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Psycho-Pass (TV) (all seasons).

By the same token, if you were to explore the idea of keeping order by subduing not just criminals, but those with the propensity to commit crimes, you would need to have a system that can actually tell who has the propensity to commit crimes. But the driving forces for both seasons have been people completely outside the reach of that system, which means the show isn't really about the internal conflict of such a system, but an external conflict between that system and outsiders.

Which is fine, I suppose, but it makes the ideological exploration much less interesting.

Because saying "it doesn't work" sidesteps the moral question. To take an example from politics, if you were discussing the death penalty, you should probably be thinking about the morality of a government executing its murderers. But the legitimate policy complaint ("innocents can be executed") makes that moral question irrelevant, or at least, less relevant, because it's no longer just murderers being executed.

By the same token, if you were to explore the idea of keeping order by subduing not just criminals, but those with the propensity to commit crimes, you would need to have a system that can actually tell who has the propensity to commit crimes. But the driving forces for both seasons have been people completely outside the reach of that system, which means the show isn't really about the internal conflict of such a system, but an external conflict between that system and outsiders.

Which is fine, I suppose, but it makes the ideological exploration much less interesting.

As for Sybil being perfect or "logical but imperfect", I think it's a little more problematic than that. .

There's something fundamental about the way it calculates the crime coefficient that misses certain kinds of people consistently, then puts them in situations where they can never prove themselves or be redeemed.
... At the end of the day it's a really poor dictator.

On another note, we finally got our spoiler[conversation with Sybil. Either there was a loty of subtext I didn't catch (we'll see on that later) or Sybil is just plain blind and dumb. Like I said earlier, Sybil being interested in a case like this is very consistent with its motives in the last season. Plus, even if they can't detect once guy they definitely have enough info in physical cameras to peice together the existence of someone off the record. Something so "logical" blindly ignoring possibilities always irks me a little because it makes people think logic is closed minded and rules out the intuitively irrational as opposed to being open minding and ruling out inconsistent possibilities.]

Edit: @HarihiToy. If a system isn't perfect, you change it. I think it's more interesting to explore ethics in the affirmative. Make something we're more likely to believe is right and make it as strong as possible, then really think about how it could be even better, even more foolproof and consistent.

spoiler[Yeah it's a bunch of brains but while there is a lot we don't understand about the brain, the implication is clearly that they're networked in some kind of way.]

The temptation for individual brains to abuse their positions is there, but there are safeguards in place which stop that which help to ensure the system is successful to the point it is when the 1st season started airing.
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Is it far-fetched? Of course it is, this is a science fiction anime and not a prediction of the future.

spoiler[This whole premise is pretty weak in my opinion, because a collection of criminals doesn't seem really stable as a dictator or as an arbiter of justice..]

spoiler[You see my point in the third paragraph, then. Sybil should be interested in Kamui because he is an anomaly. I still think there's a possibility that the whole conversation was subtext, like "Akane, back off" "I kind of need to investigate this" "Well know I've got my fingers in it anyway" but it's too early for me to be definitive.]

If we can't understand the outliers, why can the outliers understand us and our needs?

Flip this upside down and see it as "Those outside society are best placed to pass judgements on it because of their distance,

The conclusions would vary, the general public itself would only agree on one thing and that was the killers were abominations.
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The connection is tenuous, but the brains which make up the system's adjudication system work in a similar way to successful criminals knowing what their marks are like, hence my earlier virus analogy.

I wouldn't say I have a main issue with the show really. Hell, despite its problems I did like the first season. It's because it has potential that I'm being so critical of it. I think my ultimate judgement will depend on the detail and interesting qualities that the proposed good future of this setting will eventually have.

The vast majority of the brains belonged to criminals when they were still active, but the common trait they have is the (1/2000?) chance of their biological makeups making them impossible to accurately read via Hue or Psycho-pass scan.

Because the brains are also personally uninvolved with their targets, they gain the benefit of neutrality and objectivity (supposedly).

You're missing one point which the whole system in this series is built on: namely that those apparently least suitable to judge people at first glance are ironically the perfect candidates paradoxically

One reason why so many of them become criminals is that the individuals realised what their bodies were capable of and starting abusing their privilege.

As I said, I think their recruitment system systematically and gradually poisoned their own well. The fact that they continue to give credence to criminals and recruit them that way is evidence of their poor thinking,
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The fact that the outliers actually became criminals solely because they could is not intuitive to me at all.

If the Sybill system meets a Dexter character (apologies for the US TV show reference but I think this helps) then it can't do an accurate reading but is interested nonetheless since this "Dexter" will possess high intelligence, a unique perspective on society and the same biological advantage which the rest of the brains enjoyed when they still had bodies.

What that tells me is that they have no concept of a morality that exists outside of a structure of laws
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What naturally follows from believing people won't do anything that they aren't explicitly told to do, or believing that people can't handle their own freedom is exactly the kind of totalitarian society that exists here,

Outliers being very often criminals alludes to another aspect of this society that I'm almost certain anyone growing up Europe or the United States couldn't possibly understand.

As always, the simple solution is either watch it and accept things as they are or abandon the show for its lack of realism and outrageous assumptions.

Ghost_Wheel wrote:

What that tells me is that they have no concept of a morality that exists outside of a structure of laws ... What naturally follows from believing people won't do anything that they aren't explicitly told to do, or believing that people can't handle their own freedom is exactly the kind of totalitarian society that exists here,

This actually is the case here. The majority of the population in the city have grown up being told by Sybil how to live their lives, what's right and wrong, what their vocation in life should be etc., so I'd argue it makes sense that everybody only really "understands" morality according to what Sybil tells them. There's that one episode in the second half of the show where spoiler[one of Makishima's followers stabs a woman in a crowd, and all the bystanders just stand there staring at the whole thing]. Granted, you have to accept the fact that nobody realized something was wrong and that nobody bothered to call the cops. But I assuming the writers were trying to show how Sybil's laws and rules have been so ingrained in the population. In fact, I always wondered why spoiler[ it was Kogami instead of Ginoza's dad (forgot name) who decided to go solo.] Ginoza's dad is the oldest and most experienced, he even grew up before Sybil was created, so he should've been the first one to leave on his own.