Imagine a shell that can adjust it's flight path, even slightly, which means you can fire in the general direction you want, then fine tune the aim in flight. (I assume they don't do that now..)

They don't, and even a railgun projectile probably won't either - because the force required to effect a significant change in trajectory (especially in azimuth) is simply too great.

M712 Copperhead

A similar result to that experienced by many adults upon listening to Justin Bieber music.

>cd /local/mnt/SmartShelf
>cat logfile
02-Mar-2015 11:45:23 New subject detected; Age: 20s; Sex: M; Ad chosen: 22756
02-Mar-2015 11:45:47 Status: Failure; Code: 10
02-Mar-2015 11:46:39 New subject detected; Age: 60s; Sex: F; Ad chosen: 66563
02-Mar-2015 11:46:59 Status: Failure; Code: 22
02-Mar-2015 11:52:02 New subject detected; Age: 10s; Sex: F; Ad chosen: 74453
02-Mar-2015 11:52:47 Status: Failure; Code: 15
>cat err_codes
10: Subject oogling Cosmo girl's boobs
15: Subject distracted by texting
22: Subject fumbling with checkbook

You haven't noticed that the newest trend is to consider *25* as the age of mental maturity?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24173194

:-/

What if that "popularity contest" served as a valuable pressure-relief? What if there exists a class of users who benefit from the outlet of physically "Liking" or "Unliking" something they see expressed? These likes and dislikes are always available, but they do not contribute to the Score for a comment. Maybe they combine into some sort of Heat value that can be used to identify Hot comments.

Could it be that having such a system available reduce any tendency towards using the moderation system for Agree/Disagree purposes?

Use HTML Entities:

• > becomes >
• &lt; becomes <

Never, because most are too interested in obtaining their "benefits" from the control hierarchy and it is quantity not honesty that they most appreciate.

Are you implying that we're being fleeced?