Perfect World

What is a system? What place do people have within systems? And can people escape the systems they find themselves part of? The answer to that, according to PSYCHO-PASS, is "no."

The Chicken or the Egg?

The first time I saw Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, I didn't know what to think. Saying that I hated it seems too strong, but that's the best word I can summon. I thought it was another example of Mamoru Oshii being dense, slow and boring. Now that I'm several years wiser, I'm of the exact opposite opinion: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence is an insanely pleasurable movie. Yes, pleasurable, as in I fell madly in love with it and had inappropriate thoughts about fornicating with the myriad gynoids. Innocence requires an entirely different set of sensibilities than most anime demands, and Oshii's uncompromisingly brutal methodology ensures that those who actually sit through the film will either adore or despise him. Trying to please everyone is impossible; Oshii doesn't even try. 

Your Flesh is Irrelevant, Because it's the Data that Counts

In the book How We Became Posthuman, author Katherine Hayles devotes some of chapter two to analyzing William Gibson's Neuromancer, particularly where protagonist Case claims busy Ninsei Street  resembles "a field of data... the dance of biz, information interacting, data made flesh in the mazes of the black market." From this paragraph, Hayles draws several conclusions about Neuromancer and cyborg literature in general:

"Pattern tends to overwhelm presence, leading to a construction of immateriality that depends not on spirituality or even consciousness but only on information... Information is the putative origin, physicality the derivative manifestation... If flesh is data incarnate, why not go back to the source and leave the perils of physicality behind?" (Pgs 35, 37).

PSYCHO-PASS. © Production I.G.

The world of PSYCHO-PASS has taken these conclusions and made them concrete rules that society must abide by. The software program known as the Sybil System governs almost all of one's activities, relying on calculated assessments and aptitude tests to maintain order, dictating matters ranging from what career one would be suited to, to determining if a latent criminal should be paralyzed and apprehended or blown to pieces. In the case of PSYCHO-PASS, the "pattern that overwhelms presence" is found within the Psycho-Pass chip inside one's body, which relays stress levels and other biological readings via cymatic scan to Sybil.