So much Psycho-Pass....

S1:E13

"Today, the world has realized a stable prosperity and achieved the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people... Planning one's life...Obtaining what one desires...When people make choices, no matter what they are, they ask for Sibyl's judgment rather than agonize over it."

"No mistakes are allowed with Sibyl. That's the ideal... If the system is perfect it shouldn't even require humans to operate it."

Is this their version of a utopia? Or at least what they are aiming to achieve. Is an entirely computer-operated society even a utopia at all? Should the humans be involved in the functionality of their society or does that not matter if they don't have to worry about anything (in theory)...

Are the criminals in Psycho-Pass "hardwired to self-destruct?"

Soooo, even the title of this song feels relevant to Psycho-Pass in general as it's all about catching criminals and I'd say that they criminals themselves are pretty unkind... 

This song is specifically for episode three though (goes with my other post, I have a lot of catching up to do (so, sorry for anyone who is actually looking at these)) lyrics in the song like "I've become hostage to my mind" and "dominate, killing of the innocence" go with Yellow-Green snapping and such, though I know the victims aren't entirelyyyyy innocent...

Good Ol' Yellow-Green

I wanted to take a look at episode three of “Psycho-Pass” because of the obvious issues that are presented in the drone factory (obviously there are issues presented in all of the episodes of Psycho-Pass buuuuut ya know…). Good ol’ Yellow-Green is going around killing people with the drones, but nobody suspects him because he is the underdog; he is bullied by other factory workers so that they can take their stress out on him. Which is, in a sense, throwing this one person to the dogs in order to alleviate any strain felt by the other workers. What I find pretty dumb of them to not realize is that all of the bullying and pressure put on Yellow-Green is going to/ is causing him to have repressed emotions of hatred towards his coworkers. And all of those negative emotions held in are going to raise his Psycho-Pass until he feels the need to alleviate his own pressure back onto them. What’s also interesting about this episode is how Akane starts to trust in the enforcer’s judgments more. She has had her doubts of the Sybil System from the beginning and couldn’t quite bring herself to believe in how the enforcers were operating on their own knowledge. I think that it says a lot about Akane’s character and judgment abilities when she is willing to trust the latent criminals to bring Yellow-Green to justice. She knows that they will be able to find a way to determine if he is the actual murderer or not, and that the law must, sometimes, be skirted around (aka Kogani’s interesting methods of information retrieval) in order to find the truth and enforce the rules.

An Unholy Amalgamation of Teen Dystopia Topics

In an effort to synthesize (some of) the points raised in the articles... and disregarding our definition of utopia for the more colloquial utopia/dystopia dichotomy... here is a very vague string of questions:

What do you think the agitprop of a YA utopia would be, if any? Would teens still take to the genre? What was your favorite YA dystopia (if any), and why?

I know I loved the idea of dystopias as a teen, I get their attraction: everything is LIFE OR DEATH and DO OR DIE and ME AGAINST THE WORLD—the apocalyptic themes of these dystopias are not so unfamiliar to teens.

And in case no one has any thoughts on that, here's an unrelated photo posted by my aunt this morning that outraged me; maybe it will spark some sort of utopian discussion. Or maybe it will make you feel, idk.

Not Simple

When reading the Salon article, this sentence particularly stuck out to me,

"Let’s pause for a moment, in fact, to notice that this kind of story almost always imagines a future world that’s far simpler than the one we currently live in, one in which all the stuff and clutter of our lives – the screens, the gizmos, the cars, the noise – has evaporated."

I definitely feel like this isn't true, especially with the two books the article is talking about (Divergent and The Hunger Games) that still have a lot of technology and noise. I definitely wouldn't consider them simpler, especially not in The Hunger Games since the citizens are forced to participate in a lottery murder game between children. The Capital is exactly the opposite of simple, with lavish parties and loud fashions. The 12th District may be "simple" in comparison, but that is only because they are very poor.
As for Divergent, they aren't necessarily simpler, they are just more tightly organized, and each faction has it's own rules it must follow. Abnegation is bland compared to Dauntless, but that is simple because of the morals that faction chooses to live by and that is only one part of that society. The society as a whole is far from being simpler than our own, and seems to be much more complex in my opinion.

Aesthetic Utopia

I posted this video because it is my favorite utopia purely for its aesthetics. This is from the game Bioshock Infinite. The utopia is called ‘Columbia’ and is made by the Lutece twins through floating particle nonsense. The utopia is basically not really a utopia as it is discovered early on in the game that the prophet, whose name is Comstock, brought a bunch of rich paying racist white folks up into the sky after the Civil War ended to continue living their lives as if the Emancipation Proclamation never happened. Yes, they meet their demise and no that isn’t a spoiler. The scene just shows a particularly beautiful and thematic representation of a ‘utopia’ when it is first discovered, and gives me slight Herland vibes.

I thought it was particularly interesting that during descent, the 'proverbs' of the utopia are presented to the new citizen of Columbia, and almost inducts them into their state of mind.

The video actually begins at the 1 minute mark.

(from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFGnBoS95SU)

Nosedive rating

I give this society/utopia/dystopia 1 star. 

I enjoyed this episode of Black Mirror and while watching, I was trying to figure out why the title is "Nosedive". My first thought after watching it through was that it was titled as such due to the amount that this way of life might make someone want to nosedive off a cliff or something along those lines. 
This "life", if you could even call it that, seems like hell in my opinion. Its like Yelp meets Sims meets PsychoPass meets social networking hell. You get to rate people, and based on those ratings you either do well or do poorly in life. This seems like it would qualify as a form of cruel and unusual punishment. It seems to make it impossible to have a single bad day, ever. Or if you are having a bad day, I guess you should just not interact with anyone at all. But for some people that might lead to yet another bad day and without social interaction they may never stop having bad days. Anyway, I need to stop before I go off on a tangent, and I had another point I wanted to mention.
One thing I am extremely curious about is how this would work in other situations, such as college. Would your rating be treated the same as a GPA is treated now? Would people be turned away from certain schools due to low rating? Would people be sought after due to higher ratings? 
I was also wondering how this would work for relationships, jobs, different ages, parents to kids and vise versa, etc.
These were only some of my main thoughts surrounding this episode. 

Nosedive

This episode stresses me out. Thinking about living in a world we’re literally everything is public and everything is about ratings makes me anxious. Even in present day we are able to shape the version of ourselves that we present on social media and even sometimes that’s stress inducing. How could anyone be happy in a society where they’re constantly striving to get to a 4.5 rating? That’s got to have horrible effects on ones self esteem. I think Ryan’s rating of 3.75 seems to allow him the ability to live an actual life not so focused on how other feel about him. In the long run he ended up much happier than his sister. 

People SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

Now that title isn't very yogic of me!

To remedy my absence from Blogger of late, I sat down for "Nosedive" with my iPhone Notes in hand, determined to take note of the important themes of the utopia and submit them for discussion.

But here is a sample of my notes:

----------

"ppl suck
Lacie is like 'no I have to get there it's my best friends wedding' instead of just being a nice person
'I am so sorry about that' flight lady too

Cat in the hat did cheesy pastel world better

Imagine that being high strung all the time

People running back into their cars when she needs help (me doing flyers stuff)"

----------

And so on.

This weekend I went door to door in my neighborhood passing out informational flyers for New Market's upcoming farmer's market, and though I had a couple nice interactions with people, the ones that stuck out were a frowning guy waving me away from his door as I approached, smiling, and another man with wary, staring family gathered about him aggressively saying "y'know, there's a sign down there that says no so-lic-it-ting," and the like.... This episode just compounded with that and made me think "God, people SUCK!"

That's the essence of my reflection, everybody. I don't really believe that people suck, or maybe I just like to say that. Maybe that's the point of this episode? To make viewers recoil at our world? To be reactive rather than proactive? "Nosedive" doesn't give much encouragement to actively work to remedy its uncomfortable echoes in our world...

Now for a fun gif of the incomparable Mike Myers' Cat in the Hat expressing how this episode made me feel towards people:

Pastel Nightmare

I thought this episode of Black Mirror was interesting, and kinda comments on our own social media influenced society today, but I also thought it was really unfair that having a high rating means better perks. Or, rather, that having a low rating means you can't do a lot of things. Money seems absolutely worthless in this society, since having close to five stars means you can pretty much get whatever you want.
I wonder, though, at what point in someone's life is this system truly implemented? I don't think they could force this type of thing on children, and it certainly didn't seem to matter to Naomi who anyone was before she became who she is now. The whole thing sort of reminded me of having good or bad credit score, except way more extreme.
This system works well if its meant for everyone to be overly fake nice to everybody they meet and live fake lives in order to get better perks, but if it was created in order to put the best people, or the kindest and most charitable people on top, then it would have definitely failed from the beginning. Of course, there's no real way of telling who is fake and who's not in this world, and the fact that you have to look through everyone's posts and stuff right in front of them, with them knowing, just seems really awkward and stressful.

No Privacy

While watching "Nosedive," I couldn't help but have this song spinning in my brain. The lines "I always feel like somebody's watching me / And I have no privacy" and "I don't know anymore / are the neighbors watching me?" just fit perfectly with this world where no one can escape the perpetual cycle of increasing or decreasing online and offline status. Everyone, from your coworkers to a stranger passing you by on the highway, has the power to watch you and decide how lush or poor your life may be. Laci slowly devolves into manic obsessiveness over her stars not only for 'social fame' but housing and reputation and general security. Considering that a person can merely look at you and see your rating, the threat of being watched is enough to incite paranoia and a constant state of 'acting,' which is what Rockwell's song portrays and/or frets over.

Of course, other stalker/paranoia heavy songs that also popped into my head were "Private Eyes" and "Every Step You Take," but I stuck with "Somebody's Watching Me" because its almost helpless, manic-yet-calm assertion of prying, judging eyes seems to parallel and reflect the 'Utopia' in "Nosedive."


Here's the lyric video if the official music video isn't to our tastes:

The Currency of Social Media

With the episode of Black Mirror, I think it’s interesting that this is a current hot topic for The New York Times.

Anna Sorokin came to the United States from Germany under the pseudonym Anna Delvey and was recently found guilty for swindling New York’s elite socialites convincing them she was a European heiress. Friends paid for vacations, rent, and food (on one vacation she stuck a Vanity Fairwriter with a $62,000 check). This was all supported on credibility through her heavily curated Instagram alone, where Delvey started with little to no resources and resorted to falsifying checks and over drafting bank accounts before she was almost charged with second-degree grand larceny for trying to obtain a 22-million-dollar loan in an attempt to open a SoHo art gallery/night club. Even more strange, in my course of reading the story, I found that Sorokin is still supported by anonymous benefactors who lend her high fashion runway looks for her court dates and send a personal stylist to her cell in Rikers Island before her court appearances. These looks have evolved into an even more interesting Instagram account (@annadelveycourtlooks) where her fashions have been documented. The case has even started a brand of t-shirts emblazoned with phrases like, “Free Anna” and “My other shirt will wire you $30,000”; these nearly sold out on their first run throughs. Sorokin was found guilty for lifting $200k from many businesses, but has somehow concocted enough traction in her status to become a finessing icon. Yeah, I said it.

With something so current happening in the news I think it’s hard to forget that credibility on social media will take you very far in life if you play your cards right, just like the circumstances of “Nosedive”.

PS Shout out to the Uber rating system, where I won’t get in a driver’s car unless they’re over a 4.25 rating if they have more than 500 rides. Stay safe!

(Sorokin in Morocco as "Anna Delvey", from the article written by the Vanity Fair writer she swindled)

(from: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/my-misadventure-with-the-magician-of-manhattan))

(from @annadelveycourtlooks)

Here is the NYT article if you're interested: (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/nyregion/anna-delvey-sorokin-verdict.html)

Still Relevant?

So I really liked this episode of Black Mirror, despite the fact that it looks like actual Hell to me - or maybe because it looks like Hell, and that makes it even more satisfying when Lacie actually realizes that the best way to win in her world is to not play the game. That being said, I have a question: do you all think this episode is still relevant? Since I got to college, I’ve made a lot of friends, and all the ones I’ve been closest with are the type of people who genuinely care for each other enough to accept each other’s flaws instead of either ignoring them or beating each other up about them. Since these are the people I surround myself with, I don’t really end up interacting a lot with “fake” people who have the kind of toxic friendships that are being addressed in Nosedive. Do people actually still behave like this, or do you think we’re finally starting to move past the point where it’s a problem?

Susan's Exit from the Credit System

"You don't know me so you're not really sorry. You're just mainly awkward cos I have sprung some cancer talk at you. Anyway, I five-starred every doctor, every nurse, every high-four consultant that we had. Ding. Ding. Ding. Thank you so much. The cancer didn't give a shit. It just kept growing. A couple of months in, we heard about this experimental treatment. It was very expensive. It was very exclusive. I did everything I could to get him a spot there. Tom was a 4. 3. They gave his bed to a 4. 4. So when he died I thought, fuck it. I started saying what I wanted, when I wanted. Just drop it out there. People don't always like that. It is incredible how fast you slip off the ladder when you start doing that. It turned out a lot of my friends didn't care for honesty. Treated me like I had taken a shit at their breakfast table. But, Jesus Christ, it felt good. Shedding those fuckers. It was like taking off tight shoes. Maybe you should try it?" - Susan, "Nosedive."

As awful as the consequences appear to be for foregoing the system of social credit in "Nosedive," I can't help but to feel relief to the knowledge that there are people who exist comfortably outside of that circle of society. When Susan suggest to Lacie to try being herself, she does so with the experience of both being at the tops and bottoms of the social ladder. The greater wisdom to Susan's advice is the option to opt-out of this system, something which seems feasible at only the cost of social isolation, which isn't nearly as bad as the opt-out cost of other utopias that we've looked at.

A Parody of PUP's "DVP"

NSDV

My Brother thinks that I'm a freak

He's been rating me 1 star, left him on his own for a wedding

NayNay will get me my rating

Yeah, nothing's working and the future's looking bleak and I say

I took the escape hatch fast, get drunk and I can't shut up

she says i'm good for rising

I fucked up and now I'm in jail

Susan says she was like me once

I'm talking fast to get away

doing 180 to NayNay's wedding

Yeah, I'd be better off dead

I don't give a shit, I just don't wanna rate and I don't want to suck-up

I took the escape hatch fast, get drunk and I can't shut up
she says i'm good for rising
I fucked up and now I'm in jail
Susan says she was like me once

I'll drink 'til I'm riding a 4-wheeler
I'll be just fine I'm numb and loose feeling
I can't tell lies anymore

I took the escape hatch fast, get drunk and I can't shut up
she says i'm good for rising
fucked up and i'm clinked up

I just don't know what to do, guess I'll cuss with my cell neighbor
he says "I don't like your aura"
face-to-face venting
our faces become one, fuck.

Sibyl

Discovering that the Sibyl System is merely a collection of 247 (I think) brains is extremely shocking, but the fact that it actually works and does result in peace for society might even be more shocking.
It's very interesting, though, and the fact that they take the characteristics from the brains of criminals in order to root out or search for other similar qualities in people in society almost sort of makes sense.
I understand Akane's conflict, as it reminds me of the issue in "Those who walk away from Omelas" and even in Minority Report. Although, in this case, no one is really suffering, but what is going on is still a question of morality.
I also wonder who implemented this system in the first place? Who watches over it now? And what if it didn't work, but forced the world into a state of destruction and allowed criminals to do whatever they pleased? It seems like no one would really be able to stop something like that if it ended up happening.

Ghost in the Machine

The big reveal of our second set of episodes, that the Sybil system determines Crime Coefficients by analyzing a scanned person's brain and comparing it to a vast catalogue of "deviant" brains collected over the years and which comprise the intelligence of Sybil itself, continues a running theme I've noticed in recent years. I think I could make an argument for having dystopia as a recognizable sub-genre.

The theme is this; a Dystopia either is the polar a bad utopia (in the sense that the writer intends for reader to not want to live there) or has a lie or a series of  lies which support the supposed Utopian society. We've seen a few examples of the latter this semester, namely Psycho Pass and Minority Report, but many others support this definition, including classics like Make Room (aka Soylent Green).

Utopias Overall

I've been a fan of Psycho-Pass for a few years now and initially I thought this would be a terrible world to live in but now I am not so sure. From all of the texts we have viewed/read in this class I realized there will always be something imperfect about society (violence, boring, everyone's a drug addict, etc). I think for many of these societies to be successful, it requires some level of unawareness and ignorance about the system from the masses. Kogami and Akane's increasing self-awareness seems to be a route of many of their problems as it isolates them from their blissfully unaware peers. As a result, it lands them in situations that causes them to pit their values against the ideas that have been ingrained in them by society and the Sybil system. Awareness seems to be a route of conflict for many of the characters we've studied (ex. if John hadn't been so painfully aware of the downfalls of the World State he would have assimilated into their society, been hopped up on soma, and living his best life). I guess what Im trying to say is sometimes, ignorance really is bliss.

Consequences in Psycho-Pass

As we come to an end of our divulge into Psych-Pass, I actually enjoyed the series MUCH better with subtitles rather than the dub (RIP Kagami). I have question that I was pondering while I was watching the last episode where Kogami (Kagomi?) is being chased and is viable for lethal execution via the Dominator. Would the society change if there was a way to really reduce your crime-coefficient and nothave a certain person be forced into the life of an Enforcer after it dips below or becomes ‘hazy’? Would the world in Psycho-Pass be better if it was less permanent in its consequences for those who become latent criminals or psycho-hazards? I could also see how this makes the concept of the already muddy morals of Psycho-Pass even more messy.

I have food poisoning so enjoy this unrelated pic of true Utopian leader, Sailor Moon!

(giphy.gif)

The Law in Utopia

So I’m a bit surprised that Professor MB had us skip the episode that has this scene in it, since I feel like it directly conveys a lot of key concepts about society and the nature of Utopia. I think that in this scene Akane touches on something that is very important to note: the law is ultimately created by people, and it is depends on people who uphold it. While this may be challenged by societies where the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many, I think this is a concept that often gets lost in democratic societies like our own where it is most important. She also touches on how people are constantly working to create a better world - a utopia - and the law is a reflection of that.