigan State University |
| 1:28.0 | and he's lancing what had happened. |
| 1:30.0 | And he didn't just run off? |
... |
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