fandomhigh | Ethics [Tuesday, February 2]

Anakin, trying to shake off the feeling that he was coming down with something (he very rarely got sick, and this was annoying him), waited for all the students to sit at their desks before addressing them.

"Everyone look under your chairs, please," he said. A third of the students ~~going by how they sign into class~~ would find a bag with a full-sized chocolate bar waiting for them. A third would find a bag with a fun-sized chocolate bar. A third would find nothing at all.

Anakin waited for whatever grumbling there might be to subside. "Anyone feeling a little ripped off right now?" he asked rhetorically. "Two minutes ago no one had any candy and everyone was fine. Now I haven't taken anything away from anyone, no one's any worse off than they were when they walked in the door, and some of you are thinking very nasty things about me. Some of you have more than you did when you came into the classroom and still feel like you've been given an unfair deal."

He smiled. "Isn't envy fun? We never concentrate on the gifts we have been given. Instead we focus on what others have that we want. It's entirely a question of attitude. Today's question: how would someone capitalize on that very human failing if they were seeking to manipulate others?"

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That earned her another eyebrow raise. "Says who?"

"Says me," Layla replied. "It's what I do."

"And there's not even the slightest chance that... I don't know," he shrugged. "You're wrong?"

"Not really," Layla said as she wrote something down on a slip of paper and folded it once. "Admittedly there's stuff I don't know but what I do know is right."

"So just because you know one way to get where you want to go, that means there's absolutely no other way?" he asked, because for one it sounded boring doing everything over again.

"It's just the way things are," Layla replied. "I don't really have a choice in the matter."

"Yes, you do," he argued. "No one's keeping you from doing anything except you. You can just say screw it."

Layla handed over the folded paper to Jacob that she had been writing on earlier.

If he were to unfold the paper he would see a message reading:

No one's keeping you from doing anything except you. You can just say screw it.

And under that was Layla's response:

But if I did that then there would be consequences that you couldn't imagine.

Jacob raised an eyebrow at the note, but he took it and opened it up. He stayed quiet for a moment, playing with the paper until he finally folded it up again.

"Probably," he agreed, "but you're smart and you've got all this knowledge. Are you really saying there's only one way to everything?"

"For me? Yes," Layla replied after a moments hesitation. "I don't have a choice in the matter. To deviate could cause... a great deal of problems."

"How can you be sure?" he asked. "You might as well find a better way to solve things." Whatever things were.

"Because my path is set," Layla said firmly. "And that's all there is to it. Everyone else gets their own choices, but I don't. That's the price of knowing... stuff."

"Can I borrow your pen or do you already know what I'm going to write on this?" he asked, holding up the note she'd given him.

"I do," Layla said handing over the pen. "But you can write it anyway and then I'll play Kreskin."

Ethics [Tuesday, February 2]

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