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The autopsy on Democrats' 2024 ambitions continues with an exploration from New York Democrats: why did the Latino vote dessert Democrats?

(It would be awesome if we could discuss why Democrats failed -- which they did -- as opposed to claiming they shouldn't have failed just because. Because when we confront failure, we build to success.)

If there had been a primary and Kamala lost the primary, that would simply have been the will of the Democratic voters, and not any regime throwing her aside.

During the inflation crisis -- and for most of his presidency -- Biden avoided interviews, avoided being available for constituents to ask him questions and avoided anything and everything that would have made him feel present to the people. It's pretty obvious why: his verbal communication skills had declined, he mixed up names, he mumbled, he'd freeze -- and his handlers didn't want his diminishment (superficial as it was) to be visible. They distanced him from the press... and though he could campaign for office that way.

**

Bernie Sanders says that once again, Democrats have given up on trying to win votes from working class people, instead focusing on demographics and identities.

https://x.com/BernieSanders/status/1854 … 41698?mx=2

There's definitely something there: Democrats are belittling Trump voters for choosing Trump, mocking them for caring more about the price of eggs than democracy. While voting for Trump is contemptible, the average person has been roiled by inflation, by rising food and housing costs -- and a Democratic Party that brags about having a strong economy to people who are struggling to eat is in serious trouble.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez notes that the Democratic Party is often unable to articulate specific ways to pursue working class votes because the party is unwilling to directly confront the price gouging, exploitation and misuse that corporations and billionaires inflict on the working class because party as it exists depends on so corporations and billionaires to fund it, and while Trump isn't going to change that, Trump offers forceful solutions, even they are facile or false and involve blaming minorities, while Democrats make broad and vague gestures to avoid offending their backers. The upshot is that the working class votes for the party that lies to them over the party that doesn't speak to them.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DCDRaRoxJYW/?hl=en

Vox notes that incumbent governments are being thrown out by voters struggling with the costs of food, health care and housing, pointing out: in 2020, voters were suffering from COVID and blamed the incumbent, who was Trump. In 2024, voters were suffering from inflation and blamed the incumbent, who was Biden and by extension, Trump.

https://www.vox.com/2024-elections/3832 … incumbents

Temporal Flux remarked in 2016 that a lot of people who voted for Trump didn't like or support him, but they were suffering, Democrats didn't seem to be speaking to them beyond token gestures, and that from his observation, the vote for Trump was a way to attack the entire political system that ignored them. I would offer the adjacent theory that it might be a panic button vote from people who were suffering from job losses and costs that wouldn't improve with either administration.

Andrew Yang says Democrats have failed to focus on standard of living, the working class, and alienated the majority of their base; he notes that Democrats had best abandon policing cultural behaviors. Faiz Shakir says Democrats must recruit working-class candidates who reflect people who live payday to payday.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ … w-00187993

I suspect that if Democrats plan on winning any future elections, their proposals need to speak to people who work for a living or the other side will take those voters again.

Brian, take some time to grieve. But don't let your ideals dismiss reality.

The reality I am forced to face: the people I counted on for analysis and assessment and strategy do not have what it takes to bring about a Democrat victory in today's political climate or even analyze an election correctly, and any rejoinders and protests to the contrary about qualifications and disdain for the opposing side and the electoral college are not accompanied with results. Which means you and I were ultimately presenting a losing hand.

As my archnemesis once said, you have to know when to hold them and when to fold them.

It seems to me we'd better listen long and hard to the Grizzlors and pilights of the world and better understand what it takes to win, because what we've got is not working for us.

Thank you, Grizzlor and pilight.

Vote counts are gradual. None of these non-results mean anything right now. Don't mistake mirages for results.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-e … rcna175475

(He said fearfully.)

I think your account is an example of how you treat someone with welcome and consideration on a personal level but are completely opposed to them on a political level.

I do not think we will be getting results until Thursday or Friday. But if I am wrong, I owe you a trip to the Alamo Drafthouse.

The reality is that people can have one set of values on a personal and individual basis and a completely different set of values at the ballot box. An essay I wrote awhile back about someone:

Many years ago, I interviewed an actor who was on a show I liked. This actor would, a few years after our interview, post a lot of Trump-supportive content on his social media. Following Charlottesville with neo-Nazis marching, this actor made a number of posts sharing (false) claims that the Nazi-presence and rhetoric had been overblown or misrepresented. This made me very angry.

I said nothing (well, outside of private conversations, I said nothing). I didn't comment on it in the fan community. I ceased contact and would check in on this actor from time to time, if only as a study of how someone could be radicalized.

This actor eventually scrubbed his social media of all pro-Trump material while leaving behind a few pre-2015, Trump-mocking comments regarding Trump's business practices. Because this actor took down his Trump-support and ceased voicing any support of Trump at all, I'm not willing to name him in this post.

I should note: I don't believe that anyone had to vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016 or Joe Biden in 2020 to make the minimum grade as a decent human being. People I respect voted third party or wrote in names because they didn't support Clinton, or because they believed in term limits when it came to Biden, or for other reasons entirely.

However, I believe that the act of voting for Donald Trump was and is evil.

I felt tremendous confusion when this actor expressed support for Trump's 2016 campaign of obvious racism, bigotry, white supremacy and white privilege. This actor had been so generous to me: a lengthy phone conversation, reviewing his quotes and offering clarifications and corrections, patient explanations of his process and work, indulgently sharing memories of times that were challenging and difficult.

He did all this for me, and I am a person of colour. I am an Asian man and I have a Muslim name (which is incredibly weird because my family has no Muslims and is Buddhist on one side and Mennonite on the other). Someone supporting a racist political party that encourages violence against anyone who isn't Caucasian -- that's not something I can ignore morally or in terms of personal safety.

Why did a Trump supporter do so much for an Asian man with a Muslim name? I had conversations with others and received a number of theories.

This twisted me inside for a long time. Eventually, I simply had to bar it from my mind. But in recent days, I've had to think about it, and I've revisited the theories that my friends and family offered me. I have then rejected these theories. I know in my heart (if not for a fact) that they are all wrong.

I have decided that he was sincerely nice to me, a person of colour, in a genuine and heartfelt way and he voted for and supported a white supremacist bigot. Both are true.

Why did he vote for Donald Trump and minimize the presence of Nazis the way Informant, a former poster here, was constantly lying and claiming there where no neo-Nazis even when they were roaring, "You will not replace us"?

A vote for Trump could be, as Grizzlor put it, tribalism, but neo-Nazi denialism goes beyond that.

I'm prepared to suggest that this actor, like Kelsey Grammer, suffered something in his life that shook him and damaged him and his sense of right and wrong when it came to the specific sphere of politics. There are actually numerous areas in his life where he may have experienced something disturbing and traumatic for which he deserves, like any person, sympathy and understanding.

Without going into detail, there was a very early setback in his education that deprived him of credentials he needed in the field of acting (don't bother trying to look this up, you won't find it). This may have caused a sense of failure and may have made it harder than it should have been to build his career, although he did build it. There may have been distress with the mother of his children not being in his life or his children's lives. I don't know that these were life-altering traumas for him. They may have been merely setbacks, but they probably weren't non-serious issues.

And then there was this actor's biggest job. The pinnacle of his career. He'd acted in small roles and acted in medium-sized roles and acting had become his full time job. Then came a role that would bring him to his largest audience yet. This role, while potentially career-defining, also came with a sense of humiliation: the actor was hired to effectively replace and imitate a different performer.

The original performer in this role was a big name who had played the character for years, but suddenly left the role. This actor I interviewed was the successor and his new job involved mimicking the original performer's performance. (I guess this gives it away)

This job must have come with the constant sense of being second-chosen, second-best, least-wanted, least-remembered, least-respected. There was the sense that the highest amount of regard for his career was when he performed in the shadow of someone else, copying someone else's work rather than offering something uniquely his own. This is an extremely caustic and mocking interpretation, and it is absolutely not how I see this person or his life or his work.

I consider this actor to a more skillful, detailed, thoughtful and talented than his predecessor, and truly a master thespian. I was impressed by how the actor's work was not imitation, but tribute where mimicry of the previous performer was just one facet of a very complex performance. And this actor could have built a successful career beyond this big role. He had the talent and physical appeal to do so, but he decided to end his acting career a short time after this job due to the need to spend more time with his family.

He left acting and found success in a different field. As a result, his former acting career was then defined by this one part where people saw him as a stand-in for somebody else; a scab, a stand-in, a substitute.

I have never and will never see him as a substitute for anybody. But it is how many others viewed him and viewed his life and viewed his work. That had to have affected him, especially when he was told by cruel fans in public that his failure to live up to his predecessor was why the show was cancelled.

These are not easy experiences.

As Dr. Frasier Crane might say: someone who experiences a sense of disenfranchisement, abandonment -- and who is treated as a shabby substitute -- could experience dire feelings of inadequacy, inferiority, weakness, and frustration that he is viewed as a second-rate copy rather than someone with his own set of experiences and skills and approach to his profession and craft.

Someone might go through this and then in their politics feel a desire for control, dominance, privilege, elevation, superiority, vindication and obedience, and this might be reflected in their voting for and supporting fascist authoritarianism and entitlement.

Someone could experience all these things and cast that vote... but still retain the ability to dismiss race and ethnicity on a personal level (like when interacting with a fan) while making racist and white supremacist choices on a political level.

One does not negate the other. Being kind to me does not erase the fact that this person cast a ballot for racism, fascism and authoritarianism. At the same time, casting that ballot did not erase the fact that this person was extremely generous to me on a personal and psychological level and, in their kindness to me, was also being kind to every other fan of his work.

This person has ceased supporting Donald Trump publicly. This means that their politics today are now a private affair as they are no longer voicing any opinion of it at all and have removed their previous opinions from their platform. For this reason, I will not name this actor nor will I associate this person with the cause from which he severed his public (if not private) allegiance. I have said nothing about this online for the past seven years because I did not want to diminish this person's standing or what he had shared with fans.

As someone who has voted for different parties at different times, I can say that there are votes for parties that I regret casting. I have made votes that, upon reflection, I consider to have been acts of evil on my part. I wouldn't want to be defined by a vote that I now regret, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

These are important subjects to discuss, and I don't feel silence serves anyone. However, I make the request that if we talk about this more, we avoid using this person's name as search engine optimization can cause associations that this person clearly no longer wants to maintain... and as this person never committed any actual crimes (none that I'm aware of, anyway), he has the right to change, to chart a new course, and to move on.

**

There are dark days ahead of you. You're all going going to be tested. And I'm so sorry for how hard it will all be.

But... I have faith in you.

I am super-behind and need to watch ECHO before I get to AGATHA. And I am currently knee-deep in a SMALLVILLE rewatch. But I'll get to it!

I hope he's right.

Hey, I need to ask Slider_Quinn21 something. Given how controversial Henry Cavill was as Superman -- how did SQ21 feel when Clark killed Titan in Season 6, Episode 17, "Combat"?

Also, I've been rewatching the show, and while Seasons 2 and 4 are as bad as I recall, Season 1 is strong and Seasons 3 is very good, and Seasons 5 and 6 I would go so far as to call great. I am not at Season 7 yet, but I recall it being terrible.

I'm scared, Greg.

I haven't lost hope... but sometimes, hope just fills me with fear because I know how much it will hurt if that hope is proven false.

And my spare room is currently filled with my mother's dialysis supplies and I cannot find the air mattress, so I am not sure I can offer Rob and his wife and kids a place to stay if he moves to Canada.

But it doesn't matter. My fear and hope won't change anything. There's only one thing that ever makes a difference.

Back to work.

Which threads do you want renamed to what?

I think Brad Schwartz is saving face with an untruth. The reality, from what I can tell, is that James Gunn could have wholeheartedly and totally supported more seasons of SUPERMAN AND LOIS and the CW would have still been reluctant to pay for it with their new budget reductions. When the CW can't even keep THE WINCHESTERS and WALKER: TEXAS RANGER going, it's going to struggle with SUPERMAN AND LOIS.

I'm also doubtful that James Gunn would have even been able to stop SUPERMAN AND LOIS if the CW were inclined to order another season. Gunn may certainly be in charge of in-house WB film and TV projects, but a CW Superman show comes from the CW network purchasing the licensing rights to Superman for a period of time with options to extend, and I can't imagine the CW not locking in those extensions even if they may waive them.

It seems to me like the situation is another part of the budget reduction where some of the former cast can only be in three episodes because it's what production can afford to pay. Interestingly, on social media, this actor said that he wasn't going to be in the fourth season at all, only to later be seen in on-set photos.

Someone previously posted when Trump got shot that the election was "over" and I thought that was nonsensical. So, when someone says Kamala will win and the election is over... I mean, that strikes me as magical thinking, not reality.

I think Kamala going on FOX and Rogan demonstrates the willingness to reach beyond diehards and to reluctant voters.

Who was this figure and what was your favourite analysis?

I'll remount it for you so you can have an alternate source.

It seems to me that the sequel did something you described GOTHAM doing with the Joker.

I'm not really a fan of villains on their own, this movie isn't for me. But it's interesting.

"Arthur shows almost none of the trademark characteristics of the Joker.  He's neither all that smart or all that cunning."

Hmm!

I haven't seen the sequel to JOKER and I don't plan too, but I've been reading articles about it. Hmm!

Why Trump is so much angrier at women this year:
https://www.salon.com/2024/09/25/donald … l-in-line/

What does a Trump surrender look like? Simon Rosenberg says it looks like this:

One of the most derided aspects of Smallville: Jor-El. The character makes no sense. Jor-El's harsh and threatening attitude to Clark later shifts towards Jor-El being a benign father like in other Superman adaptations, and then reverts and then ricochets back and forth. Jor-El's nonsensical characterization from 2003 - 2011, while obnoxiously incoherent, is a strangely accurate and prescient depiction of current problems and challenges in artificial intelligence.

Jor-El is first introduced at the end of Season 2 and explicitly identified as a computer program, a representation of the real Jor-El, carrying  "his memory and his will", carrying out the wishes of Clark's deceased biological father. From the start, this artificial intelligence version of Jor-El is disturbing.

Translation Errors

The Jor-El AI first imprints Krpytonian language into Clark's brain and enables Clark to read Jor-El's first message. It says: "On this third planet from this star Sol, you will be a god among men. They are a flawed race. Rule them with strength, my son. That is where your greatness lies."

Clark is horrified, exclaiming to his adoptive father, Jonathan Kent, "I think I was sent here to conquer. What kind of planet am I from!?"

This first message is particularly odd in light of later episodes where Jor-El's plans for Clark are fully revealed: Jor-El's goal is for Clark to "protect Earth" and humanity from the Kryptonian fascist General Zod, that Clark's destiny is to serve as a "beacon" whose "example" of heroism will "guide" humanity.

Furthermore, this message is a dark inversion on the classic Superman film where Marlon Brando's Jor-El calls humanity a race with tremendous "potential for good".

AI Lacks Cultural and Situational Nuance

In a fictional context, it's like the AI's language module, imprinted to Clark, has made a translation error from Kryptonian to English, conflating "god" with "beacon", "rule" with "guide", "strength" with "example" "flawed race" with "potential for good", leading to a message translated without nuance or awareness of human/Kryptonian cultural distinctions.

In reality, the writers were seeding the idea that the AI Jor-El was an impostor; the voice of Terence Stamp (the evil Zod of the classic Superman films) implied as much. The writers ultimately stuck with this version of Jor-El, creating an inconsistency. And yet, this inconsistency reflects real world AI problems of 2022 - 2024 era AI.

Smallville's Kryptonians, shown in flashback, are not colonizers or conquerors, but isolationists. Kryptonians do, however, believe in dominance -- not of sentient life, but of their own planetary ecosystems: terraforming, artificial weather, resource management, etc.. In addition, Kryptonians also refer to their sun, Rao as a god - -except in Kryptonian culture, the sun is a source of light, warmth, learning and enlightenment. What Kryptonians call a 'god' would in English be a teacher and a friend.

The Jor-El AI has failed to consider these mismatches between Kryptonian-and human language and culture.

Inaccuracy for Complexity

This is extremely an extremely accurate portrayal of how real world AI often struggles with cultural and situational context, semantic errors, linguistic dominance and consistency, creating outputs that are technically correct but contextually incorrect or even nonsensical.

For example, Google Translate can sometimes produce bizarre prophecies from mundane words due to misapplying training data from religious text. At times, "Good morning" in Arabic has been AI-mistranslated into "Attack them" due to homophone and homonym misidentification (similar sounding or spelled words getting confused) and idiomatic confusion (colloquialisms and regional phrasings).

Real AI models are also biased towards English which creates translations that can't accurately depict complex concepts from other languages or and struggle to maintain a consistent tone or perspective.

Given Jor-El's eventual revelations about Clark's destiny to be Earth's hero, the real message was likely: "On this third planet from this star Sol, you will be a beacon to all. They are a race filled with potential for good. Guide them with your example, my son. That is where your destiny lies."

In this case, the Jor-El AI has a bias towards Kryptonian language without nuance for English. The message of human potential needing light and guidance has been mis-translated into a harsh judgement on humanity as "a flawed race". Jor-El's message about stewardship, guidance, and serving as a beacon by example has been warped into a message of authoritarianism while the real message prioritized guidance and inspiration.

Incoherent Behaviour

The Jor-El AI also demonstrates an incoherent attitude towards Clark's human identity and the role Kryptonian culture is to play in Clark's life. In the Season 3 finale and the Season 4 premiere, Jor-El seeks to suppress the Clark Kent personality and implement a new identity in Clark's body, Kal-El, who is wholly compliant with Kryptonian values and Jor-El's orders, seeking to retrieve Kryptonian artifacts scattered across Earth.

The enforced identity is only repelled by Clark's adoptive mother, Martha, using black Kryptonite to restore the real Clark. However, Jor-El later declares that his goal is to train Clark in the use of his powers, no longer attempting to brainwash Clark into compliance. The shift in tactics is not explained. Later, it's declared that all of Jor-El's actions were to position Clark as humanity's protector to prevent an invasion of Earth by the Kryptonian fascist Dru-Zod.

Jor-El's opinions of humanity are also oddly contradictory. Initially, Jor-El declares that Clark must abandon his human connections and all his friends and family. When Clark balks, Jor-El proceeds to inflict pain on Clark by horribly scarring Clark with a flesh-burned brand of the House of El S-shield. But later, Jor-El thanks Martha Kent for raising Clark and serving as a light in Clark's life and declares that Clark's heroism is due to his life in Smallville and his upbringing with Jonathan and Martha.

Throughout the show, Jor-El often punishes Clark whenever Clark prioritizes rescuing humans over Jor-El's missions; he freezes Clark in ice or suppresses Clark's powers. Yet, Jor-El declares Clark's mission is to protect humanity, and when Clark nearly kills a human enemy, Jor-El disowns Clark for almost taking someone's life and declares Clark is no longer his son.

This is nonsensical characterization: two sets of values and tactics that are mutually exclusive. Yet, it's actually a very accurate depictions of 2022 - 2024 era AI problems and challenges: conflicting objectives and contradictory directives.

AI Misalignment

In this case, the Jor-El AI has clearly been programmed with specific modules, each with a specific goal and a set of tactics for training Clark.

These modules include but aren't limited to: a module to defeat General Zod; a module to continue the Kryptonian legacy through Clark; a module to punish Clark; a module to provide physical and tactical learning; a module to support Clark's growth and maturity; an ethical and moral training module to position Clark as a protector of Earth -- many of which are in conflict if not in their goals, then in their methods.

Anti-Zod Module

The anti-Zod module's priority seems to be defeating Zod, the fascist who sought to conquer Krypton and upon defeat chose to destroy the planet. This module views Clark as the means by which the Jor-El AI can assemble and mount defenses against General Zod; it threatens Clark when he has other concerns; it doesn't care about Clark's friends, family or human goals, and has little concern for human life beyond acknowledging that defeating Zod would protect humans.

Legacy Module

The Kryptonian legacy module's priority seems to be for Clark to represent Krypton's otherwise lost history, language and culture. This module focuses on severing Clark's human connections, declaring that his family and friends are to be discarded in favour of Kryptonian missions and Kryptonian rites and rituals.

It seeks to imprint Kryptonian language, knowledge and messaging into Clark's mind and to ultimately remove any importance Clark might place on any life in human society. It also has no interest Clark's human life and identity, instead valuing only Clark's body for an imprinted and compliant Kal-El personality under the AI Jor-El's command.

Disciplinary Module

The disciplinary module's priority seems to be attuned to identifying when Clark is resisting the anti-Zod or Kryptonian-legacy directives. When Clark chooses to save humans or prioritizes his human life, the disciplinary module strips Clark of power at moments of crisis; it freezes him, it burns him, it threatens him.

Poor Awareness

These three modules are operating in parallel to the physical and tactical learning module, which seeks to train Clark without suppressing his human identity: it provides lessons for Clark to control each of his powers and apply them; it indicates what Clark's upper limits are and what may be causing his present limitations of strength, speed and flight; it seeks to teach Clark in his human identity instead of replacing it.

The first three modules (anti-Zod, Kryptonian legacy, disciplinary) demonstrate a lot of real world AI problems. Jor-El, like a lot of AI today, has poor contextual awareness; he doesn't evaluate situations in terms of human danger, only specific mission goals.

Jor-El displays an obvious AI bias; he is slanted towards Kryptonian preservation, and undervalues human life. Jor-El demonstrates a limited adaptability to dynamic situations, instead responding with rigid prioritization of original goals. As a result, his decisions and punishments are inconsistent and incoherent, morally unsound, and unwarrantedly harsh.

Growth and Maturity Module

In addition, the three anti-Zod, legacy and disciplinary modules are completely at odds with the growth and maturity module which serves to shepherd Clark from youth to adulthood via what it calls "trials", and recognizes that Clark's human upbringing with Jonathan and Martha and Clark's time in Smallville have provided a strong moral framework for how Clark will use his powers.

This module thanks Martha Kent for raising Clark well and seems devoted to helping Clark master his emotions and his physical reactions, even working in tandem with the moral and tactical module to teach Clark how to restrain his strength for intimacy. But it is in stark contrast to the Kryptonian legacy module that declared Martha and other humans were unnecessary encumbrances. 

Ethical and Moral Module

The final module of note in this theoretical framework is the ethical and moral module, which is in stark opposition to the anti-Zod, legacy, and disciplinary modules. The ethical and moral module's goal is to train Clark to be Earth's hero. It prioritizes protecting human life, even the lives of human enemies. It challenges Clark to save humans more efficiently when the anti-Zod module punished Clark for saving them. It warns Clark against aggression and "darkness" instead of simply using mind control and identity replacement.

It rebukes Clark for nearing killing a Lex Luthor clone when the first three modules were indifferent to human harm.

Contrary Goals

These issues are an extremely realistic portrayal of 2022 - 2024 AI issues. AI is often programmed with goals that, from a machine standpoint, can seem mutually exclusive. AI is frequently given directives -- tactics and strategies -- to achieve its goals, only to find those directives are in in opposition or can work towards some goals while interfering with others. AI often lacks situational and contextual nuance.

For example, AI that's asked to create a product assembly workflow of efficiency and safety will often fail. It will present either a high-efficiency but high-risk process that skips inspections and safety checks and endangers human life; alternatively, it might present a zero-risk workflow that makes it impossible to consistently manufacture anything. It lacks the balance and understanding to reconcile the opposing values of efficiency and safety; it isn't sure how to make appropriate trade-offs and it defaults to extreme positions.

In this case, the Jor-El AI has been programmed with competing goals: to train Clark as humanity's defender but maintain Kryptonian culture; to represent Krypton wholly but to guide humans morally within human culture; to protect humans in all circumstances while prioritizing Zod's defeat.

The AI has also been programmed with oppositional directives: punishment and moral guidance; isolationism with social development. This, combined with translation errors, has created a severely misaligned AI system that causes Jor-El to be inconsistent, erratic, and perpetually at extreme ends of his behavioural spectrum.

Poor Learning

In addition, the Jor-El AI demonstrates some capacity for adaptive learning, but in a highly inconsistent and unreliable fashion. Despite claiming that Clark has made great strides and achieving a more harmonious relationship, the Jor-El AI regularly defaults to punishing, attacking and threatening Clark and eventually refuses to speak with him.

The AI clearly adapts to recognize that Clark's human experiences and connections are valuable and vital to Clark's destiny, yet it can't seem to consistently apply this learning to future interactions.

This is a very common problem in real world AI systems: AI often struggles to learn new data and adapt its response accordingly. AI will often review a piece of writing and note flaws, then review a corrected draft and note the same flaws anyway, warping existing information or generating false information in order to justify its reiterated criticisms.

This is because AI can suffer from algorithmic rigidity, where it can't always adapt its programming to new information and defaults to its initial response and original programming. This is a flaw of overfitting to original inputs alongside to limited memory where AI can lack the storage capacity to track progression and development. This creates instances where an AI might learn something and even recall it but fail to apply it consistently to other situations.

Poor Emotional Intelligence

The most glaring problem with the Jor-El AI is a lack of emotional intelligence. The Jor-El AI punishes Clark for prioritizing human welfare and for refusing to adopt Kryptonian culture despite Clark being the only Kryptonian on Earth. Jor-El also presents a message of conquest and authoritarianism on their first interaction and orders Clark to abandon his family with no regard for Clark's emotional bonds.

This lack of emotional intelligence is extremely common in real world AI systems. Many chatbots, when conversing with users about grief and frustration, will respond with tone-deaf or overly literal outputs that aren't informed by any recognition of the users' emotional states. AI human resources software often fails to evaluate the interpersonal skills and value systems of candidates.

This is because AI doesn't have the depth of social experience that humans possess, and the inner life of AI is algorithmic and programmatic rather than emotional or experiential.

The overall sense, from a real world AI standpoint of 2024, is that Jor-El built this AI in a slapdash fashion with a lot of hackwork and cut corners. This is probably due to the fact that Jor-El had to assemble this AI system under the pressure of learning that his planet was soon to explode.

The Original Creator

The 'real' Jor-El appears on Smallville in Season 9 as a biological man, a Kryptonian, albeit a clone. Jor-El, played by Julian Sands, is in stark contrast to the AI: he is kind, gentle, diplomatic, noble, and compassionate; he is nothing like his AI counterpart and the inconsistency is left a mystery.

In Season 10, Clark receives a message recorded by the real Jor-El before his death, again played by Julian Sands. Jor-El tells Clark: "I am sending with you all my knowledge. None of my ego or regret. They will die with me here on Krypton."

The implication is that due to this omission, Jor-El unintentionally removed the key parts of his personality that create empathy, understanding, familial connections, warmth, and the personal touch.

As a result, the AI has a simplified moral framework of extreme black and white terms, leading to a harsh, strict and rigid pattern of behaviour that is contradicted by opposing modules of guidance and learning.

Poorly Made

The Jor-El AI is, despite its capabilities, a poorly made system. The flaws seem to originate from a lack of thorough testing (especially in high crisis situations), a failure to address ethical considerations and biases, a total lack of documentation, and no maintenance and updates for patches.

Due to Krypton's destruction, the lack of updates and patches is perhaps understandable; less so is the shocking lack of security where anyone seems to be able to break into the Fortress at any time and damage the AI interface. However, due to the stress and impossible situation in which Jor-El built this AI deathtrap, perhaps he should be excused.

Regardless, the problems with the Jor-El AI are alarming. While every AI system today has all of these problems, no AI system in our world has the capacity to imprint overriding personalities, encase people in ice, drain lifeforce from their bodies or inflict burns and brands on people's flesh (although I'm sure there's a drone system out there that can do something like that and could someday be AI controlled).

Accidentally Insightful

It's incredibly amusing that the writers, due to having an extremely inconsistent take on the Jor-El AI in 2003 - 2011, inadvertently captured all the problems with artificial intelligence from 2022 onward. Watched on original broadcast, the Jor-El character is erratic, written without intention or foresight beyond his use as a plot device to hinder or help Clark as needed in each episode. The characterization is obnoxious and frustrating.

Watched today, the Jor-El AI is a strangely prescient portrayal of real world AI problems: conflicting objectives, opposing directives, translation errors, poor learning, limited adaptability, unreliable performance and limited to non-existent emotional intelligence -- all of which AI developers struggle with now. What was once incompetence has now become insightful, and it's entirely accidental.

Aside from the "fine and dandy" part, this comment strikes me as a defence coming from a person may often be very careless with language, who might regularly offend others, who dislikes discussions of this nature because then they have to confront how they may have regularly offended and upset others with their words.

When someone claims that examining "crass" language can only stifle and divide, it sounds to me like they don't want to be held accountable or responsible for their own words.

I also observe that people who complain they are being stifled and divided by analyzing language will often try to stifle review of their words and divide their protest across various excuses: they claim they shouldn't be held responsible for anything they said because they didn't think it through or they posted it a long time ago or their words weren't meant to be reviewed or they don't remember writing it or they shouldn't have to take responsibility for anything they said on the internet or passingly or ever.

It seems to me that this is the response of someone for whom words have often blown up in their faces. I think someone like this will often blame others for being oversensitive and restrictive; they will dismiss examinations of language; they will attempt to intimidate by claiming that calling for awareness of the weight and power of words are an attack on civil liberties and personal freedoms.

I think they do this because their words have exposed them when analyzed and they don't like what's revealed. I pulled all of that with Allison Mack's webmaster. I see what my words back then reveal about me and I feel just awful about it.

I should have seen that instead of this woman being oversensitive to words, I was reckless with them. Instead of restricting me, she needed me to be more responsible. Instead of impeding my liberties and freedoms by questioning my words, she needed me to understand what words can do and how they need to be wielded with care.

I could have been compassionate but realistic, empathetic yet factual. And maybe, if I hadn't been derisive, scornful and mocking, this woman wouldn't have gone on the defensive and gotten in deeper with Allison Mack.

I will not be so arrogant as to claim full responsibility for this web designer's choices. I'm sure there are lots of unfortunate reasons why this web designer joined Mack's cult, but I wish I hadn't given her one more.

People are responsible for the words they use and for how their words reflect their character and values, and the world has every right to analyze what they -- or I -- post in public, even and especially if some of us may deeply regret what we've said.

I think my terror is probably about us here in Canada, where we are staring down the barrel of an election where the advantage is with this climate change dismissing looney toon who is basically Trump lite.

There was a time when I was so angry at Jerry O'Connell for so many failures and betrayals.

But I think, if I'm being more honest with myself: I was angry with him because his existence and his public persona were a constant reminder of an unchangeable truth. A fact that I didn't like to acknowledge or admit. A reality that William Shatner touches on in his song, "Real":

After some review... I'm forced to conclude that an upscaled from 720p to 1080p DESPECIALIZED EMPIRE is preferable to 4K80 EMPIRE, at least for me.

The 4K project was very fortunate in finding some solid theatrical prints of STAR WARS and a fantastic one of RETURN. What they found for EMPIRE, however, is really dirty, flickery and grainy and has an uncomfortably faded, slightly fuzzy quality even under the graininess and even after all the cleanup.

DESPECIALIZED, being based on the blu-ray, doesn't have that issue. The DEPSECIALIZED EMPIRE, as reconstructions go, doesn't really have that much to DESPECIALIZE. The majority of the new special effects were in the new shots of the Hoth monster (which the fan editor simply cut) and the new effects in Cloud City which the editor restored. That and other small restorations (getting the lightsabers to be the right colour, adding back matte lines) were all that was really needed since the SPECIAL EDITION added so little to EMPIRE.

I would probably stick with DESPECIALIZED for EMPIRE. Since it was a 720p file upscaled to 1080p for consistency with me, it doesn't even look that different from the soft but clear versions of 4K77 STAR WARS and 4K83 RETURN OF THE JEDI, as the AI upscale softened the DESPECIALIZED EMPIRE.

My suspicion is that 80 - 90 percent of viewers would choose DESPECIALIZED over the digital print scans because DESPECIALIZED is mostly sharp and looks mostly modern while the scans are grainy, noisy, and also not as sharp. I'm basing this on how RussianCabbie prefers the hypersaturated version of BACK TO THE FUTURE over the more authentic desaturated version because RussianCabbie, in my view, has extremely normal, mainstream preferences for video quality.

I personally am not a DESPECIALIZED person, but I think I'm in the minority.