Psycho-Pass Episode 20 Discussion

symbv said:


@AnimageNeby

Some of your 5 points are specific to your debate history with XartaX and so we could leave that aside here. For the remaining points, I think your point of God-complex is of course there, as the plastication killer himself attested. As for your point of self-serving or lack of reciprocity, we can also say that this is an issue too, as the system clearly thinks it is superior and is the biggest factor that Japan as a country is stable and prosperous. However, I think XartaX's point is that regardless of those issues and the really annoyingly self-important and cold-hearted attitude the system is producing effective result in the society that it runs, and it may not be as bad as you may be making it of, using concept of moral, ethics and law that the modern democracy we are living now. At least this is what I understand by reading all the long posts you two have made.

XartaX said:
Oh lord. Strawman arguments everywhere. Strawman arguments do not make debates, hence why I even refuse to have a serious discussion with you anymore. If you don't face my points, you may kindly take a hike.

Also since you seem to have around zero experience on debating morals and ethics, I'd take a look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Landscape

If you're too plebian to read a book: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTKf5cCm-9g

Might educate you.

And before the mod jumps in and removes these links, they're actually very relevant for the show :p

Please keep discussions on-topic and be civil.

XartaX said:
Wait, you're under the impression that I'm trying to have a debate with you? That I ever was in this thread? Am I *still* not blatant enough? Do you not know the difference between a debate and merely talking? I provided you with the reason I'm not interested in a debate with you, and that's it. Links are merely provided to enlighten you about a subject you clearly haven't delved deeper into when you claim you can't "measure" how benificial the system is.

Still using strawmen.

MasterMeNL said:
What Makishima is doing here is just pushing a "reset" button for Japan, he definitely has a point.
I wonder what Akane will do in the end, that will decide if I truly like her or not for me. She has been hit and miss-ish so far.
This was some major buildup, I can't wait for more.

jimbob1141 said:

yeah i just jumped the gun a bit sorry about that. yayoi was sent to that place because of her love of music?

And when she pointed the dominator at the musician that wasn't assigned that job it said she was a target for enforcement. if i recall correctly the school girls dad was sent to "jail" for being an obsessive painter or artist, that isn't harming society, nor is playing in a band without being approved. your CC rising for playing in an unaproved band tells me that if you don't follow the system then your CC is gonna rise. All in all i personally don't like the system, of course it has its good points too but personally i think the bad out weighs the good. I would be in jail for sure as i'm fairly obsessive about my hobbies >.<

I imagine yayoi and that other musicians ambition was to have a career in music, which wasn't assigned to them which in turn caused their CC to rise which is mainly where i get the "going to jail for doing a different career" from. Humans aren't allowed ambitions under the sibyl system pretty much >.<

I know "you" doesn't necessarily mean me personally, but i was debating with you so i just took it that way :)

-MgZ_ said:
Should've just destroyed the Sibyl System right there. Damn Akane. Sigh.

Z-flame said:
And then people would panic and start destroying everything. Bringing chaos and disorder to the society.

It would simply repeat what happened last time during the anti-sibyl mask arc.

AnimageNeby said:
From the utilitarian viewpoint, it could be argued that this is defend-able: as long as the most people are happy, it doesn't matter.
Few, however, would argue that it was moral or ethical.

AnimageNeby said:

With each of these principles, however, the Sybil system seems wholly inadequate. The stance they take, thus, IS a subjective one, contrary to what they claim. They are predominately self-serving, as you point out with the fact that whoever is against Sybil, is a candidate for 'removal' (at least out society).

AnimageNeby said:
Which is the main problem: Sybil, with it's accompanying God-complex, actually equates itself with 'society'.

symbv said:
I think this is the whole point of the sybil system. It is neither moral nor ethical but it somehow works for the vast majority in the society. But precisely because it disregards moral or ethic in its performance of judgement and gauging, I guess talk about Confucius or Kant regarding what is "adequate" for the Sybil system is at the end philosophical, because by the ideals of these thinkers, we never have much of an adequate system for the functioning of the society, past or present.

Well, I do not think the system claims absolute objectivity, and it only makes sense because it is hard to define objectivity anyway. The system knows it needs continuous improvement, and that is precisely they know they are not perfect yet. As for whether it is self-serving, we know Sybil has not tried to kill everyone who is against Sybil, at least those who are not taking sabotage or violent action against the system. Kagari is removed because he came to the core of the system -- and his removal was made after a cold cost-benefit analysis of different scenarios dealing with him.

Each brain inside the system may hold his own God-complex but for the system itself its "God-complex" goes as far as an amoral all-encompassing judgement system goes -- that is, any such system could be charged with such complex just by the role it plays. Personally I do not see it equates itself with 'society' or even 'law'. It seems to be making decision based on 'law', as it seems to be quite proud of making Japan the only country to still have rule of law, but it has a strong self-preservation instinct, as well as a desire to improve itself (the reason it wants Makishima's brain), and it will sacrifice everything and anything to keep itself a secret and if necessary bends the law at will to achieve that - so we can say that it sees itself clearly to be above the law.

AnimageNeby said:
The difference, however, is in the general acceptance of the underlying principles used. This becomes clear when one consistently apply those principles in an ideal state. Imagine you had the capacity to go totally for the utilitarian principle, for instance in the way I described above: all people being constantly drugged to make them feel good, and confined in a room to 'protect' them from harm. It could well be, that the people IN that society are happy. Indeed, thanks to the drugs they are. However, is that a society they would choose if they weren't drugged in the first place?

AnimageNeby said:
For making such a decision you need the freedom to do so, and have the correct information to make an adequate decision on it. Both things Sybil is trying to limit as much as possible. Thus, IF Sybil proclaims that society is best served, why not let society itself decide on that, with total access to its liberties and information of how it is established? Surely one can se there is an *inherent* contradiction to claim something is best for society, yet refuse to let society make a judgement on that itself. It would only be logical of Sybil to make itself known - as they did with Akane, including its use of the utilitarian principle, to that society and see if it's really deemed so superior.

AnimageNeby said:
In contrast, take now the principles of reciprocity, Confucius and Kant. While not everyone will know the exact formulations, the underlying thoughts of it are clear and generally accepted by everyone. If they weren't, there would be no such thing as the universal declaration of human rights. These principles are fully open, and people can decide on the value of it themselves, with all information available, and with full capacity of their free will. And, in contrast to a strict utilitarian principle,when one tries to coherently and consistently apply those principles to its ideal, society is still acceptable for everyone.

AnimageNeby said:
This is a major difference between the two concepts. Sybil 'works' for the vast majority of the masses, because they misguide those vast masses, they limit their freedom, and inhibit their capacity to make a clear judgement on it, and deceives the populace about their true nature. It is precisely because they claim perfection - which they confess to Akane is not there - that they manage the populace into believing the system is beneficial.

AnimageNeby said:
So, yes, one could claim Sybil 'works' to a degree. One could also say the iron rule of a king 'works' as long as he can remain in power. The first is done on the principle of utilitarianism, the latter on nepotism. With the general accepted principles I described, I guess you'd come to a democracy as the closest approximation of it in practise. Are all those societies perfect? No. But the least one has to do, logically, is let the definition of what is beneficial, and the choice of what principle one wants, up to society, if one is claiming it's best for society, with all information on it openly available.

AnimageNeby said:
In this respect, the Sybil system may score better than that of a king or dictator, but worse than that of our current democracies. My basic tenet is this: regardless of how superior a system thinks it is, ultimately the choice of what principle to use in defining what is 'most beneficial' for society, should be left to society. This would be the most logical conclusion.

AnimageNeby said:
In that respect, I do not entirely agree with your last paragraph; the Sybil system clearly indicates it can speak for society, since it knows what is best for society. So it either equates itself with society, or - and maybe you were alluding at that - it considers itself to be even superior to society (aka, that they know better what society wants than society itself). This is, of course, an untenable assertion. Since the decision on that - including the choice what principle to follow - is *inherently* subjective. Furthermore, as you said, Sybil is neither completely objective nor omniscient, thus one can not else than conclude it's still a subjective stance they take. As such, it is worth no more than the subjective stance another can take. Thus, with the same validity, Makishima could do the same, and claim he knows better than society itself what is good for society. As he does, in fact.

AnimageNeby said:
As an analogy, it's like somebody else would say what you like as dessert, even if you wouldn't like it. And yet ascertain they know better than you what you like than you yourself: it does not make any sense. Even if that guy was a hundredfold more intelligent than you, with amazing abilities and what not, it still makes no logical sense to claim such a thing. To make an *objective* assertion about something, and claim one knows better than someone else, you always need a frame of reference both parties agree on (if the subject has a high degree of subjectiveness), or which is demonstrable as an observable reality (if it's not). Note that the Sybil system didn't do that regarding the choice of what principle to follow. It first decided on the (utilitarian) principle, and *then* claims it has - within that self-chosen framework - the right to decide what's best. But the choice of that framework is inherently subjective, so it can't claim it's better for society than what society itself would choose, if they knew everything about it.

symbv said:
The thing is, if we take any principle and push it to extreme, then you can still find similar bad example like you quoted above. I think a more valid question that this anime raises is that, instead of arguing from a philosophy point of view what is best for society, look at the practical benefits and drawback that an alternative system, as espoused by the Sybil system in this anime, and see if as a human individual you would like to accept it as a basis of the functioning of the society. Clearly the society as we see in this anime is not founded entirely on the utilitarian principle, although this principle can be used as an argument for keeping the system.

symbv said:
Following my argument above, we could state that the "Freedom" that you mentioned here is one criterion that a human individual may want to take into account when they decide if the Sybil system should be there, and this is one theme that various characters, from Makishima down, mentioned in the anime too, but that also has to be considered together with other benefits that the system brings, and this is what Akane did when she decided to work with Sybil system after all. You can say that in here the Sybil system effectively decides the society is not to be trusted when it does not let society itself decide what its best interest lies (this has to be qualified because as much as we know Sybil system has taken a lot of functions of government, yet we do not know how far it becomes the government - it is still under the Welfare Ministry and its function as we see in the anime covers mainly law enforcement, employment and social welfare but we are not sure what else it covers) -- but then we never know whether it is always for the best when we just let the society decide itself: I have a feeling that the anarchy and violence suddenly seen when people start not to trust the system, as shown in the anime, is an indication from the author that he does not fully buy the notion that full and unfettered liberty is always for the best; there is a risk of society falling prey to mass panic, lawlessness and society collapse.

symbv said:
As much as you take them as self-evident truth, I don't think we should use such faith to say that an alternative system must be worse. It may be worse based on the things that are held valuable by thinkers like Kant, but I would say from an alternative point of view, it may not necessarily be worse. Besides, we may hold dear the principles of reciprocity coming from thinkers like Confucius, but here we may be just picking what we, as a person living in a modern liberal democracy, like and ignore the less convenient principle, but held as important or perhaps even more important by Confucius, like observance of tradition and fealty to seniors.

symbv said:
If we limit 'misguide' to getting the masses holding the faith of the system to be always correct and never has difficulty dealing with any psycho-pass issue, then yes. However, we always see such conflicts between belief and reality in real life - we want to believe that the justice system in our society to be right and best but there are no lack of cases of miscarriage of justice, poor execution of justice, or just the high complexity and cost of the system eroding people of such faith. As for the operation of the society, I would not say the masses are necessarily misguided but of course there is indeed limitation on the people's choices - as some find to their dismay that they are destined for something less grand than they would like.

symbv said:
I won't say that the iron rule of a king works on the principle of nepotism. Nepotism does not lead to any idea that the system "works", unless you want to talk about command and control of the system (letting people you know well to take up position of authority should make it easier for you to control the system and how it works). The iron rule of a king works more on the principle that the king is a wise king, which by the way is what Confucius would advocate too. And of course we know the risk here lies in the contradiction of the hereditary principle of monarchy and the lack of guarantee that any successor chosen by birth will grow to be a "wise king".

symbv said:
I can see that you want to argue for the case that democracy is the best system following the principles you said should be held as most important. While I do not hold much objection for that - as Churchill famously said "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." I also want to argue for the possibility that if a system like the Sybil system comes into being it may also establish a system of government that can work -- it may not be as "good" if we judge by principles you are using but what I see in this anime is that it is not trying to argue if the Sybil system is better than democracy, because I think it is established that the society being run by Sybil system seems to have the best stability and prosperity around the world - which means Sybil system is at least doing what it is meant to do all the time, unless when it comes to irregularity like Makishima. The question raised is more about whether the cost of it on certain individuals, like those who want to do something not recommended by the system, those who somehow is told that they are destined to do only low level jobs, those who are born with unstable psycho profile though they possess potential to still contribute to the society etc is a valid reason for the destruction of the system, to be replaced by complete freedom, as seems to be advocated by Makishima.

symbv said:
I don't think the system said it can speak for society. What it does is just to tell how likely criminal a person is and what his aptitude and ability is. I never see it speak for the society. I also did not say it considers itself to be superior to society in general -- I said that when it comes to self-preservation it considers itself to be above the law. As for subjectivity, I guess when it comes to law enforcement, there is always a certain subjectivity there: what is "reasonable doubt" anyway? All the system does is to generate precise number and category for such inherent vagueness that we humans view on issues about what is right and wrong. This is what I think causes discomfort to many people -- they don't like the idea of being reduced to a set of data with numbers and grades, and they don't like the idea that a lot of their future is defined because of such grading.

symbv said:
That goes back to what I said above - people don't like the idea of being reduced to a set of data with numbers and grades, and they don't like the idea that a considerable part (though not everything) of their future is defined because of such grading. But to be honest, there is always a limit as to how "objective" one can go when it comes to gauging a person's potential and ability. But yet we still have tests and exams, from schools to job interview, that aim to probe about a person's potential and ability. The difference here is just that the system does not need you to prepare for a test but just look into your brain and then find out your longer term potential like how much a team-player you are or how easy you can work with people (as shown on the test result for Akane's friend in this episode). I can see objection for such pre-determination as it seems to reject the possibility that a person's potential, even longer term and inborn ones, can be improved by practice and experience later in life, although I would say this can be remedied by having similar tests later in life as follow-up.

AnimageNeby said:
I just want to point out one potential difference of interpretation of what the anime tells us.("I never see it speak for the society").

As far as I understand, you say that the Sybil system neither equates itself with society, nor thinks it's superior to society. I'm wondering how you came to that conclusion. For instance, in the scene where they said that a member doing something that is clearly a violation of their own laws (by killing someone to protect their identity)... but yet that he shouldn't be punished because he is more beneficial for society (something that was literally said as such) if he isn't punished but is placed in the Sybil system...well, one can't else but see it implied here, that they portray to know what is best for society (namely, not punishing him, but letting him contribute in the Sybil system). Otherwise the claim does not make any sense.

If they make that claim, they also make the claim they know what is best for society, thus. Yet, they never have let society decide on whether it thinks the Sybil system - as it really is - is, indeed, superior and the way they want to go (and what is to be considered 'beneficial'). In fact, the Sybil system does everything to make such a societal judgement not become possible.

XartaX said:
Sibyl was, after all, developed by human beings (and I don’t mean the brains), who clearly felt such a system was needed. And it was also approved of by the general populace, as we’ve never heard of the System being put in place against their wishes (I’d say the opposite). So with that said, I think we can conclude that it’s society itself that wishes to be looked over and protected by the System.

XartaX said:

Well, the Sibyl system seems to be the complete opposite of a system that always views itself to be correct. If not, why would it even bother to bring in new thoughts to improve itself? And like I responded to someone else here, I’d not say that most people would be more limited here than in real life. Unless you’re backed by someone really influential, you will not be successful in a field you lack talent in (in real life). And one could argue that being able to do so only through influence most other people lack, is immoral in the first place. The System gives EVERYONE a chance, you merely depends on your own talent instead of the resources you have at your disposal. I’d call this a lot more just than todays society.

XartaX said:
The system doesn’t judge people for what they have done, but what they are very likely to do in the future. If Makishima murdered someone, and never repeated it, I have no doubt he would never be persecuted because of his low CC. The reason the System is now breaking its rules to get him, is because he is doing so over and over again, so obviously the chance of repeat occurrence is high. It recognizes the “bug” in the System and tries to fix it.

symbv said:
Here it is something that is a bit vague in this anime - what is the origin of the Sybil system and how it became so widespread and took up so much functions regarding how the society is run? It could have stayed as purely a system of policing and law enforcement, but it goes beyond that, to the point that universities are abolished (and of course job agencies as well I suppose). We do not know how much support people gave in terms of letting the system take over more roles as time goes by. One thing I see that is lacking a bit of development is why the system could grow so fast in such a short span of time -- we still see police officer and college professor who remembered the days before the system and they were not older than late middle age. And I would imagine some good resistance from these people who are clearly the vested interests on the losing side when the system came to take over their roles. I can see one point of the anime is perhaps to stress how quickly the people were lured into trusting the system unconditionally but it is still amazing how easily and fast things turned the Sybil system's way.

symbv said:
You are right in saying that a lot of people may have more limited chance in our world than if they live under the Sybil system. However, I would argue that the reason is mainly because the Sybil system can see through clearly what potential a person has and persuades him/her to take up a role that best serves his/her potential. Viewed this way, we can say that the person is thus given better environment for development. That said, being human as we are, I am sure a lot of people would find it hard to take that some other external system can decide so much and so deeply what their potential and ability are. Of course in occasions like job interviews we are seeing similar things all the time, but the system is probing deeper and looking more long term, as well as having more authority because unlike a job interview you cannot shop around for another appraisal done. And I think this is where the system may make some people uncomfortable.

symbv said:
Hmm... I think the main motivation for the system to get to Makishima is mainly the worth of his irregular brain. If Makishima killed someone and never repeated it, I would say that the system would still try to hunt him down and subject him to the consequences of the law, but of course here we are not considering the very irregular situation that Makishima cannot be judged by the system because of his inborn condition. To say it in other words, if Makishima killed someone and never repeated it but if the system knew that he is having a brain that it needs very much, I would say that the system would still do everything to try to get him, and it would not be because of any chance Makishima is going to repeat the killing again.

XartaX said:
To me it seems like it's a combination. The system obviously has to stop Makishima, as he's performing criminal acts. It looks at it as a waste of resources simply to kill/imprison him, so they are trying to integrate him into their system.

symbv said:
I agree, though I think my point is that the length the system went to capture Makishima alive as topmost priority, even putting the police force at grave risk, shows the aim to incorporate Makishima is viewed as more significant than stopping Makishima going on more mayhem.

XartaX said:
I'm not sure how much of a grave risk it is, though. Makishima is shown to not possess any dangerous weapons beyond his body and stuff like knives (close range), so tazing him over exterminating him with the dominator shouldn't increase the risk factor by much.

symbv said:
Before Makishima killing Kasei and made successful escape from a plane it may be fair for Sybil system to think that Makishima is not that dangerous (although I would argue that even before that point given how much mayhem Makishima was able to raise directly or indirectly the system should judge him to be extremely dangerous already), but after that disaster (from Sybil's point of view) it should be able to determine that the danger he poses is not anything about what kind of weapon he possesses. But still the system wants him captured alive, and to that end it even reduced the manpower of Gino's team by removing Kogami from investigation, even though they are already one man down (as Kagari is dead). I would say this is putting Gino and his team in jeopardy that is much higher than what they have encountered so far.

symbv said:
This is why I attached the condition of "when it comes to self-preservation and self-improvement" when it comes to the case of the system seeing itself "above the law". The very few cases when we see the system acting above the law are 1) when it kills Kagari for knowing the secret of the system 2) when it tries to get the very valuable (to the system for its improvement that is) Makishima's brain. In both cases, it would do things that in other cases are punishable by law (murder of Kagari for example) but in other cases we do not see evidence of it claiming that it is speaking for society or equating itself with the society. In fact, even when it comes to whether to kill Kagari, it even committed itself into a cost-benefit analysis to come to a decision of whether Kagari needs to be killed -- in this case one may even claim that they act vastly better than a tyrant who bases his decision on mercurial mood or very personal view of what is good or bad (versus the system which bases its decision on pure cost-and-benefit analysis). Of course there is an underlying assumption made by the system that the society will definitely take a turn for the worse (in fact much worse) if the system does not survive or the members of the society lose faith in it. But that does not mean a full equating of the system with the society.

XartaX said:
But then you might argue that it's actually Kougami that is the problem. Capturing Makishima alive in itself doesn't pose more of a threat than killing him, it's just that deciding that causes friction with Kougami, which in turn puts the team at risk.

symbv said:
I guess you are assuming that it will always be the Denominator doing the job but we know that we have situation like hand to hand combat, as it is fair to say that when you are told specifically not to kill but to capture alive it becomes more challenging to win the fight if there is no such consideration on the other side.

AnimageNeby said:
Imagine that all of what you say is true. Than still the questions remains:

1) Does it not, ultimately, boil down to murdering someone to protect ones' identity? If one deems that a valid reason to murder something, why can't it be a valid reason for someone else murdering a person too, then? Because they say it's for the greater good? What if someone else does it for the 'greater good' also? Once again, they apply a reasoning on themselves, that they wouldn't accept another entity to make. This hypocrisy/contradiction goes beyond just stating that they have faults, it goes to the principle of what they describe as a logical conclusion on which they define and excuse their own behaviour.

AnimageNeby said:
2) Imagine that it was regarded as some form of extreme civil disobedience, whereby the 'greater good' was protected by killing Kagari, after, as you say, calculations that makes clear the risk of exposure too great. Then still shouldn't one be prepared to face the consequences of their own actions? You have cases of civil disobedience in our society as well, where the law is broken. Yet, one does not claim that such persons (not even they themselves) should not be punished anymore at the time they commit the acts, and at the time they were still punishable. This is true EVEN if later it turns out they were right and laws got changed (abortus, homosexuality, etc. even until the 60-70ies, it was deemed punishable). So why didn't they accept any punishment for it, for themselves? Or at least for the brain in question?

AnimageNeby said:
You now say; ah yes, but they only do that in those special circumstances. Yes, but they DO use it as an explanation and justification. You only have to speak once in name of society (or superior to it) to establish the fact that one apparently deems one can speak for society. With that one scene and explanation, they have established that they think they know best, and can decide what is most beneficial to society. Whether they act many times on that assumption, or only a few times, when they feel more threatened, isn't really of relevance to the fact that they DO think like that.

AnimageNeby said:
So, once one realises Sybil actually thinks it can speak as if it is 'society', all the other problems I mention arise. I gather you still doubt they feel equal or better than society itself, but how do you explain the argument they used, then? That particular statement, that something is 'better' for society HAS been made, after all, and one can't make such a statement without being of the opinion you either can speak for society, or know it better than society itself.

AnimageNeby said:
Try it. Use any other situation and excuse to the same degree, and one can not else than conclude you're speaking as if you know best, even if you've never actually established that. If ANYONE says that whatever happened should not be done because it's better for society; isn't that person inherently claiming he knows what society wants or finds beneficial? But did he actually check or asked the opinion of 'society'? If not, then isn't he just speaking out of his league, making an unfounded assertion? At the very least, he's implicitly stating he can speak in name of 'society' (or even knows better than society).

AnimageNeby said:
Note that this is true, even if that person only claims so in one single instance. Unless he retracts it, he made it clear he is equal or better than society, in determining what is beneficial for it or not. Sybil did not retract anything as of yet, so the claim remains, and also the underlying premise of it.

XartaX said:
Fair point, but the party who possess ranged weaponry are usually at an insane advantage. And since it is a squad operation, they should be able to cover each other, etc. They'd have to be very unlucky to get into a situation where they have to go into melee combat (and even then they have stun batons).

symbv said:
Since we have seen occasion of Makishima making use of terrain and smart planning to force a hand-to-hand combat, it is not clear how much "insane advantage" the police has. And I have a feeling that in the next episode we will AGAIN see another hand-to-hand combat with Makishima. Put simply, Makishima is not your usual criminal so conventional view that as long as you have ranged weaponry and he does not (well, actually not necessarily as he proved that he could get something like a bunch of staple guns) then you will have an insane advantage is likely to be proven wrong. And this goes back to what I said earlier - that the system should not take any conventional view either but yet they not only did not take much more special precaution but asking the police team to chase after Makishima with two members gone is increasing their risk too much.

XartaX said:
As far as the anime goes, yeah I agree it will probably be some kinda slugfest between Kougami and Makishima going on (even though he brought his gun). The "rule of cool" kind of demands it. I'm just talking from a realistic perspective sending out a police force Makishima would be royally screwed now that his low CC won't help him.

symbv said:
The thing is, if we take any principle and push it to extreme, then you can still find similar bad example like you quoted above. I think a more valid question that this anime raises is that, instead of arguing from a philosophy point of view what is best for society, look at the practical benefits and drawback that an alternative system, as espoused by the Sybil system in this anime, and see if as a human individual you would like to accept it as a basis of the functioning of the society. Clearly the society as we see in this anime is not founded entirely on the utilitarian principle, although this principle can be used as an argument for keeping the system.

Following my argument above, we could state that the "Freedom" that you mentioned here is one criterion that a human individual may want to take into account when they decide if the Sybil system should be there, and this is one theme that various characters, from Makishima down, mentioned in the anime too, but that also has to be considered together with other benefits that the system brings, and this is what Akane did when she decided to work with Sybil system after all.

You can say that in here the Sybil system effectively decides the society is not to be trusted when it does not let society itself decide what its best interest lies (this has to be qualified because as much as we know Sybil system has taken a lot of functions of government, yet we do not know how far it becomes the government - it is still under the Welfare Ministry and its function as we see in the anime covers mainly law enforcement, employment and social welfare but we are not sure what else it covers) -- but then we never know whether it is always for the best when we just let the society decide itself: I have a feeling that the anarchy and violence suddenly seen when people start not to trust the system, as shown in the anime, is an indication from the author that he does not fully buy the notion that full and unfettered liberty is always for the best; there is a risk of society falling prey to mass panic, lawlessness and society collapse.

As much as you take them as self-evident truth, I don't think we should use such faith to say that an alternative system must be worse. It may be worse based on the things that are held valuable by thinkers like Kant, but I would say from an alternative point of view, it may not necessarily be worse. Besides, we may hold dear the principles of reciprocity coming from thinkers like Confucius, but here we may be just picking what we, as a person living in a modern liberal democracy, like and ignore the less convenient principle, but held as important or perhaps even more important by Confucius, like observance of tradition and fealty to seniors.

If we limit 'misguide' to getting the masses holding the faith of the system to be always correct and never has difficulty dealing with any psycho-pass issue, then yes.

However, we always see such conflicts between belief and reality in real life - we want to believe that the justice system in our society to be right and best but there are no lack of cases of miscarriage of justice, poor execution of justice, or just the high complexity and cost of the system eroding people of such faith. As for the operation of the society, I would not say the masses are necessarily misguided but of course there is indeed limitation on the people's choices - as some find to their dismay that they are destined for something less grand than they would like.

I won't say that the iron rule of a king works on the principle of nepotism. Nepotism does not lead to any idea that the system "works", unless you want to talk about command and control of the system (letting people you know well to take up position of authority should make it easier for you to control the system and how it works). The iron rule of a king works more on the principle that the king is a wise king, which by the way is what Confucius would advocate too. And of course we know the risk here lies in the contradiction of the hereditary principle of monarchy and the lack of guarantee that any successor chosen by birth will grow to be a "wise king".

I can see that you want to argue for the case that democracy is the best system following the principles you said should be held as most important. While I do not hold much objection for that - as Churchill famously said "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." I also want to argue for the possibility that if a system like the Sybil system comes into being it may also establish a system of government that can work -- it may not be as "good" if we judge by principles you are using but what I see in this anime is that it is not trying to argue if the Sybil system is better than democracy, because I think it is established that the society being run by Sybil system seems to have the best stability and prosperity around the world - which means Sybil system is at least doing what it is meant to do all the time, unless when it comes to irregularity like Makishima. The question raised is more about whether the cost of it on certain individuals, like those who want to do something not recommended by the system, those who somehow is told that they are destined to do only low level jobs, those who are born with unstable psycho profile though they possess potential to still contribute to the society etc is a valid reason for the destruction of the system, to be replaced by complete freedom, as seems to be advocated by Makishima.

That goes back to what I said above - people don't like the idea of being reduced to a set of data with numbers and grades, and they don't like the idea that a considerable part (though not everything) of their future is defined because of such grading. But to be honest, there is always a limit as to how "objective" one can go when it comes to gauging a person's potential and ability. But yet we still have tests and exams, from schools to job interview, that aim to probe about a person's potential and ability. The difference here is just that the system does not need you to prepare for a test but just look into your brain and then find out your longer term potential like how much a team-player you are or how easy you can work with people (as shown on the test result for Akane's friend in this episode). I can see objection for such pre-determination as it seems to reject the possibility that a person's potential, even longer term and inborn ones, can be improved by practice and experience later in life, although I would say this can be remedied by having similar tests later in life as follow-up.

My point is that the system is considering itself to be a unique and important entity and needs to be set apart from the usual human beings in the society.

steaminferno said:
This just occurred to me. I think Akane might be criminally asymptomatic. That would explain why her hue is always calm/blue/whatever. If she is no one will know until she commits a crime and that would allow her to act against Sybil system without Sybil knowing. She might be the one to bring down the Sybil system in the end.

AnimageNeby said:
Let's try it. We've seen that the utilitarian system in it's extreme becomes a nightmare. Now let's say everyone, the whole populace, has to follow the principle of Confucius "Do not do to others, what you wouldn't want them to do to you."
How is this abhorrent? In fact, if if such an extreme would be possible, it would be close to paradise. How would this be a 'bad' example? The same goes with the categorical imperative of Kant: implement that fully, and you would get a logical, smooth working society. What about reciprocity? Well, go to the extreme with that, and all arguments for the same conditions are considered equal for all parties. How can that be considered detrimental or bad? It's the epitome of fairness. I can't come up with any example where those three principles are used, even to the 'extreme', that would lead to an immoral, or bad society.

AnimageNeby said:
However, then we come to the next point I already said: if different things and criteria are to be valued, and those are things are subjective (the value of freedom vs security for instance can not be made objectively, since for both there is no measurable, quantitative value to compare them. What is 'freedom' exactly worth, for instance, objectively? Unless the Sybil system is omniscient, even it couldn't possible tell that in an objective way.

AnimageNeby said:
So, how do you suggest mutual exclusive criteria can be compared? You can't have more control over others without lessening freedom of those others, after all.

AnimageNeby said:
Sybil clearly weighs security and control as of far more importance than freedom. True, as you say, it's not completely extreme (albeit pretty much), and there is *some* freedoms left, but clearly a lot less. The reason for that is because they claim it is beneficial for society. Ah yes, but beneficial from WITHIN their own view.

AnimageNeby said:

My stance is, that if the only common ground for those two opposite thoughts on the matter is, that it is and should be beneficial for society, and seen the fact this is a subjective matter, one can only conclude that the only entity which can say with any validity what is most beneficiary for society, is society itself.

AnimageNeby said:

Which is, basically, the only advantage democracy has, in effect. Compared to other parameters, it can well be, as you say, that the Sybil system is superior, but only if you already start with the premise that the utilitarian principle is the one to be most valued. (Clearly, in the matter of having more general freedom, a current democracy would still beat the future Sybil system, for instance. thus is society deems freedom as being the most beneficial, then the Sybil system can't claim it is doing what is most beneficial.

AnimageNeby said:
I think this is mostly a self-fulfilling prophesy/argument. Who, after all, is responsible for the dire state society would succumb to, if the Sybil system wasn't there? Well, the Sybil system itself. It's like giving someone a special drug until he gets heavily addicted to that drug, and than say: 'hey, it's not 'best' to try to get him off of the addiction, because without my drug, he will suffer greatly.'

AnimageNeby said:
Sybil has made the populace completely dependent to retain order, and is now claiming that, because of that, society shouldn't be given a choice whether they want to use it or not (knowing all facts, that is). Once again, this is entirely self-serving, and does not make a good argument. Why didn't they tell the truth about themselves *before* society became so dependent on them, then? Why didn't they give society a chance to decide whether or not it is the most 'beneficial' before it would lead to mass disorder when society would decide otherwise?

AnimageNeby said:
In fact, why don't they establish a parallel circuit now, so that it becomes possible for society to decide, without falling in complete turmoil? For an entity with that power, it should be quite easily be feasible to do so.

AnimageNeby said:
So that argument is basically worthless, and only an excuse. Truth is, they don't want society to make that decision - ever. They are not interested in what society might deem to be beneficial, only what they deem beneficial, in an utilitarian way. Even if no 'collapse' of society would happen anymore, they still wouldn't want to risk of society deciding against them, and choosing other values.
This alone shows how misguided Sybil is, and how much hubris it has.

AnimageNeby said:

As you correctly said: it's an evaluation. That evaluation has to be made by society itself. Sybil doesn't want to have society make that choice. Ergo; the claim that they are doing what they do because it's the most beneficial for society is worthless and self-serving, and is contradicted by the fact they actively inhibit the only entity that *could* make that claim with any validity; society itself.

AnimageNeby said:

Well, yes. We shouldn't sugarcoat it; they mislead the populace. They do so in pretending that they are perfect and infallible, and they do so in presenting themselves as completely neutral and objective, and respecting the rules and laws themselves.(obviously, as mere computers it wouldn't be an issue).

AnimageNeby said:

I don't think this is true. Surely we all know how fallible our own system is? Is there anyone, anyone at all, out there, that thinks our politicians are perfect and make neutral decisions, always based on the benefit for society? That our jurisprudence and legal system is infallible and objective and always takes the right decision in establishing the guilty party?
No, I'm sorry, I don't think anyone does. I think it's the contrary of what you say, in fact.
If, then, politicians and our legal system would claim that they are, in fact, infallible...would anyone actually believe that? I strongly doubt it. And if they were to do that, and try to claim such things in a similar manner as the Sybil system does, we would surely consider their efforts to convince us of their infallibility as being efforts of misguiding the public as well. And rightfully so.
Similarly, what the Sybil system does, is also misguiding people. That they did it with more success than any of our politicians or judges would be capable, does not diminish the fact they are misguiding.

AnimageNeby said:

Well, with a monarchy it 'works' in as far as one would consider a hierarchical order in which a society can live in a certain state of order, working. We've been ruled by monarchs for a long time, after all, and as a form of society, it was quite successful. (In fact, purely regarding how long different systems have existed, as a manner of viability, monarchies far outweighs democracies. In a way, thus, one could claim monarchies have proven themselves to be working far longer than democracies).
The 'wise king' concept was mostly an invention of royalty itself. Mostly, a king held on to power by force, violence and cunning, and a system of loyalty and traditions. His wisdom was seldom a necessity to hold on to his power, in reality, though he portrayed himself as such (in effect, misguiding the populace as well).

AnimageNeby said:

However, if that king would claim he did the things he did because it was best for society, that claim would be as worthless as that of Sybil, even if he was honestly convinced that he did do it for societies sake. The same goes for our current democracies, but there we remediated this to a large degree, by not letting the one in charge decide what is best for society, but the populace at large.

AnimageNeby said:
If the Sybil system would do the same, and society agreed with it, I would have no problems anymore with its contention that it can speak in name of society, or knows what is best for society. The fact that it goes actively against that, indicates it doesn't want that to happen. and the only reason why it wouldn't want that to happen, is because it realises society would NOT accept it.

AnimageNeby said:

Let's face it here: they do NOT want to be judged by society, or present society with the choice to decide themselves what they find most beneficial.

AnimageNeby said:

It's also taking away the chance for someone to move up, intellectually or otherwise. When we take tests, the test results are only based on what that person actually proves he/she can do and knows, at that moment. This is something else than predicting ones' potential. After all, persons with high potential can amount to nothing, and people with low potential can still turn out to be pretty amazing, even 'useful' for society.

AnimageNeby said:
To make a fair assessment based on potential, one truly would need to be omniscient, which the Sybil system is not. It actually has shown many flaws and shortcomings in it's assessment, and not only with weird cases like Makishima. It assessed that girl from the beginning as irreversible criminal and prone to be terminated, yet later we see she recuperates and gets back to a normal CC. Well, if it gets a basic thing like that wrong, concerning life-and-death situations, how can one confirm any other assessment is right, and not as mistaken as that one? According to Makishima , the individuals' 'will' is not properly assessed by the system, but isn't 'will' a determining factor in motivation, for instance? So how could the system know with any certainty that this scan is right in *predicting* the worth of an individual? This is a major difference with the current tests we do, which do not predict, but just assess the current knowledge and ability.

AnimageNeby said:
What you say is true: people don't like to be reduced to a set of data, but it goes beyond that. After all, once we made the test, we're also reduced to data. No-one has problems with that, however. So I think the real problem more lays in the fact that one is pre-judged, in front, and not on what is actually there or what one can do (this goes for determining the criminal coefficient as well). Basically, you're deemed inapt without the ability to prove yourself, and you're deemed a criminal, even if you didn't commit any actual crimes.

AnimageNeby said:
THAT is what is really troubling people. And the next problem is that that system has shown to be fallible, and thus, it decides things based on assessments that are not true or may never happen. With our current test, we make no such claim: we do not say someone is unqualified in the future, or someone is guilty of a crime in the future - which might be true or not - no, one only assess the actual state one is in, at that moment. You mostly seem to agree with this, so I guess the conclusion has some merit.

symbv said:
I see your point. I just think that the "rule of cool" also means that Makishima is a case of very tough nut to crack so what the system is asking the police team to do with reduced manpower (capturing him alive) at all cost means that it is putting them at grave risk. ;)

(it may even have started without those brains and they were added in an attempt to improve the system)

symbv said:
@AnimageNeby

Someone messaged me saying that the wall of text in this thread is not helping the forum viewing experience and I can see where he comes from.

As I said in my last post, we are already repeating many of our points time and again. I think I understand where you come from, although I am not sure if you understand mine. To put it a bit more succinctly, while I would say I generally agree with you if we are having a discussion over the merits and demerits of various political and government systems in our world in general, it is also my belief that this is not really the point of this anime. Unlike many SciFi this anime is not about fighting against an unquestionably bad system but about trade-off and its dilemma when we face a system that is clearly hard to love but eventually serves a critical role for the society. If we treat the Sybil system as so flawed and indefensible, then there is no meaning for such trade-off, and what our protagonist Akane is struggling would be lost in the arguments about why the system should be taken down in the view of various principles that we should hold as most valued. Of course as with any piece of art how we want to use it to stimulate our thought is entirely up to us - so I won't say your focus on how we should be alarmed at some of the decision-making principles made by the system, when it decides it needs to protect itself, is invalid, but then I would say that our focus can be better laid somewhere else.

With that, I would say that I will refrain from posting extremely long post further more on this debate. If there are things that you still disagree, then let's say we should agree to disagree, and let it be.

AnimageNeby said:


Is it?

Let's try it. We've seen that the utilitarian system in it's extreme becomes a nightmare. Now let's say everyone, the whole populace, has to follow the principle of Confucius "Do not do to others, what you wouldn't want them to do to you."

Helpme said:


The golden rule. You do know it is a platitude, and can mean anything one wants it to mean? As such, nightmarish scenarios are easy to construct.

JeffreyZin said:
From what actual happened to that fat guy Kudama who's got killed by Makishima:-

AnimageNeby said:
He's eating an egg?

;-)