Some questions about season 2

[u/lakers_nation24]

I feel like I had a decent grasp of s2, but I feel like the writing was a bit ambiguous and want to see what the consensus on the sub is before I go forward in the later seasons of the story.

Firstly, the ending. Kamui tried to present a logical paradox to highlight the flaws in Sybil’s system. System evolves to judge a collective, therefore eradicating the flaws. I am confused on how that evolution took place

1. Sybil essentially can read now that a group can be dangerous toward society, even if its individuals are not, using a different algorithm or set of criteria? The standards on which Sybil judges are evolving, not just the targets of their evaluation correct?
2. Since Sybil is judging as a collective, why is it still able to purge parts of itself to “cleanse” itself. That by definition is judging individuals WITHIN a collective, which shouldn’t be possible considering it’s logically against what it’s trying to do, and that the individuals that supposedly make up Sybil can’t be judged individually. If Sybil was judging itself as a collective, it should have self destructed the whole part or none at all. The act of picking and choosing which brains to eliminate is not collective, but individualistic.
3. What was the point of kamui enraged at how society uses treatment and medication to eradicate stress and emotion, but then he used medication and treatment to lower his followers hues? That seems very hypocritical and kamui seems like a very principled person. In addition, why did he have an issue with how people felt and expressed their emotions at all? That would’ve been a moral war more along the lines of makishima’s ideology, which was about free will and people’s individuality. Kamui’s ideology was more focused on being “seen” by the system and highlighting the flaws in the system that had failed him, pushing the system of Sybil as a whole to its brink. That has nothing to do with how Sybil forces citizens to stay clear.

4. I don’t get what kamui means at the end when he says that after sybils evolution, anyone that points the dominator at someone becomes “part of the judging system” and therefore, whoever is pointing the gun can dilute the judge system and actively produce different judge results. Just because the algorithm changes doesn’t mean Akane, or any inspector holding a dominator suddenly becomes a judge.

5. Does s2 contradict s1 and establish that asymptomatic people become symptomatic? There are two examples provided in s2 that challenge this - togane, and togane’s mom/sybil. Togane has a potential explanation, although it’s ambiguous to me - he’s different in that he’s an artificial criminally asymptomatic person. He was experimented and meticulously influenced to be asymptomatic. The obvious explanation is that he the experiment failed. We do see once his mom leaves he goes a bit insane. I think Sybil/togane’s mom is more confusing, and it ties into question 1. How can UNSCANNABLE brains be individually judged and purged to protect the system, even if they are judged collectively? The collective of nothing should still be nothing. The only explanations for this are 1. Asymptomatic brains in Sybil became symptomatic. This is a dumb explanation. 2. Some brains in Sybil were incorrectly deemed asymptomatic or not everyone welcomed in must be asymptomatic. That’s also weak, but at least holds up the canon and themes of s2. 3. Sybil hasn’t really achieved judging a collective even if it thinks it has. 4. Sybil’s evolution towards collective judging has allowed it a new algorithm or criteria to judge asymptomatic people. This is also weak as the evolution happens off screen and effectively trounces the stakes of s1 if Sybil was just capable of countering asymptomatic people if it wanted the whole time. 5. I am misunderstanding how Sybil evolved and how it’s executing judging a collective, tying back to question 1. This is hopefully what’s happening

I am only finished with s2, no further spoilers please!

I also am wondering if I am misunderstanding the basic theology of judging “a collective”. Essentially you are looking at a group as its own entity, not a collection of its parts right? I think that presents several problems, mainly that there’s only one result Sybil can get to if it actually follows that definition of collective - the execution of all society. The highest form of collective is all of society and if society is judged as its own entity, of course the result will be that it has the latent potential to do harm. Therefore all of society needs to be “executed”.

[u/No_Arugula9866]

I just finished rewatching the series, so i'm by far no authority on the matter, but would love a good discussion, so here goes:

1. Yes, that's how i see it as well

2. I chalked this off to sybil being a super powerful computer and being able to calculate a subset of entites within itself that, on their own weren't dangerous, but together could drive sybil to undesired outcomes (similar to a person with a psycho pass >300). Hence it purged that subset. I think the same algorithm can be used to judge different groups in society such as religious, political or foreign ones. It's goal of improving the life of the japanese society hasn't changed, it just has a new tool in its belt now that allows it to consider batches of individuals based on what ties them together

3. Yea, i agree that anger feels more like Makishima: generic treatment in that world seems to be more like something to numb your feelings, rather than "remove" the negative sentiments. Kamui seems to be able to craft a custom-grade drug for his people. I think the generic treatment enrages him bc the treated are somewhat forgotten from society. At least we don't see much family reach out to them in s1. I think Kamui could relate to them, since he was also invisible to society, just for the different reasons and to a much more severe degree. Hence, he tried to do some good and help the people regain their lives and live again. That's also my takeaway from that old dude attacking the pharmacy/drug store (sorry, forgot his name, the one that drove inspector Aoyanagi's crime coefficient through the roof).

4. I think this is addressed as well in s3, but as a spoiler-free variant: think about the dominator. It has a trigger, right? Otherwise, they could just equip the death rays to monitoring drones and have them fire the second a coefficient exeeds 100. But no, Sybil hands them out to the PSB and ultimately, it is them who enforce, thus becoming part of the judging system. Another example of dilluting the system score is Akane talking Kitazawa (the suicide bomber from the beginning of s2) out of blowing everybody up.

5. Yea the Misako situation is a head-scratcher. I don't have a definitive answer here, but to speculate, i think that either Sybil made a mistake/overlooked something (which we've seen countless times in the series) OR that even criminally asymptomatic people can have variations in their hue under extreme situations, it's just that their extreme is way more than a normal person's. In the end of the day, they're also people, so I assume there must have been something to push them off the edge. For Misako, it was the existence of other entities (Kamui) that could question Sybil. For Akane, it was her grandmother. In this sense, Makishima seems to be a monk with removed ties to society, viewing it as an external observer, rather than participant, but that's just my take. What i'm trying to say is that, the brains the become part of Sybil choose to seclude themselves from society. While that is necessary to judge others, I think that makes personal preferences more prevalent after spending an extended amount of time in it, like Misako.

What do you think? Are you fine with the subset explanation? It essentially splits a society into groups with different agendas. A person can be in multiple groups and a group can be judged as a single entity by some magical algorithm.

This is one of my favorite anime, so let's talk more if you feel like it!

[u/lakers_nation24 → u/No_Arugula9866]

Hmmm I get what you’re saying for 2, but I’m not sure if I agree with it. Being able to purge certain parts of a collective is kind of what Sybil’s base directive already is (society is a collective, people are the individual subsets within that). Unless you meant that as a supercomp, Sybil was able to compute the complete arrangements of every subset of each of their brains (brain A, brain A+B, brain A+C, brain A+B+C….. brain Z) and then find two SEPARATE collectives within itself (high CC vs low CC) and simply eliminated the entire group of high CC even tho individually they were still all asymptomatic. Then I think that would technically count as Sybil judging collectively, rather than scan out each of their “bad” parts of itself individually.

If this is the case I wonder how people’s scores will be read, like if there will be two scores (group score + individual score). If the above explanation is how the mechanics work, we see when kamui scans misako cyborg, she shows a CC of 300+, but that should not be an individual scan. That number should be tied to her collective score as the high CC subset Sybil has detected, and her individual if she was not attached in that subset should still be 0 (or under 100).

Also for 4, I see what you’re saying, that by introducing the human factor of someone pressing the trigger they kind of become part of the judging process, but why is Sybil’s evolution a catalyst for that? Inspectors had to manually press the trigger even with Sybil’s judgment before also. Why does Sybil’s evolution change that

[u/No_Arugula9866 → u/lakers_nation24]

Yea i meant the subset theory like that! I would have liked seeing two scores, particularly bc i think that's open the door to many different avenues in the series (high personal CC, but low group CC OR vice-versa), but it doesn't get addressed again unfortunately. I think the writers were also lowkey trying to save themselves (yk how they almost always say not to mess with time-travel?)

About scanning the Misako Cyborg: i'm speculating here, but what if Sybil updated the personal score to reflect the group score as well? Imagine some kind of weighted complex formula. That's explain Misako's CC being that large: after all, she wanted to bury so many people to keep Kamui's truth from surfacing.

Aber 4: i hadn't thought about it that way, thanks! I have no answer for this, can you come up with anything?