"Some people need killing." I first came across that in a New Yorker magazine article I was reading in 1980 as I rode the Southern Crescent train from Washington, DC to New Orleans. It was John McPhee's story of western U.S. geology, but as an interesting counterpoint he talked about social formation. He recounted the early days of western towns where troublesome people sometimes just disappeared. No one inquired after them or investigated their disappearance. There was simply a consensus that "some people need killing."

Maybe the same is true of made-up Internet worlds too.