[Ultramarinus]

Originally Posted by Qilin

Right. Well, you won't get a peep from me regarding Sybil being flawed because it most certainly is, but you have to understand that Makishima is an anomaly. Before him, it was utterly unthinkable that anyone could possibly commit a crime without being judged by the Sybil system. To add to that, the idea of having a backup system within the public consciousness wasn't permitted. After all, for Sybil to work, people had to have an absolute, unshakable trust in the system. They had to believe in the perfection of Sybil, even if it wasn't, to the point that any sort of contingency planning would have been viewed as pointless.

There's a lot more at stake here than a few Enforcers' lives if they happen to back out on that philosophy now. It's very intricate really. You have a society tiptoeing over a knife's edge, so it makes sense to struggle and retain your balance even if it seems futile, especially given the alternative.

It's not a backup system, it's a whole system that the viewer can believe. Our group already deals daily with situations that cannot be perceived by Sybil. No scanners, scanner manipulating, immune to scanning etc. When they insist on failing just because they refuse cold hard facts, the show loses all its seriousness and I feel like I'm watching Demolition Man with No Sly and just Wesley Snipes as Makishima. They should go raid a museum or something and grab a Colt Peacemaker! That wouldn't do more damage to people's belief in the system than Makishima is doing on a daily basis already.

I admit that I also found this somewhat questionable, but I do get the reasoning behind it. Once again, we're not just talking about a few lives anymore. We are in fact talking about adopting practices that would shake the very assumptions that the entire society is based on. Yes, Sybil is flawed, but abandoning it right then and there would have lead to the worst possible outcome, which would be widespread panic and anarchy.

It's not abandoning at all. It's like acting as if he's out of coverage somehow. How does the police handle situations in remote places from big cities anyway? How do they solve a case when some guy murders people in the forest? Too many holes in the system that would be worked around by the government if this system could work in the first place.

Originally Posted by Quadratic

While the the bystander effect is good argument, it isn't what the show was trying to present, nor do I think it's purpose was to draw a comparison to today's world in that respect.

The problem with the crowd is that since they can no longer think of any criminal thoughts, they cannot comprehend that a crime is taking place, especially since the Sybil system has (for most part) removed all crime before it happens (whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is up to your own opinion).
In a weird way, I am reminded of the movie The Invention of Lying.
Anyway, they obviously trust Sybil enough that if it's not sending out any warning signs (as in, a murder is taking place), then nothing is considered wrong.
They weren't thinking someone else might have called the police, they didn't consider anything wrong at all since they've lived in such a safe environment for such a long time.

It really brings back the point of only 'lawful' criminals can fight unlawful criminals, since the rest of society can no longer think of such a thing (or removed early on, etc).

The show merely shows what would a society further down the road do but what's bone-chilling is that situations exactly like that already occurred until now. Check out these:

In April 2010 Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax was stabbed to death in New York City after coming to the aid of a woman who was being attacked by a robber. Yax was on the sidewalk for more than an hour before firefighters arrived. Almost twenty-five people walked by while he lay dying on a sidewalk in Queens, several stared at Yax; one of them took pictures, however none of them helped or called emergency services.

On June 16, 2008, on a country road outside Turlock, California, friends, family and strangers, including a volunteer fire chief, stood by as Sergio Aguiar methodically stomped his two-year-old son Axel Casian to death,[24] explaining in a calm voice that he "had to get the demons out" of the boy. He stopped at one point to turn on the hazard lights on his truck. No one moved to take the child or attack Aguiar. Witnesses said they were all afraid to intervene because Aguiar "might have something in his pocket", although some people looked for rocks or boards hoping to find something to subdue him. The fire chief's fiancee called 911.[25] Police officer Jerry Ramar arrived by helicopter and told Aguiar to stop. Aguiar gave Ramar the finger and Ramar shot him in the head.[26] Police officers and psychologists later explained that the inaction of the crowd was justified in that "ordinary people aren't going to tackle a psychotic," that they were not "psychologically prepared" to intervene, and that being frozen in indecision and fear is a normal reaction.

Suddenly the scene isn't that far-fetched now, is it? It's something that could literally happen tomorrow somewhere if the crowd didn't have somebody with extraordinary courage, initiative and feeling of responsibility in it.

However the show presented this as a case of dingo vs dodo, when it wasn't exactly that. The extreme feeling of safety and incomprehension would just reduce the chances of intervention but not eliminate it completely by itself.

Originally Posted by Cosmic Eagle

Umm....that's better than the way the crowd reacted here you know. Here they don't even react at all because they are that deadened

The thing is that there are so many people out there that's already deadened with no Sybil to talk of, so that examples like the ones I wrote above can happen. When there's such facts, I find it highly contradictory to see this many people on the Net that act like anyone could tackle a psychopath with a hammer and just shift all blame to a fictitious plot element.