[Quadratic]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Maybe by not having them express jealousy over Akane's fortune in life? If you're truly happy, why would you be jealous of your friend? Akane's friends strike me as the closest we come to average young adult women in the world of Psycho-Pass, and they didn't strike me as any more happy than average young adult women in the real world.

Is the average young adult woman in real life is unhappy, or happy but still somewhat envious of their more sucessful friends?
You're making the assumption that the majority of people in the real world can somehow be happier (but how?), whereas I would think if the majority of people are happy like right now, then a Sibyl world wouldn't improve happiness for the main majority because they've already reached the maximum happiness their current lives will give them.
There wasn't anything implying they would be happier than the old world, just a greater number of "happy" people, achieving the most happiness that they could ever have in their life.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I would argue that the Director is associating "happiness" with things like job security, basic employment, and lack of crime. And sure, all of that helps to some degree (and is probably why your average person in the world of Psycho-Pass just sort of passively goes along with the system without much complaint), but I don't think it helps as much as the Director thinks it does. Especially when you have places of work as bad as that one from the third episode.

Fair enough, but a lot of those cases you've listed were exceptional cases and the dissent is obviously in the minority.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

People on this thread have argued that Urobuchi has gone to a great degree to cast Makishima in a negative light. Personally, I would say that Urobuchi has gone to a much greater degree to cast Sibyl in a negative light. We've seen all sorts of people in diverse places and/or professions fall through the cracks of this system. And I haven't seen many people that have benefited in a clear-cut way from this system. Someone like Akane would have excelled in almost any societal context, imo.

Police officers will come across average everyday people all the time in their field of work. They don't interact just with criminals all the time. And shows like Law & Order and CSI reflect that. Now, do your average, everyday people in Psycho-Pass seem significantly happier than your average, everyday person in Law & Order or CSI? I'm not seeing it.

If I recall correctly, they are a special task force in the Criminal Investigation Division. They aren't your run of the mill police (which probably doesn't exist anymore, anyway).
I would associate them similar to the characters in Special Victims Unit (except being a proactive task force rather than reactive), in that they deal with the scummiest of scums, and even start questioning their own morality from time to time.
How I viewed this episode in relation to all the previous episodes is that:
a) we just assume the positive aspects of Sibyl is correct (yes, I'm aware they're really only telling this rather than showing)
b) The CID are the support that ensures they are the only ones who see the heinous side of the world (both brought on by Sibyl and human nature).

I would say that the lack of showing the positive aspect of Sibyl to specific people helps prevent the viewers from associating the benefits to a specific person (which helps make us or the characters question on why they're trying to help this world because they don't see a specific person benefiting from it).
The fact it's shown as a thankless job makes it a bit more darker (and probably true in real life, anyway).

Originally Posted by Triple_R

That's not all I mean. If Yayoi and Rina were living in real world modern Japan, they'd probably be successful musicians right now enjoying life to its fullest. And Kagari has never struck me as some dangerous, loose cannon in spite of him getting institutionalized at the age of 5 by a bad reading. Kagari might have lived a much freer, fuller life in real world Japan. Then there's Gino and his father... Do you think they'd have a better relationship in a world without Sibyl? Gino strikes me as almost constantly stressed out, and the demands of Sibyl is part of what drives that, imo.

What-if scenarios are harder to argue on. They could possibly fail and end up as drug addicts and become like...um, Lindsay Lohan?
Ginoza & Masaoka may have had a better relationship without Sibyl, but then there's a whole butterfly effect that goes on, with which crime gets commited and which didn't, how many more/less crimes goes on, etc.