The Morality and Philosophy of the Sibyl System

[Dengar]

^The point is that the system isn't wrong. What's wrong is how people go about USING the information said system provides.

[velocity7]

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

But you clearly missed what I said. I didn't say the system was wrong. I said what if the system was wrong sometimes, heck even 1% of the time.

People's lives are being pigeonholed because of this system.

I wouldn't say pigeonholed, as Akane was given the option to choose between multiple careers and she decided to go with being an Inspector. It's also very likely she could have gone somewhere where her score was entirely low, but at the same time said jobs might not have interested her to begin with in the first place.

Also, if a system was wrong at least once, it is not 100% right. It's very foolish for a society to pledge blind faith in the judgment of a system that is not completely perfect.

[Arkeus]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

We have the opening scene where Mr. Cool Dude Shinya gets a minute or two of looking impeccably cool and manly. We're clearly meant to like this guy. And this same guy makes an unambiguously critical remark about the Sibyl System (and it was delivered so perfectly too!).

Meanwhile, I don't think we're meant to like Ginoza. I think he's meant to come across as something of an uncaring control freak. And guess who's the primary defender of the Sibyl System in our main cast?

Then there's Akane. Akane might not be questioning the Sibyl System yet, but she sure as heck is questioning a lot of the outcomes of it. A few more episodes like the last three, and Akane may well start questioning and doubting the system itself.

Yeah, no.
Shinya is not meant to be 'good' here, he is shown as a biased and broken individual. The whole end of the episodes, the last five minutes, are all about how he purposefully engineer a situation where he can use violence.

He is not 'Cool guy Shinya', he is someone who needs his high and made sure that the murderer was caught in such a way that he could have his fun.

If there is a 'Cool Guy', it possibly the older Enforcer. My guess is, he is en ex-detective.

As for Ginoza, he is obviously meant to be someone who was like Akane (though probably not as mentally gifted and sturdy) but was burned very badly by trusting the enforcers.

[Kirarakim]

Originally Posted by velocity7

I wouldn't say pigeonholed, as Akane was given the option to choose between multiple careers and she decided to go with being an Inspector. It's also very likely she could have gone somewhere where her score was entirely low, but at the same time said jobs might not have interested her to begin with in the first place.

Also, if a system was wrong at least once, it is not 100% right. It's very foolish for a society to pledge blind faith in the judgment of a system that is not completely perfect.

I am not talking about Akane, I am talking about the latent prisoners. Once they are marked as that they have limited choice, really no choice.

And there is no way to know if the system is 100% correct in this case. It's judging a person's psychological profile before the act was committed that is what it means to be a latent criminal.

[Guardian Enzo]

What I think we’re seeing here is Gen espousing theories on several fronts, one of which is the matter of what makes a detective. I think his case – which I agree with – is that you can’t be a good detective if you don’t have a healthy dose of latent criminal intent buried inside you. That a detective needs to understand the criminal mind in order to defeat it is hardly a new idea (that’s a trend so far in P-P) but the Sybil scenario is a clever way of illustrating it.

What Sybil has produced (seemingly) is a generation of law enforcement that’s incapable of enforcing the law because they’re unable to think outside the narrow boxes Sybil has assigned them to. That the enforcers can do so is hardly surprising given their backgrounds, but the detectives like Ginoza need to maintain the façade that they’re the ones pulling the strings, when in fact they’re simply the ones holding the leash. In the case of Akane perhaps she’s the rare exception, because her Sybil scores didn’t pigeon-hole her into being a detective – in fact, they said she was basically suited to anything she wanted to do. Or perhaps suited to nothing – which in Sybil’s eyes makes her a bad detective, but in practical terms possibly a very good one. Time will tell.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Dengar

^The point is that the system isn't wrong.

You keep writing this, but at no point have you substantiated this argument whatsoever.

The anime is presenting us with plenty of good reasons to think that the system is deeply flawed and needs to be fixed (if not removed).

What's wrong is how people go about USING the information said system provides.

The system is more than just the information being provided. I don't think that anybody on this thread is saying that the very existence of precise psychiatric measurements of people is necessarily a bad thing, in and of itself. But the system goes beyond simply measuring people, since the system then takes those measurements and uses it as the basis for a major, overarching socioeconomic system that is quite clearly to the extreme detriment of many people. As I argued after Episode 2, we have a societal system here that runs contrary to both liberty and equality, and so I don't see much good reason to defend it.

Hell, at this point, I'm not even sure if the Sibyl System is causing less crime on the whole. In a world without a Sibyl System, would the murderer of this episode ever have become a murderer? It was clearly the institutionally-affirmed bullying that caused him to snap and want to kill people.


I any event, the information isn't the problem, no. But yes, the system itself is causing problems. The system itself needs to at least be reformed, and I wouldn't be surprised if Gen even goes so far as to eventually have Akane overturn the entire system.

Originally Posted by Arkeus

Yeah, no.
Shinya is not meant to be 'good' here, he is shown as a biased and broken individual.

He is also shown as strong, bold, kickass, and generally supportive of the main protagonist Akane.

Is he a somewhat "broken" individual with serious psychological issues? Sure, of course he is. Like Batman is - You know, the Batman that virtually everybody loves.

People tend to like "dark", "gritty", and "intense" characters like Shinya. Gen, of all people, is keenly aware of that.

I'm not saying that Shinya is going to get a shallow treatment, and nor will he be portrayed as always being in the right. Of course he won't. But there's no doubt whatsoever in my mind that he's carefully crafted to be a likeable, kickass protagonist that the viewer is meant to sympathize with. So Shinya clearly not being keen on the Sybil System is telling, imo.

[Dark Wing]

Originally Posted by velocity7

Also, if a system was wrong at least once, it is not 100% right. It's very foolish for a society to pledge blind faith in the judgment of a system that is not completely perfect.

Like for example:

Our Capitalism System: Where only a handful of people are allowed to hold the majority of the wealth.

Our Judicial System: Where individuals are still convicted on little evidence and popular opinion at the time.

Our Correctional System: Which isn't even use to correct anymore just lock'em up and toss away the key.

No system is 100% without flaws yet people swear by them solely on the fact that they work...most of the time.

Originally Posted by Arkeus

Yeah, no.
Shinya is not meant to be 'good' here, he is shown as a biased and broken individual. The whole end of the episodes, the last five minutes, are all about how he purposefully engineer a situation where he can use violence.

He is not 'Cool guy Shinya', he is someone who needs his high and made sure that the murderer was caught in such a way that he could have his fun..

I don't agree with this. I personally believe he wants to be a good guy and fight against his psychotic nature but just doesn't know how.

[Utsuro no Hako]

Originally Posted by velocity7

I wouldn't say pigeonholed, as Akane was given the option to choose between multiple careers and she decided to go with being an Inspector. It's also very likely she could have gone somewhere where her score was entirely low, but at the same time said jobs might not have interested her to begin with in the first place.

But Akane is exceptional -- most people don't have a choice between eight different ministries. Her friends in episode 2 certainly didn't have that many options available to them, and those who fail a Pscyho-Pass apparently have none unless they're qualified to become enforcers.

[Shadow5YA]

Originally Posted by Utsuro no Hako

and those who fail a Pscyho-Pass apparently have none unless they're qualified to become enforcers.

I would be careful about this -- a Psycho-Pass is not the same as a Crime Coefficient calculated and evaluated by the Sybil System. This episode should have made that clear.

The Enforcers are guilty of a high Crime Coefficient, not just a murky colored Psycho-Pass.

[Kaoru Chujo]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

...We have the opening scene where Mr. Cool Dude Shinya gets a minute or two of looking impeccably cool and manly. We're clearly meant to like this guy....

We were already meant to like this guy, from the last ep. But the opening scenes were ambiguous for me: cool and manly, but violent and uncontrolled. Not a nice guy.

I like the ambiguities here: they caught the murderer, but wrecked the plant. Akane got a lot more than she bargained for. Ginoza made some sense, which the outcome somewhat validates (while contradicting it at the same time, since they did in fact catch the guy) but he was made to seem as if he was tipping over into a bit of madness himself, almost frothing at the mouth at anything that did not stick to normal procedure.

I'm hoping we go further in the next episode, to see the fallout, and what happens next. The supervisor is only one level. His superiors probably knew something, too, at least about the bullying. And I think even two murders should have set off alarm bells all the way up the chain into the ministry that owns the plant.

[Kirarakim]

I actually agree with Dark Wing about Shinya. I don't think he is a bad person. In fact from the little I have seen he comes off as kind, but I do believe in his case the reading that he is a latent criminal is correct. I think he is easily swayed towards violence and perhaps breaking the law if it meets his goal.

I am not as sure about the other enforcers though. Although what Guardian Enžo said about them being good at their job because of that criminal mind set makes perfect sense.

[Kanon]

Originally Posted by Kaoru Chujo

I'm hoping we go further in the next episode, to see the fallout, and what happens next. The supervisor is only one level. His superiors probably knew something, too, at least about the bullying. And I think even two murders should have set off alarm bells all the way up the chain into the ministry that owns the plant.

I'd like to see the aftermath too, and especially if the people in charge are going to learn anything from this incident or still keep the same system in place in spite of it all but sadly, I think the case is closed and that we'll have something completely different next week. The format of the series seems to be episodic, at least for now. That may change once we hit the second half of the series.

[Roger Rambo]

Considering they tried to sweep this entire affair under the rug, I imagine there'd be allot of typical bureaucratic blustering to try to avoid having to take responsibility for the incident.

Again, the most interesting thing will be what happens to the criminal in this incident. This is the first time afterall, that we've seen these police take in a serious criminal alive.

[Dengar]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

long post, just scroll up

It seems to me most of those things are done by people, not the system. The system just evaluates a person. It's society that says "We're not going to hire you if you don't have an A rank." or "Your Crime Coefficient is too high so you won't be able to have a job anywhere ever." The system doesn't say this.

[Klashikari]

Originally Posted by Dengar

It seems to me most of those things are done by people, not the system. The system just evaluates a person. It's society that says "We're not going to hire you if you don't have an A rank." or "Your Crime Coefficient is too high so you won't be able to have a job anywhere ever." The system doesn't say this.

And for some reason, the system manages to dictate that a not grown up person is at risk of being a criminal (not factoring upbringing and whatnot). The system was done by humans to begin with, and they set the said value as not desirable. Which means: the system is flawed to begin with, since it actually put a category on the individual, which leads to the decisions we have seen.

It is basically the same as any scale system that give a numerical value to a given phenomenom and whatnot: you have a specific number of set value set already in the program leading to the reading expected and the definition of the said result. For example, Richter scale attribute a certain value to quantify the energy due to an earthquake, with the given number leading to a direct appreciation of what you can expect from the said earthquake, despite an earthquake of a specific magnitude might not lead to the textbook damage described there.
Actions done by people are merely the aftermath of it (removing the said worker from a specific ward, preventing some people to access to pure hue restricted jobs etc), but the system itself is what dictacte what an individual is, based on mere parameters. And if the parameters and definitions, as well as the conditions and extent they can be used, are wrong, the system is the flaw of it.

[novalysis]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Then there's Akane. Akane might not be questioning the Sibyl System yet, but she sure as heck is questioning a lot of the outcomes of it. A few more episodes like the last three, and Akane may well start questioning and doubting the system itself.

If, indeed, Sibyl has some ability to effect it's own self-reform, then it's possible that Akane is a reformer at heart. I think we will see a Decon-Recon switch here, where the first half points out the flaws of Sibyl, while the second half stress that there is hope so long as the system is reformable. And that Akane is one of the few rare humans with the capability of effecting and ensuring that systems continue reforming, continue changing, adapting growing.

She won't get to see the worst of society at it's height, so she chooses to go down to a prestigious seat at the gutter of the system, so as to truly appreciate it's flaws, but at the same time, constructively formulate potential reforms.

I really think that Akane isn't just an "older" Madoka in terms of Naivety and presence, she's also hope, in an extra-ordinary individual. And that's probably Urobuchi's main point here.

If I may be politically incorrect, Akane and some of Urobichi's previous characters , et all, represents Urobuchi's conception of an "Ubensmensch" that delivers hope and changes and improvements, while pointing out just what kind of qualities such a person might invoke. Moral, Benevolent Ubensmensch of a superior human nature above that of normal human nature.

It's an interesting theory. Human Nature has its Saints and Sinners, the Sinners outweigh the Saints, but Saints and Sinners are in few between. Humans are grey, in a spectrum, but Urobuchi posits that most cluster around the darker end of the spectrum. But it would take a special kind of Saint to pull off a miracle for real change to happen, in Urobuchi's worldview.

It seems that he subscribes to the Great Man Theory of history, but perhaps I'm reading to far into it. But "Great Man", or "Great Woman" in this case predominates his thinking, and I think is one of the running themes in his recent works, beyond : hur hur, the world is grimdark and irredeemably full of despair. To him, the world is Redeemable, but only through miracles. Black Swans if you will, and Akane I think is a perfect example of a moral and highly principled one.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Mentar

Other notables: So it seems that in order to create a "lawless" spot, you merely have to block out Sibyl radio waves. And somehow the thought of having places "without net uplink", creating places of isolation and ignorance, where violent abuse isn't merely turned a blind eye on but openly accepted, is chilling me to the bones. Utopia THAT ain't.

Not quite lawless. There was still the hue checkers. The problem, in this particular case, is that the bullied was able to kill before his hue got too bad, and paradoxically prolong his tenure as a target by using murder as his own stress relief.

But even without that, I wonder why the managers wasn't caught in some kind of liability law. I have no doubt the CCs of everyone involved in the bullying (on either side) increased, maybe permanently. A regular Sybil check should have detected it. (And if there aren't any, why would there be a queue the Dominators need to jump?) So why isn't he treated like a boss who poisons his employees and dumps toxic waste on the rest of society?

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Meanwhile, I don't think we're meant to like Ginoza. I think he's meant to come across as something of an uncaring control freak. And guess who's the primary defender of the Sibyl System in our main cast?

I don't find him entirely unsympathetic. He's been hurt, but he still tries to do his job the best he can, and to give Akane a fair shake as a colleague.

Originally Posted by velocity7

I wouldn't say pigeonholed, as Akane was given the option to choose between multiple careers and she decided to go with being an Inspector. It's also very likely she could have gone somewhere where her score was entirely low, but at the same time said jobs might not have interested her to begin with in the first place.

But she's a rarity. Then again, I've often lamented the lack of orientation for kids, so maybe the system isn't so bad on that front.

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

What I think we’re seeing here is Gen espousing theories on several fronts, one of which is the matter of what makes a detective. I think his case – which I agree with – is that you can’t be a good detective if you don’t have a healthy dose of latent criminal intent buried inside you. That a detective needs to understand the criminal mind in order to defeat it is hardly a new idea (that’s a trend so far in P-P) but the Sybil scenario is a clever way of illustrating it.

What Sybil has produced (seemingly) is a generation of law enforcement that’s incapable of enforcing the law because they’re unable to think outside the narrow boxes Sybil has assigned them to. That the enforcers can do so is hardly surprising given their backgrounds, but the detectives like Ginoza need to maintain the façade that they’re the ones pulling the strings, when in fact they’re simply the ones holding the leash. In the case of Akane perhaps she’s the rare exception, because her Sybil scores didn’t pigeon-hole her into being a detective – in fact, they said she was basically suited to anything she wanted to do. Or perhaps suited to nothing – which in Sybil’s eyes makes her a bad detective, but in practical terms possibly a very good one. Time will tell.

She's suited for everything according to Sybil - she's got all As, not all Cs. That means Sybil also thinks she'll make a good inspector.

I don't think she's very good yet, but she's just starting.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Hell, at this point, I'm not even sure if the Sibyl System is causing less crime on the whole. In a world without a Sibyl System, would the murderer of this episode ever have become a murderer? It was clearly the institutionally-affirmed bullying that caused him to snap and want to kill people.

Maybe? It's not like bullying doesn't exist IRL.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Dengar

It seems to me most of those things are done by people, not the system. The system just evaluates a person. It's society that says "We're not going to hire you if you don't have an A rank." or "Your Crime Coefficient is too high so you won't be able to have a job anywhere ever." The system doesn't say this.

Sure the system says this. That's part of the system. You're drawing an entirely false distinction here.

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

I don't find him entirely unsympathetic. He's been hurt, but he still tries to do his job the best he can, and to give Akane a fair shake as a colleague.

I never said "he's entirely unsympathetic". But his character flaws are very obvious. He views the Enforcers as something less than human when they seem perfectly human to me. He is very legalistically minded, arguably to a fault. And he doesn't seem to care about the people who falls through the cracks while Akane does seem to care about them.

In fairness to him, he's probably become jaded over time, and for understandable reasons. I get the sense that he's speaking from experience when he offers advice to Akane. He probably tried to work with the Enforcers as colleagues, only to have that nastily blow up in his face at least once or twice.

Maybe? It's not like bullying doesn't exist IRL.

Sure, but modern society generally discourages it and tries to work against it. Bullying on the level that we saw in this episode would not be accepted in virtually any modern 1st World workplace, at least none that I'm aware of.

I'll admit that in schools, you can get some very nasty bullying and teachers turning a blind eye to it, but this sort of bullying would not go on in an actual adult workplace (at least not without heads rolling and people getting fired).

The world of Psycho-Pass, in spite of how it's clearly more technologically advanced than our own world, has some elements to it that are objectively worse than our own world. That speaks loudly and clearly to a real system failure, imo.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I never said "he's entirely unsympathetic". But his character flaws are very obvious. He views the Enforcers as something less than human when they seem perfectly human to me. He is very legalistically minded, arguably to a fault. And he doesn't seem to care about the people who falls through the cracks while Akane does seem to care about them.

In fairness to him, he's probably become jaded over time, and for understandable reasons. I get the sense that he's speaking from experience when he offers advice to Akane. He probably tried to work with the Enforcers as colleagues, only to have that nastily blow up in his face at least once or twice.

Then it's the same for your boy Shinya, whose own flaws were made apparent early on.

Sure, but modern society generally discourages it and tries to work against it. Bullying on the level that we saw in this episode would not be accepted in virtually any modern 1st World workplace, at least none that I'm aware of.

It's certainly illegal. But I'm not so sure it doesn't still happen.

And while I'm unclear about legality in that world, I'm sure it's also discouraged, at least where they get more regular access to the network. I mean, just being creepy in public can get you in serious trouble...

My point is, that case was a bit of a freak. As it would be in our world, but freaks do exist.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

It's certainly illegal. But I'm not so sure it doesn't still happen.

And while I'm unclear about legality in that world, I'm sure it's also discouraged, at least where they get more regular access to the network. I mean, just being creepy in public can get you in serious trouble...

My point is, that case was a bit of a freak. As it would be in our world, but freaks do exist.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. We've only begun to explore the world of Psycho-Pass, so who's to say that there's not many other workplaces with issues similar to this factory's?

You yourself wondered why the manager of this factory wasn't caught in some kind of liability law. You rightly asked "So why isn't he treated like a boss who poisons his employees and dumps toxic waste on the rest of society?"

Maybe it's because bosses like this aren't all that rare in the world of Psycho-Pass, and different places of employment just keep trading their "toxic waste" off on one another, if you catch my drift.


The world of Psycho-Pass increasingly strikes me as a place that has put Law and Order above everything else, including liberty, equality, and even basic human dignity. Psycho-Pass wouldn't be the first narrative to argue that when society starts treating human beings as nothing more than collections of numbers, that society naturally becomes cold, dehumanized, harsh, and uncaring.