12 Comments
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The Pneumanaut's avatar

Killer ending! Practically knocked me over, so it did!

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Andrew Smith's avatar

Thanks!

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Rabbi Eli L. Garfinkel's avatar

Powerful ending!

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Andrew Smith's avatar

Thanks, Eli! If I'm being critical of myself, I'll generally always point out that I really seldom know how to finish a piece. When I do, it's usually pretty stark, like this. I'm really glad this one worked.

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Daniel Nest's avatar

Joke's on you! I have the emotional maturity of a toddler but am entirely powerless! Who's laughing now?!

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Andrew Smith's avatar

"We are laughing" GIF goes here, Substack. It's 2025!

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Andrew Sniderman 🕷️'s avatar

Your smartphone must be smarter than mine

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Andrew Smith's avatar

Thanks to over-the-air updates and the like, I think pretty much everyone is going to have ultra-powerful AI on their person at nearly all times, and very soon. My parents now have "Apple Intelligence", and while that may be akin to 2023 ChatGPT, it's definitely not going to take long for that upgrade to happen again.

Yikes?

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David Perlmutter's avatar

“With great power comes great responsibility,” a lesson Marvel hammers home again and again. Every superhero struggles with the power they’ve been given, particularly if they were granted these powers later in life.

The "great power" phrase is, or should be seen as, the Hippocratic oath of superheroes.

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Andrew Smith's avatar

That's a great way to put it.

We need one of these.

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David Perlmutter's avatar

Likewise for the people who write about them in all media. We sing from the same hymn book but we can’t agree on the right tempo.

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Andrew Smith's avatar

I would love if journalists were held to account in some capacity, but every idea for some kind of governance requires a governing body that gets to be the ultimate arbiter of truth. It's quite the dilemma.

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