Charlie Huenemann in Huenemanniac:
I drowned my first two dogs. The first time, I was building a bridge over a lake, but a bridge that left no space between it and the water. The dog did its best to follow me around, but it soon found itself trapped beneath the water’s surface by my bridge. Not being smart enough to swim out from under the bridge, it let out a single plaintiff yelp before dying and sinking. Exactly the same thing happened to my second dog, as it was this second episode that made this particular feature of dogs clear to me. I know now to make dogs sit if I’m building bridges. I’m not sure what happened to the third dog, but I think it fell into some lava. There was, again, the single yelp, followed by a sizzle. No more dog.
I felt bad each time, while of course fully realizing that only virtual entities were being killed. Surely some of the sorrow I felt was imported from the real world, where I am fond of dogs and do what I can to avoid drowning or burning them. I could not be said to have developed a meaningful relationship with my virtual dogs, but I was pleased to see them each time they caught up with me, and I was a little sad to realize they wouldn’t be getting in my way anymore. I think I was right to feel at least a little bit bad about killing them. But how can there be any place for emotional or even moral attachments to virtual characters? What could cause me to feel any kind of sympathy or concern for beings that don’t really exist?
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