[vex]

It's ironic that you care about race here as people have transcended race in the works of Ghost in the Shell (people can easily inhabit a completely different body, even a non-humanoid one). I hope this world comes about soon so we don't have to worry about racial crap anymore.

[internaut]

Race is one of those overloaded words. I think the right word here is heritage.

Motoko's heritage as a Japanese is an important part of the story that gives it richer context. This is because many of her dialogues are about ideas that are unique to her Asian culture. The concept of a marriage between the natural and the artificial (instead of man vs machine). The concept all things have sentience. There is even mention of deliberately selecting a member of Section 9 with a similar rationale to the Toyota way. These are not ideas strongly present in European cultures. Kusangi's holistic thinking is one of the most interesting things about the Major.

Can you picture Sarah Connor from Terminator having these dialogues that Motoko has? Evolution theory, philosophic musings?

I cannot. It is not because I think a westerner would have nothing to say. It is that I think they would say something different because they think differently.

[grzm]

I'm sure we'll find something else to divide us. It's part of human psychology. It's not as if race is our only divisive issue.

[chillacy]

It'll be the square robots vs the round robots!

This is an interesting study on the subject. (kind of messed up, like the stanford prison experiment on schoolchildren). A teacher designates kids with blue eyes as superior to those with brown eyes in their all caucasian class. Resulting in:

> Those who were deemed "superior" became arrogant, bossy, and otherwise unpleasant to their "inferior" classmates. Their grades on simple tests were better, and they completed mathematical and reading tasks that had seemed outside their ability before. The "inferior" classmates also transformed – into timid and subservient children who scored more poorly on tests, and even during recess isolated themselves, including those who had previously been dominant in the class. These children's academic performance suffered, even with tasks that had been simple before

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/class-divided/

[chillacy]

Ah, glad they have their society sorted out, but its definitely a pattern for Hollywood at this point: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/23/opinion/why-wont-hollywood...

GitS follows a handful of other movies recently which could have had a more asian cast but did not. Very frustrating to see the same decision made in movies like The Last Airbender, Aloha, Cloud Atlas, Dr Strange, etc.

> worry about racial crap anymore.

Great, maybe when a brown actor can as easily get roles for the main character instead of the taxi driver, we'll be past that. Till then, the game's stacked.