Psycho-Pass - Episode 20 Discussion / Poll

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

If public financing is handled by Japanese politicians (which it pretty much has to be, otherwise these politicians have ceded everything to Sibyl, which would render their jobs entirely pointless), then maybe Sibyl is simply suffering from government underfunding. In other words, they don't have more security because they just don't have the funds to afford to pay for it. I have to admit, this is an oddly humorous idea to me. The great dystopian Sibyl taken down by cheapskate politicians.

Do politicians actually exist any more? And if they do, what is it they actually do? There aren't any judges and lawyers any more, and the primary job of real world political leaders is to uphold the law and to create new ones.


On a related note, everything about the criminal coefficient so far has been to address violent crime. So how is white-collar crime handled? Arguably, this kind of crime can be potentially have worse repercussions than the violent versions.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Dengar

On the flipside, if you go the "lets wait until they actually commit a crime before apprehending them" you're basically viewing the possible victims as acceptable losses.

You are confusing the need for someone to attempt a crime, with the need to have victims. It is entirely possible and ideal to stop a criminal before there was any victims. It's just that a criminal can only BE a criminal when there is proof he is actually trying to commt a crime.

Before someone commit a crime, that person is still innocent. The world isn't divided between good guys and bad guys from birth. You can't just sort them out before anyone has tried to do anything.

[Reckoner]

A consideration about Sibyl might be the following.

Even in our world, people who hold power tend to be sociopathic. People who desire to control others typically have little empathy, are egocentric, are unable to see other people's points of view, are rude, etc. Essentially our leaders are pretty sociopathic to begin with. Politicians don't typically want to become politicians out of a desire to work for others, but to further their own ambitions. They want to obtain power and are usually desperate to maintain that power. People get high off power. It gets worse when you peer into the world of greedy corporate CEO's.

Essentially, even if we view Sibyl as a bunch of sociopaths, there's actually little difference between them and the people who hold power in our society today.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

A consideration about Sibyl might be the following.

Even in our world, people who hold power tend to be sociopathic. People who desire to control others typically have little empathy, are egocentric, are unable to see other people's points of view, are rude, etc. Essentially our leaders are pretty sociopathic to begin with. Politicians don't typically want to become politicians out of a desire to work for others, but to further their own ambitions. They want to obtain power and are usually desperate to maintain that power. People get high off power. It gets worse when you peer into the world of greedy corporate CEO's.

Essentially, even if we view Sibyl as a bunch of sociopaths, there's actually little difference between them and the people who hold power in our society today.

There is a difference. Sybil pretends it doesn't exist. People don't rebel against Sybil not because they agree to having 250 psychos runing the country for them, but because they don't know what is running their country at all.

Sybil is not an unnaturally bad form of government; there are plenty of real life tyrannical societies in history that are just as bad or worse. But just because it isn't uniquely bad, doesn't make it good.

People need to know what is actually running their country. This is the bottom line. If your rule depends on the population not knowing what you are doing, then you are running a scam.

[merakses]

Do politicians actually exist any more? And if they do, what is it they actually do? There aren't any judges and lawyers any more, and the primary job of real world political leaders is to uphold the law and to create new ones.

Episode 12 showed that there is still a representative body, but it has no power over who gets the executive positions (ministries and such). Even so, the legislature would get the power to vote the budget. And a parliament which believes the security of the country to be perfect, would naturally spend very little on that security.
Could you tell us the episode and scene where they say that there aren't any judges or lawyers anymore? While it is obvious that criminal law has been greatly simplified, that doesn't necessarily hold true for the other types.

It is entirely possible and ideal to stop a criminal before there was any victims. It's just that a criminal can only BE a criminal when there is proof he is actually trying to commit a crime.

The world isn't divided between good guys and bad guys from birth.

If it was entirely possible, then why does our world still have such a high number of successful crimes?
What constitutes 'proof that he is actually trying to commit a crime'?
Nobody has claimed that the world is divided between good and bad guys from birth. I have no clue where you got that idea from, but as it is, that last sentence is a useless truism which doesn't contribute to your argument at all.

Also, you completely failed to address my argument about gun control laws and the like. Am I to understand that you are ceding my point?

A consideration about Sibyl might be the following.

Even in our world, people who hold power tend to be sociopathic. People who desire to control others typically have little empathy, are egocentric, are unable to see other people's points of view, are rude, etc. Essentially our leaders are pretty sociopathic to begin with. Politicians don't typically want to become politicians out of a desire to work for others, but to further their own ambitions. They want to obtain power and are usually desperate to maintain that power. People get high off power. It gets worse when you peer into the world of greedy corporate CEO's.

Essentially, even if we view Sibyl as a bunch of sociopaths, there's actually little difference between them and the people who hold power in our society today.

Yes, but there are built-in fail-safes against the people in power trying to abuse their position. Sybil Japan lacks such fail-safes (well, having to achieve a consensus between the different brains is a sort of fail-safe, but it's arguable how useful it is exactly)

On a related note, everything about the criminal coefficient so far has been to address violent crime. So how is white-collar crime handled? Arguably, this kind of crime can be potentially have worse repercussions than the violent versions.

That's actually a very good question. I believe that most people would be too scared to try out of fear of having their CC raise. From the psychology professor's words in episode 19, we can concur that if you knowingly indirectly aid a violent crime, your CC will raise. This implies that pretty much any action with which you would knowingly aid or perpetrate a criminal activity (even a white-collar one) will increase your CC. So even among the brave ones who decide to try and cheat the system, they most likely stop after the first, at most the second time, since their CC starts getting uncomfortably close to the borderline. Thus, any damage occurring from white-collar crime is most likely negligible.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by merakses

If it was entirely possible, then why does our world still have such a high number of successful crimes?

You missed my point entirely. Which is that we are not suggesting we need victims in order to prosecute. We are suggesting we need crimes to prosecute. No crimes= no criminals. If you want to lock people up before they have done anything, you are by definition locking up innocent people.

What constitutes 'proof that he is actually trying to commit a crime'?

Something that doesn't involve incriminating someone who hasn't done anything yet.

Nobody has claimed that the world is divided between good and bad guys from birth. I have no clue where you got that idea from, but as it is, that last sentence is a useless truism which doesn't contribute to your argument at all.

You want to stop criminals before they did anything. This means you want to stop criminals when they were still innocent; i.e. when they are just the same as anyone else. This only makes sense if you believe they are destined to be criminals, which means they are criminals from birth.

Also, you completely failed to address my argument about gun control laws and the like. Am I to understand that you are ceding my point?

Not sure what you mean. I only care that you think people should be locked up without having done anything.

[merakses]

Something that doesn't involve incriminating someone who hasn't done anything yet.

So, by your logic, if a police officer sees someone pointing a gun at another person, he has no right to intervene, because the offending person hasn't committed a crime yet.

You want to stop criminals before they did anything. This means you want to stop criminals when they were still innocent; i.e. when they are just the same as anyone else. This only makes sense if you believe they are destined to be criminals, which means they are criminals from birth.

No. When they were born, they had a wide-open decision tree ahead of them. It's just that they picked their choices in such a way that they got locked up in a subtree which always ends in them becoming criminals. The point at which they become 'destined to be criminals', as you put it, does not have to be the moment of birth. The universe is not necessarily either completely deterministic or completely non-deterministic.

Not sure what you mean. I only care that you think people should be locked up without having done anything.

I mean that according to your philosophy, I can stick an armed thermonuclear warhead in the middle of your home city, and you have no justification to object, since I 'haven't really done anything yet".

You missed my point entirely. Which is that we are not suggesting we need victims in order to prosecute. We are suggesting we need crimes to prosecute. No crimes= no criminals. If you want to lock people up before they have done anything, you are by definition locking up innocent people.

You're the one who's missing the point. Crimes will inevitably lead to victims. There is no way to prevent every crime from creating any victims at all. If you have an accurate way to predict crimes, but do not use it, you are basically considering all those victims acceptable losses.

[Endscape]

Originally Posted by merakses

So, by your logic, if a police officer sees someone pointing a gun at another person, he has no right to intervene, because the offending person hasn't committed a crime yet.

That's a bad example. Pointing a weapon at someone is an action that I think anyone can agree should be stopped.

No. When they were born, they had a wide-open decision tree ahead of them. It's just that they picked their choices in such a way that they got locked up in a subtree which always ends in them becoming criminals. The point at which they become 'destined to be criminals', as you put it, does not have to be the moment of birth. The universe is not necessarily either completely deterministic or completely non-deterministic.

So what you're saying is that people have free will until they don't anymore? At what point does free will become non applicable?

I mean that according to your philosophy, I can stick an armed thermonuclear warhead in the middle of your home city, and you have no justification to object, since I 'haven't really done anything yet".

Again, a bad example. Putting an armed thermonuclear weapon somewhere is still an action, not a thought. In your example, you would lock up someone for that action before they even do it. You deny them even the privilige of changing their minds.

You're the one who's missing the point. Crimes will inevitably lead to victims. There is no way to prevent every crime from creating any victims at all. If you have an accurate way to predict crimes, but do not use it, you are basically considering all those victims acceptable losses.

As Vallen said, if you do something like that, you're condemning criminals before they become criminals, a.k.a. locking up innocent people. Criminals only forfeit their rights when they take an action that impedes other people, so in your version, you consider these proto criminals acceptable losses without giving them a choice to change their ways.

Take the story of Perseus, for example. His grandfather got a prophecy saying his grandson
would kill him, so he locked his daughter up and then we she got pregnant anyway, he set them adrift on the sea. Would you say that he made the right choice to do that?

[merakses]

Let me clarify what I'm trying to do here: I am performing reductio ad absurdum to the following argument made by Vallen:

The criminal system is about agreed rules on human interaction that punishes harmful actions.

Now, for all of your points:

That's a bad example. Pointing a weapon at someone is an action that I think anyone can agree should be stopped.

No. Pointing a weapon at someone gives me the ability to harm him. It does not mean I am going to harm him. Thus, this is not a harmful action, and so, it is not subject to punishment.

So what you're saying is that people have free will until they don't anymore? At what point does free will become non applicable?

What I'm saying is that you can't deny the possibility. When it becomes not applicable is an interesting question, but I'm not sure how relevant it is to the current discussion.

Again, a bad example. Putting an armed thermonuclear weapon somewhere is still an action, not a thought. In your example, you would lock up someone for that action before they even do it. You deny them even the privilige of changing their minds.

The action isn't harming anyone. I could put the bomb in a location, owned by me, and keep it's existence a secret (so as not to cause any worries to the residents). My actions aren't harmful until I detonate the bomb, thus, by Vallen's logic, there is no justifiable reason to take action against me.
According to you, I should be prevented from putting the bomb. That's denying me the privilege of changing my mind later and not activating it. It's no different whether you're going to read my mind and stop me before I have placed the bomb, or wait until I place the bomb and stop me before I have detonated it. In both cases, you have acted in order to prevent a crime that hasn't even happened yet.

As Vallen said, if you do something like that, you're condemning criminals before they become criminals, a.k.a. locking up innocent people. Criminals only forfeit their rights when they take an action that impedes other people, so in your version, you consider these proto criminals acceptable losses without giving them a choice to change their ways.

That is exactly the point we have been trying to make with this whole discussion: where exactly does the line stand? No matter what your course of action, you are considering either the proto criminals, or the proto victims acceptable losses. My whole argument is that, if the system is accurate enough that the margin of error in identifying future criminals is extremely small, then by acting on its predictions, we are sacrificing less innocent people than by not acting on it. Thus, in such a case, acting based on the system's predictions is justified.

[Dengar]

Originally Posted by Endscape

As Vallen said, if you do something like that, you're condemning criminals before they become criminals, a.k.a. locking up innocent people. Criminals only forfeit their rights when they take an action that impedes other people, so in your version, you consider these proto criminals acceptable losses without giving them a choice to change their ways.

I.O.W. Murder and rape victims should be the acceptable losses, rather than the so-called "innocent".

Before you go all apeshit on me, the point I'm trying to make is that it's either or. You can't protect your "innocents" and your victims at the same time. And are you in a position to decide who has more right to life? A victim, or an "innocent"?

[Qilin]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Sibyl's Way: All the special people with truly independent personalities that are beyond conventional judging become a part of Sibyl. This means that Sibyl becomes as close to objective as possible. That means that Sibyl has very powerful higher thinking capabilities. In time, nothing will be beyond it.

Alternate Way: The only people that ever get into Sibyl are the extreme outliers, the very exceptional cases. A conservative might argue that this is like the Ivory Tower on steroids - A group like this will inevitably become out of touch with its people because none in the group are remotely close to normal. A liberal or progressive might argue that this is like the 1% on steroids - The 99% and their perspectives count for nothing, they don't factor into the system, so the system becomes very skewed in its viewpoints and in who it benefits.

I want to at least assume that the system works in the way they intended it to, or else even the accuracy of the system's mind-reading would be called into question. That's pretty much what the power held by Sybil is based on anyway.

Your concerns are reasonable of course. I too have doubt as to whether an aggregation of criminally asymptotic individuals can even understand the general populace, but let's put it this way: Once upon a time, Sybil was simply composed of a handful of individuals. At that time, just about all of the people they encountered could be evaluated as asymptotic (but not criminally so), but over time, as the system incorporated more and more minds into itself, the range of asymptotic individuals decreased thanks to a much expanded perspective. Eventually, we reach the current point of the series where the only characters that could be identified as asymptotic would be outright sociopaths.

That still leaves the problem of using criminals though. I'm willing to chalk it down to practical concerns, where an asymptotic individual could be gauged by his/her capacity to commit a crime without being detected by the system. I agree it was a fairly questionable decision to use criminals, but it does at the very least take diversity into account from how I see it.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Of course these 250 brains have huge egos. How could they not?

Fair point. I had hoped that their capacity for logical thinking could override that collective ego of theirs, especially when it came to vital lifelines like the nation's food supply. Still pretty stupid, I'd say, like the dastardly villain spoiling the details of his evil plan to the hero at the last moment.

[merakses]

Fair point. I had hoped that their capacity for logical thinking could override that collective ego of theirs, especially when it came to vital lifelines like the nation's food supply. Still pretty stupid, I'd say, like the dastardly villain spoiling the details of his evil plan to the hero at the last moment.

Well, I've already said this, but we can't be sure that Sybil is directly involved in decisions regarding agriculture, food supply, and so on. And it was explicitly stated that the lab Makishima is trying to break in predates the cymatic scan, so it isn't unreasonable to assume that Sybil might not even know about it's existence.

I know this is simply speculation, but personally, I'd prefer a Sybil that is constrained by practical limitations, rather than simply a stupid/extremely arrogant one. The latter kind of ruins the suspense and makes things way too one-sided

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by merakses

So, by your logic, if a police officer sees someone pointing a gun at another person, he has no right to intervene, because the offending person hasn't committed a crime yet.

Part of being a police officer in a country like modern America (or my own country of Canada) is the need to make tough judgement calls sometimes. Sometimes police officers have to try to ascertain if what they're seeing is likely to turn into a crime.

Logically speaking, why would Person A be pointing a gun at Person B? Well, in all likelihood, it's one of these three reasons:

1. Person A intends to shoot and kill (or at least maim) Person B.

2. Person A is threatening Person B, and using the gun to add credibility to his threat. For this, keep in mind that even the act of simply threatening a person can be criminal if you take it to a certain extreme.

3. Person A is out of his mind. Perhaps he's drunk, or on heavy drugs, and isn't fully cognizant of what he is doing. So you have a man out of control, wielding a gun.

In either of these three cases, the police should intervene if they're in a position to effectively do so. I'm fairly confident that everybody here would agree with that.

Now, could it be that Persona A is just somebody pulling an ill-conceived prank on one of his buddies? Yes, that is possible. But I think it's less likely than the three possibilities I listed above. Sometimes police officers have to use their best personal judgement in making tough calls. That's part of the challenge of being a police officer in the modern world, and one could argue that it relates to the challenge of being a person in a free society.

Yes, our world is messier than Sibyl's, in many ways. I would argue that's the inevitable cost of freedom. You either give people freedom and the responsibility and risk that comes with it, or you take freedom away to increase security. You can't always have the best of both worlds.

This is one of the questions that Sibyl poses. Personally, I'd rather be a free man in a somewhat messy world than a man who lives in a relatively clean word that is heavily micromanaged by a system like Sybil.

I mean that according to your philosophy, I can stick an armed thermonuclear warhead in the middle of your home city, and you have no justification to object, since I 'haven't really done anything yet".

Ok, let's be honest, you're being kind of silly here.

There comes a point where theoretical discussion becomes so very divorced from reality that it loses all value.

Originally Posted by merakses

My whole argument is that, if the system accurate enough that the margin of error in identifying future criminals is extremely small, then by acting on its predictions, we are sacrificing less innocent people than by not acting on it. Thus, in such a case, acting based on the system's predictions is justified.

Really?

You don't see anything philosophically troubling about punishing a man for a crime he never committed based purely on some predictive method? For me, that greatly undermines the concepts of justice or fairness. I think you send human society down a very dark path if you embrace a system that dispenses entirely with both of those concepts.

I mean, what about the principle of innocent until proven guilty? This is a principle that our criminal justice system is rooted in. I think it's a principle that most people agree with.

With this in mind, suppose a police officer sees one man pointing a gun at another, and reacts quickly by tackling the gun-pointer to the ground. The police officer is then informed that the two were actually filming a student movie, and this was part of an action scene. The gun isn't even loaded. The police officer made a honest but very understandable mistake.

Well, the police officer will feel sheepish, hopefully apologize, and the gun-pointer isn't arrested. He was never proven guilty of anything.

Suppose the police officer pointed a Dominator at the gun-pointer's head, while the police officer was off to the side out of the gun-pointer's field of vision. The gun-pointer tries to think like a criminal in order to perfect his acting performance. The Dominator misreads that as him actually being a criminal.

BANG! The actor gets exploded. So much for innocent until proven guilty...

Originally Posted by Qilin

I want to at least assume that the system works in the way they intended it to, or else even the accuracy of the system's mind-reading would be called into question.

Agreed. And given what I think of Tomomi and Yayoi...

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by merakses

Well, I've already said this, but we can't be sure that Sybil is directly involved in decisions regarding agriculture, food supply, and so on. And it was explicitly stated that the lab Makishima is trying to break in predates the cymatic scan, so it isn't unreasonable to assume that Sybil might not even know about it's existence.

On the other hand, Sybil is the one who determines is most suited to becoming the bureaucrats that run society. And the bureaucrats that Sybil has appointed so far, seems like they might not be the most capable when it comes to defending society.

[merakses]

Part of being a police officer in a country like modern America (or my own country of Canada) is the need to make tough judgement calls sometimes. Sometimes police officers have to try to ascertain if what they're seeing is likely to turn into a crime.

Logically speaking, why would Person A be pointing a gun at Person B? Well, in all likelihood, it's one of these three reasons:

1. Person A intends to shoot and kill (or at least maim) Person B.

2. Person A is threatening Person B, and using the gun to add credibility to his threat. For this, keep in mind that even the act of simply threatening a person can be criminal if you take it to a certain extreme.

3. Person A is out of his mind. Perhaps he's drunk, or on heavy drugs, and isn't fully cognizant of what he is doing. So you have a man out of control, wielding a gun.

In either of these three cases, the police should intervene if they're in a position to effectively do so. I'm fairly confident that everybody here would agree with that.

This is exactly the point I am making. Vallen's argument that you have absolutely no right to act against a person before he has committed a harmful action is absurd. This is what I'm trying to show.

You don't see anything philosophically troubling about punishing a man for a crime he never committed based purely on some predictive method? For me, that greatly undermines the concepts of justice or fairness. I think you send human society down a very dark path if you embrace a system that dispenses entirely with both of those concepts.

I mean, what about the principle of innocent until proven guilty? This is a principle that our criminal justice system is rooted in. I think it's a principle that most people agree with.

Why would it undermine the concepts of justice or fairness? As we said, if the predictive system is very accurate, we will have more innocent victims if we don't use it, than if we use it.
Do you see anything philosophically troubling with allowing innocent people to die violent, meaningless deaths every day - deaths which could have been avoided, had we utilized such a system - so that we can cater to the general public's opinion of 'justice' or 'fairness'? And if one of these meaningless deaths is someone close to you?

The principle of 'innocent until proven guilty' would remain basically the same. It's just that we would conceivably be able to prove 'future guilt'. The dominator's readings (or whatever we're using) could hold large legal power in court, for example.

With this in mind, suppose a police officer sees one man pointing a gun at another, and reacts quickly by tackling the gun-pointer to the ground. The police officer is then informed that the two were actually filming a student movie, and this was part of an action scene. The gun isn't even loaded. The police officer made a honest but very understandable mistake.

Well, the police officer will feel sheepish, hopefully apologize, and the gun-pointer isn't arrested. He was never proven guilty of anything.

Suppose the police officer pointed a Dominator at the gun-pointer's head, while the police officer was off to the side out of the gun-pointer's field of vision. The gun-pointer tries to think like a criminal in order to perfect his acting performance. The Dominator misreads that as him actually being a criminal.

BANG! The actor gets exploded. So much for innocent until proven guilty...

Once again, we are devolving into a dispute on the accuracy of the system. We have already been there, so there is no need to repeat what has already been said.
Also, even if the police is equipped with Dominators, it doesn't mean that they won't try and take suspects into custody first.

On the other hand, Sybil is the one who determines is most suited to becoming the bureaucrats that run society. And the bureaucrats that Sybil has appointed so far, seems like they might not be the most capable when it comes to defending society.

Of course they wouldn't be - after all, they would all believe that society has a perfect defense net in the form of Sybil It is incredibly ironic - Sybil's need for people to think that it is a perfect system in order to be able to keep the public safety actually leaves the nation with large holes in the actual internal security, which Sybil either doesn't know about or lacks the funding to close. I like this explanation because it is a picture perfect example of Makishima's words in episode 14: "People have been mislead by Sybil and have become unable to properly evaluate the danger in front of them". I think it ties in to the world better than simply 'Sybil is stupid/extremely arrogant and short-sighted'

[Dengar]

I believe Tomomi and Yayoi were deemed latent criminals for a reasn.

Some of you are probably thrown off by the fact that they're pretty nice people.

Are you under some kind of assumption that nice people don't do criminal things?

Consider the possibility of Tomomi constantly ending up decking his superiors because nothing works the way he is used to? Or going rogue like Ko did? Yayoi I am unsure of, but there was probably a reason as well. Fact of the matter is that she's an underdeveloped character so it's hard to say.

Of course, whether there as a good reason probably doesn't even matter to both of you since you guys probably think they shouldn't be arrested until after someone ends up hospitalized or murdered.

[cyth]

Originally Posted by merakses

According to you, I should be prevented from putting the bomb. That's denying me the privilege of changing my mind later and not activating it. It's no different whether you're going to read my mind and stop me before I have placed the bomb, or wait until I place the bomb and stop me before I have detonated it. In both cases, you have acted in order to prevent a crime that hasn't even happened yet.

OK, are you aware that, probably in every country in the world, conspiracy to commit a crime is a criminal act? And I'm pretty sure that simply owning a nuclear war head is a crime in itself, if I can ridicule your example some more.

My whole argument is that, if the system accurate enough that the margin of error in identifying future criminals is extremely small, then by acting on its predictions, we are sacrificing less innocent people than by not acting on it. Thus, in such a case, acting based on the system's predictions is justified.

Look, man. It's not. As Triple_R said, not in a society where people value their freedom more than their immediate safety. What's being outlined in Psycho-Pass is whether the scales have tipped in safety's favor.

What's even more scary than unjustly shooting a person with a Dominator is how people like Yuki got assessed by Sibyl and pushed down a certain career path that made her unhappy. I wonder, just how many chances does a regular person get in Sibyl's world? Would Yuki be allowed to change her life, either via requalification or relocation, if she wanted to? All this talk about Sibyl's predictability models for criminal behaviour and career suitability might as well extend to predicting appropriate courses of education. After all, if it managed to cram Kagari into a prison at age five, what's stopping it from assessing that, for example, children coming from lower income families, who were born into a life of poverty with a whole slew of social issues, will most likely not finish second-level education? So Sibyl, and by extension society asks itself whether it should even invest into their education. Is taking a chance on a near-guaranteed loss for a system even worth the resources and collective effort? Or should it just send a dog with a Dominator after them, to dispense of them before they become a burden to society?

We don't do that in our society because we've learned throughout history that we deserve more than one chance, that greatness can emerge from poor social conditions. Most of all, we have a need to believe that we are good people and that the people we surround ourselves with are good. We try to believe people can change, even though sometimes it's hard to keep an open mind, that a child born in Hamas' schools won't go down the path of a terrorist, that someone with bad grades won't resort to drugs, that a person with a drug addiction problem can clear his program and remain straight, that a man with an unhealthy obsession with drawn lolita porn won't molest children in real life, that a woman with a family that made her miserable throughout her life won't grab a knife and slash their throats in their sleep, and finally, that a police officer won't abuse the powers given to him, even though he could shoot anyone quite easily.

And if one of these meaningless deaths is someone close to you?

And if one of those meaningless deaths is you under the system you're arguing? Do you think your family and friends won't resent the system for that? Do you think they'll be understandable of an algorithmical miscalculation, when they've known you your entire life and that you were a good person? I think they'd rage just as hard, because justice isn't something that can be quantified.

Originally Posted by Dengar

Are you under some kind of assumption that nice people don't do criminal things?

Are you aware on just how many levels that sentence is wrong? Stop being such a hipster.

[Reckoner]

Yeah I kind of believe that the setting loses its meaning if we don't at least believe the psycho-pass numbers are credible. Otherwise we just got a completely broken system and there's nothing to argue about. The system would just have to go. It's much more interesting to consider a system that actually does what it's supposed to do. Otherwise, why should we care about what Gen is trying to make a point about?

I still think the crux of the show is about the nature of free will and its importance to humanity. That's what Sibyl takes away most of all, and why in the end, it's not worth protecting. Sibyl does create a safe society, more or less (Ignoring the kinda ridiculous hyperoats issue), but that isn't enough.

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

There is a difference. Sybil pretends it doesn't exist. People don't rebel against Sybil not because they agree to having 250 psychos runing the country for them, but because they don't know what is running their country at all.

Sybil is not an unnaturally bad form of government; there are plenty of real life tyrannical societies in history that are just as bad or worse. But just because it isn't uniquely bad, doesn't make it good.

People need to know what is actually running their country. This is the bottom line. If your rule depends on the population not knowing what you are doing, then you are running a scam.

Well you're not wrong that people should know, but I just thought it would be an interesting thing to point out.

Originally Posted by merakses

Yes, but there are built-in fail-safes against the people in power trying to abuse their position. Sybil Japan lacks such fail-safes (well, having to achieve a consensus between the different brains is a sort of fail-safe, but it's arguable how useful it is exactly)

A lot of powerful people have no one to hold them in check. Look at Wall Street for example. They basically rigged the system to the point that any sort of fail safe is completely ineffective.

[MeoTwister5]

You know what's scary? That right now this discussion is equating life and limb as mere statistics. That we can mathematically justify the loss of innocent life if they are statistically insignificant (p<0.05) compared to the population at large.

And really, if some will argue the appeal to emotion that "What if it was your loved one who died because a system that could have predicted and prevented h their death wasn't used?" can be used, we might as well counter with the opposite: "What if someone you loved died because he was predicted a potential murderer even though they haven't even done or thought of such?"

If you're a proponent of predictive dispensation of justice then you better be agreeable that it applies to all, and not complain if it happens to you or anyone cloase to you, because if not and you complain of unfairness to you, then you'll be no better than anyone trying to to insist they're above the system and society.

[GoldenLand]

Originally Posted by merakses

No. Pointing a weapon at someone gives me the ability to harm him. It does not mean I am going to harm him. Thus, this is not a harmful action, and so, it is not subject to punishment.

That's not actually true, in common law countries and probably others. If you threaten a person with imminent harm, for example by pointing a weapon at them, it can still be a crime even if you do not go ahead and touch the person with the weapon or cause physical harm. Do you know the common law legal definition of assault?

Even the first definition of assault plucked off Google answers that correctly.

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/assault

At Common Law, an intentional act by one person that creates an apprehension in another of an imminent harmful or offensive contact.

An assault is carried out by a threat of bodily harm coupled with an apparent, present ability to cause the harm. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result in either criminal or civil liability.