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View Poll Results: Shin Sekai Yori - Episode 15 Rating | |||
Perfect 10 | 9 | 20.00% | |
9 out of 10 : Excellent | 19 | 42.22% | |
8 out of 10 : Very Good | 12 | 26.67% | |
7 out of 10 : Good | 5 | 11.11% | |
6 out of 10 : Average | 0 | 0% | |
5 out of 10 : Below Average | 0 | 0% | |
4 out of 10 : Poor | 0 | 0% | |
3 out of 10 : Bad | 0 | 0% | |
2 out of 10 : Very Bad | 0 | 0% | |
1 out of 10 : Painful | 0 | 0% | |
Voters: 45. You may not vote on this poll |
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2013-01-14, 16:48 | Link #81 |
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Join Date: Dec 2004
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Also there's the fact that it's a deconstruction of a utopia, instead of a straight-up dystopia... It's not like in Shinsekai yori the control exists to keep the ruling regime in power. It exists for a much more fundamental reason. it's definitely not control for its own sake.
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2013-01-14, 16:57 | Link #82 | |||
Also a Lolicon
Join Date: Apr 2010
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One of the big differences from BNW I think is that a lot of the people feel oppressed. Kids are scared of the cats, parents get unnerved when their kids violate rules, etc. Quote:
What about "respect authority?" Saki was a lot more horrified by children killing their mother than the other way around. |
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2013-01-14, 16:57 | Link #83 | ||
(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻
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Join Date: Mar 2006
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As for Tomiko, one thing I noticed was that each student is given tasks. I always thought it was odd that they always seemed to be doing the same things in each class scene. Maria levitated, Saki put broken stuff together, Mamoru did art, etc. It reminded me of those aptitude tests I took when I was a kid, where I was given certain tasks and judged on my ability to complete them. In my case though, it was because I was um....different...than the rest of my peers. Quote:
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2013-01-14, 18:30 | Link #84 | |
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There are things that people do because they serve basic selfish desires, and/or they serve a basic need to simply survive. Everything you've referred to here can be easily justified that way. There's no need to appeal to morality, however you care to define "morality". If this society was truly that concerned with morality, we wouldn't see people so ready and willing to kill mere children, which most advanced societies consider an extremely immoral act. No, this world is pragmatic to the extreme, arguably amoral in nature.
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2013-01-14, 18:47 | Link #85 | |
formerly ogon bat
Join Date: May 2011
Location: Mexico
Age: 53
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I have not read the light novel or the summaries, but I think the morale of the story is that the time of men has already passed, humanity has always had a knack for destruction (as the extinction of several giant mammals that shared an ecosystem with early men testifies) and with the development of pk humans became just too good at destruction. Mind you, that is not the first time something like that has happened, there are evidences that in prehistoric times there were giant octopus that were atop of the food chain (on the deep sea, obviously), had long life expectancy and brain capacity that dwarfed ours exponentially. Where are they now? Well, octopus (like spiders) tend to eat their young. The solution evolution provided? Smaller octopus that live little after copulating (male) or that die at childbirth (female). |
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2013-01-14, 19:40 | Link #86 | |||
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Join Date: Dec 2004
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Again, I think it's not really about who can hit the biggest with their power. Their "battle potential" if we can call it that mostly depends on personality, and frankly, I'd want Satoru to back me up (because from the four, five if Shun is included, he's the one who is the least "docile" when it comes to stuff like this). Quote:
It's also quite important to realize that Saki and Satoru are not like "us." They come from a society that has a built-in, genetically supported taboo on in-species aggression. So what the bakenezumi do is completely alien to them. Also, remember when, during the first bakenezumi adventure, Satoru got a little too much into fighting? For us it would be completely natural, but Saki saw it as something very alien and frightening. Quote:
It's not a light novel... ._.) Last edited by kuromitsu; 2013-01-14 at 20:05. |
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2013-01-14, 20:37 | Link #87 |
(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻
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Join Date: Mar 2006
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It's worth pointing out that for most of human history, human children barely had any rights at all. It's actually a relatively newer thing for us to grant children some rights before "adulthood". In America, things like child labor laws, public school systems, and the rise of the middle class are largely responsible for the social shift. This is true for many industrialized countries, to varying degrees, but there are still many parts of the world where children have no rights at all. And honestly, even in "progressive" nations like the US, it's barely perfect. It's easy to make the argument that children are spoiled thanks to Dr. Phil and such, but child abuse is very common.
I'll even stretch this a bit with some supposition: the only reason women are treated equally in the Cantus society is because of the Cantus. Physical strength no longer becomes the determining factor of rule as one might expect in a society that has regressed to a more primitive way of life.
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2013-01-14, 22:50 | Link #88 | ||
Also a Lolicon
Join Date: Apr 2010
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This society obviously would, since that's what they do, and they don't seem to have many qualms about doing so. They test for baby Hitlers, and kill all of them, before they go around killing many more. Sure, their test might not be 100% accurate, hell, they probably kill more innocent people than they do baby Hitlers, but statistically, they are saving more lives by doing so than by not. Considering how the Education Board acts, they obviously think this is the right thing (because, it minimizes suffering). Saki thinks not (because, innocent people are being murdered). Depends all on how you define morality. So taking it back to Saki and the Queerats, now that I have been corrected. Also bringing the novel info in: -Saki justifies the actions of the queerats "they aren't human, that is perfectly reasonable for them to do." -Saki connects the moral scheme of humanity, "oh yeah we're the same." It's not just killing risky children, a lot of the "good" acts in their society like casual sex/etc are specifically engineered for "optimal outcome," i.e. utilitarianism. |
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2013-01-14, 23:54 | Link #89 |
Senior Member
Join Date: May 2012
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I don't mean to derail the discussion or anything, but did anyone else find it funny that after expanding their territory, creating concrete buildings, and wearing metal(?) armor, Squealer and his colony are STILL using the same old sharpened bamboo sticks/bows/arrows?
Just something that's been nagging at me for a while considering all the other colonies we've seen have at least stone weapons. |
2013-01-15, 00:55 | Link #90 | |
Banned
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2013-01-15, 06:52 | Link #91 | |
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Join Date: Dec 2004
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Obviously nothing makes the practice of culling children good or anything other than horrible. But they're bound by a dilemma. (Random note: I so wish that the fansubbers hadn't made up "Cantus" as a translation of "juryoku." It makes no sense and it's so annoying to see people use it as if it was the canon name for their power. -_-) Last edited by kuromitsu; 2013-01-15 at 07:18. |
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2013-01-15, 17:11 | Link #92 | |||||
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Most societies try to balance pragmatic concerns with moral ones. A pragmatic concern is about strengthening a society in a fairly objective sense - For example, making society safer, period. Or achieving higher productivity. Or achieving a higher GDP. Or achieving better infrastructure as that can lead to many economic benefits for a society.
Everything done in the world of Shin Sekai Yori is rooted in such pragmatic concerns. A moral concern is about shaping society in a certain way because you have certain moral preferences, regardless of what's most pragmatic. For example, many people in America would like to outlaw abortion, because they have moral qualms with the killing of unborn children, as they see it. However, outlawing abortion would actually cause many new, and arguably severe, pragmatic problems for America. It's very difficult to support the outlawing of abortion from a purely, or even largely, pragmatic perspective. Laws banning certain sexual practices are similarly more of a moral matter (for those in favor of such laws, anyway) than a practical one. Something like Affirmative Action is a law based more on morality (i.e. standing up against racism) than anything else. Some societies do take "pragmatic hits" (i.e. actually make their society more costly, or their governments less efficient/cost-effective) for what is widely held as moral causes. Shin Sekai Yori does not strike me as a society that ever takes "pragmatic hits" for the sake of moral principles. In my opinion, their society is heavily rooted in pragmatism, moreso than many societies are. At the very least, I think it's completely baseless to argue that the society of Shin Sekai Yori is particularly concerned about morality. Quote:
Now I'm not saying it's wrong pragmatically. Pragmatically-speaking, I don't see a better alternative. But it's not a society that cares much about morality, imo. Quote:
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Also, there's a world of difference between actively going out of your way to kill your own young, and leaving them to their own devices. The killing of children has been widely viewed as a morally abhorrent act for thousands of years in most societies.
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2013-01-15, 22:02 | Link #93 |
Eaten by goats
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Rokkenjima
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The humans in SSY are definitely aiming for pragmatism, but I'm not sure they're achieved it. They've set things up so that one mistake can knock the entire civilisation down. One pair of people run away, maybe sheltered by the Queerats? Bam, it could all be over. Their way of thinking is likely that someone without PK, like the rats, isn't a threat at all.
Speaking of the Queerats...Did someone mention earlier that the humans had developed PK through experimentation and so forth? If the Queerats had sufficient information, they could always give that process a try themselves, even if they're not descended from humans themselves. It seems they're an adaptable race which can change form to some extent. (Presumably that's down to the queens breeding different types of workers?) We've been hearing all about how children in the human society aren't considered people and can just be zapped on any basis, but I wonder what happens when the person who's displaying potentially dangerous behaviour is an adult? Do they really treat them as people with full legal rights whom they can't harm? I have a hard time believing that a society which would kill of loads and loads of kids in order to keep the peace would not have some way of dealing with adults too, and it would be strange if the story was telling us that potentially dangerous people will always show signs of that in their childhood. |
2013-01-16, 04:57 | Link #94 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2004
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Er, so what? Is this now a competition? If yes: they were both horrified, but Saki rationalized their decision as them being just animals, and Satoru was the one who pointed out how humanlike they are. 1-1.
By the way, I rewatched the ep yesterday and realized that they didn't even cut that whole part I wrote about above, just the examples with the kangaroo, hippo, etc. So it was pretty clear, I think... Quote:
It will be fun to go back to these threads after the series ends... Btw, since I mentioned translations: does "queerat" come from the fansubs as well? |
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2013-01-16, 05:50 | Link #95 | ||
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However, here's their explanation for their choice of translation: Quote:
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2013-01-16, 08:04 | Link #96 | |
今宵の虎徹は血に飢えている
Join Date: Jan 2009
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How 呪力 becomes "cantus" I also don't know...would have just translated it as PK or simply "power"
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2013-01-16, 09:00 | Link #97 | |||
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Join Date: Dec 2004
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But my main beef with it is that it sticks out like a sore thumb. Even if we assume it's just translation convention, it's still a word that is alien to its context. For one, as you said, "cantus" is also an existing word with a meaning that has nothing to do with psychokinesis/any supernatural power. And really, why would a bunch of Japanese people 1000 years into the future who live a mostly isolated life, and have their own words for pretty much everything in their environment, use a foreign word to refer to their innate power that's pretty much the center of their universe? Quote:
Yeah... or something else but, you know, in English. Last edited by kuromitsu; 2013-01-16 at 09:38. |
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2013-01-16, 09:20 | Link #98 | |
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Location: tamagawa
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2013-01-16, 09:36 | Link #99 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2004
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Yeah, there's that, too. There's even an allusion to this duality toward the end. There's a hidden meaning in almost every important word here so it's not very wise to discard a meaning (which is actually one of the primary meanings of the kanji in question) right away... it's understandable, though, if they had no background information, but it makes the whole "cantus" situation more awkward.
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2013-01-16, 10:16 | Link #100 |
(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻
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I don't mind translations that try to deal with quirks like this. It's not canon, but at the same time, it works for the intended purpose. Literal translations may be preferred by some, but sometimes it's better to preserve flow/meaning than accuracy.
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