Psycho-Pass - Anime General Discussion

[Quadratic]

Damn it, I've only now realised I've been spelling it Sybil, but it's spelt Sibyl (or SIBYL to be extra cool). Pack it up guys, all arguments for Sibyl are now invalid .
(And long post is loooooooong).

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Well, it's not like they're all geniuses. A lot of work has to be done, and there are only so many A-rankers.

You're right. But what I expect from a Sibyl-like system is the standards being gradually increased by culling the (potential) criminals, so that would free up resources to be allocated elsewhere.
I know it's a cold attitude, but again, that's not what I want to live in, but this is how I see hard choices would be made.

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

And I wonder why the manager got his job? Did Sybil overestimate him, or did it just decide the job wasn't that critical and could be given to that asshole?

Probably because it doesn't have a personality checking parameter, and the manager is still "managing" it to the point where operations are still...satisfactory.
It doesn't seem like Sibyl knows things like the factory environment (in terms of actual personalities within), or the history surrounding it.
If it turns out Sibyl is somehow self-aware, able to account for asshole/non-asshole personality traits, or able to determine potential scapegoats, then a lot of my arguments will probably become invalid, I fear .

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I disagree. I do think it brings in some new issues. We don't have supercomputers giving these sorts of wide-ranging, massively life-impacting recommendations to businesses, law enforcement agencies, etc... in real life.

Ok, I'll give you that point, but that's seems to be a matter of trusting a single machine, as opposed to a bunch of "sub-systems" (ie. real human beings) who each have their own set of individual bias...like a game of Chinese whispers.
Still, a single machine making life-impacting recommendations versus a bit of biased individuals making life-impacting recommendations, obviously the latter increases your chances of survival in the real world, but that's exploiting loop-holes in the human network system.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

It also seems to me that the Sibyl system has seriously undermined the very concept of medical confidentiality. Again, I see no reason why psychiatric health should be viewed as any less private a matter than one's physiological health. And yet such privacy doesn't seem to exist in the world of Psycho-Pass.

Excluding latent criminals, they are given the opportunities to get mental help (as detected by the street drones, or whatever they're called, and/or hue assessments).
Instead of hiding away unstability, the system is promotes maintaining healthy mental state for everyone.
The only arguments here are the latent criminals issue, that people should be given the right to remain unstable (and/or get worst) or the possibility of mind controlling agents.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Joe Schmoe picking up a weapon and killing somebody with ease with it.

Bows and arrows actually take skill and training to be effective lethal weapons.
Now, I'm not saying that the world's most elite gun-users aren't highly skilled and trained marksmen. They are, and they deserve credit for that.
But guns don't have that same "high bar" for lethal use that the classic bow and arrow does.
Virtually anybody can pick up a gun and kill somebody with it on their very first attempt at using it. Such a thing is far less likely with a bow and arrow.
The benefit of this, for the bow and arrow, is that in the midst of getting that necessary archery training, people learn the importance of safe and proper use of the bow and arrow. But you can purchase and effectively use a gun without ever getting training like this. That makes guns an uniquely problematic weapon from a societal perspective, imo.
Now, I'm not saying that guns should be outright outlawed, but I do think that America probably would benefit from more effective gun regulations.

As for close-range weapons (like knifes and swords) they at least require people to be gutsy enough to get within arm's reach of their intended target.

Someone invents a portable flesh cutting laser...anyway, that wasn't the point of the argument .
The point was that weapons were designed to be weapons, so it's purpose as a 'good' thing is twisting it's original intent.

Sibyl...well, at this point in time, I believe was created to help aid people, not created as a weapon.
The closet analogy I can come up with is the internet itself. The original intent twisted by the people making issues like cyber-bullying, digital piracy ("You wouldn't download a car!"...er, what?), etc.
Has the internet been censored, yet? Well, it is only now starting to.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

No there isn't. There's clearly more weight for following the recommendations. If Akane does everything "by the book" (i.e. by Sibyl) nobody is going to question that. She is going to at least get questioned if she goes against a Sibyl recommendation though.

Again, doing things the Sibyl way is the path of least resistance, so the Sibyl way carries an inherent edge over other alternatives. It does undermine the likelihood of humans practicing good personal judgement.

She extended the situation for another 3-4 minutes and risked the life of another Enforcer. Plently of things can happen in those 3-4 minutes.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure employing latent criminals undermines the practicing good personal judgement.
But again, that's not Sibyl recommending 'please fight fire with fire', that's people going 'hey, let's risk the lives of "dogs" instead'.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Somewhat. But at the end of the day, hiring decisions are placed in the hands of people, who (at least as far as I know) operate without supercomputers telling them "Hire this guy" or "Hire this girl".

Also, I think you underestimate the role that old factors like nepotism and "who you know" plays. Also, specific grades aren't always as important as simply having the pertinent degree(s).

We would probably agree that society has gone too far in using the Post-Secondary education system as a massive glorified screening process for employers. There's some jobs that nowadays require degrees that, frankly, you shouldn't need degrees in order to get hired for those jobs.

Nonetheless, a lot of jobs really do require the sort of learning that is probably best gained from an University or College setting, so I don't think that the system is entirely unfair or broken. It just needs to be tweaked, and injected with what I'm tempted to call common sense.

I also think that school grades are a reasonably good measurement of intelligence plus work ethic, of inherent skill plus effort. I think it does a decent job of balancing these values, and giving most people at least some chance (effort is all about choice; average intelligence plus impeccable effort will usually lead to a decent life).

Masaoka: "You know how to use a Dominator, right?"
Akane: "I-I did receive training on it, more or less..."
Supercomputer did not allocate the job to Akane on the spot. She chose her profession and got training prior to her first official shift.
I'm speculating the training was done with people, so they could still reject her if she wasn't meeting their expectations (and if I'm wrong, you'll get a cookie).

But of course, Sibyl's judgement hasn't been proven wrong just yet:
Friend A: "The best I could do was C-rank scores across the board."
Friend B: "What's the problem? You're good at blue-collar work."

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I don't have a problem with that. Desperate times often call for desperate measures. I accept that.

Should the world of Psycho-Pass have some eye-opening historical background that gave rise to it (i.e. a truly desperate situation that lead to it), then that will change my perspective of it to be sure. But I haven't seen any such evidence of that yet.

Right, that was my hypothetical situation in our world.
As for Psycho-Pass's world, they probably did it because they saw an opportunity to make the world a better place. Technically, we don't know if the world really is worst or not.
We're watching it from the police's side so we're purposely shoved into the dark side of society, but:
Ep 2: Was meant to be a quiet night.
Ep 3: "Back in the days when we didn't have cymatic scans, these sorts of incidents weren't that uncommon".
So, it sounds like crime has decreased.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

And you know what? This hits home personally for me. A couple weeks ago I was driving to work in a nasty rainstorm. Partly due to that (and construction workers not being active in the bad weather) I missed the fact that I was driving through a Construction Zone. I ended up breaking the speed limit for a construction area, but still going below what the speed limit would normally be. I received a ticket for that, but the police officer lowered it after I explained my case to him. Would that had happened if a Sibyl system had told him "Give that driver the standard penalty for driving over the speed limit in a construction zone"? Personally, I doubt it.

This is part of the reason why I want police officers to act on their own personal judgement, taking each case in full context, and not just going along with what some uncaring machine tells them to do.

I'm glad you didn't get fined, but unfortunately, my city has deployed cameras so you automatically get fined for speeding and/or accidently drive in bus-only streets (well, only in some parts of the city).
An argument could be made that the bigger picture is that the officer could have been allocated to solving a more serious crime elsewhere.

Originally Posted by MarkS00N

What is judgement?
Base on your post, I assume what you mean judgement is same with what I call as recommendation...
For me, Judgement is the finishing act, that the gun shot the victims without anyone trigger it...
As long as the gun needs human to trigger it, then I still think it as only recommendation...

I'm pretty sure it was purposely meant to have that double meaning.
The ones who completely have complete faith in the system takes its follows its exact words as it speaks.
But again, that's the individual's, or the entire social culture, idea to take it as "the word of god" and follow it immediately.

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

I don't think there's a manual override. Go back to the opening scene of Ep1, when Shinya was channelling Spike Spiegel in a one-man assault on an office tower. Spike, er, I mean Shinya, was confronted by what seemed to be a bioroid, and when he attempted shoot it with his Dominator, he cursed under his breath because the gun wouldn't work. He had to fight the bioroid hand-to-hand, possibly with the aim of raising the danger rating high enough for him to unlock the Dominator's lethal mode. It took quite a heavy beating before Shinya could fire the weapon.

I watched it again, and it seems the guy's helmet was blocking the Dominator from scanning its brain. When the guy fell out of the window, the helmet when sparking (ie. broken) so the Dominator scanned him and the shot could be made.

As for the manual override, what was the answer to why the hacker didn't get "enforced" lethally despite a higher reading than ep 1's guy? It was higher, right?
Maybe there is a manual override, and Shinya's listening to Akane's words in ep 1/2 (justice over duty)?
Or was it because the hacker actually had no killing intent himself (ie. he needed the robots to kill on his behalf), so Sibyl saw no lethal threat from him?

[Kanon]

Originally Posted by Quadratic

As for the manual override, what was the answer to why the hacker didn't get "enforced" lethally despite a higher reading than ep 1's guy? It was higher, right?
Maybe there is a manual override, and Shinya's listening to Akane's words in ep 1/2 (justice over duty)?
Or was it because the hacker actually had no killing intent himself (ie. he needed the robots to kill on his behalf), so Sibyl saw no lethal threat from him?

The guy in the first episode was probably a special case. The paralyzer didn't work on him so the gun had no choice but to switch to lethal.

[MarkS00N]

Originally Posted by Quadratic

I'm pretty sure it was purposely meant to have that double meaning.
The ones who completely have complete faith in the system takes its follows its exact words as it speaks.
But again, that's the individual's, or the entire social culture, idea to take it as "the word of god" and follow it immediately.

True, but in the end it isn't the Sibyl that force people to use it, it is people trust on it...
Thus it merely a tool...
I just disagree with the statement that it is all Sibyl fault...

As for the manual override, what was the answer to why the hacker didn't get "enforced" lethally despite a higher reading than ep 1's guy? It was higher, right?
Maybe there is a manual override, and Shinya's listening to Akane's words in ep 1/2 (justice over duty)?
Or was it because the hacker actually had no killing intent himself (ie. he needed the robots to kill on his behalf), so Sibyl saw no lethal threat from him?

It seems the dominator will use paralyzer first no matter how high the CC is and the man is special because the paralyzer doesn't work so dominator value the man's threat as far too high and change to lethal mode (as Kanon said)...

Talk about threat...
I've watched episode 1 again and find that CC is different than threat measurement...
Which can explain or clouded our understanding about dominator mode change...

[garbage]

Originally Posted by totoum

In france you'll automatically be fined if an automatic radar says you're speeding,radar takes a picture,special software recognizes the number plate (then humans check to make sure it's right) and a fine is automatically sent by mail to the person that owns the car with that number plate.You can contest but it's very much a "guilty until proven innocent" system.

well i don't see any point of contention sir, we are talking about the speed radar, you yourself said "radar takes a picture "(which i take you meant it did the speed reading ) ,"special software" recognizes the number plate ( take note this is no longer the speed meter but the computer), "a fine is automatically sent by mail" (which i would presume would be computers handling the email sending, again this is no longer the speed radar/meter), all this as you yourself stated are checked by humans, which would be the checks and balances i'm talking about. now if your talking about your whole system there then yes it's closer to the SIBYL system. but not yet there.

Originally Posted by MarkS00N

True, but in the end it isn't the Sibyl that force people to use it, it is people trust on it...
Thus it merely a tool...
I just disagree with the statement that it is all Sibyl fault...

well i don't know why you keep going back to that statement. I don't think anyone here ever stated, implied nor insisted that IT IS ALL SIBYL's fault. But you have to agree there is something flawed about the system especially in its implementation.

But i disagree that it isn't SIBYL that force people to use it.It's first implementation...maybe, but systems like this are self perpetuating. SIBYL is already the Law and CULTURE of their society how could normal everyday person not use it? It's very presence is forced on the individual from when they are very young. maybe even from babyhood ( although age 5 is the only definite age we've gotten so far). This is not just any gauge, speedometer, hammer or any regular tool for that matter. It's very presence forces predisposes people to trust it, why not it's what they grew up to. and well it does some good too. i suppose.

well further info is needed for more in depth analysis of SIBYL,we just don't know enough about it at this point. ( and wow we were using a wrong spelling all this time? ahehe)

[klare]

must talk about the gun, did not expect it to be so destructive towards machines

Kougami seems to have his own plan, most likely related to the opening scenes in eps 1, he obviously does not like sibyl

so far so good for this show

[Kaoru Chujo]

People are complicated. No psychiatrist, and especially no machine, can be perfectly sure of giving a correct diagnosis. Speeding in a car is much more clear-cut. And in any case, everyone has what could be classified as "criminal tendencies," to one extent or another.

It's when we think we are totally clean that we present the most danger, since we can go ahead and do what we like to others in the full confidence that what we are doing is right. That's how that supervisor felt. That's how the Nazis felt when they classified parts of society as undesirable. As Jung said, unless we each recognize that we have a "shadow" of negative impulses, that shadow will have the power to unconsciously take us over.

And, of course, one of the things a truly responsible and efficient government would do is ban anime and lock up anime fans as potential criminals.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by Kaoru Chujo

And, of course, one of the things a truly responsible and efficient government would do is ban anime and lock up anime fans as potential criminals.

By that logic you'd probably want to lock up sports fans to.

[Forsaken_Infinity]

Actually, I am fairly sure the guy in ep1 was ~300 while this hacker dude was 230. Haven't actually checked and can't atm though.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Kaoru Chujo

People are complicated. No psychiatrist, and especially no machine, can be perfectly sure of giving a correct diagnosis. Speeding in a car is much more clear-cut. And in any case, everyone has what could be classified as "criminal tendencies," to one extent or another.

It's when we think we are totally clean that we present the most danger, since we can go ahead and do what we like to others in the full confidence that what we are doing is right. That's how that supervisor felt. That's how the Nazis felt when they classified parts of society as undesirable. As Jung said, unless we each recognize that we have a "shadow" of negative impulses, that shadow will have the power to unconsciously take us over.

And, of course, one of the things a truly responsible and efficient government would do is ban anime and lock up anime fans as potential criminals.

How do you know watching anime doesn't decrease the CC? Especially for the quasi shut-in. Who do they bother?

Originally Posted by Quadratic

Damn it, I've only now realised I've been spelling it Sybil, but it's spelt Sibyl (or SIBYL to be extra cool). Pack it up guys, all arguments for Sibyl are now invalid .
(And long post is loooooooong).


You're right. But what I expect from a Sibyl-like system is the standards being gradually increased by culling the (potential) criminals, so that would free up resources to be allocated elsewhere.
I know it's a cold attitude, but again, that's not what I want to live in, but this is how I see hard choices would be made.

It's a complicated question. They're technically cheap labor, but you have to watch them and their motivation is questionable.

But really, they don't look that concerned with resources, or they'd straight up kill most potential criminals instead of trying to rehabilitate them. What's expensive about the death penalty is the trials. A full on dystopia doesn't have to worry about that. One good look with a Dominator and pull the trigger. Preferably somewhere that's easy to wash.

Probably because it doesn't have a personality checking parameter, and the manager is still "managing" it to the point where operations are still...satisfactory.
It doesn't seem like Sibyl knows things like the factory environment (in terms of actual personalities within), or the history surrounding it.
If it turns out Sibyl is somehow self-aware, able to account for asshole/non-asshole personality traits, or able to determine potential scapegoats, then a lot of my arguments will probably become invalid, I fear .

That's a posteriori justification. I'm asking why, like it recommended Akane (and presumably Ginoza) for policework, it recommended that guy for such an... independent posting. As I said, a regular Sibyl check (which ought to be mandatory) would show a general increase of the CC. So did Sibyl make a mistake, or did they just consider such losses... an "optimal" of resources.

[Dengar]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Your downplaying of Sibyl is starting to get a little bit ridiculous now.

Fact: Sibyl strictly limits people's career options (Akane's two female friends made this clear in Episode 2)

Nope, it's actually employers who refuse to fire people with anything short of an A rank. Just like in real life.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Fact: Sibyl recommends workplaces to individuals (the Factory boss of Episode 3 made this clear)

Just like career tests in real life do.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Schools and universities generally don't give you insta-jobs wherever you want (Akane), or force people to strictly limit their employment options (Akane's friends). If you simply manage to get an University degree in the right field (poor, poor Arts students... ), you have a shot. You don't need to be an "A" or anything like that. It helps, but it's usually not a deal-maker or a deal-breaker, at least based on what I've seen, read, and heard about.

Wow, where do I find this dream world you live in where you can get any job you want no matter how much you suck at it. I want to go there so bad.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Sure, but I'd rather leave those recommendations to human beings who (hopefully) have empathy, and likely a better ability to account for unique contexts.

People don't have empathy. All they care about is results.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I received a ticket for that, but the police officer lowered it after I explained my case to him. Would that had happened if a Sibyl system had told him "Give that driver the standard penalty for driving over the speed limit in a construction zone"? Personally, I doubt it.

Yeah because Akane totally went according to Sibyl's so-called "wishes" when she saved that rape victim.

[Quadratic]

Originally Posted by Kanon

The guy in the first episode was probably a special case. The paralyzer didn't work on him so the gun had no choice but to switch to lethal.

Originally Posted by MarkS00N

It seems the dominator will use paralyzer first no matter how high the CC is and the man is special because the paralyzer doesn't work so dominator value the man's threat as far too high and change to lethal mode (as Kanon said)...

Talk about threat...
I've watched episode 1 again and find that CC is different than threat measurement...
Which can explain or clouded our understanding about dominator mode change...

Ok, I watched it again (and again), and saw there was no reading showing after the first paralysis shot failed and the second judgement given out, nor was there a reading showing on the victim when it changed to lethal mode on her, so no inconsistencies in the CC numbers, as far as I can tell, since both didn't show their new numbers and had their CC elevated in their respective situations (well, that was Akane's explanation for the victim, so I'm assuming the same applied to the rapist).

As for having the gun in paralyzer mode first, that doesn't seem to be the case, since the opening scene of ep 1 showed Shinya killing the helmet wearing guy (which I'm think is some anti-brain scanning helmet) on the first shot.

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

How do you know watching anime doesn't decrease the CC? Especially for the quasi shut-in. Who do they bother?

I'm pretty sure CC has increased for a lot of people within this thread, myself in particular .

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

That's a posteriori justification. I'm asking why, like it recommended Akane (and presumably Ginoza) for policework, it recommended that guy for such an... independent posting. As I said, a regular Sibyl check (which ought to be mandatory) would show a general increase of the CC. So did Sibyl make a mistake, or did they just consider such losses... an "optimal" of resources.

Hmm, maybe I should actually watch ep 2 again (as in from start to finish, instead of randomly picking time intervals, lol).
I'm aware Sibyl assigns some job aptitude ranking to everyone, but one of the friend mentions Akane was "an honor student who scored 700 points on the last exam.". Is this an old school style exam, or the actual value that Sibyl assigned? I'm under the impression it's the former for some reason, and is different to the Sibyl aptitude rank.
Akane also says her "job aptitude exceeded the Bureau's employment standards", so is it the factory's standards set too low that let him slip through the cracks?

[Chiaki_chan]

I just watched episode 3, and so after a crime the person can return to a state mental "stable"? In any case, his method was dangerous but success for the culprit unmasked

[Dengar]

I also like to point out that Akane getting so many A ranks was not due to a lucky break by SIBYL, but due to her actually being that good.

I'd ALSO like to point out that she still just went for the job that didn't have any A rank competitors, so in her own eyes, she didn't really have that much of a choice.

Also, but this is just an assumption, I believe she still had to go to the academy before actually getting the job itself.

[MarkS00N]

Originally Posted by Quadratic

Ok, I watched it again (and again), and saw there was no reading showing after the first paralysis shot failed and the second judgement given out, nor was there a reading showing on the victim when it changed to lethal mode on her, so no inconsistencies in the CC numbers, as far as I can tell, since both didn't show their new numbers and had their CC elevated in their respective situations (well, that was Akane's explanation for the victim, so I'm assuming the same applied to the rapist).

As for having the gun in paralyzer mode first, that doesn't seem to be the case, since the opening scene of ep 1 showed Shinya killing the helmet wearing guy (which I'm think is some anti-brain scanning helmet) on the first shot.

I don't know about your sub, but mine has this line: "Target's Threat Judgement has been updated." before dominator change to Lethal Eliminator mode.
This line can be interpreted as CC and Target's Threat are 2 different measurement with lethal mode active only after the Target's Threat pass certain limit.

The guy in the beginning of episode 1 probably has high Target's Threat thus activating the Lethal Eliminator mode from start...
Still not sure, but at least this what I got from 3 episode...

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by MarkS00N

Speedometer doesn't talk, but it has red bar that give you sign that you are in dangerous speed...
It doesn't give you lower penalty, it simply tell you are 'wrong' because you pass the 'limit'...
Because it doesn't talk or change mode, doesn't mean it less merciless than dominator...
As I said, the one who decide your penalty isn't the speedometer or the dominator...

Actually, that's not entirely true. The Dominator automatically switches back and forth between "Paralyze mode" and "Extremely gorey death" mode.

Pretty big difference in penalty there, and the Dominator decides it automatically.

Yes, whether or not the gun is shot is decided by the person holding the gun (should the gun even allow itself to be shot, anyway), but like TRL wrote, I don't see much evidence of a manual override for the gun's current setting. If the gun sets itself for lethal shot, there seems to be no option between "Shooting to kill" and "Don't shoot at all".

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

Funny that you mentioned job interviews. Veteran Financial Times columinst Lucy Kellaway had some choice words about their supposed effectiveness.

I think that some human resources teams have become overly creative with job interviews in recent years. They do this as one way to try to "stand out" and even justify the value of human resources itself.

Job interviews definitely have their limitations, but I'm inclined to think it's better to have them than to hire people based purely on resume, or purely on some grade/recommendation assigned by a supercomputer.


At least with a job interview, both the employer and the (prospective) employee get to meet each other before anything is finalized. A job interview isn't just for the benefit of employers, it's also for the benefit of the person looking for work. The job interview may well reveal something about your potential employer that didn't show up in the job posting or job ad, and that revelation might be a deal-breaker for you.

Heck, just look at this factory in Episode 3. "Must live on-site" combined with "No internet use on-site" would likely be a complete and utter deal-breaker for a lot of prospective employees. I wonder how many people ended up employed at this factory without ever knowing the real downside of what they were getting into...

Originally Posted by Quadratic

Excluding latent criminals, they are given the opportunities to get mental help (as detected by the street drones, or whatever they're called, and/or hue assessments).
Instead of hiding away unstability, the system is promotes maintaining healthy mental state for everyone.

But the problem with these opportunities for mental health is that there's nothing discreet about them.

Recall how the criminal from the 1st episode felt that his reputation had been ruined simply from getting a bad reading. So whatever "therapy" entails in this world, it doesn't seem to be something you can enter into discreetly in this world (unlike seeing a mental health professional in the real world, which often can be done discreetly).

If the criminal in the first episode felt he could undergo this therapy without it destroying his reputation, maybe he would have done so. But alas, this option does not appear to be there.

Someone invents a portable flesh cutting laser...anyway, that wasn't the point of the argument .
The point was that weapons were designed to be weapons, so it's purpose as a 'good' thing is twisting it's original intent.

Weapons can be a good thing, if used properly. I mean, we now have slaughtering processes in place for farm animals, but prior to them, we'd all be vegetarians if not for weapons (and I don't think most people would want that). Not all weapons are just about combat between humans, as some are designed primarily for hunting (the classic bow and arrow was used a lot for hunting, of course).

Not all weapons are equally problematic, that's all I'm saying.

Sibyl...well, at this point in time, I believe was created to help aid people, not created as a weapon.

I think it was designed to make a better society, but my sense is that it was designed with a very "top-down" mentality behind it.

What I mean by that is that I can definitely see how "the 1%" would love Sibyl: It minimizes the chances of getting problematic employees, it is likely good for productivity, it keeps the masses under very tight control.

It was probably "sold" to the masses as a better way to fight crime, and also as a means to make people "happier" by finding psychological problems and correcting them.

But what it's actually done to Joe and Jane Average is take an awful lot of choice and self-empowerment away from them, leaving them with very little flexibility within the system itself. That's the impression I'm getting so far, anyway.

The closet analogy I can come up with is the internet itself. The original intent twisted by the people making issues like cyber-bullying, digital piracy ("You wouldn't download a car!"...er, what?), etc.
Has the internet been censored, yet? Well, it is only now starting to.

The internet is actually the opposite problem as Sibyl. The internet is a wild frontier that governments haven't found the ideal way to regulate yet. It's wild frontier nature is much of what makes the internet so much fun, but it's also what empowers cyber-bullying. Finding a way to keep the baby while throwing out the bath-water is the elusive trick that governments are still struggling with.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure employing latent criminals undermines the practicing good personal judgement.

Well, sure, but it's not like latent criminals are the only people that could do this job.

But again, that's not Sibyl recommending 'please fight fire with fire', that's people going 'hey, let's risk the lives of "dogs" instead'.

Any particular quote or scene leading you to believe this?

But of course, Sibyl's judgement hasn't been proven wrong just yet

Sometimes the process is just as important as the final judgement. The process itself can become self-fulfilling prophecies. Again, the criminal of Episode 1 was clearly driven into a corner by the System. If a discreet and reputation-preserving "therapy" been offered to him, would he have been driven into that corner? I think it's a question worth asking.

Right, that was my hypothetical situation in our world.
As for Psycho-Pass's world, they probably did it because they saw an opportunity to make the world a better place. Technically, we don't know if the world really is worst or not.

Here I go back to what I wrote in reply to TRL a few pages back - The author is choosing what to show us, and that has to be for a reason. If the author keeps showing us "the dark side of society", and never shows us much concrete reason to think "Hey, this fictional world isn't so bad after all", then that kind of suggests something, doesn't it?

We could be seeing Al Capones be brought to justice. Instead, we're seeing rape and bully victims be brought to justice...

Maybe Episode 4 will change that. But if we keep getting more of the same, that's rather suggestive of where the author is going with this story, imo...

I'm glad you didn't get fined, but unfortunately, my city has deployed cameras so you automatically get fined for speeding and/or accidently drive in bus-only streets (well, only in some parts of the city).
An argument could be made that the bigger picture is that the officer could have been allocated to solving a more serious crime elsewhere.

I should state here that I live in a very rural area. There may well not have been "a more serious crime" elsewhere. But, because I'm in a rural area, we also don't have the same degree of cameras at play.

I will also admit that the fact that I live in a very rural area does impact my thinking. For example, Dengar arguing that humans don't have empathy is just utterly absurd to me, just based on what I see within my community on a regular basis (ex. if a member of the community has a serious disease, there is inevitably a fundraiser for that individual). Perhaps in a more urban area people don't care about one another as much, but that's definitely not the case in small towns, at least in my experience.

Originally Posted by Dengar

Nope, it's actually employers who refuse to fire people with anything short of an A rank. Just like in real life.

How do you know that employers get any say in the matter? Was anybody allowed to say "no" to Akane when she applied for the position she currently has?

In any event, nothing that you wrote contradicts what I was saying about Sibyl being more important than what you're making it out to be.

[Wild Goose]

Regards the vic in Ep 1, note that initially she was supposed to be taken down with the non-lethal Paralyzer mode. Note that in real life, SWAT and police officers would restrain the hostage once the perp is taken down - this is the same principle here, merely on a more violent scale.

Secondly, she's upgraded to lethal status when she's sitting in that pool of what I assume is either petrol or kerosene, holding a lit lighter. She was quite willing to drop that lighter and blow everyone to kingdom come, and would have done that had Akane not talked her down.

Third, as the close of ep 3 indicates, she's undergoing counseling and is on the way to making a full recovery. So while I have serious concerns with the Sibyl system (seriously, nobody capable of making judgement calls or handling stress because it's all outsourced to some cyberpunk computer-AI-system? I can see where Masaoka is coming from there), it's not as if this is Saudi Arabia or the Middle East, where rape victims are instead jailed and punished for the crime of premarital sex.

Though obviously when you surrender everything to the system... then you're going to get problems if the system is tampered with or sabotaged. This is cyberpunk: It's a genre convention that if something is supposedly tamper-proof, someone will either figure out a way to hack it or sabotage it, or it'll go rampant and sabotage itself.

Also, that factory had the best cyber security ever that I've seen

[garbage]

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

Also, that factory had the best cyber security ever that I've seen

ehehe i'm not really sure if you're just joking there or it's a sarcastic comment,
but anyway the apparently security is not good enough. it seems it was too easy to tamper with the systems/robots of that place. Best security would have checks and balances, redundancy, and fail safes in abundance. I hardly believe something similar could happen in one of Google's main servers for example. ( as in resulting in murder and stuff, without it being found out almost immediately) but i guess you're just joking.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

Regards the vic in Ep 1, note that initially she was supposed to be taken down with the non-lethal Paralyzer mode. Note that in real life, SWAT and police officers would restrain the hostage once the perp is taken down - this is the same principle here, merely on a more violent scale.

SWAT and police officers would ensure that the hostage didn't just run away, since they'd obviously want to get some info from the hostage. So the hostage would be restrained in the sense that s/he couldn't just get up and leave right away, but such restraint isn't likely to include actually firing a gun at the hostage.

That's a pretty big difference, if you ask me.

Secondly, she's upgraded to lethal status when she's sitting in that pool of what I assume is either petrol or kerosene, holding a lit lighter. She was quite willing to drop that lighter and blow everyone to kingdom come, and would have done that had Akane not talked her down.

She needed to be subdued, yes. But how is lethal shot any better here than paralyzing her? Threat level alone should only cause the gun to switch from paralyzing shot to lethal shot if the paralyzer isn't working on the target (as was the case with the Episode 1 perp, hence it makes perfect sense why lethal shot came into play there). There's no reason to think that paralyzing shot wouldn't have subdued the rape victim.

Though obviously when you surrender everything to the system... then you're going to get problems if the system is tampered with or sabotaged.

The problems we're seeing so far have nothing to do with tampering with or sabotaging the Sibyl system (well, barring some shocking plot twist, anyway).

Quite the contrary, they're natural outcomes of the system.

This system really does create many of its own problems.

[MarkS00N]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Actually, that's not entirely true. The Dominator automatically switches back and forth between "Paralyze mode" and "Extremely gorey death" mode.

Pretty big difference in penalty there, and the Dominator decides it automatically.

Yes, whether or not the gun is shot is decided by the person holding the gun (should the gun even allow itself to be shot, anyway), but like TRL wrote, I don't see much evidence of a manual override for the gun's current setting. If the gun sets itself for lethal shot, there seems to be no option between "Shooting to kill" and "Don't shoot at all".

I've posted that it appears the mode will only activated if certain limit has been passed instead of mysteriously change itself...

It seems the dominator will use paralyzer first no matter how high the CC is and the man is special because the paralyzer doesn't work so dominator value the man's threat as far too high and change to lethal mode (as Kanon said)...

Talk about threat...
I've watched episode 1 again and find that CC is different than threat measurement...
Which can explain or clouded our understanding about dominator mode change...

And as Wild Goose said:

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

Regards the vic in Ep 1, note that initially she was supposed to be taken down with the non-lethal Paralyzer mode. Note that in real life, SWAT and police officers would restrain the hostage once the perp is taken down - this is the same principle here, merely on a more violent scale.

Secondly, she's upgraded to lethal status when she's sitting in that pool of what I assume is either petrol or kerosene, holding a lit lighter. She was quite willing to drop that lighter and blow everyone to kingdom come, and would have done that had Akane not talked her down.

About this one:

Originally Posted by Triple_R

She needed to be subdued, yes. But how is lethal shot any better here than paralyzing her? Threat level alone should only cause the gun to switch from paralyzing shot to lethal shot if the paralyzer isn't working on the target (as was the case with the Episode 1 perp, hence it makes perfect sense why lethal shot came into play there). There's no reason to think that paralyzing shot wouldn't have subdued the rape victim.

Problem is, she sit on POOL of Gasoline that will explode and KILL Kogami who stand on the pool.

Also, while the paralyzer might cause her to faint, but as long as the lighter still in her hand then the POOL gasoline still might explode and KILL Kogami...
However once the lighter gone, her threat level decrease and Paralyzer mode activated.

On different note

Originally Posted by garbage

well i don't know why you keep going back to that statement. I don't think anyone here ever stated, implied nor insisted that IT IS ALL SIBYL's fault. But you have to agree there is something flawed about the system especially in its implementation.

But i disagree that it isn't SIBYL that force people to use it.It's first implementation...maybe, but systems like this are self perpetuating. SIBYL is already the Law and CULTURE of their society how could normal everyday person not use it? It's very presence is forced on the individual from when they are very young. maybe even from babyhood ( although age 5 is the only definite age we've gotten so far). This is not just any gauge, speedometer, hammer or any regular tool for that matter. It's very presence forces predisposes people to trust it, why not it's what they grew up to. and well it does some good too. i suppose.

well further info is needed for more in depth analysis of SIBYL,we just don't know enough about it at this point. ( and wow we were using a wrong spelling all this time? ahehe)

When I say 'Sibyl take the blame', it means I disagree with statement that pull trigger isn't a choice...
That when the enforcer is pull the trigger, it is because Sibyl left the enforcer with only Pull or Not, thus nullifying the enforcer responsibility on the choice the enforcer choose...

What you describe as how human rely too much on Sibyl is something I agree on, but to say that human shot because he doesn't have choice to say otherwise? Then no.

It pretty much saying terrorist is forgivable because it is his religion fault...

[Wild Goose]

Originally Posted by garbage

ehehe i'm not really sure if you're just joking there or it's a sarcastic comment,
but anyway the apparently security is not good enough. it seems it was too easy to tamper with the systems/robots of that place. Best security would have checks and balances, redundancy, and fail safes in abundance. I hardly believe something similar could happen in one of Google's main servers for example. ( as in resulting in murder and stuff, without it being found out almost immediately) but i guess you're just joking.

Jokingly sarcastic. Thing is, they've got what seems to be a near-perfect defense against external threats, but as you pointed out, their internal security seems to be quite lacking. I see this in my own workplace; we have firewalls and antivirus and shit, and practically all of our PCs got hit by the Recycler trojan/virus/threat thanks to a dumbass with a thumbdrive that wasn't scanned.

tl;dr, your security is only as strong as its weakest link, which is the day-to-day user.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

SWAT and police officers would ensure that the hostage didn't just run away, since they'd obviously want to get some info from the hostage. So the hostage would be restrained in the sense that s/he couldn't just get up and leave right away, but such restraint isn't likely to include actually firing a gun at the hostage.

That's a pretty big difference, if you ask me.

Just to check, but I assume you did see me words there: "on a more violent scale."

Of course patrol officers and SWAT are going to restrain the hostage with zip cuffs, and they'll try and do it as gently as possible - but it is not outside the realms of possibility that they may tase the hostage if the hostage is behaving too irrationally to safely subdue and restrain - though of course this is the real world, with no Crime Coefficients to justify getting shot with the Paralyzer mode, which is why cops will do their best to avoid getting into a situation like that.

She needed to be subdued, yes. But how is lethal shot any better here than paralyzing her? Threat level alone should only cause the gun to switch from paralyzing shot to lethal shot if the paralyzer isn't working on the target (as was the case with the Episode 1 perp, hence it makes perfect sense why lethal shot came into play there). There's no reason to think that paralyzing shot wouldn't have subdued the rape victim.

Uh... I really don't get what you're talking about. My interpretation of the first perp is that the Dominator fired at him while he was in the process of raping the victim (and failed to take him down); he then attacked the Enforcer, grabbed the hostage and attempted to flee. Notice how there is an immediate escalation of the threat level - this is someone who is openly hostile and is displaying aggressive action. The Dominator then switches to from stun to kill mode, particularly as he's holding a knife to the victim's neck and threatening the Enforcers.

Again, as MarkS00N noted, the vic's threat assessment is upgraded after she flicks the lighter on, and is prepared to drop it into that pool of gas and blow everyone to kingdom come. She has gone from being freaked out to a display of active aggression - she's now holding an improvised firebomb as a threat against the Enforcers.

As far as Sibyl is concerned, the threat rating has gone up and she needs to be taken down permanently. Again, note that as soon as she puts the lighter down, her threat rating drops.

The problems we're seeing so far have nothing to do with tampering with or sabotaging the Sibyl system (well, barring some shocking plot twist, anyway).

Sorry, I think I may have caused you to misunderstand here - I'm not saying that the system has been tampered or sabotaged (there's no concrete evidence of that... yet), I'm saying that it's a convention of the cyberpunk genre that any such system as this usually ends up sabotaged or tampered, or if it's a self-aware AI, goes rampant. I'm actually speculating/expecting.

Quite the contrary, they're natural outcomes of the system.

This system really does create many of its own problems.

I certainly don't think it's perfect. For starters, as Masaoka mentions, kids who grew up with Sibyl around have essentially outsourced their decision making and stress management to the system, and can't actually handle stress on their own - note Ep.3. That said, locking up people for being Latent Criminals spits on the whole Innocent Before Guilty principle of the law - if no crime has been committed, you have no case. As someone who studied law professionally, I don't claim that the system is perfect... unless it's a perfect tool to control the populace. Which it's not, BTW.

That said, at least on the threat assessment when the energy blasts start flying, the system at least appears to be able to judge threat levels.