Psycho-Pass - Episode 20 Discussion / Poll

[merakses]

OK, are you aware that, probably in every country in the world, conspiracy to commit a crime is a criminal act? And I'm pretty sure that simply owning a nuclear war head is a crime in itself, if I can ridicule your example some more.

Exactly which part of reductio ad absurdum are you guys failing to understand? All of these examples were done with the sole purpose of showing that no, our current criminal system does not only punish 'harmful' actions, as Vallen here seems to think.

Look, man. It's not. As Triple_R said, not in a society where people value their freedom more than their immediate safety. What's being outlined in Psycho-Pass is whether the scales have tipped in safety's favor.

There exists a line between liberty and safety. Minimal decreases in liberty are acceptable when they lead to large increases in safety. Or would you argue that we should dispense with gun control laws, bans on drugs, the age of minority and any other applicable law which puts regulations on the way we can act in order to protect us and the people around us?

What's even more scary than unjustly shooting a person with a Dominator is how people like Yuki got assessed by Sibyl and pushed down a certain career path that made her unhappy. I wonder, just how many chances does a regular person get in Sibyl's world? Would Yuki be allowed to change her life, either via requalification or relocation, if she wanted to? All this talk about Sibyl's predictability models for criminal behaviour and career suitability might as well extend to predicting appropriate courses of education. After all, if it managed to cram Kagari into a prison at age five, what's stopping it from assessing that, for example, children coming from lower income families, who were born into a life of poverty with a whole slew of social issues, will most likely not finish second-level education? So Sibyl, and by extension society asks itself whether it should even invest into their education. Is taking a chance on a near-guaranteed loss for a system even worth the resources and collective effort? Or should it just send a dog with a Dominator after them, to dispense of them before they become a burden to society?

There is nothing stopping Yuki from trying to increase her results on the aptitude tests. Nobody has said that the results can't be changed with hard work, or that you can only take the test once.

In your example about secondary education, you are only showcasing tho possible ways of action when there are more. In the system is known to be accurate, and it tells us that certain children are very likely to not finish secondary education, what I would do is sign them up for an alternative form of education - for example, one that is in it's experimental stages. In such a case, Sybil (or whatever 'seer' we're using) won't really have enough information to make a judgement. So, it's a win-win situation: the kids get a chance to study, we get to test out new approaches in education.

And if one of those meaningless deaths is you under the system you're arguing? Do you think your family and friends won't resent the system for that? Do you think they'll be understandable of an algorithmical miscalculation, when they've known you your entire life and that you were a good person? I think they'd rage just as hard, because justice isn't something that can be quantified.

There will always be innocent casualties, both in a society that enforces the system, and in one which does not. My argument is that, in this case, it is a problem of scale: which society gives us less innocent casualties?. You're trying to argue that no matter whether the ratio is 1:1000, 1:1000000, or 1:1000000000, a society that enforces the system will never be justified. Do you see why I fail to agree with that?

A lot of powerful people have no one to hold them in check. Look at Wall Street for example. They basically rigged the system to the point that any sort of fail safe is completely ineffective.

That's a bit of an exaggeration here. The 99% protests are a good example of a fail-safe. Powerful people are limited in all kinds of different ways if they want to keep their power.

Now, I understand and agree with the general point you're making. However, the amount of power Sybil has is vastly more than that of any CEO , Wall Street banker or politician. It has a much larger leeway to screw the rules than any powerful person from the current society.

If you're a proponent of predictive dispensation of justice then you better be agreeable that it applies to all, and not complain if it happens to you or anyone cloase to you, because if not and you complain of unfairness to you, then you'll be no better than anyone trying to to insist they're above the system and society.

I completely agree with your point. By the same argument, if you're against predictive dispensation of justice, you would have no right to complain if you or anyone close to you was the victim of a crime that was predicted, but wasn't stopped.

That's not actually true, in common law countries and probably others. If you threaten a person with imminent harm, for example by pointing a weapon at them, it can still be a crime even if you do not go ahead and touch the person with the weapon or cause physical harm. Do you know the common law legal definition of assault?

Nobody said I was going to threaten him. I am simply going to be pointing the gun at him because I feel like it. Since I don't want to create apprehension in him, I will be standing somewhere where he can't see me.
Even in these circumstances, I get the feeling that saying "I didn't do anything harmful yet!" isn't going to fly with any passing police officer who decides to take me into custody.

[cyth]

Originally Posted by merakses

Exactly which part of reductio ad absurdum are you guys failing to understand?

Vallen's point has been perfectly understood by the rest of us. I'm not sure why you're the only one nitpicking here, so forgive me for not comprehending if you've made your intentions of toying with this discussion clear after you've given those ridiculous examples.

There exists a line between liberty and safety.
[...]
There will always be innocent casualties, both in a society that enforces the system, and in one which does not. My argument is that, in this case, it is a problem of scale: which society gives us less innocent casualties?. You're trying to argue that no matter whether the ratio is 1:1000, 1:1000000, or 1:1000000000, a society that enforces the system will never be justified. Do you see why I fail to agree with that?

If it's a matter of scale, then why does a connoisseur of safety think saving a single life is more imporant than freedom and why does a connoisseur of freedoms think preserving personal freedoms is more important than people's immediate safety? It's because of the differences of their value systems! You simply cannot say that relinquishing such and such amount of freedoms is worth saving so and so many lives, when the two are simply incomparable. Am I saying that a society will always think freedom is more important than safety? No, I'm actually losing hope that that's the case when I'm discussing people like you. I'm merely arguing that a society that values freedoms doesn't care whether the system that reflects their values produces victims if that's the direct consequence of their values. Well, not that it doesn't care, it just tries to work around the problems their values produce in a different way.

See what I'm getting at here? You can't arbitrarily say that life has more value than freedom does, that's up to society to decide. If that were the case, wars wouldn't be waged, people wouldn't have sacrificed their lives for their countries' independence, they would just peacefully resign to the aggressor and be content with the promise that their lives would be spared.

[merakses]

Vallen's point has been perfectly understood by the rest of us. I'm not sure why you're the only one nitpicking here, so forgive me for not comprehending if you've made your intentions of toying with this discussion clear after you've given those ridiculous examples.

I've clarified the intention every single time before giving the ridiculous examples. I'm just taking something Valen wrote in his post and proving that it makes no sense at all. I have no idea why you believe to have understood his point better than me.

What Vallen said is that 'criminal law exists only to punish harmful actions'. However, this is simply not true There are certain actions (like illegal owning and sale of firearms, for example), which, although not directly harmful, lead to a high chance of future damages occurring. Thus, that same criminal system has decided that it will punish these actions, even though they are not directly harmful. Thus, a person doing these actions is basically presumed to have criminal intent - in a way, he is presumed to be guilty by definition. Thus, functionally, these kinds of laws are no different that a law giving you the right to punish a person based on the predictions of his actions from a device.

If it's a matter of scale, then why does a connoisseur of safety think saving a single life is more imporant than freedom and why does a connoisseur of freedoms think preserving personal freedoms is more important than people's immediate safety? It's because of the differences of their value systems! You simply cannot say that relinquishing such and such amount of freedoms is worth saving so and so many lives, when the two are simply incomparable. Am I saying that a society will always think freedom is more important than safety? No, I'm actually losing hope that that's the case when I'm discussing people like you. I'm merely arguing that a society that values freedoms doesn't care whether the system that reflects their values produces victims if that's the direct consequence of their values. Well, not that it doesn't care, it just tries to work around the problems their values produce in a different way.

Unless your value system is to max out liberty at any expense (which would lead to total chaos), or to max out security at any expense (which would lead you to put people in induced coma right after they are born, in order to 'protect' them), then it means that you are balancing the two factors: you want to have a certain amount of liberty, but you also want to have a certain amount of safety.

Now, if you feel that the current society offers enough safety as it is, I could understand that you would be opposed to any attempt to restrict your liberty, no matter by how little, and no matter how large the possible gains. A point could be made that an accurate predicting system could actually result in less false convictions that in our current judicial system, but if you feel that the current number of innocent victims is low enough, and that such a predicting system would violate some perceived freedom of yours, then rejecting such a system would still be understandable.

[GoldenLand]

Originally Posted by merakses

What Vallen said is that 'criminal law exists only to punish harmful actions'. However, this is simply not true There are certain actions (like illegal owning and sale of firearms, for example), which, although not directly harmful, lead to a high chance of future damages occurring. Thus, that same criminal system has decided that it will punish these actions, even though they are not directly harmful. Thus, a person doing these actions is basically presumed to have criminal intent - in a way, he is presumed to be guilty by definition. Thus, functionally, these kinds of laws are no different that a law giving you the right to punish a person based on the predictions of his actions from a device.

I would take issue with a statement that criminal law exists or should exist only to punish harmful actions, because there are a lot of other things which can factor into it (rehabilitation, deterrence, incapacitation, etcetera) but neither can I agree with you that a law which leads to the conviction of a person for a "not directly harmful" crime such as distributing illegal weaponry is the same thing as punishing a person based on a prediction of their actions from a device. They are not the same at all, and it's quite odd that you seem to think they are no different. Crimes in general require both an action and a mental state, although there are some with strict liability which only require actions. They do not equate at all to a mere prediction that a person could commit such a crime.

Surely there are better and more relevant ways for you to argue your point, if you want to look at non-Sybil justice systems? For example, you could try to base an argument on preventative detention. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preventive_detention

[merakses]

but neither can I agree with you that a law which leads to the conviction of a person for a "not directly harmful" crime such as distributing illegal weaponry is the same thing as punishing a person based on a prediction of their actions from a device. They are not the same at all, and it's quite odd that you seem to think they are no different

If the device it very, very accurate, what exactly is the difference?

[cyth]

Originally Posted by merakses

What Vallen said is that 'criminal law exists only to punish harmful actions'.

I think you've missed in what context he was talking about.

There are certain actions (like illegal owning and sale of firearms, for example), which, although not directly harmful, lead to a high chance of future damages occurring. Thus, that same criminal system has decided that it will punish these actions, even though they are not directly harmful. Thus, a person doing these actions is basically presumed to have criminal intent - in a way, he is presumed to be guilty by definition. Thus, functionally, these kinds of laws are no different that a law giving you the right to punish a person based on the predictions of his actions from a device.

If judiciary is going to punish someone for illegal possession of firearms, they're going to do so because they actually committed a crime. Maybe a device like that would have some grounds in detecting intent to commit a crime, but not the crime itself, nor could it prove intent. Even under existing judiciary, it's hard to prove intent of harmful acts that haven't occurred.

The one thing Sibyl has done right was to put Dominators in the hands of humans, since its assessment could be wrong due to it not factoring in field conditions, but because so many of them have given the Psycho-Pass number such large significance, they've become virtually useless. Thank goodness for Akane.

Now, if you feel that the current society offers enough safety as it is, I could understand that you would be opposed to any attempt to restrict your liberty, no matter by how little, and no matter how large the possible gains. A point could be made that an accurate predicting system could actually result in less false convictions that in our current judicial system, but if you feel that the current number of innocent victims is low enough, and that such a predicting system would violate some perceived freedom of yours, then rejecting such a system would still be understandable.

I'm glad we finally understand each other. Still, I don't measure the value of freedom in terms of how many victims the system produces. This is why I think your search for the right balance between safety and freedom is futile, because you're predisposing that we can parametrically set the balance to achieve perfection. But that perfection has its own meaning under different value systems. There's simply no way to assign an arbitrary value to life and to freedom without addressing the value system of whoever is writing the laws.

In Sibyl's case, the value system was reflected by Psycho-pass scores of the populace. Pick one of the murderers and Makishima. One number differed from another, even though their thoughts and actions were comparable. Therefore, Sibyl's value system isn't based on any value system agreed upon by the populace, it is a selfish, singular value system. The populace threw reason out the window during a Psycho-hazard, because they had no social values of their own to fall back to. Their only reference of proper conduct was a number. So if a law-abiding citizen doesn't get arrested by drones because he killed a person, how will the rest of them know if that's an OK thing to do? It's not just Sibyl that's fucked up, the entire society of Sibyl Japan is rotten to the bones.

If I take Makishima's words and spice them up a bit for future discussion, does a person have any value if they lack strong moral character, whatever it may be?

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by merakses

Now, if you feel that the current society offers enough safety as it is, I could understand that you would be opposed to any attempt to restrict your liberty, no matter by how little, and no matter how large the possible gains. A point could be made that an accurate predicting system could actually result in less false convictions that in our current judicial system, but if you feel that the current number of innocent victims is low enough, and that such a predicting system would violate some perceived freedom of yours, then rejecting such a system would still be understandable.

Just to be clear, this is basically my position as well.

But to be fair, I'll admit my own real life personal circumstances do bias me a bit. I live in rural Canada, where murders are exceptionally rare, and where the biggest criminal concern is probably petty theft of convenience stores. I personally have also never been the victim of a serious crime.

If I lived in a bad part of New York City, saw lots and lots of serious crime, and been mugged/robbed once myself, then I'll admit that something like Sybil would probably be more tempting to me.


It might be interesting to know what the current crime rate in Tokyo, Japan is. Does Sibyl decrease crime a little bit in a place that was pretty law-abiding to begin with? Or is it taking a big, huge bite out of crime?

[Dengar]

Originally Posted by cyth

Are you aware on just how many levels that sentence is wrong? Stop being such a hipster.

Again, you don't HAVE to say something if you've got nothing to say. Insulting me won't strengthen your argument. Not that I know what your argument actually is.


Re: Yuki was forced to pick paths where she wasn't happy.

Wasn't she? I mean, if she were free to choose whatever and repeatedly chose paths that lead to inevitable failure, would that really make her more happy than she is now? (or was then)

[merakses]

If judiciary is going to punish someone for illegal possession of firearms, they're going to do so because they actually committed a crime.

This is incorrect, as the following link shows. In the USA, possession of a firearm without a permit is punishable by up to five years in prison and/or a fine of up to 25,000$ - regardless of whether you use it to commit a crime or not.

It might be interesting to know what the current crime rate in Tokyo, Japan is. Does Sibyl decrease crime a little bit in a place that was pretty law-abiding to begin with? Or is it taking a big, huge bite out of crime?

The current crime rate in Japan is extremely low. I only bothered to check the intentional homicide rate, and it was 4 times lower that Canada's. I think we can safely assume that other kinds of crime are incredibly rare as well. However, it's interesting to note that their suicide rate is incredibly high.
Of course, we don't know whether the change was directly from the current Japan to the Sybil one. There might have been intermediate stages which made Sybil look like a good option in comparison.

This is why I think your search for the right balance between safety and freedom is futile, because you're predisposing that we can parametrically set the balance to achieve perfection. But that perfection has its own meaning under different value systems. There's simply no way to assign an arbitrary value to life and to freedom without addressing the value system of whoever is writing the laws.

You could find the optimal balance for any single value system. Also, you can try and get different people to think of a value system which is acceptable enough for all of them. If such an acceptable value system exists for all of the people in a society, then you can calibrate the balance to it. If they can't find such a value system, then we probably shouldn't put them in the same society to begin with.

In Sibyl's case, the value system was reflected by Psycho-pass scores of the populace. Pick one of the murderers and Makishima. One number differed from another, even though their thoughts and actions were comparable. Therefore, Sibyl's value system isn't based on any value system agreed upon by the populace, it is a selfish, singular value system. The populace threw reason out the window during a Psycho-hazard, because they had no social values of their own to fall back to. Their only reference of proper conduct was a number. So if a law-abiding citizen doesn't get arrested by drones because he killed a person, how will the rest of them know if that's an OK thing to do? It's not just Sibyl that's fucked up, the entire society of Sibyl Japan is rotten to the bones.

It's simply a matter of Sybil being around for long enough in order to indoctrinate the majority of people in it's own set of values. When something comes around which questions the things they have believed in their whole lives, it's only natural that they would reject it. At best, they would rationalize their belief in the system. At worse, it would be a violent rejection driven by manic zeal. What happened during the riots in episodes 15 and 16 is a good example. When the people were confronted with an obvious flaw in the system (the helmet people), their thoughts weren't "The system doesn't work in this case, so it's not perfect. Maybe there are other cases in which the system doesn't work. Shouldn't we evaluate the system more closely? Should we be using it at all?". Their thoughts something like "Sybil has provided us(me) with a happy, safe life. The helmet people are threatening this happy, safe life. That's why we have to eliminate the helmet people by any means possible."
It's not like the population has lost all notion of what a crime is. The relatively quick manner in which they assembled and started hunting the helmets during the riots arc shows this.
Claiming that the whole society is rotten can only be done in the context of a certain value system/utility function. I can easily imagine how a person from Sybil Japan would claim that our current society is rotten to the core.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by MeoTwister5

You know what's scary? That right now this discussion is equating life and limb as mere statistics. That we can mathematically justify the loss of innocent life if they are statistically insignificant (p<0.05) compared to the population at large.

I feel we do that every time we release a violent criminal because he's allegedly "paid his debt to society". Or one of those morons who think DUI laws shouldn't apply to them.

There's plenty to hate or despise about the Sibyl system. But it's disingenuous to claim ours don't make a number of sacrifices. For principle, or expediency, or just because they can't foot the bill.

[cyth]

Originally Posted by merakses

This is incorrect, as the following link shows. In the USA, possession of a firearm without a permit is punishable by up to five years in prison and/or a fine of up to 25,000$ - regardless of whether you use it to commit a crime or not.

You misunderstood. By "crime" I meant illegal firearms possession.

Their thoughts something like "Sybil has provided us(me) with a happy, safe life. The helmet people are threatening this happy, safe life. That's why we have to eliminate the helmet people by any means possible."
It's not like the population has lost all notion of what a crime is.

I think you're right. I was under the impression that during Psycho-Hazard, everyone was in a state of general disarray, their violence having no purpose. Checked through those cuts again and it doesn't seems like that's the case. I mean, the rioting was widespread, but that's too ambiguous to make any claims. My mistake.

[Dengar]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

I feel we do that every time we release a violent criminal because he's allegedly "paid his debt to society". Or one of those morons who think DUI laws shouldn't apply to them.

There's plenty to hate or despise about the Sibyl system. But it's disingenuous to claim ours don't make a number of sacrifices. For principle, or expediency, or just because they can't foot the bill.

That's kind of in line with the point I was trying to make. It's an either or situation. Either you won't be able to prevent crimes from happening (only punish those who commit them), causing more victims, or you lock up all the suspicious ones, with a chance of occasionally locking up the wrong people. Unless you can somehow pick out all the bad apples without fail (which is actually something they're trying to go for), losses will happen.

[GoldenLand]

Originally Posted by merakses

If the device it very, very accurate, what exactly is the difference?

One is a crime which has already been committed, with the action and mental requirements for that crime satisfied, and the other is a prediction that someone might commit a crime. You seem to be getting confused about this in your discussion with Cyth above, too, and considering an already-committed crime to merely be a prediction of a future crime, when it isn't.

[merakses]

You misunderstood. By "crime" I meant illegal firearms possession.

We're playing definitions here. The main reason it is defined as a crime is because it is likely to lead to future harm, not because of something inherently evil about the possession of a firearm without a license. A person from Sybil's society could easily claim that having a high CC is a crime in itself.

One is a crime which has already been committed, with the action and mental requirements for that crime satisfied, and the other is a prediction that someone might commit a crime. You seem to be getting confused about this in your discussion with Cyth above, too, and considering an already-committed crime to merely be a prediction of a future crime, when it isn't.

Same as above; I could argue that 'failure to keep CC low' is the action.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by merakses

We're playing definitions here. The main reason it is defined as a crime is because it is likely to lead to future harm, not because of something inherently evil about the possession of a firearm without a license. A person from Sybil's society could easily claim that having a high CC is a crime in itself.

Even so. Possession of a firearm is the result of an act of will (unless, I don't know, you inherited it along with other items and didn't know it was there). High CC isn't, especially at five years of age.

[merakses]

Even so. Possession of a firearm is the result of an act of will (unless, I don't know, you inherited it along with other items and didn't know it was there). High CC isn't, especially at five years of age.

Exactly how much a person can influence his own CC is up to debate. Criminally asymptomatic can control it at will. Most normal people can keep it low as well, provided they don't engage (or seriously intend to engage) in criminal activities, and they manage their stress by engaging in a hobby or bonding with friends, for example. Sometimes successful artists get very high CC's, but I think we can draw a parallel between those and successful artists in our world who start doing drugs/fall into depression and the like (except that in our world, we don't force people to go to therapy (as far as I know) ). We don't really know if Kagari really tried hard to get his CC back to normal levels, or only made a few halfhearted attempts before deciding "screw it, I'll never get my CC down anyway, so why even bother trying?"


By the way, someone mentioned a while back that Sybil might be raising the CC of anyone who doesn't agree with it, giving Tomomi as an example. However, the riots arc clearly showed that there was a fair number of people who hated Sybil, but didn't have an abnormally high CC. So I doubt that Tomomi's feelings about the system were the deciding factor in flagging him as a latent criminal.

[Endscape]

Originally Posted by merakses

Sometimes successful artists get very high CC's, but I think we can draw a parallel between those and successful artists in our world who start doing drugs/fall into depression and the like (except that in our world, we don't force people to go to therapy (as far as I know) ).

No, I really don't think you can. That sounds an awful lot like stereotyping.

We don't really know if Kagari really tried hard to get his CC back to normal levels, or only made a few halfhearted attempts before deciding "screw it, I'll never get my CC down anyway, so why even bother trying?"

He was 5. I doubt he resisted very hard against whatever therapy he got.

]Also, someone mentioned a while back that Sybil might be raising the CC of anyone who doesn't agree with it, giving Tomomi as an example. However, the riots arc clearly showed that there was a fair number of people who hated Sybil, but didn't have an abnormally high CC. So I doubt that Tomomi's feelings about the system were the deciding factor in flagging him as a latent criminal.

IIRC, his CC stabilized when he accepted Sybil. Sounds like that was the reason.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by merakses

By the way, someone mentioned a while back that Sybil might be raising the CC of anyone who doesn't agree with it, giving Tomomi as an example. However, the riots arc clearly showed that there was a fair number of people who hated Sybil, but didn't have an abnormally high CC. So I doubt that Tomomi's feelings about the system were the deciding factor in flagging him as a latent criminal.

How did the riots arc clearly show that?

Yes, there were people in the riots arc that hated Sybil... and almost all of them were wearing the helmets.

So presumably, they did have abnormally high CC. The only Sybil-haters in that arc who weren't wearing helmets were Makishima (we know why that is), and Choe.

[merakses]

IIRC, his CC stabilized when he accepted Sybil. Sounds like that was the reason.

Correlation does not imply causation. Why would Tomomi get flagged, while everyone from the students with helmets from the beginning of episode 15 (who obviously didn't accept Sybil) weren't?

He was 5. I doubt he resisted very hard against whatever therapy he got.

Small children can be incredibly insubordinate. Especially when they believe themselves to be in the right.

No, I really don't think you can. That sounds an awful lot like stereotyping.

I'm not saying that every artist is like that, only that the ones with issues from our current world would likely have an abnormally high CC if they were examined by Sybil, and vice versa. The series has shown that being under a lot of stress can cause an increase in CC.

How did the riots arc clearly show that?

Yes, there were people in the riots arc that hated Sybil... and almost all of them were wearing the helmets.

So presumably, they did have abnormally high CC. The only Sybil-haters in that arc who weren't wearing helmets were Makishima (we know why that is), and Choe.

They didn't spontaneously start to hate Sybil after they put the helmet on They probably had been hating it for a pretty long time before that. Yet, they weren't detected as having a CC over 100 at any point prior to the riots, or otherwise they would have been taken into custody and kind of unable to take part in the actual riot.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by merakses

Correlation does not imply causation. Why would Tomomi get flagged, while everyone from the students with helmets from the beginning of episode 15 (who obviously didn't accept Sybil) weren't?

How do you know they weren't, or wouldn't have been?

Keep in mind that earlier episodes showed that some people manage to avoid Sybil scans, and go very long times without one.

They didn't spontaneously start to hate Sybil after they put the helmet on They probably had been hating it for a pretty long time before that.

Given the rationale some of them stated for hating Sybil, it's possible that it was a hatred that had only recently taken hold.

Many hated those young honors students for having a leg-up on them, and they blamed that advantage on Sybil.

Perhaps this "unfairness" was something that only occurred to them once they saw the impact it could have on things like future job prospects and the like.