[cyth]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

You don't have an "evolutionary dynamic" away from a dictatorship.

First, let me quote Makishima: "It's not as controlling as the society George Orwell depicted, and it's not as wild as Gibson depicted." This indicates people have enough wiggle room that the situation isn't completely hopeless, and it's also the reason why Akane didn't just outright give up. Second, Sibyl wants to better its understanding of human dynamics. Its motivation is for people to eventually accept its ugly form. This means all that Sibyl really wants is for people to love it for all that it is. This opens up further possibilities to its opponents, such as bringing Sibyl into a state in which it can be reasoned with. Akane demonstrated she is capable of doing that. Then there's also the conversation between Kasei and Saiga. I doubt the creators included that shot at the very end without expecting us to make new assumptions.

You either remove them from power, or you don't.

Last I checked, you can't straight up do that with regular politicians either, at least not in the middle of their term. Have you ever heard of sewing dissent among the ruling clan? This is what practitioners of direct democracy are effectively doing in the real world. Except in this case we have a highly intelligent organism that won't fall on cheap tricks or appeal to emotion. Yet it can still be reasoned with, to an extent.

You're forgetting another thing you said earlier about unfairness in Sibyl's career assignment. Let me quote you:

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.

This is another vector of attack that can be used to change the system from within it. Growing political pressure. If you can reason with Sibyl that a revolution is inevitable, you can force its hand to change policy before bloodshed occurs. What Akane does really well is relate to people on a level Sibyl cannot. Yes, she'll essentially be prolonging Sibyl's stay in power, but at the same time keeping people's growing desire for change from blowing overboard.

I understand you'll stick to your dictatorship argument, but please understand there's enough evidence that lets some of us believe Sibyl can be reasoned with and changed from within.

No they didn't. They took down those criminals to protect themselves.

Of course, their survival was their top priority, but do you honestly think there was no other motivator for them to fight? People knew instinctively that they shouldn't just hide or run as far away from the riots as possible, their way of life was under threat. If helmet guys overtook the city, Sibyl had no countermeasures in place. People informed each other that the drones are useless and that the Bureau was ineffective. This is why they made weapons and attacked the helmet guys in groups. It's that realization that Sibyl, which represents their way of life, was under threat.

Good luck doing that while Sybil is calling the shots. As for experts in hiding, they'll go right back into hiding when a couple of them get labeled as latent criminals and sent to white padded cells.

This was an argument made assuming your revolution succeeds and the society finds itself in shortage of human resources.

This is a problem even if Sybil stays in control. If Makshima had just two other men backing him up in attacking the Hyper-Oats factory, that's likely enough to bring the whole thing crashing down.

So you do see the need for human resources! Good, I think we're getting somewhere!

You act like Sybil themselves are the teachers, the engineers, the building constructors, and the factory workers of Sibyl Japan. No, they're not. Sibyl just screens them and has Japan in its totalitarian grip.

Okay, fair point. My initial argument was against thinking we can just leave it up to complete automatization without ever needing to worry about it breaking down. If there are people capable of maintaining that infrastructure, then all is well.

And if Sybil says "No"? Then what?

Another misunderstanding. This was my proposition for the revolutionary's agenda.