Person of Interest

[Serra]

Spoiler: show

Also, I guess this episode answered any doubts about whether the machine was telling the group to kill that Senator a few episodes back..

[Takiwaki]

Cannot wait for next season, one of the best shows on tv

[Cantih]

Spoiler: show

I'm sad about Vigilance being a false flag. Collier goes from being a Law Abiding Citizen to a patsy.

Next Season

Spoiler: show

Samaritan will be doing three things. Handling what would be relevant numbers, handling some of what would be irrelevant numbers (there will likely be some overlap between the irrelevant numbers and what Decima considers deviant, this is only happy accident), and handling Decima's non-number "deviants".

The Machine is still active, will still pull relevant and irrelevant numbers, but Root's high case load due to Northern Lights/Control's pause will likely slack off now that Decima nominally has to provide those targets to Control now. We'll get back to this.
The irrelevant numbers might slack a little, but because Decima is going to be generating it's own added personal threat list, Finch, John, and Shaw are going to have to try and protect people who are only at risk because Decima doesn't like who they are.

And quite frankly, Samaritan/Decima is way fucking scarier than Control. Control, despite it's extrajudicial ways, at least has to pay nominal lip service to working for the people, a twisted heart but a heart nonetheless. Decima is a corporation, it doesn't even fucking have one to begin with, there are no rules it gives a shit about.

We already saw Root pick up three people to help her out. The team needs more people, a network will probably be built out of the "deviants" saved. The only thing capable of fighting Samaritan's capabilities is something equal in ability, the Machine. But the only person with anything like access to the Machine like Decima has to Samaritan is Root. So Root, now with a bit more downtime, is probably going to need to start... proselytizing.

[Serra]

Spoiler: show

I think you're ignoring a few crucial points of the finale.

The machine gang can't just keep doing what they've been doing, saving lives, etc. They need to stay out of Samaritan's focus, which, as Root says, is impossible to do while hiding in a world where everything is watched. They need to appear ordinary. The reason the gang splits up is because they're now going to live these fake lives -- fake lives where they presumably don't know or interact with each other. How the show picks up, well, we'll have to wait and see, but I'll be shocked if it returns and they're all just living their lives and saving people on the side. Root even says, they're not free -- IE, they're not able to do the things that they want anymore.

Second, it can't create new agents because they'd be under surveillance. That was the whole point of those seven servers. No one can escape Samaritan's gaze, but those seven servers make it look like the machine gang and Root's allies are just ordinary people. Root says a lot of people are going to die, people who might have been able to help -- and that's because the machine can't protect anyone else right now, only those seven lives.

One of the interesting things, I think, is that this appears to be the first time the machine does not have a plan. I think it's trying to figure out its next move while protecting its agents. And since Root is the only one in contact with it, I imagine we're going to pick up with her next season.

[Cantih]

Spoiler: show

We both agree Root is going to be crucial.
While Samaritan being active constrains what the team can do, remember, the whole reason the Machine spits out irrelevant numbers is because Harold could not harden his heart and look away. I guarantee you this will continue to be the case.
So what they do will be limited to what they can keep out of Samaritan's gaze. The person most capable of that now is Root (as we saw in Beta), and why I think we'll see something like a Root army.
But.
That doesn't mean people besides Root are incapable of doing anything. I'd say expect to see a deal of spycraft like dead drops (though probably also double blind, so you don't have the record of two people going to the same place at different times.)
If you haven't, (or even if you have), I'd say read Cory Doctorow's Little Brother http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/ (it's free even), it uses a lot of concepts that work for avoiding cluing in stuff like Samaritan's analysis, which isn't perfect and absolute. (Which is why numbers could be perpetrators or victims, the Machine was identifying potential events on information it had, not all the information.)

[Laugana]

Never mind all that,

Spoiler: show

they killed Hersh! (maybe? he kept taking those shots like a terminator but I don't see how he would have gotten out of the building before it exploded).

[Serra]

Spoiler: show

I think he's dead.. Control getting the report wrapped it up for me -- which is sad, because his interaction with Reese was amazing. Especially when he found the bomb.

So, technically, the machine spits out irrelevant numbers because Finch had to program it to look out for people, but then designed it to differentiate between threats to national security and other threats. It had nothing to do with Finch's feelings. If anything, Finch was able to harden his heart and view the machine as a tool to protect everyone, not specific people. It was when Nathan died and he realized the machine could have warned them that his view changed -- but that's really neither here nor there..

The point I want to make is based on season 1. Remember the episode when the machine produced its first number (which was given to the guy who Root tortured during season 2). The machine found that guy because it is able to catch the tiniest deviation from the norm and follow those clues. It was because the guy would go to the same gas station, I think like the second Tuesday of even months or something, even if he had filled up the previous day. This isn't like people looking at data or behavior and trying to piece things together. This is a machine which is rational and calculating. Anything that risks drawing attention will clue Samaritan in. Think of it this way -- if the machine views Samaritan as a threat, then Samaritan must also view the machine as a threat. And apart from Root, how does the machine communicate? By calling payphones and giving Finch the numbers. Samaritan can see all that, so contacting Finch or anyone else with irrelevant numbers will endanger them. And if it was a simple matter of hiding in dead zones, I imagine that would have been their strategy. But Root says, it's impossible to hide. The only way they can escape Samaritan is by becoming these new identities that are programmed into Samaritan.

And I would argue that the machine has the full picture -- it knew who was a perpetrator and who was the victim. Finch programmed it though so it only gave a number. Like he says during the trial, he programmed it to nudge people to take a look in this direction. The idea of not knowing who was the perpetrator or who was the victim is definitely one of those things that show has talked about, but really, how often have the targets been perpetrators? The first woman's number is the only one I can think of off the top of my head (I'm sure there are more, and next time I rewatch the show I'll take note, but the fact I can only think of one is very telling, imo).

I'm not gonna be able to read the thing you linked, not because I'm writing it off, but because I don't have the time at the moment, and also because I spend so much time reading these days that I usually can't mentally spend more time reading anything longer than a page by the end of the day.

Do I think they're going to be fighting Samaritan next season? Yes, of course. Do I think Root is going to be central to this mission? Yes as well. But we differ in that I don't think they're going to be able to create an army beyond the seven people they already have, and I don't think they'll have the luxury of being able to save people like they've been able to for the past three seasons. At the same time, I feel that saving the number of the week is at the heart of the show, so I don't know what format it will take next season. That said, given how amazing this show has been since day 1, I am willing to give it every benefit of the doubt it has earned.

[Serra]

Oh, I remember two more perps -- the doctor who was going to be forced to kill the guy she was operating on and the other doctor who was going to kill the guy who raped her sister.

[Cantih]

Spoiler: show

A distinction, he taught it to differentiate. The way he designed it, it couldn't. Though you're right, it was Nathan that set up the part that saved the irrelevant numbers instead of dropping them, Finch was ready to deliver without that capability. I really hope once all is said and done, some fan re-cuts the series into absolute timeline order like that guy did with Lost.

The team misidentifying if the number is a victim or perpetrator is rare, and while I don't have a count, I do know it happens a few times each season. But I don't hold for complete omniscience of the systems, and I clearly remember in the older episodes that Harold set it to only give a number so the system maintains as much constitutional privacy as possible, not to muddle things for Control. If you were to make a sealed letter, it won't know the contents, at best only connect the recipient and sender if they were silly enough to send it direct (and I grant you, that connection is very useful, you can be sure I'm quite aware of how useful metadata is.) If you saw that Chris Evans film, Push, I'm pretty much expecting to see something like what they did to manage the opposition's oracle. And if you know what steganography is, you know that if you produce enough obfuscating data, you can hide just about anything within it.

And fair enough. It's a good read though, and very relevant to the show. I hope you get the time and the spare processing power to get around to it one day.

[Serra]

Spoiler: show

So, I've been thinking about this more (and I wished there were more people who watched this show, because I think it could make for an interesting debate..), but for the last page, we've been talking about the machine gang fighting Samaritan and how Samaritan will be the villain next season. Now, while Greer initially instructed Samaritan to identify the targets, the show ends with him asking Samaritan what its commands are -- which gives credence to the idea that Greer is purely driven by his ideological motivations. It appears that Samaritan is in control of itself and its destiny now, so is it necessarily a matter of good vs evil? In theory, Samaritan is going to be a system ruling humanity, keeping things moving towards the most optimal course. Is that really so different from the machine once it became free -- I mean, it told them to kill that Senator, so is it so different if Samaritan tells Decima or the government to kill a handful of people who are steering things away from optimality?

[Scythiroth]

Jeez, what a great finale.

Spoiler: show

I'm really glad they didn't kill off any of the main characters this episode, not sure I could take losing Harold since he seemed most likely to die lol.

I really don't know how next season will play out. I'm sure the first episode will be them playing out their new identities, but it obviously can't stay that way for too long or this show will be quite boring. I wonder if they will go the route of Vigilance but in a more peaceful way.

[Cantih]

Spoiler: show

In theory, Samaritan is going to be a system ruling humanity, keeping things moving towards the most optimal course. Is that really so different from the machine once it became free -- I mean, it told them to kill that Senator, so is it so different if Samaritan tells Decima or the government to kill a handful of people who are steering things away from optimality?

Spoiler: show

"Hail Hydra!"

[Serra]

http://observationdeck.io9.com/perso...iew-1577052827

[Cantih]

Spoiler: show

From the end of that interview

Finch built a machine that basically causes a bunch of potential terrorists to be murdered. But he wasn't willing to kill one corrupt Congressman to save thousands.

Note he says "causes", not "calls for".

The machine identifies an event that will result in the loss of life of human beings. (And then Harold had to make it discern between terrorist events and everything else, for the government.)
It then spits out the number or numbers of people who are central to the event. For relevant numbers we assume that they're perpetrators based on what we've seen Control do, but as we've seen from irrelevant numbers it could be perpetrator or victims. The second to last episode had five numbers, and iirc they were Relevant from Root, yet they were immediate victims. If the machine spat out kill lists, why didn't it give the numbers of Collier and crew instead?
Well, Vigilance is anti-surveillance, they take particular actions that happen cause them to be difficult to be seen by the machine. Furthermore, if you really want to get to who's responsible, for so much loss of life up to now and Samaritan going forward, why hasn't the machine given up Greer? Putting a bullet in his skull a season ago would save a lot of trouble. (Alternately, why wasn't Collier's number given, he was ultimately a victim too, in addition to perpetrator.) We saw how he evaded Root, the man is a fucking spy.
I make this as a case of the machine having incomplete information.
(There's also HR. Remember the head was particularly secretive and circumspect about running the thing. So while taking him out solves the whole problem, if the machine can't see him... There's also the lady they couldn't save in the reunion episode, there was not enough time between the machine giving the number and the event happening (it was a Vigilance op), yet for other numbers we've seen cases where at the start of the episode the team is expositing that they've spent days or even weeks doing surveillance since they got the number.)

Wait, shit, this is a tangent.

Anyways, machine sees event that causes a loss of life, provides numbers as to what it knows. It never says kill, it doesn't even say responsible, it just says involved.
It is Control, it is people, who decide that the expedient solution is murder. In the case of relevant numbers, once you find the people responsible for the event, you don't need to kill them. They are dead to rights responsible for planning a (nasty) crime, you could justifiably lock them up.

They didn't need to kill the senator, that just was what Reese jumped too. They could have tried outing him for the insider trading deal, or any other number of things so that he would no longer be in a position to be of use in the rise of Samaritan.
The machine didn't say kill, Reese said kill, the machine just said involved.

[BerenTebogo]

Saw this, made me chuckle.

[SamanosukeShiva]

Don't know if anyone noticed, but during the Collier backstory, PoI took a jab at Google lol. "Don't be evil my ass."

[Cantih]

[Serra]

Always count Bear!

[Serra]

Bumping since the next season premiere is on September 23rd -- less than a month away!

[Markwinstanley]

I lose my internet in last session as it was getting boring. Hope next session will be good enough.