
Philosophy of Ghost in the Shell (2012) - keiferski
https://web.archive.org/web/20120224113551/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_Ghost_in_the_Shell
======
wayoutthere
I still find it amazing how in 2002 — long before Facebook or YouTube existed
— they got so much right about the emergent properties of social media (the
Stand Alone Complex piece). It’s a brilliant metaphor that just so happened to
predate it’s subject by a decade.

The anime has some problems; namely pacing and the density of narrative. There
are two episodes dedicated exclusively to exposition with no action, and they
can be really hard to follow due to the mediocre translation. But if you can
see past the very real flaws, there is a gem of a story about the nature of
what it means to be human in a connected society.

~~~
djsumdog
I had trouble getting into the series and was wondering if it was just me, but
this makes me want to go back and try Stand Alone Complex again. I really did
enjoy the movie. It had really good world building.

~~~
hottycat3
I recommend watching the original Japanese dubbed version with English
subtitles. At that time translation was rough in most anime but this has since
then improved.

(For German readers I recommend the German sub, the used the same people who
dubbed the Stargate series which did a really good job in both cases.)

~~~
malvosenior
Just a nit pick but the original Japanese version isn’t a dub, it’s the
original audio. I totally agree it’s the best version though.

That being said the English dub is pretty good too.

~~~
idle_zealot
>original Japanese version isn’t a dub

Unless SAC is one of those incredibly rare pieces of Japanese animation where
the voices were recorded prior to the animation being completed, the Japanese
voiced version is just as much a dub as the English version.

>[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dub>dub](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/dub>dub) verb (2)

>dubbed; dubbing

>Definition of dub

>(Entry 4 of 5)

>transitive verb

>1 : to add (sound effects or new dialogue) to a film or to a radio or
television production —usually used with "in"

>// They dubbed in the music.

~~~
wayoutthere
The voices may not have been recorded, but the script is almost certainly
better in Japanese. The English dub is a static script, but the fan-created
subtitles are usually a much better translation than the official ones from
that era.

~~~
idle_zealot
I agree completely.

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cheschire
One of my favorite little nuances in the original GITS anime is a scene in the
middle that immerses the viewer in the world. This video[0] goes into detail
about this and how it relates to aspect-to-aspect transitions in comics.

Comparing this element alone with the nature of the 2017 Hollywood film really
has helped me identify so many other similar events in media where I
previously would have struggled to pinpoint why I felt certain responses to
something I watched.

The most recent example being the comparison of the pacing of The Mandalorian
with The Rise of Skywalker.

0:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXTnl1FVFBw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXTnl1FVFBw)

~~~
yvdriess
One of the strongest elements in that scene regarding the concept of
'identity' is completely missed by that video: Kusanagi briefly sees someone
in an office building that looks exactly like her. It's a great nod to the
book, which briefly explains that her face is made to look like a cheap
factory-line model, belying the astronomically expensive military grade
hardware she's made of. Nothing better than having a bunch of people look
exactly like you to make you believe in dualism, if only as a straw for your
identity to hand on to.

~~~
wayoutthere
In the Stand Alone Complex timeline, Kusanagi is literally several different
people throughout the story. She assimilates memories from a few different
sources (the tank in episode 2, the Laughing Man, and Kuze, Puppetmaster in
the SAC:SSS movie). It's implied (and made explicit in other GitS timelines)
that the only reason she is able to do this and maintain her sense of self is
because she was "cyberized" as a young child and had to figure out the answer
to the question "who is Motoko Kusanagi?" independently of her physical form.

She even has a line towards the end of the SAC:SSS movie that says something
like "next time you meet me I might be a completely different person". But
there is indeed a "base" personality that she tries to hold on to (e.g. via
her watch) despite the wide range of memories she acquires.

~~~
cheschire
The second manga explores this in detail as well.

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whtrbt
"...if the right kind of people begin to believe it was arson, caused by
deliberate action, the threat that more arsons will be committed increases
drastically.

What separates the Stand Alone Complex from normal copycat behavior is that
there is no real originator of the copied action, but merely a rumor or an
illusion that supposedly performed the copied action."

~~~
teekert
Also a true pearl:

"...A key point is that due to the electronic communications network that is
increasingly permeating society, more and more people are being exposed to the
same information and stimuli, making the overall psyche and responses of large
groups of people increasingly similar, the result being that the potential
increases exponentially for copycat behavior that forms a Standalone Complex.
There is no original Laughing Man, no leader. Everyone is acting on their own,
yet a coherent whole emerges. There are people who employed the copycat
behavior before others, but what started the coherent whole is indefinitive."

~~~
nyolfen
this runs contrary to the mcluhan-inspired idea that has gained popularity
recently — that media fracturing and echo chamber effects are shredding our
shared identities and political control structures. i find this idea more
convincing; we may have access to the same information flows but everyone has
their own bubble, typically part of an ideological camp.

~~~
catalogia
Yeah I think the AI's monologue from Metal Gear Solid 2 (basically an anime)
cut closer to our present reality:

> _" [...] You exercise your right to "freedom" and this is the result. All
> rhetoric to avoid conflict and protect each other from hurt. The untested
> truths spun by different interests continue to churn and accumulate in the
> sandbox of political correctness and value systems. Everyone withdraws into
> their own small gated community, afraid of a larger forum. They stay inside
> their little ponds, leaking whatever "truth" suits them into the growing
> cesspool of society at large. The different cardinal truths neither clash
> nor mesh. No one is invalidated, but nobody is right. Not even natural
> selection can take place here. The world is being engulfed in "truth."
> [...]_

The full version is something like 20 minutes long, but basically the AI
argues that digital communication leads to the decentralization of 'truth' and
that the solution is employ narrative shaping algorithms against the general
public.

~~~
ShamelessC
That was eerily on point for how old that game is.

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anotheryou
If you only watched the rather recent movie: know that they spun the story
around 180°.

The original is more of a love letter to technology [SPOILER] and ends with
the first merge of human and AI in to something new [/SPOILER] (it's not about
technophobic humans policing the bad runaway machines).

~~~
Pigo
The original Ghost in the Shell has been one of my favorite films since the
first time I seen it. To be honest, there's no other anime I've seen that I
actually enjoyed apart from the Cowboy Bebop movie. So I don't consider myself
a anime fan. The original GITS is a brilliant film that is beyond a specific
genre.

~~~
catalogia
You might like the Patlabor series/movies, directed by GITS's director Mamoru
Oshii. Particularly the first two movies, which have a more serious tone than
the rest of it. And imho the animation and aesthetics of the first two
Patlabor movies is right up there with GITS.

~~~
malvosenior
Honestly I wouldn’t recommend Patlabor to someone who only likes the GITS
movie and Cowboy Bebop. It’s going to feel too slow and cheezy (in a way many
anime fans including myself enjoy).

I’d probably suggest Rurouni Kenshin (Samurai X) or Gundam Zeta instead. They
have interesting themes, are more adult and have amazing art.

~~~
catalogia
I think the aesthetic/pacing/art of particularly the first two Patlabor movies
would probably be appreciated by somebody who's a fan of the first GITS movie
specifically. There is a common cyberpunk thread running through both those
Patlabor movies and GITS. Patlabor 1 has a plot that easily could have been a
GITS plot and spends a lot of time dwelling on the ways apparent progress
leaves many people feeling abandoned and worthless.

The Patlabor TV show is definitely much lighter material, a lot more
accessible to children.

~~~
Pigo
Thanks for the suggestions, I'll definitely check them out. Maybe it's my age,
but a lot of what I have seen like Deathnote or even the GITS SAC didn't click
with me. Cowboy Bebop was just fun, and I forgot I was watching an anime.

I think maybe it's the high-concept, almost frightening, aspects of GITS that
resonated with me. But I understand why it's not popular with most people.

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aalleavitch
I think my favorite part of Stand-Alone Complex by far (aside from how
incredibly prescient much of it is) are the Tachikomas. I really love the idea
that the first AGI we develop will necessarily have to pass through a pretty
childlike level of understanding about the world while having some unsettling
levels of intelligence and competence in some aspects. I love the episode
where they're trying to hide the fact that they're developing
individuality/sapience but are fairly inept at doing so.

Also, just the psychological warfare aspect of having a military tank with an
adorable personality is great.

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degosuke
For those who are wondering why it's no longer on wikipedia: "Non-encyclopedic
content; a personal essay, a hotchpotch of fan speculation and original
research."

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Flenser
This used to be on it's own domain as well but it looks like that's gone too
now:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20180514064448/http://ghostinthes...](http://web.archive.org/web/20180514064448/http://ghostintheshellphilosophy.info:80/)

Looks like the following is the original author. They mention it on their
portfolio page:

[https://www.michaelolaya.com/portfolio](https://www.michaelolaya.com/portfolio)

------
keiferski
This article was deleted from Wikipedia in 2017. There is some deep irony in
that fact considering that GiTS has numerous instances of memories being
erased or modified.

Thankfully, the Wayback Machine preserved it.

~~~
brudgers
Archive.org modifies the memories it stores. But I don't find much irony in
the article being deleted. It seems more appropriate as part of a larger
article on Ghost in the Shell. It's an aspect of an imaginary world not
something that stands alone in the context of general shared experience. An
accurate understanding requires boiling all the oceans of Ghost in the Shell.
As a standalone, it's more like an academic paper.

Incidentally, to the degree there's irony here, archive.org's modification of
the content seems more relevant than it's deletion. Forgotten isn't wrong,
it's just forgotten.

~~~
keiferski
I find the fact that Wikipedia deletes content to be almost offensive,
especially when there are so many 'stubs' and other one-paragraph articles all
over the site. It's supposed to be a free encyclopedia that catalogs the
world's information.

If there is a serious issue with an article, then fine, quarantine it or
somehow set it aside. But to remove a well-written, well-cited and interesting
article for dubious reasons really seems unnecessary. Maybe if they had
incorporated it into the regular article on GiTS, it would make sense. But
there is zero mention of the philosophical content:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell)

~~~
ratww
Wikipedia had a 180 degree change in its stance on works of fiction in the
last decade.

Character pages were deleted in bulk even when they were properly sourced,
individual episodes pages were all merged together.

Administrators and moderators are pushing all this stuff to Wikia/Fandom, the
sister project that is riddled with advertisement, user tracking and bad
design.

~~~
economyballoon
[https://ghostintheshell.fandom.com/wiki/Philosophy](https://ghostintheshell.fandom.com/wiki/Philosophy)

~~~
ratww
Nice find!

I wonder if the people removing articles on fictional works are moving it to
Wikia by themselves.

