Taskmaster The Podcast - Ghost In The Shell

Episode Date: January 2, 2023

Cyberpunk Month continues with a story about what happens if you Ship of Theseus yourself. Ghost in the Shell is an all time classic of the genre, and much funnier than you expect.patreon.com/swordsandsocialismEmail: [e-mail] The Show: @SwordsNSocPodAsha: @Herbo_AnarchistKetho: @StupidPuma69 patreon.com/swordsandsocialismEmail: [e-mail] The Show: @SwordsNSocPodAsha: @Herbo_AnarchistKetho: @MusicalPuma69

Music Hello everyone, welcome back to Sword Surgery and Socialism. Podcasts about the politics and themes hiding in her genre fiction. As always, I am Asha and I'm here with my co-host, Ketho. How's it going? Howdy. I'm phoning in from the the rainy city itself. The Pacific Northwest. Yeah. I am currently recording looking up my window at like two or three inches of snow on the ground, which sucks. But say where I'm at, I got a nice view of the space needle. Woo!

Docks in yourself, bold, straight. Listen, there's a lot. And how many places in Seattle could you see the space needle from? Oh, never know. And also, I'm not here for very long. I want you to tell me what else you can see out your window so I can try and get your location.

I see some vines. Actually, I got a tracking bolt put on your license plate, so I know where you're at. Hey, I took a plane. Shit. We are back this week to talk about ghost in the shell as our British listeners might unfortunately know Gits Gits. Oh my god

We are this is the mango written by Massimune Shiro and then also adapted into a film in 1995 Uh by and then also adapted into a film in 1995 by Mamoru Oshii, which by the ways he's really good. His stuff is really good. If you haven't seen Angel's Egg, go watch Angel's Egg, holy shit. It's all very good. There were definitely no other film adaptations of this specific story. They don't exist. So I don't know what you're talking about.

See, the thing is, is I've actually heard really good things about like all of them, but like, well, I mean, there were sequels, there's sequels to this one. There's sequels, there's sequels, there's a rise, which is like a, I mean, specifically,

there was definitely one that didn't come out. There was no film called Ghost in the Shell that came out in 2017. Oh, that, okay, that didn't exist. That didn't happen. That did not happen. That is one of those like shazam and steam bear things. That's a thing you think happened, but it didn't. See, I, it didn't happen so much that I didn't even remember.

That's what we were talking about because we weren't talking about it. Because nothing is there to do. It's not real. So ghost in the shell, I would say after Akira, probably one of the more, maybe the most well-known sort of cyberpunk anime, particularly the cost over into America. And I mean, in a way, this is riding off Vocchiura's co-tales that it was able to be released in American theaters,

but it's another one that people, from the first wave of anime that people really remember in the West. Akira. I think this might, I think ghost in the show might honestly be the first like true anime movie I ever saw. I mean, I unfortunately was a Pokemon child. So I guess, I guess you're okay.

If we're counting that then yeah, they're like the Pokemon movie I saw first. Yeah, but that's just because you know, Pokemon is Pokemon. What child born in the late 80s and the 90s and stuff wasn't Yeah, playing crap at a Pokemon. Yeah, obviously I want the Pokemon movie. I guess would be first. I'm thinking of more of the more serious, you know, anime outings.

This is not something I'm learning cartoon style. Yeah, this is one of the first ones I remember seeing. And I think that's probably true for a lot of people in the US. not something morning cartoon style. Yeah, this is one of the first ones I remember seeing. And I think that's probably true for a lot of people in the US. And like you said, of that sort of early wave of anime, specifically the 90s wave, this is the one that people remember. Yeah, I mean, Akira had staying power as its own thing. Ghost in the Shell spun into like so many different spin-offs and properties. Like, standalone complex is a pretty highly regarded anime television series as well.

So like, and I can see how it was possible to, after reading the manga, I can see how it was possible to do that with Ghost in the Shell in a way that wasn't possible with Akira. Akira is very much a focused singular story about a specific set of people during a specific time, whereas Ghost in the Shell, even when the manga started, has an overarching plot, but is also very episodic. Yeah, it lends itself much more to like branching and diverse stories happening within the world that's been created, as opposed to Akira, which is like, this is the story, the only one.

Like, Akira is very much a character driven. Like, it's very central, like, this is attention between two specific characters and the things that are happening around them. And in the case of Ghost in the Shell, this is more of a world building exercise. Yeah, we, it's this, I honestly, I think, sticks closer to the Laguin definition of sci-fi

as being a thought experiment, and then you're taking it to its extent. In a way, because the thought experiment is, I have created this world where we have cyborgs that are, when they wish to be, indistinguishable from humans. And to be fair, may or may not actually be human, that's kind of the whole point of the story.

We're gonna talk about today. But the thought experiment experiment is I have created this world where these are the stakes or the parameters. Now let's explore what happens because of that. Because of it. Whereas Akira Akira was more the stakes are these two characters are experiencing this thing. What does that mean? How do they react to it? Yeah, ghost of the shell is the world is experiencing these circumstances. Now we can look at all sorts of people inside that world and see how they react to those circumstances.

It's a very different like angle for how to approach the question. Cheryl has a really honestly, an interesting grasp of geopolitics, which I find really, really bizarre. Like, he just straight up talks about labor unions and the proletariat and socialism, just in the text, not even in the subtext, and doesn't necessarily, I don't think he's making

a judgment call on any political ideology. No, I think he's just representing different political factions that exist in a futuristic setting. Because on one hand, there is a lot of criticism of consumerism going on where Kitsuragi herself will just be like, well, actually her boss will just be like, the soul of the world is being lost to this consumerist nonsense. Which kind of goes back to what we said about Akira. If you want to hear all of our thoughts about Akira, you should subscribe to the Patreon. It came out last, it came out earlier this week.

Here's a little snippet. Because we're going to have to make references to it to talk about this. When talking about Akira, we mentioned how there are people who are still alive in the 80s, who remembered traditional Japan, like Meiji era Japan, When talking about Akira, we mentioned how there are people who are still alive in the 80s, who remembered traditional Japan, like Meiji era Japan, into the neoliberal hellscape of the 80s. And it's, Japan has a much more developed fear of that than the West does, I think, because the West didn't go through that transition so quickly. And especially America, like America at this point, consumerism has just become commonplace

to the point of almost unquestioning. It is our national psyche to a large extent. Yeah. Whereas Japan had the chance to see it happening and go, what the fuck? So, so in, in this instance, like he's like, oh, the soul of everything is being sucked out by rampant consumerism. But then in the next statement, on the next page, there'll be a guy talking about how the labor unions own everything.

But then there's also a factory in the manga that's like, we won't have to worry about labor unions anymore because our factory is 100% automated. Like there are these tit for tat push-in pulls all over it. And the fact that he's willing and able to just write, oh, the beleaguered proletariat into his writing. It's really interesting to see that in Amanga specifically because I think for a lot of reasons, Japan does have a history to some extent of communist or Marxist parties, but they don't. They do.

They really do, but at the same time, I think because of their proximity to China, have also got a lot of anxiety about it. And of course, we would be remiss if we didn't mention the fact that post-war Japan's government was essentially set up by the US in such a way that a communist party could not come to power. Yeah, I mean, the government was literally designed for the conservative party

to be the reigning party permanently. Yeah, I was in a, which shout out, sorry, time, shout out is, like I think yesterday was the five-month anniversary of Shinzo Abe getting got by a fallout gun. So just wanted to, and actual change happening because of it too, which is mind boggling.

They essentially rely on the most, the most successful political assassination of the 21st century. Yeah, like the dude shot him and then they were like, yeah, you know what, we're going to investigate this cult. And you're like, well, that's success, propaganda of the deed by guy. But yeah, shout out to the five month anniversary of Shinzo Abe getting blown away by a thing of a jig. Rip Bozo. Anyway, so like you said, so aside from their history being designed to be

a conservative country by the United States, they do also have China right next door, which and North Korea. And North Korea, which do provide existential threats to Japan at times, or at least pretend to, or threaten to. So that's also going to take their outlook of people that call themselves communist. Yeah, absolutely. Japan at times or at least pretend to or threaten to. So that's also going to take their outlook of people that call themselves communist. Yeah. There's, there's, you know, somewhat of an issue of

Japan thinking of itself as being a victim against China, given the horrible, horrible horseshit they did to them. The absolutely heinous, unforgivable bullshit. But because up until relatively recently, China was always seen as kind of like, for like a couple, for almost a hundred years in that area, was kind of seen as the weak ones. They were essentially from the beginning of European colonialization up until the 60s. Well, yeah, once industrialism, because, you know, Qing Dynasty, really big, really before industrial production,

was the richest place on the planet. And then the British... And then the British happened. Then the British said, what if we destroyed the environment from money? You could argue that the only reason that Britain, not the only reason, but the main reason Britain looked for something as productive as the industrial system because they were terrified

of the dominance of China at the time. China and India, specifically. Yeah. So we're saying is the like China, the like this whole like Japan seeing China as an existential threat is sort of weird because they had China was basically getting genocide and kicked around by everybody else up until like the 60s. Yeah, well, I mean, then America the 60s. Yeah, well, I mean, then America very intentionally kneecapped their military and use them as like a staging ground to prevent the spread of communism eastward. Yeah, let's not ask, you know, the Japanese, how they feel about the fact that they are essentially an extent

US military base with a population attached. Yeah, with a massive population attached. But this does go back to what we're talking about before with the people of Japan. Unlike America, which for at least all the white settlers, the capitalism and the rampant consumerism were part and parcel of the growth of the country. Yeah, they came there with it. They came that we brought it with us. The Japanese had it forced upon them by us. And that has is essentially the foundation that

led to where all of this cyberpunk comes from. Yeah. What if you weren't in control of the direction of society? Something I do think is interesting is that very briefly, I mentioned before how all of this stuff is usually post-apocalyptic in one way or another. Mm-hmm. Kitsuragi does mention World War IV. That's right, she does.

So there have been two world wars between... Yeah, I was gonna say on the one hand, the world of Ghost in the Shell isn't post-apocalyptic. Like, the city hasn't been destroyed and rebuilt in a way that's visible, you know, the way Neo Tokyo is in Akira. Disassembled. It's dystopic, but it's not. It's actually closer to the world of Neuromancer. Yeah, much closer.

Neuromancer had a war too, but again, it wasn't a like a world-ending society destroying war. It was more just like this was pretty deadly, but now we're over it. The funny thing is, is that this is all supposed to be set in 2029 and 2030. The way we have, we've got like seven years to have two world wars. Two world wars now. I'm going to be honest, it's kind of astounding that we haven't had another one given how long it's been, especially given the prevalence of sci-fi authors in the 80s that were like another one's coming. Oh, baby, another one's coming. I think it was essentially forced all by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Well, yeah, it was forced all by that. It was forced

all by neoliberalism's. I hate to give it, I hate to give it any credit because it's terrible credit to give, but like, in a way, locking so many places into economic necessity on each other, like, like America and China, are those two going to become embroiled in a traditional land war? and China are those two going to become embroiled in a traditional land war? Then nobody will have anything. So you're like the only time anyone should be worried about like true world war scenario is if, I mean, honestly, if the economic system would have to change in such a way that the countries are no longer... You would have to have a different country other than the U.S. that can exist without the

economic input from other places. Which doesn't work right now. Which right now is not something that's possible. Getting more directly back to our text, we have Ghost in the Shell, which is a work that poses the existential question, what if the cops weren't completely shit all the time? Which, yeah, that's definitely an issue to have with this as an anarchist. Because you're definitely following just the cops.

All the cops. The extra judicial cops for the most part. I would honestly call these guys like, what's the word for like military police? Like, they're more like MPs. Yeah, they're like the cops of the of the government. They're more like the department of Homeland Security. Yeah, they're more like the DHS people who are disappearing protesters into vans in 2020. You know, like Chad Wolf's boys, it's they're

more like that. They're like the cops who don't actually have any rules about what they can and can't do. That shows in planes, clothes and regular cars and throw people in the back. Yeah, and again, just disappear people off the street. Throughout this, you know, conversation, we're going to be bouncing forth, back and forth, be referencing the manga and the 95 movie because everyone's seen the movie. And I have a small brain. It can only, it's hard for me to remember which one was which. But like the opening scene of the movie

is literally, Gus and I, doing an extra judicial assassination of like a diplomat. Yeah. Like this is literally the first thing that happens. It's, I mean, it happened, it's the same thing in the manga too. And being portrayed as good, because they needed to stop this diplomat

from giving diplomatic immunity to a cyborg programmer. And there are moments where it is a weird conception of that sort of DHS scenario, because it almost, they're almost painted as doing near unilateral good. Everything they do is for the good of the country and the people in the country. And honestly, when you actually look at the layout of what they do in those scenes, like in each scenario in the manga, like each one that comes by, they do do the, probably the good thing, which in my

mind is just a misconception on the author's part as to how the police and the government works. But in the context of the story, they are doing the right thing, and I don't think anyone could make the argument otherwise. Are main characters anywhere making the correct choice in the world and situation they've been presented in? Like in the manga, they destroy a brainwashing camp run by the government, interning war refugees into productive members of society. I actually wanted to talk about that because the, what the manga does do is a classic storytelling

thing of being able to make government deep state forces good is by pitting them against other government deep state forces. You see this all the time in like the born movies, stuff like that where it's like sure, like there's the F there's like the CIA, but they're kind of the good guys because there's a secret CIA above them or a cabal within the CIA that's trying to do evil things. And so it's like the CIA fighting itself, the CIA of fighting the FBI. This is a common storytelling technique to make you sympathize with government goons is to make them be fighting against other more corrupt

government goons. A really dumb movie that I think exemplifies that sort of thing. I don't know if you've ever seen Eagle Eye. No. But the one with Shilabuff about an AI created by the government that goes rogue and tries to blow up all of the chain of command from the president down to the last person listed on the... Try to go full Tom Clancy. It tries to go full Tom Clancy with this really convoluted insane plan that involves

shy love off and a kid who plays a trumpet. Like seriously, like it's like it's super stupidly symbolic too. Like for some reason, every single member of the chain of command was at this address, which is never what happens. You know, that's literally the Tom Clancy story, is that everyone's at the state of the union address? Yeah, but they always have at least one person out of the state of the union. I'm saying, the Tom Clancy story is everyone's at the state of the union. A plane gets crashed into Congress during the state of the Union, killing everyone except

for Jack Ryan, who at the time is like the director of Homeland Security or something. If you're really funny, if he was like the head of the Department of Energy or something. Yeah, but you know, Jack Ryan is essentially one of the last person on the Toad and Pole, or he's the designated survivor and this plane, it's 9-11, the capital building, before 9-11 was a thing. And that's how Jack Ryan, the CIA analyst, becomes president in the Tom Clancy world. But it's that sort of thing where it's a fundamental, I think, liberal misunderstanding sort of thing where it's a fundamental, I think, liberal misunderstanding of how the state works.

And this belief that the state does wrong when there's like corruptive influences within it. It's corrupt individual people within the apparatus of state who may be the same. As opposed to the apparatus itself leading to those sorts of things happening. Yeah, so that's that I was joking when I said the movie that, you know, posed the story that posed the question, what if the cops were good?

Yeah. But like it's just in a long line of stories where they are telling a story from a cops perspective, but to make you cheer for the cops, they have to make the bad guys really bad and they have to also make the bad guys connected to different parts of the government than you're following. Like oh, they're from they're actually from the part oh, they're actually from department six is trying to do the scheme where the puppet master got off the chain and is now trying to escape and they have to assassinate people

to get their own asset back in control, which now that I say it just sounds a whole lot like the Bourne series, but like, that's the go to, to make you cheer for the extra-judicial murder squad that is Kassanagi and Bato. It's like it's assumed there's other people in section 9, but it's really just the three people and then the one guy who dies in the middle of the manga. Who's trained for three seconds and then dies and then Bato has to tell the family.

It gets red-shirted. Yeah. It's, I mean, it's funny because we mentioned this and then we mentioned Tom Clancy. And where I think Tom Clancy comes across as extremely American libertarian, like to a very strong degree, this sort of thing comes off. It's being too philosophical to be a libertarian. Just flat out. Yeah, definitely. Because at this point, this is a much more liberal understanding of government as opposed to a conservative one, which is a clienty thing. Yeah. And I think the

main difference is, of course, I think the point of the story. Like in this case the characters are government people or whatever, but that's just like a catalyst for plot to happen. Yeah, it's not the point of the story. Yeah, the point isn't government is corrupted by bad people and the good cops will save us. The point is supposed to be about personhood. Yeah, I just wanted to point that out. Well, yeah, I know. It's just, it makes the reading of this much less painful than a reading of anything Tom Clancy has ever written.

Oh, God, yeah. So like- Don't read Tom Clancy. Tom Clancy is just filating himself. All right. You definitely wrote all of his books with one hand. What? Whereas this does not seem to be beating itself off.

No, it's much more just like, oh, these are the stakes. These are our good cops. And like, but I can see where the story would deem it necessary because our main characters have to have access to this technology that nobody else has. Like the general public doesn't have. So you kind of need to make it the government because you also wanted them to be badass.

You want some to be badass. And also they need to be government because they need to have access to this next-gen cyborg stuff that we're- Yeah, whereas the crazy AI, in the case of Neural Mancermancer They were like you get crazy AI from from private corporations extremely in solar private corporations made up of clones of themselves and then Which the more I think about it that actually that idea is actually really whack like in a cool and also Disturbing way. Yeah, everyone thinks that they like go into hibernation and come back out again But it actually happens. They're just cloning themselves. It's absurd. Like I love that. But in this one,

he leans more into the government is the one that will have that stuff. Which again, it makes a lot of sense coming from someone in Japan, yes, because like we were mentioning before with how their government was structured to be conservative, it was also always structured to be almost indistinguishable from the corporate sector entirely, like the iron triangle is essentially unbreakable and was fundamentally written into their constitution in a lot of ways. So the fact that bureaucracy, the industry, and the state itself are so fundamentally constitutionally intertwined, it makes sense that he wouldn't make as much of a distinction

between corporations and the government as someone like Gibson, where in America we still have this famed separation of the two. Yeah. And then the, you know, in Ghost and Shell, you can see that sort of wishy washy combination between the two where it's like, oh, where the government, we have these bodies that come from this robotics company that is essentially wholly controlled by us,

but it is an independent company kind of. But we go there for our, we go there for our hardware upgrades. It's like software cleaning and stuff. You know what I mean? Like, it's like software cleaning and stuff. You know what I mean? Like, it's like a cybernext company, but like, they're not the government, but like, they make stuff that, they make stuff that only the government purchases.

So like, it's like government contracts. Are you really not the government then? Yeah, it ties a lot more into the military industrial complex. Yeah, it's much like the cybernext companies in, in Ghost and the Shell are, you know, a bit of a slightly more subservient version of like Haliburton, well not Haliburton, but you know like Raytheon or something. Yeah, this is more like Raytheon than it is like. The one from Darumans here, the hyphenated name, Thaikir. Well, there's that one then there's

the Blade Runner one that makes the... Oh yeah, that's the one I was thinking I couldn't remember. It's okay, listen, we've read a lot of books. Whatever. But yeah, it's, or yeah, the company from from blade runner, which is it, accidentally, this independent thing that makes these synths for private consumption, where this is much, this is much closer to, like, a Raytheon, where this is much closer to like a Raytheon where it's like, we make things that only the government has the capacity to purchase and use. Yeah, and the government in a way has legally made it only possible for them to do so. It's not like you can sell tank parts to whoever wants to buy them. Goddamn nanny state.

Oh, man. I want to build a tank in my backyard. As a free American, it's my right. It's my right to have a drone with a nuclear warhead on it. Look, there's already drones with flame throws and stuff. So I mean, San Francisco just passed and then rescinded the authorization to put bombs on robots. So again, I was saying to someone the other day that of all the fiction out there, the cyberpunk writers have been the most correct about our future. And that's.

Shans the mobile phone. Shans the mobile phone. Mostly never never never never came up with mobile phones, but I'm just saying that generally the way they viewed society as going, they were right and it's bad. I will give symbolic money, not actual money, just money that I think in your direction, to anyone who can show me a science fiction story that predicted the mobile phone. You're like, a lot of sci-fi stories have like communicators. But nothing's like this shit.

Pull up, they're like, you know, pull it up on their, they're fucking bracer jack and like use the internet or something. What really makes me chuckle is that there are fucking Bracer Jack and like use the internet or something. What really makes me chuckle is that there are still like billionaires and like tech startups that are trying to do extremely sci-fi things like smart glasses and smart watches. But at the end of the day, it's still way more convenient, way more intelligent and way better made to just get it in a phone. Just put it in the phone.

Everything else is in the phone. Like, all this other stuff is really just... All my friends are in a phone. Just put it in the phone. Everything else is in the phone. Like all this other stuff is really just... All my friends are aesthetic. It's like, it's all just like aesthetic when they try and do anything else. And it turns out the most convenient way to do it is the one way that no one ever predicted. Is I ragged? Now, do you have any other smaller, like smaller or sub themes you want to talk about before we, before I think we just

dive head-first into the biggest one. The theme of Ghost in the Shell. Well, I wanted to point out a couple differences. Yeah, we can talk a little bit about the differences between the manga and the movie because what I will say to anyone who's seen the movie, the manga is very different. It covers a lot of the same questions in very different ways. It has the same characters, but they're presented very differently. If you want to see the plot of the movie in the manga, you read the final three chapters. Yes. There's a couple chapters early on that they take little bits from and use later. Almost all of the comedy relief is removed from the film. Almost all of it.

There's a couple little chuckles, but it's not a funny movie. And it's a really not funny movie, but the manga is actually pretty funny. Weirdly, a lot of the humor as you pointed out to me before you started. A lot of the humor actually comes from Kusanagi herself. Yeah, who in the movie, she's very detached, very aloof, and in a lot of ways, very morose. But in the manga, she is, she's dealing with the same existential problems, but she's dealing with them in a much more, I don't want to say heed in a stick way, but, but in a much more like, huge way. Yeah, in a much more, I'm going to focus entirely on the moment, derive pleasure from whatever the hell I'm doing in

the moment to try and avoid this thing that's sitting in the back of my head. None of us would ever understand the idea of simply taking pleasure in the immediacy because looking ahead to the greater questions or future is terrifying. Yeah. I'm sure none of us have ever done that. She's depicted as it's implied in a way that she's bisexual or at least sexually fluid. She's because she's so and at one point on a boat with like three women who she's implied to be having sex with. She has a boyfriend at one point. Yeah, she has a

boyfriend from section one that Batoa makes fun of her for and says something along the lines of wow, you're dating this one for seven months, that's a record. So that implies that she bounces around a lot from person to person. It doesn't really settle down and is not prone to commitment. She doesn't get attached to things. And you can even see this in the same way that she reacts to deaths in her group versus the way Bato reacts like Bato when I can't remember his name. I'm going to apologize to everyone for our various pronunciations of Bato, Bato, Christianity, Christianity. Listen, I ain't. I'm white and I'm stupid. So please watch me.

I, listen, I'm just a weeb. I'm not, I don't know that much. But like, Bato reacts extremely emotionally. Like he gets on the waveform, almost breaks their cover to yell at their commander at their boss, because he's dead, because this guy died, because he's new and they put him on this mission. And thank God, like, they were supposed to be on fiber optic network only, which meant direct contact instead of using wave, like radio, because they could get tracked with radio. And the only thing that keeps them from getting tracked is that their boss does not respond

in the middle. So he gets on the calm and just starts yelling at him in the middle of a mission about how callus this all was. And Kitsuragi's just kind of like, he's dead. Sorry, it sucks. And it just kind of moves on. And it just shows how detached she is out of self-defense, really. Not just for because things die, but because she doesn't even know if she's real. So she, you know, just separates herself from all of that, takes complete pleasure in the moment. And I did mention on Twitter,

hey, watch out if I bring up Kamu, but I've been reading Mythosysivus. She acts in a very absurdist way, where she's like, she knows that these things are probably insane, improbable, and ridiculous, and because of that, she entirely focuses on the moment, but eventually the kind of despair of it gets to her, and it's part of what leads to her accepting the AI at the end, the puppet master to become somebody else. Because you can no longer deal with sort of the balancing and dealing with the existential question of it all.

And that existential question of it all is the big one for Ghost in the Shell. Which is, again, I encourage anyone that hasn't listened to the Neuromancer episode to listen to that before you, I mean, we're like 40 minutes in now, but whatever. Like, to give that one a listen if you haven't yet and to listen to it before you do any more of our cyberpunk stories, because the one thing Neural Mancer does do well is it basically proposes a whole lot of issues and themes and questions, and just sort of kind of talks about all of them. And basically every other cyberpunk story we talk about afterwards takes

one of those themes and focuses on it. Completely. We talked about it in the Neural Man's or episode I think that like you know ghost in the show focuses on this question What makes us human what separates the human from the cyborg? Can the cyborgs be human if you replace every part of your body? If you ship a thesis yourself. Yeah, if you replace every part of your body with a new cyborg part You replace your brain with a cybernetic brain you replace every part of your body with a new cyborg part, you replace your brain with a cybernetic brain You replace everything and then your ghost, which is what is really supposed to be your personality or you Is kept within that shell are you the same? Yeah, are you even the same person you were? Like so ghost the show focuses on that question

You could also you know go watch the, which focuses more on the question of AI sentience in terms of, well, sentience, and the idea of being able to separate ourselves from control of machines, and obviously you're getting to a lot of other stuff about The Matrix Control. You can watch other movies or read other books that focus more on sort of the the capitalism of it all that Neuromancer talks about. So, Neuromancer is important and I say this in the episode that it essentially lays the groundwork that all of the stories are built on, but all of the stories focus better on very

specific topics. And the one we're talking about today is, as Ketha was just saying, when aren't you human anymore, and when can, and in reverse, when can the robot become human? If you can replace every part of yourself into being something else and maintain an identity, what part of you makes you human? Yeah, if I can replace my brain and all my physical bits, but I'm still me in essence, then what is you? Then what is actually making up that essence?

And I think, well, I think the argument that Kusunagi is sort of talking about throughout a lot of the story is that it's just your collection of experiences. Yeah. It's just the collection of things that have happened to you or you have done. And the fact that you have lived through those things is what makes up your personality and your ghost. And just because I've lived through different things than you. So therefore we are different and distinct.

But if you lived through all the same things, then we wouldn't be distinctly different. I know that there's a specific word for that specific conception of the self in philosophy. That would require someone who's read more philosophy than me. But I did take a couple intro courses, fact at college, so I do, and obviously the question of the self and what is it? Is a huge question in philosophy from like front to back, but I know that I've heard some total of your experiences, which once again, this kind of leans into the post-Nichian existentialist absurdist sort of philosophies,

especially Nietzsche and Camus, this idea of the sum total of your experience. But they are arguing that's what gives your life any purpose at all. Is the sum total of your experience? It's maybe not exactly what you're looking for, but one of the earliest kind of versions of this, it was bundle theory, which is provoked by David Hume, which is the ontological theory It's maybe not exactly what you're looking for, but one of the earliest kind of versions of this. It was Bundle Theory, which is the ontological theory of objecthood in which an object consists only of a collection or bundle of properties, relations, and tropes. I had a really good thought just the other day, and someone had pointed it out to me, too.

It was the Taoist, yeah, it was the first chapter of the Tao Day Jing, which essentially is like the way that can be named is not the true way. You know, the path that can be walked is not the true path. And someone explained it in an interesting way that I didn't initially conceive, but this idea of how the idea of an apple isn't an apple, which goes into this, into this ontology. But like, that's exactly what Hume is talking about with his bundle theory. At least a Taoism, it's very much like a thinking about the thing and learning about the thing from other people and reading other people's thoughts about the thing is not the thing itself. It's like you can sit down and think about going for a walk, but you're not going to get the benefit of going for the walk unless

you go for a walk. Like, I don't know, in a lot of ways, this sort of story or this sort of idea builds on stuff like that where you think about what is the idea of man, what makes anything itself, what is the true nature of anything? And if you can replace every part of it and it remained the same thing, what even was it to begin with? It's component parts don't matter. So if the component parts of a thing do not matter, then what makes the whole the whole? Because the whole couldn't exist without the component parts.

It's just, it's an incredibly complicated question and one that fundamentally, because of the way philosophy works, doesn't really have an answer. It's one of those endless thought experiments. I'll follow up the actual definition here of what I've been talking about. There is a David Hume quote about this.

He used the term bundle in this sense, also referring to the personal identity and his main work. I may venture to affirm of the rest of humankind that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with inconceivable rapidity and are in a perpetual state of flux and movement. So that's this. That is essentially the theory that Kusunagi is putting forward throughout the story, that the self is simply the collection of perceptions. She says it more as experiences, I think. But it's the same thing, which is in contrast to a substance theory, which necessitates

that you are also the substance of which in which you exist, so that replacing your parts with new parts makes you a new thing. You are no longer the same thing that you were before. Yeah, I was actually just talking to a friend the other day. It's just really ironic that we talk about this now because I had to ask them what systems versus object ontology was because they brought it up in a conversation. And I was like, I was like, what is that? This is literally two days ago.

And he gave me a rundown, well, they gave me a rundown from top to bottom of how they explained it. I haven't had the chance to get back to them. But it was at the context of world building too, which is just really funny, because David Graber talks about it in how those sorts of viewpoints and cultures that see it in certain ways historically change their property relations. Like substance ontology is the classic Greek thing. It's like Plato and Aristotle. That's like substance theory is Aristotle and Descartes where it's like you are the thing that you are that can be touched that can be smelled. That sort of thing. And we are instead vote. Kusunagi is struggling with the idea that who she is is simply the

experiences that have made her react the way she does to things that happen because she proposes the idea that like they are told that there is human gray brain matter inside their cyborg. This is my personal favorite interaction in the story. That is left over from their human form. I think she's having this conversation, of course, with, you know, with her partner with Batu.

In the movie, I think it's with Batu. Batu, Batu, it doesn't matter. People know who we're talking about. The guy. The guy who has eyes like Molly. Yeah, the guy who has eyes that are just ripped straight from Molly's eyes in your own answer. But in the manga she has the conversation with a designer. That's right. You're right. You're right. You're right. With an and with a cyborg body designer that she's friends with and she's also like keep an eye on it because there've been some mistakes in accidents

so she's like keeping an eye on the process. And then she sits down and has a drink of like coffee or something with this girl. And they just go on and talk about how, because they're both almost 100% cybernetic, like both of them. And so this conversation is, they're told they have gray matter, left over human brain inside their robot body, along with their ghost, you know, that makes them still human. But, as Kusunagi proposes, that doesn't necessarily have to be true. She said, I could be these memories I have of my human life before I became this cyborg

could be completely fake, could not be at all the person who my memories tell me I was, which is something that they explore pretty early with all these people that have had their ghosts hacked, you know, that you can be given an entirely new personality or have an old one removed. That's one of the few times that the earlier chapters intersect with the film, the earlier chapters of the few times that the earlier chapters intersect with the film. The earlier chapters of the manga cover that, which they tie directly into the puppet master, in the in the manga it's not implicitly connected to the puppet master.

But- Is that like opening chase scene and the guy you talked to with the garbage truck? The garbage truck. In the movie, by the way, it's that's one of my favorite scenes in the film is, and it doesn't come across quite as strongly in the manga, which is kind of disappointing. When he realizes that his wife, his kid, all of his history is made up, and that the puppet master replaced it in his head, gave him this identity so that he would blend in. He's like, is there any way we can get rid of those memories? And he's like, Get my old ones back, and they were like,

eh! It's like, it's technically a thing that people have tried to do in the past, but it's really dangerous and doesn't usually work. And then one of the things that the boss says in the back, he's like, just because they're fictions, doesn't really make them any less real. And this guy is just like crying on the table. And it's really sad.

The movie frames it so much more sadly than the, than the manga does. But it's, it's a legitimately heartbreaking moment where you like this guy doesn't know who he is anymore. He's had his entire life rewritten. And there's no way for him to go back. There's no way for him to go back. He's always going to have these memories of a wife and a child that he did not have. And that's just heartbreaking.

And before that, you have that microcosm with the guy that they beat up in the lake, the cult, the lake, whatever, at the end of the, at the end of the chase, where he's like, I'm not talking to you and they're like, what are you going to tell us? You don't know anything. And they literally like brush him with questions like, where are you from? What's your mother's name? Like where'd you grow up? Do you have any memories of your childhood?

And you can like see it on his face. Is it like dawns on him that like, he doesn't know any of that? That that entire chase sequence in the film is my, it's my favorite part of that movie. Oh, the like the little, for me, it's the little pauses that guy takes. When he gets in the alley and like looks around, and then as he, the little look on his face, right, as he comes out of the alley into like the lake.

Yeah, it's like a weird shallow lake. Shallow ocean, edge of the ocean to whatever, but like that little look on his face, as he's just like taking in the city around him, perfect, beautiful. And he's questioning how much of it is real, you know? He's like, hmm, and then you have a catch him and they're like, do you actually know anything?

And he's like, oh, fuck. Fuck, no. Yeah, that's like the perfect semblance of this thought experiment here. You know, it's like, what does that imply? Like, like, what does this say about the self if this is something that's possible? There's a scene I was, I particularly liked that after they, you know, look at the puppet master, you have the three cops, our sort of three cop main characters all together. And I don't remember if they're framed this way in the manga or not,

but they framed it this way in the in the movie. You've got Kusunagi in the front, you've got Bato right behind her, and then right behind him, little further back, is Tagusa. And so you have this like progression of percentage of you that has been replaced or is more human directly represented on the screen in front of you. And I think that is something you sort of touched on before and you're talking about how like Bato reacted to their like partner dying because it's very much specifically displaying sort of the timeline of transition across the percentage of your humanity that you forfeited.

If you're arguing like Kusanagi does that you are only a collection of your experiences and that's all there is, then you would expect those three characters to still behave the same, or roughly the same, obviously they've had different experiences. But like the fact that one of them is almost entirely human and the one of the almost entirely cyborg shouldn't make a difference if they all have the same amount of essence in them. But that's not true.

And you don't see that within the story and Kusunagi even contradicts herself within the story by saying the reason that they brought to Gusa on is because he is still basically human and reacts differently to things. And that's like a fundamental difference between the manga and the show and the movie that I am so torn on because it's like, they both say something a little bit different because of the way they handle it. And the film does that where it's like,

they are experiencing these things in a significantly different way. And it's implied to be because of the level of cyborgness. But then in the manga, like Kusanagi is much more human in the way she reacts to everything. They sort of hyper exaggerated it for the film. Yeah, but it's still there. It's just more subtle in the manga, the distinguishable differences between how she acts, and then how Bato acts, and then how Tagusa acts.

And it's funny because they always kind of, even though Tagusa is presented this way because he's new, he's also the one who's like the most empathetic and even when Kusunagi's involved in the manga he Shoot somebody that they were supposed to take alive. This is part of the same chase So he potentially threatens the life of someone they were supposed to be keeping alive Like the guy they're chasing, because he threatens the major and like puts her life directly in danger. And she asked him later, she's like, why did you do that? Were you like, like we were supposed to take him alive? You could have killed him.

And he's like, well, I mean, I saw him about to like kill you. And for a second, their Kusanagi doesn't really know how to take that information. Because despite her protestations, she does not react like a human. Yeah, like part of what I think goes to the shell argues about is that you aren't the same at all. If you end up replacing all these parts of yourself, I think it makes the argument that you're not just a collection of experiences. Yeah, you're right, because there is clearly there's a line there where you no longer are the same. Well, I think this is taking a very interesting middle road

in terms of ontology, where it's arguing, yeah, you're kind of a collection of experiences. But also, you shouldn't be throwing away the things that physically make you you because like in a sense they are also a part of you It's like if you completely replace yourself with something else. You're not really the same not really I do think that's the attack. It's taking because you have something like the puppet master What is one of the things the puppet master wants, a body to inhabit? It wants the same thing that winter mute wanted in neuro-mancer. It wants to be more. Despite being all-powerful within electronics and cyberspace, essentially all-powerful,

what is still one of its overriding objectives is to inhabit a physical presence. Or at least in the case of winter mute, to escape the lack of understanding it has. In a lot of ways it wants to understand, but can't. Yes, what I'm saying is that that's consistent because the drive of these entirely AI systems, when these AI's become sentient and like have a drive under own ambitions, what of their ambitions is to become incarnate, to become physical, to have a physical presence. Whether that be because they think it gives them more options or whether they think it's because they need it to understand what's going on. They still have a drive to do it. And so I think that's, that is, it speaks to the whole,

like the physical body you're in does have an impact on you as a being, whether you like it or not. There's a reason that taking care of your body makes you feel better. It does. Your psychological and mental self does feel better when your physical self feels better. Yeah, I'm, but going back a little talk about

Tagusa and the in the movie There's when they're starting after the puppet master escapes and they begin the chase Bato stops one of the vehicles by just like Viserating one of the people inside it as the vehicle is stopped like the white sedan or whatever it as the vehicle is stopped like the white sedan or whatever. It stopped it on the highway and like you get this graphic shot of like the dudes like spine and rib cage exposed after he like gets eviscerated and they capture the other person in the vehicle. And to goose a get there and go and his literal line is you didn't have to go that far and botches just like clean it up

take him in I gotta go. Again talking about that degrees of reaction to the violence and the death of other beings. Like, Tagusa sees this as first reaction isn't a good job, Bato, you stopped him, his reaction is, holy shit, you absolutely blew him up. You fucking eviscerated that person. And Bato's like, ah. Part of that also, I think, comes from the replaceability of synthetic existence. Like, it's much more disposable. Like, because

they can, you know, if Bato or Kucinagi gets completely blown up, as long as there's still assemblies of their ghost left, they punch that into another body and voila, they're there. I mean, that's literally what Bato does at the end, it saves the major by protecting her head. That's all that's left of her anyway. In the in the in the manga, she's on like an actual age-appropriate body. It'll put her in like a child. They don't put her in a child, which I think is just funny. I think the child is supposed to be symbolic of her rebirth. Yeah, it is. It is. It is. It's a a child. They don't put her in a child, which I think is just funny. I think the child is supposed to be symbolic of her.

It's, yeah, it is. It is. It's a new child, it's a new childhood because Kusunagi and the puppet master had become a new being because they've melded together. They've born. They actually have to have some symbolism into, you know, the new being that they are actually get a child's body to start with. That's just, yeah.

This, you know, this symbolic language, this story is just symbolic as hell as whack. The movie is really, really good. Look, I know we've talked about the manga and the movie. I think even though they handle the things differently, the messages I think are essentially the same. Also, I reference the movie a lot because everybody knows it. Yeah, and you've seen it the manga because you should read the manga has the the spider tanks and they're funny and

cute. You have a spider tank trying to lead a workers rebellion of spider tanks and then gets placated by being offered a treat. I do appreciate the fact that they actually hold conversations with the tank sometimes. So it seems as though they're aware that they are intelligent and deserving of some kind of sympathy instead of just being treated like complete disposable pieces of shit. To be fair, the movie only ever shows you one tank and it's not shown as being self-controlled, it's shown as being driven by someone.

Because there's someone in the suit, there's someone in the spider tank That yeah, that kid's a ruggie ends up pulling the fuck out of there. No, she doesn't manage to pull it out of there Oh, she's she tries and then it gets shut down when a bat who shows up in air holes it with his special Home weapon that he had to go pick up after after kid's a ruggie rips her own arms off trying to get the thing open Yeah, that's pretty brutal The animation's fucking good though. Holy shit. The mechanical animations remind me of Akira where it tetsuo like rebuilds his arm and you see all the wires like reconnecting. It's really really cool

It's the same thing but like the whole freaking ghost in the show every time Every time the mechanical stuff is animated. It's done really really well in the show. Every time the mechanical stuff is animated, it's done really, really well. The manga, actually, as you said earlier, has more levity in it. Yes. Because the nod is funnier. It's almost like goofy. Bato is a little bit goofy, mostly because he's trying to be serious. And the major is like, and the major is like, eh! And like people will just do things really outside of code and Bato will be like, what the fuck? You just get frustrated with everybody.

Also the fact that we talked about the like, because of the flippancy of and sort of disposability of their physical forms because they're cyborgs. They just like play pranks on each other that would be deadly to anybody else. Yeah. Placing a firecracker in a car, blowing up a car.

Literally blowing up a car because they thought their boss would be in it and they thought it would be funny. And then he just hops on the scooter and is like, do you think that was my car? It just drives away. Again, it's like the kind of thing that could only be humorous to someone who's parts are entirely replaceable. It's surprisingly goofy. I can see how someone

would be like, this would make a good, this could make both a good existential film. Or this could also make a good semi-serious but also kind of funny anime series. There's a lot of different ways you could take this. I did want to say that I think these themes have always spoken to me because anyone who's followed me on Twitter for some time has a general idea of how I feel about technology and how I feel about specifically sort of like transhumanism, which is a word we haven't used in this recording yet, but we probably should have already.

I'm gonna say this is an extremely transhumanist piece of work. But the thing is it doesn't land as entirely positive on transhumanism. No, not at all. And I would say it's actually fairly negative. Mm-hmm, definitely. But I think that's partly why it's spoken to me because that's, I think pretty relatively close to the same tech that I take with it.

I, despite even now having more issues with my physical form, then I may have had previously, I still, you know, in time personally, and attached to this stupid, like, flush sack that I inhabit. Do I wish it was different for, you know, body dysmorphia reasons and body dysphoria reasons? Oh, definitely. But if I was given right now the option to replace myself with an entirely robotic body, I wouldn't do it, despite being trans and wanting to have a different body. Yeah, despite the fact that they could design it to look like whatever you wanted.

And despite being trans and being wanting to have, being able to be given this different body, I don't think I would do it. That's also, but I know a lot of trans people that would, in a heartbeat, take that deal. Obviously, I'm not gonna go all the way and say, this is the case because everybody's different. I'm not gonna disparage anyone for what they wanna do. But a lot of ways that kind of feels like put in the cart for the horse, the goal instead of the process. I don't know, in the case of someone like Kitsuragi,

imagine if you were like a little overweight and you wanted to get lighter and you knew you could instead of working on that and getting involved in the process just hopping into a new body. But that's a whole new philosophical discussion. That's a whole new philosophical thing at it. But I think that digs at something that I feel like we're going to have to talk about at some point for one of these stories, which is again sort of the, well, maybe we did talk about it a little bit in Akira and some other stuff. The idea of like, again, digging more into the essence of what makes human human. And I think it gets into a conversation I guess, but I was thinking of was a conversation

is having with somebody about, like, AI-generated art. Yeah. I mean, we had some of that conversation ourselves. And like specifically what has to go into it to make it art and to it make it like meaningful. And I without getting more into it now that I, you know, I think good assume that I come down more on the side of like it would be more meaningful to me to affect the change on my body, myself, as opposed to simply swapping out the pieces which feels too easy. But I want to be clear that this is entirely my own personal opinion. Yeah, this is not, I'm not trying to disagree with or downplay people who are transhumanists who are, you know, what these changes.

I'm not saying that you're wrong. I'm simply giving my opinion personally at this moment, that there's to me, something fundamentally human about having to exert myself to make those changes happen. The will to power. I mean, kind of. Kind of. Kind of. myself to make those changes happen. The will to power. I mean, kind of, kind of. But we talked about before how I, you know, kind of agree with that. So everyone just got to be, you know, you got to be like guts. Got to be the sigma male.

Oh God, God. But that is, you know, that is the fundamental question. Of course, the Shell is how much of you can you change before you aren't you anymore. And I don't think, I don't think, I think, I'm actually going to a hero lays down a line anywhere. No. He's, he definitely shows you when you've gone too far, but he doesn't really tell you

where the line is. Yeah. And I think that's, he doesn't really tell you where the line is. Yeah. And I think that's, it doesn't have to. He's simply proposing the question to you for you to think about. Once again, where that line is, like, like traditional versus the modern, the past versus the future, where the old, where the old traditional human body is the traditional old past and then the future is this like robotic. And when does it go too far in one direction or the other. Also the fact that you cannot avoid that the future is here. Yeah. It's less a question of is it good or not and more

a question of how do you deal with it because it's here whether you like it or not. Oopsies. How are you gonna how are you gonna deal with that future? My last point before I go, I have to go shortly because there's a World Cup game on that I want to watch. I also want to get to enjoy this. Your cloudy rainy city. I wanted to say my final point about the movie is that I think it tries because it is so philosophical and so psychologically focused, it tries to make you focus on that

with all those times where it just gives you shots of the city existing with no dialogue and nothing else going on. It's just like here's the bizarre. Here's some storefronts, here's some people walking down the street. It's specifically trying to make you think about humanity and how we all exist together. In a very similar way to Okura too, showing these spaces in a weird way, a lot of these

cyberpunk stories while depressing have a underlying theme of human resilience, which usually isn't exactly enough to make the depressing go away. But it does make the pill easier to swallow. Yeah, yeah. It makes me think of reading Victor Frankel or something. Oh, God. But that's ghost in the shell. It's really good. Yeah. What makes you you? Who knows? I was about to say some, I was about to try and parody some YouTuber bullshit and back. What makes you you? Put it in the comments down below.

I think you might get to decide that yourself. I think you get to decide for yourself. What makes you you? And I think that's kind of a point. But I think you all for listening. As we said, we have a Patreon you can go to where we average one episode per month. It's usually about a non book property.

This month we started the month with Akira. We've previously done everything everywhere all at once. We did Blade. Oh, that's right. For spooky month, we did Blade, which is a lot of fun. But yeah, we will have one more episode in Cyberpunk month after this. We're going to be reading Snowcrash, so that will be up next, which is all I've seen described kind of as a post cyberpunk type thing.

So it's sort of a continuation of the genre. I love how post it could be whenever like post cyberpunk only being like seven years after cyberpunk. Yeah, I think it's I think post in this case is more of a reflection of the attitudes and themes of the story as opposed to a timeframe. It makes me think of stuff like post punk and how punk started in like 1976 at post punk was in like 1977. And you're like, what?

You didn't give this enough time. That's not even get into post-leftism. That's all the time we have for. Thanks. If you do listen to us on one of the platforms where you can give us a review, that would be super cool, so people can find us. But thank you so much for listening and goodbye. Bye-bye. Bro. Bye bye! Bye.