There might be something to giving them more taxes if they competently used the existing taxes. For example, our elected representatives could demonstrate, "here are the sensible ways we used the existing tax dollars to have this and this positive impact". "This method had this effect measured by this reasonable metric, and we think (for this and that reason) if we could dedicate X% more dollars it would lead to positive result Y". Instead, we get things like the TSA theater, trillion-dollar wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bank bailouts, broken education, social security, and health care. How about starting with something with a real impact on violence: like not invading a few countries and killing real people? Predator drones -- surely you've seen videos online where they mow people down like in a computer game? That's real life, though. How about more funding for alternative energy sources, make it unnecessary to invade oil-rich countries? Start by not glorifying the killing of people in the name of the USA, maybe you'll have a real impact on how American kids perceive violence. Or take the popular route for your voters, suggest taxing games that are "violent" according to some arbitrary committee (paid for by....?), maybe that will work....

Though I notice those cultures also tend to be short, too, as if malnourished. I'd rather look at whatever the Dutch are eating.

No, no, TSA = Transportation Security Administration, but security != safety. Consider: "the prisoners are secure" vs. "the prisoners are safe".

I think even those will be lost over a century. A hundred years from now "Star Wars" might be mentioned in some kind of documentary on film history, in a node far, far away in whatever hypermedium they live in then (who will care and be aware that they can access it?). Films will probably have been a quaint form of entertainment for those poor folks who lived a hundred years ago.

Gasp, you have to fix it in multiple places? Sorry, but compared to refactoring, that is much faster. Especially if you're programming professionally, you avoid refactoring and copy/paste like a WINNER! Refactoring is a waste of time on code that you're probably going to throw away anyway. Refactoring (except when necessary) is a best practice only for people who write books or blogs, not for real programmers. Refactor only after you copy/pasted at least 10 times and you're pretty sure that you'll have to do it many more times.

It's a bit of a strawman, since everybody wasn't stopping by the library every evening before the internet (laugh). Now a lot more people do, in a way, online; of course a lot more people also do the equivalent of going to pubs or other kinds of entertainment, but that's fine too.

I don't think it's a waste, anyway. Investment in information-age infrastructure. In the 50s, how expensive it was to build all those highways! Yeah, but look at how much easier it is to get (things) from here to there. Relative to the previous economy it was a huge cost, but then again you also boosted the economy. (Maybe "economy" has a bad connotation; I should say "productivity" or "power" (to do things).) Could've saved by riding around on horses, but then "lost" a lot more. The boost we get from the internet enables us to tackle problems we previously couldn't. I don't think we should be trying to save energy, instead we should be trying to figure out how to make more of it! (And how to get rid of the waste properly, too.)

Also why we have Wikileaks and Anonymous. Consent of the (governed) governing is not required or desirable.

I remember Emacs was going to switch to Guile back in, oh....around 2000? hmmm, around the same time Perl 6 was conceived. Millennium mania?

Of course.... this story has....nothing to do with....Code::Blocks. But we surely appreciate your zealous albeit irrelevant input, sergeant.

LOL. Oh, wasn't that meant to be funny?