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I had a few questions in mind. Akane is someone who strongly believes in justice and she doesn't cross the line even she could. She knows Sybil is not the perfect system and lots of people do suffer from injustice because of it. So why support it then even when she has had the chances to destroy it?

I mean how bad can it get without Sybil. It might be difficult for the society without Sybil but if the rest of the world can live without it, then why not the Japanese?

Alchemist
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3 Answers3

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There are several opinions on this matter discussed in the anime, and I believe one of them makes the most sense. The fact that the society living under the law of Sybil has already formed certain behavioral patterns makes it very hard to safely oppose the system.

Remember how people start freaking out at the very thought that their criminal rating could go up? How they become extremely nervous at the sight of a criminal activity or something that may look like it. Imagine if they learned that somebody is trying to oppose Sybil, how they would react. This would certainly cause a lot of trouble and quite possibly lots of people killed because of how the Sybil system works.

So the safer solution is to change the way it works gradually from within, by changing the basic principles of how it judges people. Akane can't single-handedly destroy the Sybil system, and because she has such a strong sense of justice, she knows it would not be right to risk more innocent people's lives than she has to, so she doesn't really have a lot of choice.

Hakase
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    But if there is no Sybil, then people don't have to worry about their crime coefficients. Even if they do rise temporarily on opposition to Sybil, a different system can take over and gradually stabilize the society again. – Alchemist Jun 06 '15 at 16:26
  • They will most likely freak out even more because "now criminals can go unpunished oh noo". For the regular police to overtake the whole country before Sybil is disabled, would take a lot of time and preparation. I don't think any one person is capable of organizing that well enough in a short time span. What Akane had in mind would take less time and cause minimal disturbance to the society. – Hakase Jun 06 '15 at 16:52
  • On the contrary. There's an entire scene where a large group of people watches a woman get beaten to death with a wrench and nobody even flinches. The only thing Sibyl's monitoring system thinks is wrong is that the woman is getting overly stressed for no apparent reason. The vast majority of people are subdued sheep divorced of their humanity and wholly dependent on Sibyl's judgment. It is a clear minority that exhibit significant issues. You may be confusing the problematic minority as being indicative of the wider population since Akane's entire job is dealing with that minority. – zibadawa timmy Jun 06 '15 at 23:46
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    Like @zibadawatimmy said, people don't really have their own opinion anymore. They just follow Sybil. So it wouldn't be very hard to control people like that who just follow orders. That's true. But in the episode where Makishima distributes the helmets, the people do take to streets and fight for themselves, eventually going really violent. Don't you think it will be chaotic like Hakase said. – Alchemist Jun 07 '15 at 04:38
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    @zibadawatimmy I think that scene is actually contradiction to what you are saying. People are so used to idea that crime cannot happen, that they didn't realize that any crime is going on. They all thought it was just performance (or hologram). It is the moment they realize it is a crime that their crime coeeficients start skyrocketing. The Sybil is so good at judging disruptive elements that people grew up thinking they don't even exist. – Euphoric Jun 07 '15 at 06:48
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First, how Hakase said, the process of disabling Sibyl would be extremely tough and if not done correctly, it would result in many people getting hurt or dying.

But there is other problem : what system should replace it? I think it was stressed enough in conversation between Akane and Sybil. Even though Akane doesn't like the current system, she doesn't have a replacement that would give same results as Sybil while being much "nicer". Unlike Makishima, who didn't care what would happen after Sybil was destroyed, she doesn't want to risk anarchy afterwards. She doesn't want to risk a situation, where system much worse than Sybil would emerge afterwards.

And one more thing : no matter how bad you think Sybil is. It still gives "happiness" to most people. Even if life of few are sacrificed for it.

Euphoric
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I would also like to mention that the rest of the world ISN'T functioning very well without a system like Sybil. Wong and Sybil both stated that most of the countries in the world are in a state of anarchy and disorder.

Risnotmean
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