The whole Robot Rights movement

Ann Althouse weighs in on the whole Robot Rights Movement that Insty and Drudge linked to the other day. Here's what Ann wrote:

In any case, isn't it bad for your soul to mistreat something that you see as human-like? For example, if you are in a lucid dream interacting with people whom you realize do not exist, do you think you can do things to them that you would not do to a real person? And what do you think of the child who tortures her doll?

The question for me raised here is what about computer games, particularly The Sims? Do you owe anything to the characters?

It would be funny to see a mass Habeus petition on behalf of the denizens of the Sims universe claiming EA's systematic violation of the Thirteenth Amendment.

Yips! from Robbo: And what rights do or should non-combatants have in Age of Empires? The game assumes Total War and I confess that I derive keen enjoyment from sending squads of archers to key positions to massacre enemy peasants as they come by, thereby severly weakening their economy. But shouldn't the U.N. weigh in and demand that the Geneva Convention be made applicable?

YIPS from Steve-O: Actually, I was thinking the same thing.

And on that note, I do believe we are LONG OVERDUE for the internet tete a tete LLama Age of Empires Civil War. We both have the high-speed wireless, there's really no excuse when you think of it.

Other than, like, we have jobs, wives, kids, and responsibilities and stuff.