Psycho-Pass - Episode 20 Discussion / Poll

[Endscape]

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?

Tomomi got flagged because he's a police officer and so they must test him regularly. Those helmet guys on the other hand can find ways to aboid the drones and scanners.

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

He was 5. Would he even be cognizent of why he was there in the first place?

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.

The artists with high CC that we've seen are hardly the type to get involved in that kind of hard rock lifestyle, and we've seen no indication of it.

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.

... Or they just avoided the drones and scanners. It's not impossible. Remember Rikako? She avoided it by being locked up in her school and avoiding going out on the road. Or Professor Saiga, who lives alone where he won't get scanned. Or the Spookie Boogie guy, IIRC, he was a hikikomori, right?

[merakses]

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.

If they were flagged, they would have been taken in by the CID
Trying to avoid the scanners only makes sense if you expect your CC is above the norm. I doubt these guys thought 'Oh, I've thought bad things about Sybil, now my CC is very likely to be above 100 and I must avoid scanners at all costs'.

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.

Well, my point was that there existed a large enough time window between the point where they started hating Sybil, and the point where they got a helmet, for them to be scanned at least once.

[Endscape]

Originally Posted by merakses

If they were flagged, they would have been taken in by the CID

The point is that they avoid getting flagged.

Trying to avoid the scanners only makes sense if you expect your CC is above the norm. I doubt these guys thought 'Oh, I've thought bad things about Sybil, now my CC is very likely to be above 100 and I must avoid scanners at all costs'.

Why wouldn't they? Remember Professor Saiga's students, the ones whose CC increased becaused they were good at philosophy class? Stories like that spread, and it's only logical to assume the same thing would happen if they don't kowtow to Sibyl in their minds.

Well, my point was that there existed a large enough time window between the point where they started hating Sybil, and the point where they got a helmet, for them to be scanned at least once.

Again, they can avoid being scanned.

[merakses]

Why wouldn't they? Remember Professor Saiga's students, the ones whose CC increased becaused they were good at philosophy class? Stories like that spread, and it's only logical to assume the same thing would happen if they don't kowtow to Sibyl in their minds.

Saiga's courses were specifically set up for MWPSB's inspectors. Akane hadn't even heard of him before Kogami took her to his house. A high-school student (and one whose aptitude isn't rated high by Sybil, at that) getting a hold of such information is extremely implausible.
Also, assuming that since learning criminal psychology is likely to increase your CC, then not accepting Sybil is likely to increase your CC, seems like a pretty big leap of logic to me.

Again, they can avoid being scanned.

They were too many. Even Rina's resistance group from episode 12, which probably numbered about 10-20 people, had to resort to breaking scanners in order to remain undetected - and that, in turn, drew the attention of CID. The number of helmet people during the riots was much larger than that, so it's very unlikely for them all to have avoided being scanned.

[Endscape]

Originally Posted by merakses

Saiga's courses were specifically set up for MWPSB's inspectors.

Really? Don't recall that, I'll have to re-watch.

A high-school student (and one whose aptitude isn't rated high by Sybil, at that) getting a hold of such information is extremely implausible.

You've heard of the Internet, right? All it takes is someone posting that tidbit online, or telling someone about it and them posting it online and it's gone.

Also, assuming that since learning criminal psychology is likely to increase your CC, then not accepting Sybil is likely to increase your CC, seems like a pretty big leap of logic to me.

Really? Seems simple to me. If Sybil is willing to censor people's thoughts because of philosophy or criminal psychology or whatever, it follows that it would censor negative thoughts toward itself.

They were too many. Even Rina's resistance group from episode 12, which probably numbered about 10-20 people, had to resort to breaking scanners in order to remain undetected - and that, in turn, drew the attention of CID. The number of helmet people during the riots was much larger than that, so it's very unlikely for them all to have avoided being scanned.

The difference is Rika's resistance group was moving together. The helmet guys were probably acting apart before and using Makashima as a contact point. With Makishima's help, they can travel around relatively freely

[merakses]

Really? Don't recall that, I'll have to re-watch.
You've heard of the Internet, right? All it takes is someone posting that tidbit online, or telling someone about it and them posting it online and it's gone.

Kogami says this while they're returning from Saiga's residence. Seeing how the MWPSB never had that many members, it's natural to assume that only a few managed to finish the course with an intact CC. I seriously doubt any of them would leak the info, even if they weren't explicitly warned not to do it (and they probably were)

Really? Seems simple to me. If Sybil is willing to censor people's thoughts because of philosophy or criminal psychology or whatever, it follows that it would censor negative thoughts toward itself.

Not all of Saiga's students got flagged as latents - which would have been the case if Sybil was actually censoring thought. It's simply that the mental state of some of his students got too close to that of an actual criminal (because of the course), and Sybil marked them based on that similarity. I think Sybil itself stated that it can't actually read thoughts.

The difference is Rika's resistance group was moving together. The helmet guys were probably acting apart before and using Makashima as a contact point. With Makishima's help, they can travel around relatively freely

Why would Makishima bother to contact any of the helmet people beforehand? All he needed to do is get the helmets, distribute them over different points in the city, and then use the internet to mark the locations and upload a short explanation of what the helmet does. The video Choe took in episode 14 would serve as proof of his words. The rest would be (and was) done by people's hatred of Sybil. At most, he used a core team (like the guys who stormed Nona tower), equipped them with helmets first, and then got them to distribute the rest of the helmets over the city. There was absolutely no need for anyone else to know what was going on beforehand.

[cyth]

Originally Posted by merakses

I seriously doubt any of them would leak the info, even if they weren't explicitly warned not to do it (and they probably were)

Saiga himself was a poster on an internet BBS similar to 2ch where Sibyl was under constant scrutiny. He said college professors, journalists, critics, schollars were its users, anyone who was critical of the system. Look, information spreads once it's posted. Courses, internet, gossip.


I went back to episode 19 and translated some of the topic names from that BBS:

"The real present international situation"
"I want to learn the process of CC adoption"
"Comprehensive lifetime health and welfare system"
"Quasi-Japanese emergency employment summary thread"
"Movement for founding a new Japan, coming from Dejima"
"Is today's Japan really peaceful?"
"Judgment from Sibyl System is lawful"
"Let's think about Sybil's problematic issues"

[merakses]

Saiga himself was a poster on an internet BBS similar to 2ch where Sibyl was under constant scrutiny. He said college professors, journalists, critics, schollars were its users, anyone who was critical of the system. Look, information spreads once it's posted. Courses, internet, gossip.

True, I had overlooked that. However, episode 19 does say that it's an old-type message board, and as you said yourself, it's users seem to be mainly intelligentia which were deemed useless by Sybil. Overall, it seems to be a pretty self-contained society. Also, the BBS is hosted overseas, so we can probably assume that you can't randomly stumble onto it via Sybil's equivalent of Google. It most likely can't be found by chance at all - otherwise, the admins would be taking a large gamble (since information about the BBS could eventually reach the MWPSB), which doesn't really fit with what we know about them (they bothered to get an overseas server - which probably required quite a bit of time and effort - in order to decrease the possibility of being found)

In any case, even if I partially concede this point, I still feel that the other points I outlined give enough evidence to support my theory.

I went back to episode 15 and translated some of the topic names from that BBS

That BBS was introduced in episode 19. You either made a typo here, or there isn't really any evidence that these topics are actually from that BBS. Also, the following topics:

"Comprehensive lifetime health and welfare system"
"Quasi-Japanese emergency employment summary thread"
"Judgment from Sibyl System is lawful"

seem kind of strange for a BBS whose population is comprised almost entirely of Sybil critics.


By the way, let's transfer the discussion to the new thread for episode 21. That way, we'll be able to use things from that episode for arguments as well.