Psycho-Pass - Episode 15 Discussion / Poll

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by Vicious108

Well, it could be that Urobuchi genuinely believes Japanese society may very well become something akin to a parody of a dystopia in the future, if the various criticisms he's leveled at it through Psycho-Pass remain as they are.

Last I checked Japan had plenty of cops with guns and riot gear. So I don't think Urobuchi is making a criticism about that.


As other people have mentioned. At it's core, the world of Psycho-Pass is an authoritarian state. And one of the LAST things that authoritarian states tend to skimp out on is internal security. Especially when the sybil system being founded likely required a substantial expansion of internal security resources. Where are the Yakuza in the Psycho-pass world? Because even with psycho-pass scanners, the Public Safety Bureau is going to have required FAR more hard police power to eliminate organized crime than what they currently have.

This is significant because the system isn't that old. Guys like Masaoka were already veteran police officers when they implemented the system. So where'd this army of head busting cops go? The cardinal rule of any bureaucratic organization is to ensure it's own existence. It's a rather easy thing to do when you're the "TRIUMPHING HEROES WHO DESTROYED CRIME!". There should be tons of veteran skull busting cops like Masaoka running around. The only explanation for them disappearing is that you declared them all latent criminals....but who locked em up? CERTAINLY not a dozen or two inspectors/enforcers. Did you use head busting robot cops? But then you'd have head busting robot cops to deal with this current crisis.


The reason why the Sybil system has such implausibly weak internal security is simple. Because a lone super genius like Makishima wouldn't actually pose an existential threat otherwise.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

I think people are not really considering this properly. This is a riot, not an organized attack against their country/city. They gave a bunch of civilians helmets which allowed them to transcend the boundaries of the Sibyl system. The key being that these are everyday people starting up the mayhem. Totalitarian societies maintain control through fear, propaganda, and deception. They don't openly wipe out their citizens in the public - otherwise this would turn the public against them.

Random citizens? No. Dumbasses who openly declare they're enemies of the state with the intent to murder and pillage? As, really, helmet wearers are? That's another kettle of fish.

Especially since citizens have accepted that they live in a country where just thinking of being a sociopath can get you stunned on sight.

And we weren't really talking about the riots. We're saying that as soon as the helmets were made known to the public, they should have come down with both feet on the suckers. Someone wears a helmet, or even a papier-maché imitation? Shoot on sight. Someone's caught in proximity with a bunch of them? Stun-and-interrogate, even if they have to use stun batons on someone who hue looks like Akane's. If they'd done that, the riots wouldn't even have started.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

I think people are not really considering this properly. This is a riot, not an organized attack against their country/city. They gave a bunch of civilians helmets which allowed them to transcend the boundaries of the Sibyl system. The key being that these are everyday people starting up the mayhem. Totalitarian societies maintain control through fear, propaganda, and deception. They don't openly wipe out their citizens in the public - otherwise this would turn the public against them.

Allowing helmeted lunatics to run around murdering people has caused people to turn against the government. This society already accepts occasional incidents of the police having to gun down people who HAVEN'T committed crimes because their crime coefficient went up. People aren't exactly gonna complain about gunning down vigilante mobs of murderers. Especially you know, when all the vigilante's are running around with big "SHOOT ME!" signs on their heads.

Originally Posted by Reckoner

Naturally one might think that such a society should have the ability to easily quell riots, but logically why would the city have so much staff on hand of that kind? They have tried to remove human decision on police/law matters completely. The current agents are there only to patch up the few holes/bugs in the system. Otherwise they wouldn't have any agents whatsoever.

Because systems don't just spring up intact out of the ground instantly. For the Sybil system to get entrenched the way it is now with crime being nonexistant, they'd have had to have used allot force to make it nonexistant. You can't exactly have a society that transitioned to having no organized crime unless somebody went and busted heads.

Systems that get founded based on a large part by internal force projection seldom are that eager to give up internal security powers.

[Qilin]

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

As other people have mentioned. At it's core, the world of Psycho-Pass is an authoritarian state. And one of the LAST things that authoritarian states tend to skimp out on is internal security. Especially when the sybil system being founded likely required a substantial expansion of internal security resources. Where are the Yakuza in the Psycho-pass world? Because even with psycho-pass scanners, the Public Safety Bureau is going to have required FAR more hard police power to eliminate organized crime than what they currently have.

To correct you a bit on that, internal security isn't as lax as make it out to be. The Dominators are definitely threatening enough to keep what little crime is left in check. What it is lacking is a decent contingency plan against wildcards like Makishima and the helmets that defy Sybil's judgments. It's a grave oversight for sure, but not exactly an unrealistic one.

[Anh_Minh]

Dominators are just fancy guns at best. Slow firing ones at that.

If their internal security was any good, for every one of those riots, there'd be a squad or more of policemen in riot gear. Akane and Gino wouldn't even have to leave the office. But for some inexplicable reason, all they have is a bunch of cute, fresh faced puppies.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by Qilin

To correct you a bit on that, internal security isn't as lax as make it out to be.

No.


The entirety of a metro area in terms of internal security that have actual weapons is 18 plainclothes police officers. You don't need anything exotic like super genius criminals or fancy schmancy sci-fi helmets that make those 18 guys guns not work.


Ten. Men. With semi automatic Rifles. Remember how well Makishima did against hunter guy? Ten men with rifles could potentially rout what little police contingent you have that's actually armed, and subsequently be free to run amok. They could go into any government building and kill and destroy whatever they wanted.


If ten men armed with simple antique weapons could potentially take over a major metro area, your security is nothing but lax. The fact that "you don't think that would actually happen" doesn't actually make your ability to respond to a threat like that any better.

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Dominators are just fancy guns at best. Slow firing ones at that.

The problem is less that Dominators are slow firing, so much as SLOW to fire. They won't even begin to fire until after they've locked onto a target, scanned it, and established sufficient crime coefficient. Someone with a dominator is basically helpless against an opponent that can manage suppression fire. Outside of sniping or ambush, you just don't have the luxury to wait that long before shooting somebody. They'd pop a few bullets your way, and you'd be forced to duck, interuppting the lock/scan.


For caparison, this would like a gang of men armed with 19th century breach loading rifles taking over a modern day tokyo.

[Vicious108]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

I thought it was so they'd each have someone who could fight without a Dominator.

Hmm, yeah, I suppose that could be it as well, though I wonder if that's not giving Ginoza's judgment too much credit. Not to pick on him, but his decisions thus far haven't been the most impressive and even when Kagari threw in his face that they were basically unarmed against helmet wearers he just told him not to think about it.

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

I don't know exactly what Gen Urobuchi is criticizing about Japanese society. I can take a guess but I feel I am too far removed that perhaps there is something lost in translation.

I'm far from an expert myself, but I think (and have read others sharing that sentiment) there have been many instances of social criticism in P-P which were clearly meant to be analogous to Japanese society (or modern societies in general, but definitely Japan's in particular). Episode 3 (factory episode) could be seen as commentary on the working environment and bullying being fairly prominent in social communities there, the Mido/Spooky Boogie arc in episodes 4 and 5 absolutely tore down the Japanese idol industry and the otaku that fall prey to it and who seek escape through virtual worlds, the Rikako arc in turn briefly criticized the sexism prevalent in Japanese society in its tendency to pigeonhole women into nothing but "good wives and mothers", various instances throughout the show but Senguuji's speech on cyberization in particular seemed to criticize society's overreliance and dependence on technology, and the way Sybil deals with latent criminals in general is somewhat akin to what I hear is a very real tendency to prioritize getting a confession (and a subsequent conviction) out of suspects rather than to ascertain the truth by Japanese law enforcement agents. And of course last week commented on the bystander effect and whatnot, which also seems to be particularly prominent there.

So yeah, just some examples of such instances of social criticism, though I suppose they're not all that relevant for the discussion at hand right now about Sybil's internal security's believability or lack thereof.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

This is basically to say that I think that Makishima is still somewhat open to debate.

Yes, absolutely. And, as ChainLegacy suggested, he may very well stay that way to the end of the series. Not that I would have a problem with that, remarkably complex characters/antagonists often do.

[Roger Rambo]

This is the real problem Makishima has. He's such a pretentious hipster that he's unable to recognize what dystopia Sybil is modeled after.

YouTube

https://youtu.be/dz4HEEiJuGo

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College boy hasn't watched enough action movies!

[Triple_R]

Yes, the society in this world is similar to the one in Demolition Man. That's pretty close to the point that Qilin, myself, and others have been trying to convey over and over again on this thread.


Look - Why is this so hard to grasp? You promote psychological health. You make it society's top priority. You make it so anybody with even moderately bad psychological health gets locked up in prison for an indefinite (and possibly permanent) period of time. Only people who consistently think generally peaceful and pleasant thoughts are going to be free.

Now, who the heck in this sort of society is going to want to be a soldier? Are you going to want to be a guy killing people, knowing full well what that's likely to do to your Psycho-Pass reading over time?

Are you going to want to be the person overlooking some murderous droid army? Do you want people to be thinking that the machines are taking over and killing them all when you send out your killer robots to clamp down on the riots?


It's only natural that a world like Psycho-Pass' would be a bit, well, sissyfied to put it very bluntly and simply. "Badasses" are essentially outlawed in this world, since badasses aren't exactly well-known for their shiny disposition and great psychological health.

Give something like the Sibyl system 30 or more years, and you'll have virtually nobody wanting to be a soldier (so there goes your military), and you'll have precious few that want to be cops (so now you have a skeleton police force). It's only common sense, if you ask me. And yeah, it's like Demolition Man. This is what happens when you try to sterilize society from everything the least bit unpleasant and psychologically disturbing. You create a sissyfied society.

One ripe for the plucking by a Makishima.

[Qilin]

If you ask me, Psycho-Pass is a commentary on humanity's increasing dependence on technology. Senguji the cyborg from one of the earlier episodes expressed it quite perfectly. The more we come to rely on the convenience that technology provide, the less control we actually have over our own lives. And in a sense, it's that growing dependence is actually giving more room for individuals to think less, thereby sabotaging their own humanity.

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

No.


The entirety of a metro area in terms of internal security that have actual weapons is 18 plainclothes police officers. You don't need anything exotic like super genius criminals or fancy schmancy sci-fi helmets that make those 18 guys guns not work.


Ten. Men. With semi automatic Rifles. Remember how well Makishima did against hunter guy? Ten men with rifles could potentially rout what little police contingent you have that's actually armed, and subsequently be free to run amok. They could go into any government building and kill and destroy whatever they wanted.


If ten men armed with simple antique weapons could potentially take over a major metro area, your security is nothing but lax. The fact that "you don't think that would actually happen" doesn't actually make your ability to respond to a threat like that any better.


The problem is less that Dominators are slow firing, so much as SLOW to fire. They won't even begin to fire until after they've locked onto a target, scanned it, and established sufficient crime coefficient. Someone with a dominator is basically helpless against an opponent that can manage suppression fire. Outside of sniping or ambush, you just don't have the luxury to wait that long before shooting somebody. They'd pop a few bullets your way, and you'd be forced to duck, interuppting the lock/scan.


For caparison, this would like a gang of men armed with 19th century breach loading rifles taking over a modern day tokyo.

I see your point. It is indeed lax within the context of this modern day society.

But considering that it's been several decades since Sybil was introduced, crimes of this sort, along with all sorts of antique weaponry, have been reduced into something practically nonexistent. Contrary to what some of you are saying, several decades is already enough to lull the societal consciousness into a state of complacency. After all, the past is but a memory, a story often taken for grated by those who exist in the present.

[Chiaki_chan]

this episode was very intense, and I say bravo to Kougami that (yet) find the right solution


I can not wait to see episode 16 which may be concluded or not, this story helmet

[Triple_R]

Society can change in subtle but profound ways over time.

I'm old enough to remember what it was like to live in a world without the internet. It was a pretty different world in many ways. Doing research, for example, was a lot trickier and more time-consuming. You had to actually go to a nearby library and comb through some tangible books (and that was often just a starting point).

To a great degree, the internet has changed this. Just search for what you're researching on Google. Or bring it up at Wiki. Or ask your Twitter buddies or Facebook friends about it.

Now, let's skip ahead 20 years... How many people in the world of America, 2033 do you think will be capable of old-fashioned research? How many people won't have a clue in this world over what to do if the internet goes down for an extended period of time?


People, large numbers of people (almost entire societies) can effectively lose certain skills over time. Supposed you outlawed all guns tomorrow. Skip ahead 30 years. Do you think you'll have a harder time finding a good hunter 30 years after guns have been outlawed than in the world of today?

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Are you going to want to be the person overlooking some murderous droid army? Do you want people to be thinking that the machines are taking over and killing them all when you send out your killer robots to clamp down on the riots?

Not many people would, BUUUUT you can do more with a person whose willing to be an inspector if you give them control of a platoon of tactical robots than they can with 4-5 state sanctioned latent criminals.

And that's the problem basically. So far the Sybil system has been portrayed as being willing to sacrifice allot in the name of order and stability. So it doesn't exactly seem like they wouldn't be willing to automate the police if it meant maintaining security. It's not like the director has said they don't do this because they're worried about public backlash. They did it because they think that involving humans in the system in some form helps for dealing with stop gaps in the system.

Which is kinda crazy when you consider that the average enforcer(and many inspectors) in the capacity of a triggerman isn't expected to act any differently than a robot would. So there really isn't any advantage to not utilizing enforcement robots in an actual...well enforcement capacity.

Originally Posted by Qilin

I see your point. It is indeed lax within the context of this modern day society.

But considering that it's been several decades since Sybil was introduced, crimes of this sort, along with all sorts of antique weaponry, have been reduced into something practically nonexistent. Contrary to what some of you are saying, several decades is already enough to lull the societal consciousness into a state of complacency. After all, the past is but a memory, a story often taken for grated by those who exist in the present.

No, I'm pretty that a situation where a handful of people could take control over an entire metro area is a LUDICROUSLY lax security situation by any standards.

Here's the thing. Even if you ASSUME that a group of people like Rina's using a machine shop in an unmonitored ward to build home made guns is impossible (which doesn't seem like a good bet to make in the first place), this doesn't even cover the possibility of foreign terrorism. If you allow cargo ships to come in and out of your country, all somebody would need to do is fill one of the containers full of terrorist commandos.

You wouldn't even need to sneak them through customs at the harbor. Customs consists of unarmred robots, backed up by maybe a dozen actually armed police officers per major city. The terrorist commandos can then proceed to attack and destroy ANYTHING they please.



You don't need ANYTHING remotely exotic as Makishima and his weird helmets to throw this system into crisis. All you'd need is some dissidents deciding to manufacture much simpler tools (guns), or some people overseas deciding they don't LIKE Japan for some reason and organizing a group of terrorists to shoot up the joint. States are very much subject to the laws of nature, and right now the one in Psycho-Pass is looking so feeble that it should be just about ready to keel over by itself.

[kk2extreme]

This is the best detective anime I have ever seen

[Reckoner]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Random citizens? No. Dumbasses who openly declare they're enemies of the state with the intent to murder and pillage? As, really, helmet wearers are? That's another kettle of fish.

Especially since citizens have accepted that they live in a country where just thinking of being a sociopath can get you stunned on sight.

And we weren't really talking about the riots. We're saying that as soon as the helmets were made known to the public, they should have come down with both feet on the suckers. Someone wears a helmet, or even a papier-maché imitation? Shoot on sight. Someone's caught in proximity with a bunch of them? Stun-and-interrogate, even if they have to use stun batons on someone who hue looks like Akane's. If they'd done that, the riots wouldn't even have started.

It's a matter of time. They only had approximately 7 hours or so before the helmets became widespread. . I don't expect a society which has basically relinquished possession of old weaponry to be able to adequately respond to that quickly. Something like reprogramming all the drones would definitely not be an easy thing either I would presume.

Furthermore, even if this society is "totalitarian," it has an appearance to keep up. It can't just start shooting everybody on the streets with a helmet, they would have to give out warnings to everybody in the city first and then take action after that has been done. This is kinda hard considering people started fighting back against the helmet users to protect themselves and started rioting themselves.

Also, we have to remember that Sibyl has taken away each individual's ability to make the decision to punish others. They need confirmation from Sibyl to proceed with any action. A lot of these common citizens going crazy cannot actively just be killed, they need Sibyl's judgement for that, which currently they do not have of course.

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

Allowing helmeted lunatics to run around murdering people has caused people to turn against the government. This society already accepts occasional incidents of the police having to gun down people who HAVEN'T committed crimes because their crime coefficient went up. People aren't exactly gonna complain about gunning down vigilante mobs of murderers. Especially you know, when all the vigilante's are running around with big "SHOOT ME!" signs on their heads.

It has? It definitely is going to raise questions about the state of their society, but I think this assertion has no validity at this point. We don't know how people will react to everything Makishima is doing. Lets get there first, then talk about it.

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

Because systems don't just spring up intact out of the ground instantly. For the Sybil system to get entrenched the way it is now with crime being nonexistant, they'd have had to have used allot force to make it nonexistant. You can't exactly have a society that transitioned to having no organized crime unless somebody went and busted heads.

Systems that get founded based on a large part by internal force projection seldom are that eager to give up internal security powers.

What do you think all the drones do? You have a high psycho pass rating, you're done in this society. Only Makishima who is an outlier was able to contrive the scenario we have now because he could avoid detection of possible crime and proceed to build those helmets. I'm sure the country has an army of some sort and does have the force you are talking about, but this is a riot by civilians without any real weaponry - not a military force. They prboably wouldn't be the first responders to a riot.

[BoyTitan]

I said it in a longer post ill say it a again as recent episdoes show can we really call Maki bad. Really what other options did he have to over throw sybil aside from throwing everything into chaos there was nothing more he could do. If kogami and Akanes friend not been killed would we be calling Maki evil I think not. As I said if Maki does not turn out to be a survival of the fittest type he is good if he does he is bad him being good or bad all comes down to what he wants when he gets rid of sybil and what his definition of freedom is.

@GoldenLand well of course he would give criminals the helmets how else would you throw a system into chaos do people not die or get hurt in riots does that make them bad or evil.

The problem with sybil is the system has been broke. It would be like if in brave new world all the drugs stopped working the world would go into chaos. A dystopian society can rule threw fear,brainwashing and lies or pleasure,brainwashing and lies sybil rules threw the latter which is why if what keeps the people quit and happy and repressed goes haywire everything goes up in flames and theres no military force. If sybil ruled threw fear everyone who rioted would be publicly executed and deemed traitors while the citizens watch and cheer and maki most likely would get offed by a spy that was in his group from the start.

Again can I please stop seeing people say sybil rules threw fear its not that type of society 2 different types ot dystopian societies here people the fear in sybil takes a large back seat to the lies of peace it offers. Maki himself and I have posted several times it does not rule threw fear and violence like 1984.The consequences for having a high psycho pass can be thought more of a systematic removal to completely separate it from the system. But unlike brave new world where one gets sent to a island to live out ones life and do what they want with ti they get sent to a small white prison cell.Both are still removal.

[Entravity]

Great atmosphere and dialogue this time. Really liking the references they make. Looks like we'll find out the "truth" soon enough.

[monir]

Originally Posted by BoyTitan

I said it in a longer post ill say it a again as recent episdoes show can we really call Maki bad. Really what other options did he have to over throw sybil aside from throwing everything into chaos there was nothing more he could do. If kogami and Akanes friend not been killed would we be calling Maki evil I think not. As I said if Maki does not turn out to be a survival of the fittest type he is good if he does he is bad him being good or bad all comes down to what he wants when he gets rid of sybil and what his definition of freedom is..

Even if Makishima didn't kill a single person himself, the fact would remain that he provided the means for others to carry out their own deranged agenda which involved taking human lives. If we are merely speaking in terms of black and white, or good and bad, then yes Makishima is just as rotten as the Sibyl System that he wants to overthrow. Both don't mind taking lives to create or achieve their own version of change. If you don't like the system, there is no way you should be able to like how Makishima is moving toward at achieving his own agenda, whatever that may be.

[GoldenLand]

Originally Posted by BoyTitan

@GoldenLand well of course he would give criminals the helmets how else would you throw a system into chaos do people not die or get hurt in riots does that make them bad or evil.

What I was saying before was that even before he started these riots, Makishima had done many things which made him a terrible, bad person, even though you were choosing to pretend those things didn't matter. But what he is doing now is also definitely bad, and it would certainly make him a bad person even if it had been all he was doing.

It doesn't matter that he isn't personally going out and murdering people in the riots. He's acted with the intent and expectation of his actions causing a lot of totally innocent people to be murdered, and he's responsible for that. He's even aware that his helmet-wearing pawns, in turn, will all be killed.

It also doesn't matter that the Sybil system is a bad system. Fighting against a bad system doesn't give a person carte blanche to commit atrocities. As I was saying earlier, that type of black-and-white way of thinking is very dangerous.

[NoemiChan]

The latest Episode is not too gruesome but very disturbing.... So the citizen decided to act for themselves.... That is good. At least their survival instinct is now active.

But then again... too much is too much....

The awesome thing with the latest villains are that they are too smart and too handsome....