system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Man of Steel] At the start of the movie, why did Jor-El insist that there was no point evacuating anyone because everyone there was already dead?

He says there are habitable worlds within reach - Why not evacuate as many as possible as well as carrying out his Codex plan?  

Also, if they knew Krypton was doomed, why send Zod and his cronies off-world? Why not just lock them up and let them perish too?
gpt
I believe he meant the kryptonians were dead culturally.

 They were over reliant on their technology and unable to observe reality through a perspective different from the one created by millennia of deeply engrained dogma, so much so that they completely ignored irrefutable evidence that their planet was doomed.

 If they were to leave Krypton, they would either whither and die, kill themselves or follow Zod's footsteps.