Well to be honest I’m going back. I’ll be Diving deep into the Sybil system and into the infinite network of businesses and apps in Feed to dredge another point from the abyss.
(WARNING: for those who still wish to watch Psycho Pass without spoilers, turn back
now, cuz’ I’m going deep here!)
Quick
question: If I were to ask “can you see into the abyss?” would that be a yes or
a no? Well for time’s sake, let’s just go with no. Next I’d ask “I’m not sure what’s
down there, but would you like to see what’s there?”
I think
this is a good point to start at. Now, when I continued reading Feed and analyzed the interactions of
the characters with their environments, I was personally appalled by a solid
7/8 of them (I’m counting main cast). The one character to stand alone in a
world of conformity is none other than Violet. Violet is the only character
among Titus’ friends who has what I’d call, because of the time period of the
book, an “old soul”. Violet wants to experience the world before it was turned
into a gigantic, profit-marginalized conglomerate. She wants to know how the
new system works and rebel against it. She wants someone there to take the
plunge with her. Enter Titus.
Now in
my personal opinion, ignorance is bliss. Knowing more will enlighten you, but
just how much will it also change you for the worst? Is it really true that
ignorance is bliss? Or is shining a light on the truth for all to see what
really needs to be?
So I’ll
start with Psycho Pass. At the very
beginning of Psycho Pass, a new
inspector, Akane Tsunamori joins the Public Safety Bureau (basically the Police).
Not much is said by that point but it’s mostly preposition…moving on! While
working for the PSB, with other fellow inspectors and their hunting dogs, the
Enforcers (Criminals who have been hired to track down other criminals) the job
can get pretty gruesome.
Now, the Sybil system has been instated so that criminal
activity would falter and eventually cease to exist. But by watching the
series, it becomes pretty clear that Sybil is doing a sub-par job. There are
cases of rape, murder and identity theft pretty much on a day to day basis. There’s
also a serial murderer who kills high school students and turns their victims
into artistic sculptures with some weird liquid that can turn human flesh into
a plastic substance that hasn’t been caught yet (ewewewewew why does that even
exists)!
So yeah, pretty sub-par
Mainly what Sybil does focus on is the creation of more
criminals. By measuring a person’s psycho pass, the inspectors and enforcers
can determine that individual’s probability of committing a criminal act. These
individuals are to be either subdued or eliminated depending on their “crime
coefficient”, some arbitrary number that determines how far gone someone
is. Crime coefficients fluctuate based on
your current thought process, which is unbelievably unfair. Within the first
episode, we see a woman (who was a rape victim) “becomes a criminal” because
her mental state was so out of whack that she couldn’t think straight (this is
called psycho hazard in the show). “If you’re having a bad day, you’re a latent
criminal and you must come into the station to be therapized, that’s just how
it is.” SO basically Sybil stops those who will BECOME criminals instead of
focusing on those who ARE criminals.
As for Feed, the
feed is doing exactly as it’s intended to.
Its breeding generation after generation of idiotic consumer sheep who
live out their lives ignorantly, not even pondering what has to be done or
where their irreplaceable material possessions are made. Well…if their
brainwashed from birth, like Titus and his friends.
Within Feed there are plenty of ironic scenes,
and these scenes are really there for you to point at characters and say “wow,
he/she’s really stupid!” or “my god how don’t you know that” Take for example
the riot gear fad. Riot gear is special equipment that the police and SWAT team
bust out to deal with overly rowdy protesters and violent revolts. Around this
time in the novel, there are protests going on in other countries and these
broadcasts were being broadcasted right into Titus and Violet’s feeds when they
were asleep. The images depict:
“ …Really
cheap [Khakis] only $150…”
…wait that’s not what I wanted to talk about…:
“ …people
were screaming in some other language, they were all wearing khakis or jeans and
t-shirts and [t]hey were throwing stones and bottles, and the police were
moving forward on horses, and a man in the crowd waved a gun, and then the
firing started.”
Okay better:
“ I saw
girls sewing things, little girls in big halls.”
Mhm, sweat shops:
“I saw
a kid looking at me, he was a kid from another culture… and there were all
these shadows all over his face, these amazing shadows… finally, I realized
they weren’t shadows, they were bruises, and the end of a gun, it’s called the
butt, it came down and hit him in the face…”
That’s some brutal subliminal advertising! Hahaha- in bad
taste? Sorry.
But the feed picked up on this and turned it into a fashion
trend: Riot Chic’
“ Hey’ said Loga to Quendy,
pointing ‘Kent State collection, right? Great skirt!”
“ it’s not a skirt-It’s culottes!”
(159)
*over exaggerated eye roll*
Anyway
this is where Titus gets his first glimpse into the real world. Despite it
being a dream, and the fact that Violet contacted him and tech support saying
she had the same dream and that she was really freaked out, Titus just shrugged
it off. Ugh, he pisses me off sometimes.
Oh I should also mention that
FeedTech Customer Assistance was not willing to help Violet with her problem,
but to help her with her next purchase.
For
Akane (our psychopass protag), her first glimpse into the harsh reality of the
Sybil system is when she meets face to face with Shogo Makishima, a man
incapable of being judged by Sybil, who is holding her best friend hostage with
a razor blade. Shogo is devious and intelligent, so much so that in a situation
where Akane could not shot him with her dominator (handgun that can only be
fired at REGISTERED criminals), Shogo provides her with a simple handgun, and
tells her that if she doesn’t shoot him, a man who is not considered a criminal
by the all-powerful Sybil system, he’s going to murder her friend.
She wasn’t able to.
Much
like the American populous in Feed,
Akane relied too heavily on the Sybil systems judgement, and when the time came
for her to make the judgment call, she was unable to. Despite this tragedy,
which would normally change a person into a criminal (both Shogo and Akane),
neither of them so much as passed 50 on a psycho pass scan. Both of them are
individuals unjudged by the Sybil system.
Okay, time to knuckle down ahem…
As the series progresses after the horrible traumatic incident,
Akane begins to step up and act like a real detective, thinking like a criminal
does( because she has diplomatic immunity! Ha) eventually stumbling on the
largest secret of all: the Sybil system is an organic super computer comprised of
thousands of criminal brains.
Wait what?
Okay, so basically the system is a massive database of criminals
whose thoughts are analyzed and inventoried into a single entity that judges
the actions of everyone in the city. The brains work like antibodies or
vaccines in the human body: Each unique criminal act is cataloged and implemented
into the judgment of Sybil, so that if this were to happen again, it will know
how to react and neutralize it without much struggle.
Can’t
get much deeper than this in the deep, dank abyss. And I’ll have you know that Akane
is mortified to find this. However, she as a greater duty to uphold, and so
sucks it up and continues working for the PSB.
Akane
was shown what Sybil actually was, but chose to continue trudging through the
muck for a greater purpose.
Unlike
Titus. When Violets feed begins to malfunction, he began to lose interest in
her. Mr. Durn puts it perfectly:
“We
Americans… are interested only in the consumption
of our products. We have no interest in how they were produced, or what happens
to them” pointing at Violet “what happens to them once we discard them, once we
throw them away.” (290)
Alright he was being kind of a huge jerk to Titus, but he is
right. Titus was introduced to what the real world was like, albeit through a
complex series of images flashed into his feed while he was sleeping, but this
should have sparked his interest. And it’s very true that he did treat Violet
just like a product. He got bored once she broke.
Titus was shown just how much the feed controls them, it
LITERALLY controls your motor functions, and it only really started to hit him
after it was far too late to change anything.
Well I’ll admit that this book was fascinating to me, but it’s
turning me into a cynic. Like I said ignorance is bliss for me, and with the
amount of light this book has shed…let’s just say it took a lot of contemplation
to compose myself and accept that this is our world.
I’m hoping times change for the better, but for right now, I’ll
wade through the abyss, with the sunny skies above me, and occasionally take a
peek below to see what I’ve missed.
Too deep? Well there ya go, that was a pun.
Taylor R.
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Taylor R.
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Anderson, M. T. "Missing the Feed." Feed. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick, 2002.159, 290. Print.
Psycho-pass. FUNimation Productions, 2013. Film.
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