Psycho-Pass - Episode 17 Discussion / Poll

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by zeando

I may be the devil's advocate here, but i saw that being said or implied only from people replying to Qilin.

what those brains believe to be should have no importance, than instead the results they operate
it's being a trend here judging the results from their maker's personal reasoning, instead of judjing the results alone
if the results are bad, they're bad regardless if the ones behind it are ebil crazy brains or loving teddy bears with the best intentions, same if the results are good, even if having something "good" from something "bad" would be counterintuitive

are you sure you're not mixing up being a psychopath with being selfish and selfcentered?

The difference here is that there is zero accountability. Plenty of governments make bad decisions. But Sybil can pretend they never did anything wrong. And anyone they don't like can just "disappear". It can't be fixed because the very nature of Sybil is a secret. You can't fix what you can't see.

If Sybil is public about what it is, then there is oversight. But it is not, so there is no one to judge the results.

[GoldenLand]

Originally Posted by zeando

are you sure you're not mixing up being a psychopath with being selfish and selfcentered?

Yes. Are you claiming that psychopaths are caring, sharing individuals who think about others?

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

What you are describing is a normal tyrannical country.

Technically I'd say it's an exceptional tyrannical country. Since the selection criteria seems to be aimed directly at recruiting not only sociopaths, but sociopath murderers.

The biggest reason that this challenges the legitimacy of society, is because every bad thing about the Siybl system can no longer be dismissed as an oversight or something just falling through the cracks. We now have to start actively considering the possibility of malevolence in the way the Sybll system operates.


Remember the drone factory where all the workers and management were collaborating to have one worker get beaten as part of group stress relief? People could accept that when the impartial computer system told them it was the mentally healthy thing to do. But how impartial is that assessment when you realized it was come to by a group of sociopathic murderers? I certainly don't think many people would think that would be an impartial conclusion, and I don't think they have much reason to think so.




I think some people might be missing out on the fact that the episode is presenting this revelation (and Touma, the Sibyl Representative) as being as monstrous as possible.

[garbage]

well i was about to reply but GoldenLand & others pretty much sums most of it.

just 2 other details I would like to emphasize:

Originally Posted by Qilin

Well, the difference here is that these individual minds are no longer bound by physical desires...

that was never said or even implied in the show. they are not keep it an isolated box/vacuum sealed from society, they do have time outside , vacations if you may when they assume the "director". in fact that is why I brought up the hunter,.The hunter stated that their Cybernetics were good enough to replace every part of the body except the brain, therefore they do have ways to feel, see, touch , taste, appreciate art,or whatever physical things humans do ( hmm not sure about sex but well if they stimulate that part of the brain why not ). They do experience the outside world during their turn. So where's does the "no longer bound by physical desires come in?
2)

Originally Posted by Qilin

governance truly involves existing above and beyond the system to begin with.

this I wholeheartedly disagree, the worst Leaders you can think of are those that picture themselves as "beyond the system" or "above the Law". Cause how would they even know what would be good for Society & the people, and don't even experience it.That would not be governing, that would be playing god. society is not the buildings & the roads, and even the land where they are. It's the people. Governing, being a Leader is FAR FAR more than the "logic" of it, good leaders do not exist apart from their followers. Even by experience personal or otherwise (just look around). no one would get a class president in school who is not even part of the class, no one would get a coach who does not even know how to play the game& have played it.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by zeando

what those brains believe to be should have no importance, than instead the results they operate

Perhaps that's how you feel, but the way humans organize rules for their societies would suggest most people would disagree with you.

Gonna use the factory episode as an example again. Everyone was willing to accept those murders so long as they thought they were mere industrial accidents. Peoples attitudes towards them changed when they believed there was a possibility of foul play. Human beings obviously cared ALLOT if there was belief behind the actions of the robots in that episode. Much the same could be said about people discovering Sibyl had this kind of collective operating it.

[Triple_R]

I feel a bit sorry for you, Qilin, because I've been on the other side of "1-on-4" style debates. It's not easy, so you have my sympathy.

Nonetheless, the reason why you're getting dogpiled a bit is that people, including myself, very strongly disagree with you on your assessment of Sibyl, and some of your philosophical viewpoints which informs it.

One thing in particular I'd encourage you to deeply consider - There are things that might sound good, smart, logical in theory, but in actual application, the reality is much worse and darker. I think that this is something that Gen Urobuchi is keenly aware of. Urobuchi has a real talent for creating characters with core ideas or goals that may sound impressive in theory, but once those theories are actually applied, what you get is something very disturbing and horrible (the ideals of Fate/Zero's Kiritsugu is a great example of this).

Originally Posted by Qilin

An interesting touch here is that Urobuchi completely robs these "aristocrats" metaphorically of their physical desires by taking away their very bodies.

Which arguably makes matters worse, in my opinion. Without physical means of pleasure, the only way they could gain pleasure is by getting to watch something that's interesting to them.

It's not hard for me to imagine the following...

Brain A: Man, it's been so boring the past few weeks. No major crimes. Everything so peaceful...

Brain B: Yeah, we need to do something to make things a bit more entertaining here!

Brain C: But guys, won't that risk tainting our perfect society? We're getting a perfect score here!

Brain A: Perfection is awesome to behold once you reach it, but it quickly gets dull.

Brain B: Besides, a little bit of chaos won't change how people view our system. In fact, it'll remind them of how valuable our Dominator-equipped police force is.

Brain C: True. We need to showcase that a bit. Ok, let's see if we can find some poor single adult male schmuck that practically nobody will care about getting locked away or killed...

Brain A: It's going to be fun to see how he reacts to suddenly having a bad Psycho-Pass score!

Brain B: It should be very entertaining!

I cannot see them messing with the system if it stands to endanger anything that the system already stands for, so I don't agree.

Oh, I'm sure that they'll aim for the system to seem very good and efficient. There's probably only so far they'll go for that reason. But I do think there's a very good chance they'll pick out some poor guys to victimize every now and then, for their amusement.

Think of it this way - This is like 247 sociopaths playing Civilization crossed with The Sims. Yes, they want to "win the game" and "get a high score". But getting some shits and giggles along the way probably appeals to them. Ah, how fun it is to put that one Sim into the new hot-tub, with no way of getting out! Look at him drown in there!

And I do know people who had some laughs doing this sort of thing with Sims in The Sims game. The thing with sociopaths/psychopaths is that they may get similar enjoyment out of doing such things with real people...

To label Makishima as a "serial killer" doesn't do him much justice.

He's directly responsible for at least two deaths (Akane's friend, and Touma's brain). He's indirectly responsible for countless deaths. I don't see a problem with him being labelled a "serial killer". He's perhaps somewhat borderline, but he's close enough.

And I do think that Makishima gets off on killing people. I don't think it's just a means to an ends to him. Not now.

Here's a question for you: Have you ever seen Makishima settle for just KOing someone? Have you ever seen him settle for just breaking off from someone he was disappointed with?

No, he kills. Constantly. Consistently. When someone who once interested him ceases to anymore, Makishima sees to it that this individual gets killed. When someone dares oppose him, Makishima will kill that individual if the possibility for him to do so is there. He never settles for just KOing someone.

In this episode, he could have just rendered the Director incapable of moving, and then high-tailed it. But no, he had to kill Touma, and mock his "friend" while he did so. Touma himself was a serial killer, of course, so I'm not shedding tears here. Still, when this is what Makishima does to his "friends", I think it's clear that the man gets off on killing people.

And that's not somebody I want as part of an aristocracy running society. And yet Sibyl did want him for that role. That says a lot about Sibyl.

Originally Posted by Qilin

If she truly is asymptomatic, then that proves my points even more. I'm not trying to equate psychopaths with being asymptotic. Also, empathy can be both a good thing or a bad thing depending on the situation.

There are very few situations where empathy is a bad thing. Negotiating with terrorists, running into conmen... empathy can be counterproductive here. But in most situations, it's much better to have empathy than it is to not have it. And I definitely think its beneficial for leaders to have empathy, because then they'll care about the well-being of the populace.

Honestly, I think that Sibyl gives you the worst of both worlds. The lack of empathy of a machine, but also the lack of objectivity of a human. A machine would at least be objective. A non-sociopath/psychopath human would at least have empathy.

Sibyl is basically designed for maximum ruthlessness. It's "tough on crime" on steroids. It makes me think of the brainchild of a badly paranoid person badly overreacting to a criminal getting a light sentence or the crime rate rising a bit.

I'm just against this distasteful notion of: psychopath = "boo! bad!".

I don't think its distasteful to view psychopathy in a negative light. Certainly, it's better for a person to not be a psychopath than to be one. Better for the rest of us, at the very least.

Originally Posted by Qilin

I figured that psychopathy was the notion of being completely amoral, incapable of empathy, which tends to lead to "no giving a fuck about others" as you mentioned. You are right that such a mind cannot hold the people's best interests at heart.

Here, you are exactly right. And that's exactly the problem. I'm honestly a bit disturbed that you don't seem to see that.

The following is just simple common sense: It's best for leaders to truly care about those that they are entrusted with leading.

And that is a core reason why Sibyl is such a horrible system.

[GDiddy]

When you think about it though....the whole concept of the SS being run by psychopaths and other villians is pretty brilliant really.....


Kind of like the ultimate Screw You to the world in which you can legally get away with whatever the hell you want...

[zeando]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

The difference here is that there is zero accountability. Plenty of governments make bad decisions. But Sybil can pretend they never did anything wrong. And anyone they don't like can just "disappear". It can't be fixed because the very nature of Sybil is a secret. You can't fix what you can't see.

If Sybil is public about what it is, then there is oversight. But it is not, so there is no one to judge the results.

you're then judjing the brains and not the sibyl system, i was looking more at how the sibyl worked

i'll rephrase it, when you get a bad government do you make accontable the people forming the government or the political system being used in the nation?

guess i'll have to repeat this some times before having something resembling an answer, we do have a thread for discussing the sibyl system, and this discussion doesn't seem much about the last episode, do we move there or here is better?

[Dengar]

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

Yes. Are you claiming that psychopaths are caring, sharing individuals who think about others?

Sometimes, yes.


Psychopath all being ruthless people who take advantage of other people without feeling anything, is a bit of a misconception.

While these things are possible, it's at the same time possible for them to have normal values. They can still get amusement out of helping people, and they can think that being an ass to people isn't all that interesting.

Just because they have severely numbed emotional responses doesn't automatically make them complete assholes.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Dengar

Sometimes, yes.


Psychopath all being ruthless people who take advantage of other people without feeling anything, is a bit of a misconception.

While these things are possible, it's at the same time possible for them to have normal values. They can still get amusement out of helping people, and they can think that being an ass to people isn't all that interesting.

Just because they have severely numbed emotional responses doesn't automatically make them complete assholes.

Ah, but the beauty of this anime is that the moral/lawabiding psychopaths don't get selected for Sybil. They would seem perfectly normal and thus be missed entirely for selection.

The criteria here isn't just psychopathy; it is criminal psychopathy.

Are all psychopaths dangerous? No. Are all of Sybil qualified psychopaths dangerous? YES.

[Reckoner]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Oh, I'm sure that they'll aim for the system to seem very good and efficient. There's probably only so far they'll go for that reason. But I do think there's a very good chance they'll pick out some poor guys to victimize every now and then, for their amusement.

Think of it this way - This is like 247 sociopaths playing Civilization crossed with The Sims. Yes, they want to "win the game" and "get a high score". But getting some shits and giggles along the way probably appeals to them. Ah, how fun it is to put that one Sim into the new hot-tub, with no way of getting out! Look at him drown in there!

And I do know people who had some laughs doing this sort of thing with Sims in The Sims game. The thing with sociopaths/psychopaths is that they may get similar enjoyment out of doing such things with real people...

The problem is that your argument is based on the idea that all the brains are psychotic, which was never stated in the episode.

Really I think if Gen made such a choice in this setting, it just hurts his work conceptually. It would just mean that the Sibyl System is just overly evil and then this just becomes classic good vs evil. To me that is just very uninteresting, and questionable writing.

So until such a thing is explicitly stated, there's no reason why I should believe it to be the case. At least I would like to think that Gen is trying to paint in shades of grey and not just black and white.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Here, you are exactly right. And that's exactly the problem. I'm honestly a bit disturbed that you don't seem to see that.

The following is just simple common sense: It's best for leaders to truly care about those that they are entrusted with leading.

And that is a core reason why Sibyl is such a horrible system.

I think if you look from a standpoint of justice, the Sibyl System has actually been close to perfect as possible. Society is largely safe, even if we seen crimes throughout the show, people do feel safe. This is justified by how people don't even lock their doors anymore and are generally not doubtful or mistrusting of others.

Of course the interesting thing here is that you place a lot of importance upon empathy. The society in the show only accepted the system because they thought it was purely machines that did everything, so it was cold and objective. It was devoid of the human ego, and that's what people wanted to have. Yet in fact, we do have humans running it. And again, until we have it stated directly that all the individuals that comprise the system are insane, then I see no reason to believe this.

They are all people who simply can be more objective than others and have a holistic view of society. That is a necessary quality for a leader. One cannot lead if they are not willing to make unpopular decisions for the sake of the entire group. However, this can lead to an overly collectivist mindset which does not value the individual human spirit. The key issue Gen has been attacking throughout the show seems to be that Sibyl destroys our notion of free will. Makishima is certainly not a good person, but what he loves most of all about life is this.

In that sense, Sibyl would probably be best used as simply an advisory tool with people like Akane who will make decisions off that information.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

I think if you look from a standpoint of justice, the Sibyl System has actually been close to perfect as possible. Society is largely safe, even if we seen crimes throughout the show, people do feel safe. This is justified by how people don't even lock their doors anymore and are generally not doubtful or mistrusting of others.

There is a big difference between being safe, and feeling safe.

The fact is the entire country is in effect a police state. So it's not that doors don't need locking anymore; it's that it makes no difference whether the door is there or not.

People feel safe not because they are safe, but because they have been lied to. They are not doubtful and is overly trusting because it makes them easier to deceive. If they have doubts in the system, they are killed. That's a selective pressure if there ever was one. Doubt and die, or trust and live.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

The problem is that your argument is based on the idea that all the brains are psychotic, which was never stated in the episode.

I think Roger Rambo's arguments here are strong, and do a good job of explaining why it's very likely that all (or at least most) of these brains are sociopaths or psychopaths.

Really I think if Gen made such a choice in this setting, it just hurts his work conceptually. It would just mean that the Sibyl System is just overly evil and then this just becomes classic good vs evil. To me that is just very uninteresting, and questionable writing.

Here's the key thing with a Gen-wrote work. You have to remember he's writing from within the Japanese context, where order and social harmony tends to take precedence over individualism and free expression.

I think Gen aims for Orwell-esque social commentary with his works, but it can be hard for us non-Japanese viewers to see it because many of us live in countries that arguably could use more collectivism, not less. Psycho-Pass may seem totally mind-blowing and subversive to the average Japanese person. But for many of us, it's preaching to the choir.


Gen likes taking things that probably look great to his target demographic (i.e. the Japanese people), and then he slowly pulls back the curtain on his creation and says "Not so great after all, is it? Maybe we should think twice about what we as a culture/society put the highest value in."


The Puella Magi system looked awesome on the face of it. You get one wish - Any wish you want! And you get superpowers and a cool outfit! And you get to be a hero! What is there not to like?

Kiritsugu wanted to bring permanent peace to the world. This has been the dream of countless people. But you and I know how that turned out...

And here we have a system that weeds out malcontents and purports to brings about perfect social harmony (and in fairness, it does achieve something approaching that at least). Many of us in the west could see the red flags almost instantly, but for the average Japanese person, this might seem wonderful.


With Sibyl, I think Gen is probably saying you can go too far in aiming for perfect order and social harmony.

[Reckoner]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I think Roger Rambo's arguments here are strong, and do a good job of explaining why it's very likely that all (or at least most) of these brains are sociopaths or psychopaths.

It's mere speculation at best. People who don't fit "mankind's conventional standards" can mean many things. Personally I took it to mean that Sibyl wants all the unique personalities it can get, because the more different people there are in the system, the greater expansion of thought the collective conscience Sibyl will have. Makishima is obviously interesting to them because Sibyl is unable to understand him. If he is added to the system, then Sibyl will gain more understanding of humanity.

That's why I compared Sibyl to a sort of "philosopher king." This collective conscience will possess more wisdom than any single human being.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Here's the key thing with a Gen-wrote work. You have to remember he's writing from within the Japanese context, where order and social harmony tends to take precedence over individualism and free expression.

I think Gen aims for Orwell-esque social commentary with his works, but it can be hard for us non-Japanese viewers to see it because many of us live in countries that arguably could use more collectivism, not less. Psycho-Pass may seem totally mind-blowing and subversive to the average Japanese person. But for many of us, it's preaching to the choir.


Gen likes taking things that probably look great to his target demographic (i.e. the Japanese people), and then he slowly pulls back the curtain on his creation and says "Not so great after all, is it? Maybe we should think twice about what we as a culture/society put the highest value in."


The Puella Magi system looked awesome on the face of it. You get one wish - Any wish you want! And you get superpowers and a cool outfit! And you get to be a hero! What is there not to like?

Kiritsugu wanted to bring permanent peace to the world. This has been the dream of countless people. But you and I know how that turned out...

And here we have a system that weeds out malcontents and purports to brings about perfect social harmony (and in fairness, it does achieve something approaching that at least). Many of us in the west could see the red flags almost instantly, but for the average Japanese person, this might seem wonderful.


With Sibyl, I think Gen is probably saying you can go too far in aiming for perfect order and social harmony.

I should say that Gen didn't craft the Fate/Zero universe, and that is all Nasu so it is not the best thing for comparison (The ending of the show actually has little to do with what you're thinking, but hopefully they adapt HF to show you one day why what happened actually did happen).

That aside, you are definitely not wrong about it being a commentary on Japanese society. I keep saying Makishima is a champion of free will, but not necessarily justice. He is an agent of chaos, that does not value the group, but the expression of an individual's will. That's what I think makes this show meaningful.

However, if Sibyl ends up being this system that is ridiculously evil then the message gets weakened. Sibyl has to be a logical system for the themes to hold any weight. Sibyl does have a collectivist mindset, that's why they remove latent criminals from society. But at the same time, they have the wisdom to know full well what these people are capable of. Sibyl is a form of absolute justice. Yet, absolute justice might not be so great if we start to regress as sentient beings.

I just think if we interpret Sibyl as some sort of system that is just filled of psychopaths, then the story sort of collapses on itself. It would be unbelievable that a system full of purely psychopathic people could actually function in a logical manner and have society in the show actually accept it.

[Dengar]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

Ah, but the beauty of this anime is that the moral/lawabiding psychopaths don't get selected for Sybil. They would seem perfectly normal and thus be missed entirely for selection.

The criteria here isn't just psychopathy; it is criminal psychopathy.

Are all psychopaths dangerous? No. Are all of Sybil qualified psychopaths dangerous? YES.

Oh all of that is fine. I never said anything about those dickwads that run the Sibyl system. I just replied to the people who say psychopaths == bad, which simply isn't true.

Originally Posted by Reckoner

I just think if we interpret Sibyl as some sort of system that is just filled of psychopaths, then the story sort of collapses on itself. It would be unbelievable that a system full of purely psychotic people could actually function in a logical manner and have society in the show actually accept it.

You are making a very important mistake here.

Psychosis and Psychopathy are two COMPLETELY different things.


I'm not kidding.

They're not the same when "looking at it broadly" either.

Seriously. They're nothing alike.

[Reckoner]

Originally Posted by Dengar

You are making a very important mistake here.

Psychosis and Psychopathy are two COMPLETELY different things.

Err, I am misusing the word "psychotic" then, excuse me there. But I was operating under the definition of "psychopathy." Edited last post with "psychopathic" for clarity.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

It's mere speculation at best. People who don't fit "mankind's conventional standards" can mean many things. Personally I took it to mean that Sibyl wants all the unique personalities it can get, because the more different people there are in the system, the greater expansion of thought the collective conscience Sibyl will have. Makishima is obviously interesting to them because Sibyl is unable to understand him. If he is added to the system, then Sibyl will gain more understanding of humanity.

For someone whose complaining about other people speculating, you're doing quite a bit of it yourself. Touma outlined ONE specific kind of of outlier individual who the Sibyl system desires, Asymptomatic latent criminals, and we only have evidence of one possible selection process for how they find such individuals.

You're the one postulating that the Sibyl collective recruits other types of individuals significantly different than Makishima, despite there being no direct evidence for that hypothesis. It hardly seems in line with what Touma outlines as the #1 requirement even before mentioning Asyptomatic criminals.

The first qualification to be a constituent member of the Sibyl System is to have an irregular personality that doesn't fit in with mankind's conventional standards. Without aimlessly empathizing with others, without being lost to emotion, you should be able to oversee human actions from an outsider's viewpoint.

The last bit sounds ALLOT like a sociopath. And if you had traits like that and DIDN'T happen to be a criminally asymptomatic individual...well have fun getting gibbed by an enforcer, or drugged out of your gills in a medical prison.

The only person who can get away with having these kinda traits under the Sibyl system is a criminally asymptomatic individual...and the only way to diagnose THAT is for a criminally asymptomatic individual to be caught committing violent crime with a crime coefficient under 100.

[Reckoner]

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

For someone whose complaining about other people speculating, you're doing quite a bit of it yourself. Touma outlined ONE specific kind of of outlier individual who the Sibyl system desires, Asymptomatic latent criminals, and we only have evidence of one possible selection process for how they find such individuals.

You're the one postulating that the Sibyl collective recruits other types of individuals significantly different than Makishima, despite there being no direct evidence for that hypothesis. It hardly seems in line with what Touma outlines as the #1 requirement even before mentioning Asyptomatic criminals.

I am speculating, but upon the given information we have. You keep asserting something as fact that isn't confirmed so far for your speculation. That's what I was disagreeing with. Yeah, given your assumption that the system is comprised entirely of psychopathic people, then you are not so wrong. I am just disagreeing with this assumption. I prefer to speculate otherwise, because then I think the story just falls apart under your assumption. Granted you may be right in the end, and it's indeed possible, but that will just lower the value of this series for me.

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

The last bit sounds ALLOT like a sociopath. And if you had traits like that and DIDN'T happen to be a criminally asymptomatic individual...well have fun getting gibbed by an enforcer, or drugged out of your gills in a medical prison.

The only person who can get away with having these kinda traits under the Sibyl system is a criminally asymptomatic individual...and the only way to diagnose THAT is for a criminally asymptomatic individual to be caught committing violent crime with a crime coefficient under 100.

Yeah, a sociopath wouldn't aimlessly empathize with others, nor would they be lost to emotion. However, sociopaths are just this idea taken to an extreme. Notice it says "aimlessly empathize" and not be "lost to emotion." It doesn't exclude empathy, it just means that the individuals in the system have to be able to be objective.

I'm not saying you are 100% wrong, but you keep asserting something here that the show hasn't quite said itself. Personally I hope you are not right because the show will falter.

[Dengar]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

Err, I am misusing the word "psychotic" then, excuse me there. But I was operating under the definition of "psychopathy." Edited last post with "psychopathic" for clarity.

Your other mistake is the assumption that a psychopath can't follow logic when logic is in fact the only thing they follow.

[cyth]

Originally Posted by Dengar

Your other mistake is the assumption that a psychopath can't follow logic when logic is in fact the only thing they follow.

Where do you people find such flabbergasting "facts"?