"I don't know of any video game where you shoot another human being. ... I do know of plenty of games where you "shoot" blocks of pixels." This reminds me of a

"I don't know of any video game where you shoot another human being. ... I do know of plenty of games where you "shoot" blocks of pixels." This reminds me of a story in Stanislaw Lem's Cyberiad (which is a fantastic book -- highly recommended). From this[1] description of the story: In the story "How Trurl's Own Perfection Led to No Good," Lem describes how Trurl consoles a deposed dictator named Excelsius by building him a simulated kingdom -- a small-scale mechanical model controlled by computer programs -- so that his client can play at being a tyrant without actually harming anyone. But Klapaucius objects that, because Trurl's model is so perfect, Trurl has actually created a host of conscious beings who are suffering under Excelsius' misrule... "If an imperfect imitator, wishing to inflict pain, were to build himself a crude idol of wood or wax, and further give it some makeshift semblance of a sentient being, his torture of the thing would be a paltry mockery indeed! But consider a succession of improvements on this practice! Consider the next sculptor, who builds a doll with a recording in its belly, that it may groan beneath his blows; consider a doll which, when beaten, begs for mercy, no longer a crude idol, but a homeostat; consider a doll that sheds tears, a doll that bleeds, a doll that fears death, though it also longs for the peace that only death can bring! . . . You say there's no way of knowing whether Excelsius' subjects groan, when beaten, purely because of the electrons hopping about inside -- like wheels grinding out the mimicry of a voice -- or whether they really groan, that is, because they honestly experience pain? A pretty distinction, this! No, Trurl, a sufferer is not one who hands you his suffering, that you may touch it, weigh it, bite it like a coin; a sufferer is one who behaves like a sufferer!" [1] - http://www.inform.umd.edu/EdRes/Colleges/ARHU/Depts/History/Faculty/JAbbate/cyborg/cyberiad.html http://www.inform.umd.edu/EdRes/Colleges/ARHU/Depts/History/...