Merry Christmas 2020

 Last year I shared some creators that helped me learn about game development. This year I'm gonna pass on some life advice kind of. If you play certain types of games, listen to music, are a bookworm, movie aficionado, or a weeb listen up. This goes out to you.

We Pass On Information By Telling Stories

The anime and manga "Dr. Stone" is an interesting example. In some chapters and one of the episodes, they mention the "100 Stories" that are passed on from generation to generation keeping important information.[1] Even better this is not made up. It actually matches up with real-life as well. Not only did Carl Jung research archetypes consciously or unconsciously hidden in stories, but we also tell our children stories that coincidentally have a moral. You might just do it as a bedtime story because you got one or two read for you or because you liked them but there's more reason for it. Whether it's teaching children not to take apples from strangers[2] or not to steal from others[3]. Another great example is the book "There's No Such Thing As A Dragon", which is also used by Jordan Peterson to illustrate this point. In this children's book, a dragon representing an issue is ignored within the household. Through the action of ignoring it, it grows bigger and bigger causing trouble all around until the family stops ignoring it and deals with it.  This tells us not to ignore problems and solve them, else they might get worse and blow out of proportion.[4] Those are all children's stories though.

This Is Not Limited To Children Stories

But, this is not limited to those. The bible is another example. It contains a lot of stories, instead of facts and you can learn from all of them. Whether it's questioning morals and decisions or showing what is righteous and what isn't. I would even go further to say this is also the case for animes. Seeing how a person has to struggles against being oppressed and abused in all kinds of ways[5], or people dealing with their own psychological issues.[6] Asking the question of what justice is and how it can be twisted.[7] Showing that you shouldn't rely on your talents too much and that regardless of how weird your quirks are you are like everyone else a human.[8] Things like you should think for yourself.[9] And even the topic of racism.[10] These are all examples of life lessons you can take from these artworks and there are probably many more.

So Keep On Consuming... However

Another thing that can be seen in many stories is to keep a balance and this is the case of the consumption stories as well. So, don't overdo it, make sure you balance your life well and wear the title of a weeb, bookworm, or movie aficionado with a smile and stand proud.

With that all being said, sorry for the lower quality I ran out of time from working on other stuff especially focusing all my writing on the seminar paper. I will be back writing blog posts after this semester. (Probably have to take a break for when I write the bachelor thesis too)

And have a Merry Christmas despite the current situation!

[1] https://dr-stone.fandom.com/wiki/100_Stories and Dr. Stone episode 17

[2] "Snowwhite"

[3] "Goldilocks and the Three Bears"

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J54FMA895OA

[5] "Rising of the Shield Hero"

[6] "Persona 4: The Animation"

[7] "Death Note"

[8] "Mob Psycho 100"

[9] "Psychopass"

[10] "GeGeGe no Kitarou"

We All Might Possess Eri's Quirk From My Hero Academia

Occasionally, I watch Youtubers review games or animes, and I saw the episode discussing Eri's Quirk. On the same day, I talked with another person about my fasting. Then I realized the connection. But, let's clear things up first.

Who Is Eri And What's Her Quirk?

"My Hero Academia" is an Anime playing in a world where people are born with special abilities, called quirks. They pass these down through genes. In the fourth season, they rescue a girl named Eri. Her ability rewinds a person's body to a previous state. Using it too much will revert the person to a baby and eventually to stop existing. While this sounds like a bad thing, rewinding injuries is possible as well.[1]

Just Fantasy Right?

So, reverting injuries, returning your eyesight, undoing cancer, etc.. Living forever. These all seem surreal, but they're not far fetched. Our bodies heal and repair themselves already, which is done by reproducing cells. However, every time reproduction happens, there can be errors, mutations, and damage, the current principal behind aging. There's a solution, though.

Longevity Genes - Core Of The Quirk

The longevity genes repair the damage done to the DNA during reproduction. However, living organisms have two modes of living. The "growth and reproduction" mode, during good times, and the "protect and repair" mode, under severe conditions. These conditions can be reached by eating less in general, eating less meat, being uncomfortable cold or hot, and during high intensive exercising.^[2] During the latter, the genes will slow down aging, But, the quirk doesn't only slow it. It also stops and undoes aging.

Gene Therapy

Image of DNA from
 https://www.pxfuel.com/en/free-photo-jrtql

Using gene therapy, scientists reset the epigenome of mice, resetting their age. However, when not careful, the cells may become pluripotent ones. Meaning they don't know their purpose yet - being tumors. Switching this procedure on and off on mice worked well. Unfortunately, given the approximately 37.2 trillion cells of a human^[3], we're not there yet. But now it doesn't seem as far fetched anymore.

So, In Comparison

To recap and compare. Both Eri's quirk and gene therapy can revert cells to a previous state. Allowing the healing of damaged cells, blindness, cancer, and more, enabling us to live forever. Additionally, they both share the problem of resetting too far. But neither scientists nor Eri, have figured out how to control this. We're unable to revert a lot of cells at the same time, while Eri isn't able to control the intensity or ending it. Another difference is, we don't need to evolve this quirk. It's already built-in for us.

^[1] My Hero Academia: Season 4 Episode 13 & 14

^[2] How to Slow Aging (and even reverse it) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRt7LjqJ45k

^[3] https://www.wonderopolis.org/wonder/how-many-cells-are-in-the-human-body

Toaru Kagaku no Railgun: Personal Reality and Bubble World Concept

I wanted to make another post about magick since it's been a while at the same time I kinda felt like watching an anime. So I got a suggestion to watch Toaru Kagaku no Railgun and yes I'm enjoying it. Something that they kept repeating was this stuff about personal reality and probability and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. おもしろい (Interesting).

Story

I can't talk about an anime or movie or other content without talking about the plot. :P Toaru Kagaku no Railgun plays in a scientifically-driven city called 'Academy City' in which pupils or people, in general, are taught to be espers. The main plot focuses on a student called Misaka Mikoto who is considered a level 5 esper and she can control electricity.

That should give you an idea on the scope of the anime without revealing anything that's happening.

Personal Reality

In some of the teachings, the anime keeps repeating the idea of finding your personal reality or your own reality. This goes well with a principle in magick that I and a few people in my contact circle often like to call bubble worlds. The basic idea is everyone lives in their own world or in their own bubble. Everything they believe in is real in this bubble. If two people get near each other those bubbles merge to a certain degree. If both bubbles are the same (same beliefs) nothing changes. However, if those bubbles differ the intersected area can be considered to be in a superstate as first. Which means it is at first not clear what it's gonna be like. What it will actually be like is later determined by the probability of which of both bubbles matches better.

Magick User vs Magick User

Even if both magick users or espers believe in magick to work differently it will still exist in both worlds depending on how open-minded they are both systems may work or both systems will work to a lesser effect.

Magick User vs Skeptiker

Assuming the magick user knows about the real world and sees it as one of many realities there's a higher chance for the normal world or real world as we know it to be the one the superstate will result in.

Skeptiker vs Skeptiker

The probability of magick to exist is nearly zero. The result of the superstate will be the normal world as we - and probably them too - know it.

In Context with the Anime

So, if we take this back to the context of the anime the idea is for your esper ability to improve you need to find your own reality, the reality in which your ability exists to a high degree. Unfortunately, this is not so simple as it sounds and it may be even more difficult in real life. The issue is that there are more than just millions of people on the world and each of their bubbles almost completely intersects with another. There's hardly any space that does not intersect. Hence why magick users create their own room or area to perform magick. At the same time, this is also the reason why magick users form groups to perform rituals as multiple bubbles with the same beliefs overlap resulting in a higher success on magick. Additionally with an increase of people believing in magick or simply being open-minded or not denying it would increase the probability of successful rituals as well. Hence why academy city houses mostly espers and almost only people who believe in it.

Outro

Lastly, it's really interesting to see another form of artwork to base itself on a concept that is used in modern magick. It makes one think if the author was inspired by those beliefs had the same thought process of maybe it's something we all unconsciously know and believe in? Whatever it is it's our best bet to explain magick scientifically. Whether or not this explanation is correct is something we will figure out as we continue to understand quantum physics and as we dive deeper into the lowest levels of physics. Funnily enough, people already believe in the placebo and have proven which amazing feats it can do and they keep on studying it. "Glaube versetzt Berge" (Faith can move mountains) is a German saying that matches this too well.

Is My Hero Academia's Full Cowl Possible? (Part 1)

A few months ago I made an episode on Midoriya's training in Boku No Hero Akademia or My Hero Academia, where I explained from a wizard's point of view that it could technically be a real thing. I'm interested in whether or not it's possible or plausible in real life, or if it's a myth to be busted.

Energy Control

I've also talked about being able to control what seems to be energy in my body, I can focus it or move it around, which basically seems to work very similar to the way All for One most likely works on Quirkless people. If we look at the ability of Full Cowl, we can see it primarily enhance the strength of the user, which in return allows Midoriya to increase his speed as well. This makes sense if you're applying more force to the ground or an object you jump off of the opposite force is applied to you allowing you to gain greater speed or higher jumps, Newton's third law.

Assumption

If we assume "Full Cowl" to work the way we described it just now, it can be assumed that a person who is assumed to be able to control his bodies energy, Chi, Qi or any other phenomena similar in nature to enhance their bodily functions to increase the force applied to adjacent objects. As an example given a person who uses this phenomenon can increase their running speed.

The Experiment

I'm using that example for a good reason. If these hypotheses are indeed correct, I should be able to apply my practice from the past months to manipulate my running times. Unfortunately, there are a lot of factors that play in, especially since I'm anything but an athlete and at the same time I don't have that much spare time to spend. I still want to do this so I came up with a plan.

I want to measure the time it took on a certain distance while running and alone. Getting a distance is rather easy since all you need is a start and an endpoint. The sport place at my old primary school will do good since it's open space to my knowledge. For the time measurement, I will need a stopwatch that fits into my hand. It needs to be handy, as I'm going to stop the time myself and something like a smartphone won't do the trick. Since there's a time constraint I can't just run 24 hours, additionally there's the weak endurance I have. Another factor is the "getting warm" phenomena.

All these factors need to be added to it, so I came up with the following. I'm going to do some jogging first. Then I'll give myself just a measly five minutes of rest. After this, I'm going to do the first timed run. This will be a normal run to get the time without and modifications. This too will be followed by a break, but this time 15 minutes. This will be followed by another run now focusing the energy on my legs and feet. Assuming the way I described it earlier works this should yield a faster time. This too is followed by a 15 minutes break. After which I'm going to do a run using the "Full Cowl" technique. Then taking another rest of 15 minutes before I'm doing a last normal run as a control run to make up for the improvements since the first run.

Thoughts

While this schedule only gives me two normal control runs and each one enhanced and a "Full Cowl" run it is still a tight schedule. If the times of the "Full Cowl" and applying energy to my feet and legs should fall into the control run times, the experiment is over. However, if there's a slight but significant difference, the experiment should be reattempted on another date. The schedule I created here takes 5 + 15 + 15 + 15 = 50 minutes. It's neither too long nor too short. The result of these experiments may be a prove for there being more than we think, or I just might be one of the first people to evolve Quirk.

I have no plans on when to do this experiment yet and it heavily depends on a lot of factors in my real life. Well, at least I have this planned out now, hooray!

Can Power Levels in Anime and Games Be Applied to Real Life?

I got the anime "The Seven Deadly Sins" or "Nanatsu no Taizai" suggested by a friend and I really enjoy it up to the second season episode 7. I haven't watched it further yet. However, something I noticed is that some of the characters can read the power level of others and even break it down into the stats. I know that games use numbers to determine the power level as well, but can these be applied to real life?

Progression in Real Life

Everyone knows that if you do a certain thing your experience and skill doing that thing increases. For example, if you do push-ups every day until your limit, your limit increases. At first, you might only be able to get five. Soon you get ten in a row and at some point, the number increases to 15 and so forth. Another example would be playing video games. At first you can't beat the first boss of Dark Souls, however, if you replay the game from the beginning it will be much easier even if you've forgotten the mechanics. Even picking up another game similar to dark souls or even Dark Souls II you would play on a higher skill level than before. Okay, enough examples. So in real life, we're able to improve our abilities through training and practice, and that works for any skills, from pure strength to knowledge or intelligence to reaction.

Where Video Game Stats Came From

So over time, we have all these games with hidden or visible stats that range from common MMORPG or RPG stats like strength, intelligence, critical hit chance and the like to jump height, run speed or endurance regeneration. These stats weren't just a random idea someone had at some point in the evolution of gaming. No, they came from real life. As mentioned before doing something rewards you with experience in the task you did, if you gain enough experience you make higher jumps in your skill. These are represented in video games as levels. They can also be seen in real life when learning languages for example, there are different levels of difficulty rewarded like the foreign Japanese test. The JLPT (Japanese-Language Proficiency Test) has five levels going from N5 to N1.

So stats we see in video games actually come from real life to represent these concepts in a mathematical form that can be used in games. Don't forget that video games broken down consist only of logic and mathematics: technology.

Stats in Animes

So whether anime stats came from video games or real life is an interesting question at this point, though, it does boil down to the same thing in the end. Obviously, animes that play in a video game world in one or the other way implement stats. There are however animes that don't play in a video game worlds like Dragon Ball Z, The Seven Deadly Sins, etc.. In the end it comes to the same idea: how can we represent skills and comparison of skills in a simple easy manner, such as an equation.

There's a Scheme

If you didn't notice it yet, there's a scheme here. We're taking something we know from real life and translating it so we can use it with math and logic. That's the same thing we do in physics. We take math to represent features from the world in a logic way we can comprehend. We've created this mathematical system called physics, to predict and understand how the world works and what the mechanics are. We create such systems to create our games or to make our animes work in a way that one might think the virtual or fantasy worlds actually exist. Unfortunately, math isn't a given thing that exists, it's a concept that was created millennia ago to comprehend simple things in the world as defining an amount, a weight and the fundamentals of the world by now. There are still a ton of theories in mathematics that haven't been able to apply to physics yet and still, we were able to get until quantum physics.

What About Magic or Spirit Stats?

In the "The Seven Deadly Sins" anime the power level is defined by the attributes strength, magic, and spirit. Strength would be no problem to measure. We can measure strength with our physics formulas to get the force used (F = m * a force equals mass times acceleration). How do you measure spirit and magic though? While I can't answer this question as of now I can say this...

Some wizards out there actually create formulas to calculate these things but those formulas have no scale. They don't even use any numbers as there is no scaling for it yet. One of those wizards is Frater V.D... In one of his books "Hohe Schule der Magie" (Engl. "High School of Magic"), he explained a few things using formulas and variables so the relationship between each of the variables can be understood easier.

Does That Mean Those Formulas Don't Apply?

Don't worry they're not only for show, quite the opposite. As I already mentioned, even though they have been created to show the relationship between different factors without a scale you can't use them for calculation. If you happen to have a scale however you will be able to use them for calculation. The problem here is if you create a scale that doesn't fit with the scales and units used in physics you might end up in a compatibility issue between both and from my experience and data I've collected so far there is a connection between physics and magic. So to be able to apply the power levels and stats from games and animes to real life we need to be able to fill up the gap between magic, spirit, and physics. Luckily quantum physics might be another step further to fill that gap.

Also, keep in mind like it is said in "The Seven Deadly Sins", the stats are not static, they change depending on different factors, like equipment, your mind, your will, etc..

So keep on leveling and perfecting your skills and push yourself! (though not too much, please D:)

Boku No Hero Akademia: Midoriya's Gran Torino Training

The past weeks I've been watching Boku No Hero Academia (a.k.a. My Hero Academia) to catch up. Yes, I binge-watched two seasons and I'm now up-to-date. And a certain aspect in that anime inspired me.

Also spoilers for season 1 and 2. You've been warned.

The backstory of Boku No Hero Academia

Boku No Hero Academia plays in a world where the human bodies have developed to a much more streamlined version and at the same time developing uncanny abilities known as quirks. By the time the story plays 80% of the population have quirks. These quirks go from producing nitroglycerin sweat that can be made explode to being able to do whatever a frog does to producing fire and ice as well as superpower or invisibility and many more. 

How One-For-All Works

Well, I warned about spoilers already so let's start with the story of this quirk. One of the first quirks that came to be was All-For-One. This quirk allowed the owner to take and pass quirks. The person who had this quirk had a brother who had no apparent quirk. So his brother gave him a quirk that allowed him to stockpile power. Surprisingly his brother did have a quirk that is useless on its own. The ability to pass on his quirks. This ability combined with the stockpile ability and created a new quirk, One-For-All. From here on out One-For-All has been passed down stockpiling the abilities from one person to another person. In the anime, the quirk is given from the number one hero All Might to the main character Midoriya or Deku.

So that's the history of it, All Might also mentioned that One-For-All is an augmentation-type quirk. So let's look at how it operates for Deku and Allmight.

Many of the reporters, news as well as other people think of All Might and Deku having some kind of super strength or super speed, in the case of All Might even invincibility. Understandably so as they both increase their speed and strength when using One-For-All. Looking at Deku specifically it's important to analyze the animation. When Deku uses One-For-All focusing all on one body part, the body part starts to glow pink to red and there are veins shown lighting up. Another interesting fact is that All Might starts smoking whenever he's swapping to his buff version or vice versa. Some more information that we get is the idea of focusing the power on a body part. The word focus plays a huge role here. In the anime, it's even said that the energy is focused. If something contains a lot of energy it's particles increase in speed. Faster particles result in more collision, more collision then again results in friction, which produces heat. If something reaches even higher energy it may even emit photons of light. This is what makes the body parts look glowing red, especially since compared to All Might Deku is not able to contain the immense amount of energy in his body. Heat reacting with the air also results in the air heating and the body cooling which can result in vapor or even smoke depending on the water contained nearby, explaining Allmights smoke. Even the training with Gran Torino shows Deku having green lightning appear occasionally around his body as well as his body emitting some kind of light. All these elements show One-For-All being pure energy that is added upon the human's energy thus augmenting any ability even quirks if quirks are available. So what happens when One-For-All is passed on to the next person? It will contain Midoriya's energy as well.

One-For-All in Real Life

Quirks don't exist in real life, not as they do in the anime, however, something can definitely be taken from this anime and I can tell this from experience. Whether or not you believe me is your thing. When I was a child I thought that lying down and focusing on a part of my body or a state could heal it up faster. Surprisingly it at least felt like it would really work. Funny thing is this came naturally for me. I've kept this ability through my teens using it to amplify attacks when playing with wooden stacks (I'm sorry for breaking your self-made wooden sword with a normal stick, Robert) and I'm still able to focus energy on certain body parts as a young adult. So while it's not a stockpiling ability and I don't think, making anyone eat my DNA will give them my power, with enough practice it should work to reproduce at least... let's say 0.01% of One-For-All or something. Hey, One-For-All in the anime is way too strong, even 5% is already way stronger than anything considered above average. Unfortunately, I did not go through the training regime Deku went to. I'd consider myself more like a mob from Mob Psycho 100 than an All Might.

Gran Torino's Training

So one of the realizations Deku made in his internship at Gran Torino is not calling upon One-For-All but making it a part of himself. The idea behind this is to just have the power active at all the time having it part of his whole body instead of just one part. So the goal of this exercise is to focus not on one body part but to focus on the whole body. This gave the idea for me to try it myself. I already could focus energy on one body part so all I had to do is apply the same procedure to multiple body parts.

Applying the Theory

The first try was a total success at first, except that I lost focus after moving just a little like the way it felt changed. Next, I repeated the procedure and this is what I noticed. As it's shown in the anime Deku must be a natural. The concept behind it is simple and it's easy to get it to work when standing or sitting still (when not moving basically). However, in real life moving with this is not as easy and here's why.

Damn You Physics...

If you paid attention during physics you may know that if you want to jump for example you have to apply a force to the ground to gain an opposite force that accelerates you, right? Now if you're focusing energy on your whole body and you try to move or jump you will most likely lose the balance of energy as you automatically start to apply energy and/or the focus to the affected or required body parts to apply the force required to do the movement. Now I'm just human I don't have One-For-All it's not a big issue for me, but if Deku would focus on his whole body to split the 5% of One-For-All and he moves or jumps and applies the energy he may easily focus much more heavily on the body parts required to produce the opposing force for acceleration. The result of this would be applying a higher amount than 5% in the worst case it will result in him damaging himself.

So that's why I said he's a natural.

What's the Result?

In the anime, Deku increases his strength and speed using 5% of All-For-Ones capability. Implementing the same principle in real life seems to increase precision in movement. You can reduce unnecessary movement, the senses related to touch seem to be sharper and it seems to improve the strength and force applied to the surrounding area also affecting movement speed. It comes with a drawback though. If not trained it actually may hurt.

I know I can only say that it seems to do these things I haven't been able to use it long enough to notice definite effects and I haven't trained it enough to know the results of that.

Regardless this is gonna stay on my list longer. 

Psycho-Pass Dilemma

So a few weeks ago or so I've binge-watched the whole Psycho-Pass anime both season one and season two and I really enjoyed. Though one part of an episode from season one stuck with me. One I found particularly interesting.

But first.

What's Psycho-Pass?

Psycho-Pass is an anime that ran 2012 to 2013 its genre is Dystopia, Crime Thriller, and Cyberpunk and it plays in a futuristic society where it's actually possible to read the Psycho-Pass of people. This Psycho-Pass contains information about your psyche using stress levels and emotions. It is represented in a number as well as a color or hue going from "crystal clear" to blue down the rainbow to red followed by brown and black. The worse your psyche is the more likely you're to become a criminal. So with a Psycho-Pass of 100 you're considered a latent criminal and with a Psycho-Pass of over 300 you're considered a serious threat to society.
Anyways the story follows a young graduate that got perfect scores in all areas but decided through gut feels to become a detective at the Public Safety Bureau's Criminal Investigation Division, whose job it is to kinda hunt down latent criminals as well as to protect society from threats. To do this they use investigators or detectives to solve the situation and command the squad to solve the situation as optimal as possible. There are also people called enforcers, these are latent criminals or previous detectives, whose Psycho-Pass went over 100.

These enforcers are treated like hunting dogs, hunting the suspects or criminals down under the command of the detectives.

And If They Catch Those?

The same system that detects the Psycho-Pass of people is also used on a type of gun called Sybil's gun. The divisions of the Bureau use it to take down the suspects or criminals. The gun reads the suspects Psycho-Pass to decide on which action to take:

• Below 100: No action is required, the gun will be locked.
• Above 100 and below 300: Safety is unlocked, the gun will paralyze the target
• Above 300: Safety is unlocked, the gun will shoot a projectile that eliminates the target

Alright. I think this is all you need to know about the anime for now. So before I move on to the actual part in the episode I have to go deeper into it. This means SPOILER ALARM!

Okay, I think this is not visible enough yet.

SPOILER ALARM FROM HERE ON OUT!

Don't tell me you haven't been warned.

Problem In The System

So in episode eleven of season one, we come to an interesting point. After the young inspector, Akane Tsunemori chases after Shogo Makishima and her friend and approaches them she tries to use the Sybil gun to read his Psycho-Pass for the gun to take the respective action. However, she quickly notices that something is off. Shogo Makishima's Psycho-Pass is below 100. Mixed in the confusion of how the Psycho-Pass is mismatched with the actions Makishima has taken and is still taking she tries to figure out a way to solve the issue. Retrying over and over again to use Sybil's gun.

Coming To The Dilemma

So after some small talk (yes, I call it small talk here, sue me xD) Makishima gives Tsunemori a test. He throws down the shotgun he was carrying and tells her that he's going to kill her friend giving her two options. Either pick up the shotgun and shoot him or stand there do nothing.

That Ain't A Dilemma The Choice Is Obvious!

You might think. But if you think the choice is obvious you're not invested into the anime or situation up to this point. The problem is. If we're living in a society that has used systems to check whether or not a person is a latent criminal or a criminal for several years we get used to it. Especially if we're born in such a world. With this system in place, anyone who actually uses guns to shoot people (with the exception of using Sybil's guns) is probably going to be considered a criminal. Oh, and don't take that lightly. In the real world, you're getting into jail for a few years and then out if they think you're safe to be around. In Psycho-Pass it's different. Once you become a latent criminal or a criminal you're marked for life. You lose your job and you're brought into a facility where you're supposed to recover. However later in the anime, we're told that it's not so easy to get cured. You're most likely going to be locked up in there spiraling down to a point where you can't recover if you haven't already reached that point.

Aha! Now We're Getting At It!

So the choice is simple. Try to use the Sybil gun. At some point his Psycho-Pass must go over 100, right? Right!?
Or use the shotgun to shoot him, saving your friend but ruining your complete life and additionally knowing you have murdered someone.

Wait, Shooting Someone With a Sybil Gun Also Kills

Yes, but there's a small difference. The gun decides how to treat the target. Not you. So you just pull the trigger. If they are dangerous it will kill them. If they are latent criminals the gun will paralyze them. I already marked the interesting parts bold: you're not directly killing or paralyzing them technically. This system also helps the carriers of the guns to keep their Psycho-Pass clean.

Familiar Dilemma

Wait a minute. Being the active killer? Being the passive killer? I know this from somewhere.

If you know this, you know it right. The Trolley Dilemma or Trolley Problem.

The Trolley Dilemma has five people stand on a railway for some reason and another person stands on the other railway. You have a switch in front of you. If you do not flip the switch the trolley will go the railway the five people stand on, killing them. If you flip the switch the trolley will kill the single person on the other railway path.

The answer is easy. Flip the switch since one person dying isn't as bad as five.

Lucky us, this isn't the end of the Trolley Problem. It goes one step further.

Second example: 

You've got a trolley again and it goes just one way: straight.

There are five people on the railway for some reason that surely die if nothing is done. However, you can move a person with more curves (trying to make it sound as politically correct as possible) onto the tracks stopping the trolley saving those five people.

The Dilemma

In both cases, you kill a person. However, by flipping the switch you kill inactively.
By pushing the person you actively kill a person.
Would you do it?

In the Psycho-Pass Dilemma, we do not compare one person to five people. Here we compare the life of a precious friend to your own life. Would you save your friend but live an empty life in pain being locked up? Or would you let your friend die and save yourself? Can't decide? Then your friend dies as well. Oh, it's timed too. You have only so much time to do it. Additionally, you have to kinda calmly goal and shoot him. So you need to be sure about your actions.

To top things.. I've already mentioned being born into this system. Now imagine you're born into this system and used to it for all the years you've lived and everyone is too. By using a normal gun instead of the Sybil gun you're basically destroying the foundation of your beliefs.

The Decision

So in the anime, Tsunemori tries her best fighting herself over what to do end up missing her target with the shotgun broken down under the dilemma of fighting a system she believes in that does not seem to be perfect.

The more interesting part is... how would you decide?

I have to say that I don't know how I would handle the situation it's hard for me to imagine my reaction to it and I sure hope this will not be the case for me.