Absolute Choice Ayanokoji

1. Free Will

What is free will?

For centuries, many philosophers have held that society is dependent on belief in free-will, and that without it, human behaviour would crumble. Consider a highschool girl stealing beer from a convenience store. The consequences for this could be punishments assigned by the faculty and a tarnished reputation with the students, or perhaps being enslaved by a arrogant girl carrying a stick.

Actually, I doubt the last one seems quite illogical and unlikely to happen, but I digress.

In any case, what if the girl argued that she was not in control of her actions, should not be held accountable, and therefore any punishments carried out by the school should be withheld? In the unlikely event of being enslaved, she could perhaps write a petition of some kind reinstating her status as a regular human being because her behaviour was caused by a short lapse in control.

In any case, I am sure that claiming to momentarily lack free-will would be written off as deception at best and senility at worst. However, such claims have begun to hold sway in court. In recent years, a respected pediatrician began to experience pedophilic urges. He held them at bay, until he suddenly let loose on one of underage patients. However, it was later discovered that he had a whopping 4-inch brain tumor on the base of his head which altered his decision-making process. Brain scans are now a regular part of-

Choose.

I was forcibly disturbed from my thoughts by that dreaded voice. It had been quiet for the last 24 hours, leading me to hope that I would be freed from these pointless decisions. But that one word sliced my dream into pieces, stir-fried them in extra-virgin olive oil, and ran them over with a road roller.

I scanned my surroundings for any tools I could use to my advantage, spotting a serious-looking dark-haired girl, a much more relaxed, smiling brown-haired girl, a handsome and well-built blonde man, all wearing the same uniform as me. I doubt they would be of much use, and in any case, I am on my own for this choice.

1. Harass the person in front of you by tugging on their seatbelt and feigning innocence if confronted.

2. Take off your shirt and wrap it around the seat of the person in front of you, inhibiting their movement. Lean in close to them and whisper "Stockholm, Stockholm" in their ear.

After announcing my choices, the voice promptly stopped speaking and left me to evaluate the options in my rather bleak future school life, as the person in front of me was the serious-looking dark-haired girl. I briefly had a feeling that something was wrong and the girl should instead be seated across the aisle to my left, but I dismissed that thought.

There is a strange pattern in the choices the mysterious voice provides. Option #2 is infallibly worse that option #1. In fact, #2 sometimes contains #1, and shamelessly adds more demands. However, it would not be wise to always select #1 without at least hearing out #2 because the voice may anticipate this, thus changing the order. Otherwise, it is possible that I may have some profiency in the tasks demanded in #2, making it easier. Of course, this is unlikely, as I am just an average high-school student.

In any case, this situation is akin to a low-risk low-reward against a high-risk high-reward problem. Sadly, my reward can only be the absence of a severe repercussion. In this case, harassing the girl in front of me is certain to annoy her, as having one's body constricted by a seatbelt would be unpleasant for anyone. In addition, my adamant refusal would only increase her fury. However, with #2, there is a slight chance that my victim will enjoy being tied up by my shirt. Indeed, she was reading the book "Crime and Punishment", which has a slim possibility of being a teenage BDSM fantasy rather than Dostoevsky's famous novel.  As the American actor Norman Reedus eloquently put it, "People are pretty strange."