The following email has been sent (or left on various blogs):

Mike Krahulik of Penny Arcade has directly trolled comments section of articles, mocked survivors, antagonized people with PTSD, and his actions have caused companies, speakers and fans to do everything from voice feeling excluded and not safe to withdrawing support. I was commiserating with a few friends and wondered what would it take after everything he’s done for him to lose support. As it turns out, in 2006, satirist August J. Pollak came up with a thought experiment…Would supporters of President BUsh “still support him if he went as far as to kill a kitten with a hammer for no apparent reason? What if he killed several?”. In this spirit, I am conducting the 2013 Mike Krahulik Dead Kitten Thought Experiment.

The survey will take a mere moment of your time, and consists of the following scenario:

I would like for you to imagine the Mike Krahulik, killing kittens one-by-one with a hammer. When doing so, please keep in mind the following conditions of this hypothetical scenario:

The kitten will be killed by Mike Krahulik. It will not be ordered killed, nor terminated in any way by a subordinate. You are to assume for the whole of this scenario that the reference to the killing implies a scenario in which Mike Krahulik will sit at a desk, place a small kitten on the desk, and kill it by beating it with a hammer until it is dead, and possibly for a short time afterwards. No other means or individuals will be employed in the death of the kitten.

The hammer will be a standard carpenter’s hammer, of steel construction with a rubber handle grip. It is not a sledgehammer or any form of giant hammer that will guarantee the death of the kitten in a single blow.

You are to assume that for every kitten death you accept, you will be willing to watch the actual act performed by Mike Krahulik. It will not be done privately or in any intimate conditions to which the act may be deemed “more humane” or “less graphic.” Assume you will watch the full act of him terminating the life of the kitten by one or possibly a series of blows with a hammer. You may determine the distance at which you are watching depending on your estimate of how messy the act may be and how much you may enjoy kitten parts being sprayed on you, if at all.

You are not to assume the kitten needs to die, is already dying, or has a reason to require being killed with a hammer by Krahulik. In fact, assume that the kitten is perfectly healthy and of normal temperament, and would be perfectly suitable living a full life in any normal American household had it not been selected by Krahulik to die.

Furthermore, no acknowledged benefit shall be suggested by death of the kitten nor any practical use be made of its remains. When Mike Krahulik has declared his satisfaction with his repeated blows to the kitten and a medical advisor concurs it is without question dead, an aide shall squeegee the remains of the kitten off the desk into a bag which shall then be incinerated.

At no point will you be given a reason for Mike Krahulik doing all of this. The only statement that will be offered by Penny Arcade regarding the killing of kitten will be that Mike Krahulik was well within his authority. While you may personally surmise a legitimate reason, Mike Krahulik himself will give no reason for killing a kitten with a hammer other than his desire to do so.

For the sake of this experiment, assume Mike Krahulik is not insane, nor of any unsound mind or condition suggesting a rationale for his actions above. Assume Mike Krahulik has decided that it is not only within his authority, but a necessity in his capacity as part of Penny Arcade, that he begin to murder kittens one by one with a hammer on the top of his desk.

Given the terms of the scenario described above, this Survey presents the following three questions:

Were the event detailed above to occur, would you still support Mike Krahulik?

If the answer to Question #1 is yes, is there a number of kittens Mike Krahulik would kill with a hammer that would change your mind?

If the answer to Question #2 is yes, what would that number be?

At your earliest convenience, you may answer these questions by responding to this e-mail or by sending your answers to deadkittenexperiment13@gmail.com. While there is no established time limit to respond, the faster you respond, the faster an accurate assessment of the average stance can be established.

I would venture at this point you’re assuming I’m mocking you. I assure you I am not. This is a legitimate survey using a hypothetical situation that, albeit gruesome and bizarre, is no less hypothetical than other surveys asking one’s opinions of a politician selling you a used car, or enjoying a drink with you at a bar- both actual survey questions used during the 2004 U.S. Presidential election. I am not asking all this rhetorically, and I am honestly accumulating all responses in the hope that all of you whom I have written will legitimately respond.

That in mind, please understand that like any other legitimate survey, responses that violate the accepted guidelines of a response must be invalidated. While I expect some responses that violate these guidelines- likely in the form of verbal abuse- they may not be incorporated in the final statistical results, although they may be posted in a full account of all received data.

I will be keeping a record of all persons I have submitted the survey to, and will update the results accordingly on my site. In addition, I will be preparing official Certificates of Participation in the Survey to any participant I solicit who honestly and accurately responds with a set limit of kittens they would tolerate the Mike Krahulik killing with a hammer. The Certificate will state the following:

“Be it known on this day, ____ of _____ in the year 2013, that ____________ has stated for the record that, albeit a staunch supporter of Mike Krahulik, such support would cease should Mike Krahulik kill ______ kitten(s) with a hammer.”

Again, I thank you for your participation in this survey. In a time when gaming culture semms divided as ever, I am hopeful that a honest consensus can be reached among the most left or right leaning of Mike Krahulik supporters: that regardless of our stances on gaming culture, Penny Arcade, or the Penny Arcade Expo, maybe, just maybe, we draw the line at killing kittens with hammers.

Disclaimer: this is a one-time solicitation. Should you decline to participate in the survey, your name has not been added to any mailing list, nor will you be contacted again.