Hyatt and Cameron Thought Experiment – Agency

[00:00:00] Cameron: So it’s the day before your birthday? Yep. Two in the morning we’re headed home and we were talking about some friends of mine who are going through stuff and to them they’re in the middle of it and they’re not realizing they’re going through stuff. Yeah. And what, uh, what is my job as a friend? What’s my.

[00:00:30] Cameron: Responsibility. ’cause on one hand I want to help him get through this stuff, but do I need to say, Hey, this is just stuff and you’re going to get through it? Or do I just, I mean, what do I do?

[00:00:43] Hyatt: Yeah. Well, okay, let’s define stuff ’cause Okay. You know, some people are going through external, external things that aren’t inside of them, but.

[00:01:00] Hyatt: Like, uh, family problems or, uh, financial issues or you know, things around them. And then you have friends who are going through things inside of them. Mm-hmm. And it’s hard to discern sometimes what those people are, know that they’re going through. Um, and when it comes to. Say some kind of mental illness of, you know, there’s something going on for them inside and they don’t know it.

[00:01:38] Hyatt: Yeah. And you want to help them. Mm-hmm. You’re wondering where that line is.

[00:01:45] Cameron: Thank you. Uh,

[00:01:47] Hyatt: can they gimme one moment? I have go for you guys. Okay. Alright,

[00:01:49] Cameron: thanks. So I agree.

[00:01:56] Cameron: So in this case, I think it’s external. And that external thing has caused his internal stuff to kind of get out of whack. His expectations on what he’s, what he should be able to do in dealing with the external doesn’t seem reasonable. Mm-hmm.

[00:02:19] Cameron: Tastes like Rupert.

[00:02:22] Hyatt: I wonder if it’s ruper again. Hmm.

[00:02:31] Hyatt: Well, I’m trying to think right now. I’m trying to think of an example that I’ve gone through where I’ve gone through something and not recognized it or solved it myself and what I needed for that. Gotcha. So

[00:02:49] Cameron: yeah, yours, you know, breaking your back is kind of

[00:02:52] Hyatt: obvious. Yeah, I knew. Knew that I needed help with that. One thing that isn’t. Interesting. So with my back injury, a lot of people, I’ve made a lot of recovery. So, you know, for the first three months I couldn’t bend, twist, lift, anything. Yeah. Um, and now I’m bending, I’m twisting and I’m lifting up to like 40, 50 pounds, even though I’m only supposed to lift 30 or whatever the restriction is.

[00:03:26] Hyatt: But physically, I’m doing a lot better. People who know of my injury and know that I hurt myself, um, will tell me that I’m not allowed to do things. Yeah. And that I am going to hurt myself or I’m going to tire myself out and if people who love me, uh, and that is, that is something I’ve struggled with, is being frustrated at others for trying to restrict me.

[00:04:00] Hyatt: And trying to tell me that I’m in pain, which I am in pain. That’s the thing is they’re right. A lot of the time when I’m overextending or overdoing it, they are saying, Hey, you should stop. I mean, I’m in pain already and I want to just finish this thing. I want to, um, lift my own bags into the car. Uh, and so.

[00:04:32] Hyatt: It can be damaging to somebody if you tell them that they’re doing damage to themselves. Okay. Thank you. Um, when they know it, uh, or maybe when they don’t know it.

[00:04:50] Cameron: Yeah. So I think you just hit on a key point there. Are they able to recognize it for themselves and then are they still. Choosing to do the behavior that it might be making it

[00:05:05] Hyatt: worse.

[00:05:06] Hyatt: Mm. Yeah, because I’m choosing. Yeah. I, I recognize there have been times where somebody has said, uh, is this good for you? And I’ve been like, oh, this is probably not going to be good for me. And there have been other times where they’re like, is this good for you? And I say, no, but I’m. Doing it anyway. Yeah.

[00:05:31] Hyatt: Um, so, Hmm. So I guess the question then is when somebody is not choosing to, you know, uh, to overextend or overdo it mm-hmm. What do you do? How do you remind them? How do you. Give them that, oh, maybe I shouldn’t be doing this or maybe I should think about, uh, changing something.

[00:06:04] Cameron: You know, I think the way that you just identified that how it worked for you is asking a question.

[00:06:10] Cameron: So maybe that’s what I should do with my buddy is just ask questions that might help him have an aha moment or for him to say, well, yeah. This is how it is, but I’m gonna do it anyway and then I can just help him deal with the consequences of that decision. Mm-hmm. It just feels like he’s

[00:06:27] Hyatt: oblivious. Yeah.

[00:06:30] Hyatt: And and kind of self-destructive a little bit too. Yeah. Which is why you want to take action. ‘

[00:06:36] Cameron: cause and I wanna protect him. Yeah. From, because it’s gonna cause more pain and he’s got plenty of that on his own.

Mm-hmm.

[00:06:46] Hyatt: So I. What you said about questions is a good idea, right? And, and I think don’t push it, don’t overdo it, because that can create a barrier between you and the other person that will make it more difficult to help them in the future.

[00:07:10] Hyatt: And um, and I can relate that one directly to my example as well, breaking my back and I’m thinking about. And I think it goes for a lot of other situations too, where I’ve kind of stopped listening to a few people who care very much about me and I listen to them, but when it comes to them trying to remind me of things, I’m like, yeah, well, you, uh, you don’t understand.

[00:07:40] Hyatt: You’re, you don’t give me the opportunity to make my own decisions. Um, So I wouldn’t, with those questions, I would ask those questions, um, but not say you should, you should do this. And if they disagree, uh, you say, well, are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Mm-hmm. ’cause that is the biggest thing for me is they say, are you sure?

[00:08:12] Hyatt: And I say, yes, I’m sure. And it comes up again and again. And, and that’s when. I start to have negative feelings towards a person rather than a situation. And I think that’s, uh, an important point to avoid.

[00:08:30] Cameron: Yeah. I’ve seen it where, because of the, the feeling of the, I’m gonna just call it a push beyond, ’cause they push just a little too far.

[00:08:40] Cameron: Mm-hmm. And then what happens is the feeling, the, the negative feeling associated with the situation. That was gonna be there because the situation is bad, is transferred. That negative feeling is transferred to the person who was trying to protect them from that situation. And if they had just been there and accepted the other person’s choice, accept it, then they could have been there to help them deal with the consequences of that decision.

[00:09:15] Cameron: Yeah, and because they pushed too hard, they weren’t. Weren’t allowed in. And in fact, it, it damaged the relationship. Um, in Brandon Sanderson’s book, there’s a, there’s a part where, wait, was it Brandon Sanderson? No, it was, uh, j K Row. Uh, rolling, rolling, rolling. Yeah. Yeah. Harry Potter. Where they, the person’s, uh, it was the Weasley kid.

[00:09:43] Cameron: Right. And the, the idea was he was wrong and that was harder. To overcome than if he had been. Right. Do you know what I’m talking about? Yeah. What? Percy. Percy.

[00:09:58] Hyatt: He was wrong. What do you mean?

[00:10:00] Cameron: Well, he, he was, he always sided with the Ministry of Magic. Right. And when the Ministry of Magic was proven to be awful Oh yeah.

[00:10:09] Cameron: That it was harder for him to come back into the family. And someone said it would’ve been easier if he had been right or something like that. Don’t know. Bad example apparently.

[00:10:23] Hyatt: Well, I, I think I understand what you’re saying is, is when you are forced to be adamant about something and you defend it, and then you are proven completely wrong, you are full of, for lack of a better term, shame.

[00:10:45] Hyatt: Yeah.

[00:10:46] Cameron: So not embarrassment

[00:10:47] Hyatt: and shame. Yeah. So you. You also don’t want the person to feel bad about themselves. And I think, um, that’s a fantastic thing to bring from your Harry Potter example, is you don’t want them to feel like they don’t deserve love or grace or mm-hmm. Respect, because they’ve realized after, after what you are trying to get across, if that’s your.

[00:11:19] Hyatt: Questions. You don’t want them to feel like they’re being attacked because they’ll go defensive and then being defensive later maybe turns into embarrassment because they realize they were wrong.

[00:11:33] Cameron: Yeah. And it’s harder for them to come back from that. Yeah. I think that’s smart. So, all right, so I’ll ask questions and I, I’m gonna, I’m, I’m gonna softball it.

[00:11:49] Cameron: Because the, here’s the other, this is the part that a lot of people forget, and I need to remind myself of it as well. Life’s gonna, the reality’s gonna teach him. I don’t, you know, he’s gonna figure out that that stinks. Mm-hmm. I don’t have to be the one to make it stink for him. He’s gonna smell it eventually.

[00:12:13] Cameron: It’ll be like, whoa. I, there’s a, a pat gray. Episode recently where they got off on a subject, Uhhuh, oh, this is so bad. But apparently in the nineties there was a woman who went in for surgery because she lost tuna fish sandwich in one of the folds Oh, okay. Of her skin. And uh, it got infected. And so they had to, you know, they cleaned it out and they’re like, what is this?

[00:12:45] Cameron: Oh my goodness. And it turned out to, Sandwich.

[00:12:51] Hyatt: Yeah. Anyway,

[00:12:54] Cameron: Jeffy. So someone’s saying what, you know, how, how did it get that bad? Wouldn’t you have gone? Like, what is, you know, so they were trying to figure out, hey, how come she didn’t realize that she was missing a tuna fish sandwich? And I, as someone who likes to overeat, I have finished many a sandwich and looked for it going, where’s my sandwich that I just finished?

[00:13:18] Cameron: ’cause I want more. Yeah, so that was, losing a

[00:13:21] Hyatt: sandwich isn’t the hard part.

[00:13:23] Cameron: No. Not noticing the tuna fish smell is what they, and then generally said, well, if you have enough girth to lose the tuna fish sandwich in a fold, you might have other smell issues unrelated to the tuna fish that are more pressing.

[00:13:43] Cameron: Yeah. So, ah, so bad. I there. Humor is so dark and funny. Ah, man,

[00:13:53] Hyatt: you, you have to be careful with the dark humor because their humor is not dark in the definition of dark humor. Yeah, it is. I would say edgy. Edgy. Okay. But again, when you say edgy, that sounds like you’re pushing the bounds of, uh, racism and, uh, Um, like, man, I wonder, I wonder how to describe humor that’s, uh, confident in sensitive subjects.

[00:14:31] Hyatt: I, I guess, yeah,

[00:14:33] Cameron: where they, they just, they don’t, there’s no line for them to cross, and so they don’t cross a line. They, they’re like, well, why would there be a line there? There’s no line. Mm-hmm. It’s, it’s like, I mean, uh, I think, I think Jeff said, Hey, Stop fat shaming at, at some point during the conversation.

[00:14:54] Cameron: So that did happen. Yeah. But anyway, I, oh, so I don’t know how we got on that subject. Oh, anyway,

[00:15:07] Hyatt: you leave something, you leave a tuna fish sandwich, uh, somewhere for too long and you start smelling it. Yeah. You’re eventually going to need. Surgery to remedy. Yeah. But you know, if somebody says, Hey, gosh, what this example is,

[00:15:27] Cameron: it’s

[00:15:28] Hyatt: actually really good for this situation, but I think you say, Hey, smell.

[00:15:32] Hyatt: You don’t smell you. You maybe ask, did you put on deodorant today? Yeah. Yes. Did you take a shower? Mm, probably not, but, but you ask questions and you say, do you smell something weird? Mm. Maybe I smell something weird that I’ve been smelling for a couple months and

[00:16:00] Cameron: well, and so at this point, so let’s, you know what?

[00:16:02] Cameron: Let’s use this example because it is such a good one. So let’s say I’m friends, I. With someone who may or may not have lost a tuna fish sandwich in one of their, their folds. Okay. I recognize that there’s something different. There’s, there’s a new smell. I can’t just tell ’em, Hey. You stink. Really? Like doing a fish?

[00:16:34] Cameron: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:16:37] Hyatt: You can’t, you can’t do that. Because that will hurt them.

[00:16:41] Cameron: Yes. It would hurt them more than it would help them. ’cause what all I’m doing is I’m pushing them away. I’m making it almost shameful. Shameful. And there would they act. Who knows, they, they’re still gonna get to the point where they, it needs to be taken care of.

[00:17:02] Cameron: Now, maybe if I go about it right, I can say, Hey, uh, there’s, I, I, there’s a new smell that’s not typical, or do I need to be worried about it, or can I help, right? Mm-hmm. And then if the person’s like, no, you know what? Nothing’s wrong. I don’t, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Mm-hmm. I have to accept that.

[00:17:25] Cameron: ’cause that’s their agency, that’s their choice. Yeah.

[00:17:30] Hyatt: Which is hard to

[00:17:30] Cameron: do. Yeah. Especially when you smell the tuna fish sandwich all the time. And you have to be around them and that’s the thing. Right. But you love

[00:17:38] Hyatt: them. I do. And in, in the real world example, it is hard to let somebody. Do something that you could prevent that is gonna hurt them and is gonna damage them.

[00:17:52] Hyatt: Mm-hmm. Because you want to protect them and you want to keep the safe from themselves. Yeah. But taking away their agency one is, you know, a principle. You agency is number one for me. Yeah. Yeah. Um, But even in those moments where you may need to help somebody by, by, uh, how do you put it, how do you put taking away someone’s agency for like, and a really important reason?

[00:18:30] Hyatt: And it’s not necessarily taking away their agency, but, but, uh, Yeah. Not making them be able to choose a different way, you know what, taking away their agency to protect them. Yeah. Um,

[00:18:44] Cameron: you know, I was, I do thought experiments often on agency to see where the line is. Mm-hmm. Do you want to hear one of my more recent ones?

[00:18:53] Cameron: Yeah. Okay. So let me just ask you the, these are the questions I ask myself to see how extreme I am with agency. Mm-hmm. All right, so you. Are a civil engineer who has been tasked with destroying a dam. You know everything about the dam and how to get rid of it so that it won’t hold back water anymore.

[00:19:23] Cameron: And it’s on purpose. You know, it, it’s been planned for ages and there’s a guy, an old man, Who’s living down in a shack be beneath the dam. Mm-hmm. What’s your moral obligation to protect him from the flood that you are tasked to, to let loose? Yeah.

[00:19:54] Hyatt: And that’s the question. Mm-hmm. Is what is your moral obligation to, uh, protect?

[00:20:02] Hyatt: A, an old man in a shack at below the dam that you were required to burst.

[00:20:10] Cameron: Yeah. And if you don’t, someone else is going to, so, oh, you just have all the knowledge. Okay. You, you just know for sure it’s gonna happen. There’s the, the reason I put it in that frame is that there is zero doubt. That the

[00:20:25] Hyatt: damn wheel burst.

[00:20:26] Hyatt: You are the front

[00:20:28] Cameron: runner. You’re, yeah, you’re the most knowledgeable person. There’s no one with more knowledge about the situation than you, and you know that the dam is coming down no matter what. And the guy in the shack, because it, he’s been told for years. The dam’s gonna break next week. You gotta get out.

[00:20:53] Cameron: Yeah. And next week comes along and nothing happens. And so he’s just like, whatever’s not gonna

[00:20:57] Hyatt: happen. Yeah. So he is like, uh, not necessarily a hippie tying themselves to a tree, but No, just, but he’s, he just doesn’t know. And well, he knows, but stubborn.

[00:21:11] Cameron: Yeah. He, he, and that’s the thing. Uh, so part of the thought experiment is does it matter?

[00:21:19] Cameron: He believes or believes that it’s gonna happen or not. Does that matter?

[00:21:26] Hyatt: Yeah. So well, am I allowed to like work loopholes in this thought? Absolutely. Okay. What I would do if I have all the knowledge of the dam and I’m in charge of breaking, bursting the dam. Yep. I. I am going to use my knowledge to, uh, give this man a warning via releasing enough water from the dam that it’s going to damage his shack and give him an opportunity to survive, not just survive.

[00:22:10] Hyatt: Mm-hmm. But give him an opportunity to live. Um, and let’s say he’s not lawfully. Allowed to be living in the shack. Um, if he is, there would be obvious reasons why you wouldn’t. Mm-hmm. Uh, but, um, you know, I would, I would probably, with all the knowledge that I have, just keep raising the water level until it’s, you know, it’s apparent that this is gonna be a problem for him so that he will leave, um, I certainly wouldn’t be able to take down the dam, uh, if he was there and knowing that, okay, so morally I cannot take another person’s life, even if they know that I’m going to take it and I have that decision now.

[00:23:04] Hyatt: They’re probably are other thought problems that you could give me where I would take someone’s life. If they

[00:23:11] Cameron: Right. So now we’re gonna adjust the situation. And this is so you did great, right? Uhhuh, you’re like, Nope. The line, I’m not gonna be the one to destroy the dam to have ’em go. It’s now not your job to destroy the dam.

[00:23:28] Cameron: It’s your job to assess the risk of the damn bursting. And you know, once again, you have. More knowledge than anyone else, and you know, the dam is gonna bur burst at some point in the near future. Mm-hmm. You have no idea when, because it depends on the water level and the water levels determined by the clouds and the rain and all that, and the, all of the factors.

[00:23:57] Cameron: Right? Yeah. And so now it’s, it’s not in control. It’s not a decision. It just, it’s going to happen. It’s going to happen. And you have knowledge that it’s gonna happen,

[00:24:08] Hyatt: but you don’t know when. Mm-hmm.

[00:24:11] Cameron: And so you’ve, and so far over the last you knew it was gonna happen five years ago. The police have gone out to him, they’ve warned him.

[00:24:23] Cameron: There’s no compensation for buying them out. It’s just, Hey, the dam’s gonna burst. Your Shaq is in the way, you’re gonna die. Yeah. And he’s like, you stay here. And he’s like, I don’t care. Yeah. So now what he, do you have any more, more obligation to protect the guy? Yeah.

[00:24:45] Hyatt: That, that’s, that’s interesting because you know, you know that the dam is gonna burst.

[00:24:51] Hyatt: You don’t know when. And what are your options? Go down and restrain him personally. Mm-hmm. With no authority to save his life because you feel more morally obligated to protect him. Mm-hmm. And there is that aspect of you, not you. You don’t have a choice that the dam is gonna break. That’s right. So that clears up.

[00:25:21] Hyatt: The easy decision of, I am not going to let this man die, but now you are saying, do I take away his agency so that he lives? That’s right.

[00:25:39] Hyatt: Hmm. If I were in that situation, I would. Yeah. After being told, you know, I would probably be asking questions saying, has someone gone? Have they called the authorities? I called the authorities myself. They say, Hey, we’ve already tried to get, get that guy out. Um hmm. It’s, if there were some way for me to know, During the day, during the hour that I have an hour of time where I can go down there and talk to the old man, I would maybe try myself.

[00:26:19] Hyatt: Okay. Just, and, and if that didn’t end in me, I. Restraining him, which is the, you know, we’ll say that’s the, the point of taking away his agency is restraining him and saving him. Right. Um, the old

[00:26:33] Cameron: Incredibles line, you didn’t save my life. You ruined my death. I love that line.

[00:26:39] Hyatt: Yeah. Yeah. You took away his agency.

[00:26:41] Hyatt: Yeah. Uh, so if, if that was the, Endpoint, or if that wasn’t the endpoint, at least I would go down and I would try, um, maybe not as much to clear my conscience, but because that’s the right thing to do. Okay.

[00:27:01] Cameron: So now he has said, he, he like, get he fed you, and he appreciates it, but he doesn’t care. He’s not gonna leave his home.

[00:27:13] Cameron: And there’s sentimental reasons. But does the reasons he want to stay there does, do they matter?

[00:27:21] Hyatt: Hmm. Like, uh, he’s lived in the house for years and

[00:27:26] Cameron: that’s where his wife and him grew old together, et cetera. Mm-hmm. All all of those things.

[00:27:34] Hyatt: So do those matter to me? To the or to,

[00:27:39] Cameron: to the, so this is a thought experi that does affect the situation.

[00:27:42] Cameron: Yeah. So the thought experiment for me, Is agency trumps everything up until someone else’s agency. Right. That’s, that’s the line I draw. So in this thought experiment, does his, the reasons he wants to stay in the shack matter to me. They don’t. Mm-hmm. It doesn’t matter at all to me. No. The fact that he’s choosing to stay in the shack, even though I know the dam’s gonna burst at some point, and he’s likely to die.

[00:28:15] Cameron: It doesn’t matter. And it doesn’t. So for me, I, I leave him in the shack. Yeah. Do you want to hear the next one? Yeah. Because this is where it

[00:28:24] Hyatt: gets hard. Yeah. Well, first I want to say, I would, I would also leave and I, I would not restrain him. Mm-hmm. Um, ’cause morally agency is, he had that opportunity and he chose, he.

[00:28:43] Hyatt: He chose and there’s nothing that I could do about it. Yeah. And, uh, then there’s also the religious side. I would pray about it and if, if I had the, if I was told by the Lord to save this guy at all costs, I would, you know, okay. But I would pray for him and, and I would leave him.

[00:29:04] Cameron: So you just identified the thing that has caused the second most.

[00:29:13] Cameron: Harm in the world, in my opinion. Number two is making decisions on other people’s agency based on deity and moral obligation. So when you make that type of decision, boy, how do you better make sure you are in tune with God? Yeah. ’cause the crusades, um, anyway, the, the. Uh, Muslim jihad. The, I mean, it, it, that, that is, it’s dangerous.

[00:29:48] Cameron: So yeah, really be careful there. But I agree with you. I do just take an extra time, make sure that you’re, yeah,

[00:29:58] Hyatt: it’s a risky, it’s a risky thing and, and history tells us that. That, you know, when, when, uh, somebody proclaims that they’ve been, they’ve been commanded by God to take

[00:30:14] Cameron: action, to take away someone else’s agency specifically.

[00:30:18] Hyatt: Yeah. Yep. And, and the thing, the thing that’s fishy about that is that, uh, Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father sent us to this earth to have agency. And that being one of the most important principles about living a mortal life mm-hmm. Is that we have agency. And so yeah. That’s where it’s like,

[00:30:49] Cameron: can Yeah.

[00:30:50] Cameron: ’cause I mean if, and just to drive the point home a third, Of the hosts of heaven were cast into outer darkness. That’s a third. That’s a lot. So anyway, and chose not agency. Okay. So now, so far so good. Now it

[00:31:12] Hyatt: gets hard. Okay, let’s hear it. I’m ready.

[00:31:15] Cameron: Grandkids visit him from time to time.

[00:31:18] Hyatt: Oh. Uh, and they don’t know.

[00:31:23] Hyatt: They

[00:31:23] Cameron: don’t know.

[00:31:25] Hyatt: And you don’t know when they’re gonna

[00:31:26] Cameron: visit you, but, and right. Uhhuh, so,

[00:31:33] Hyatt: oh, so grandkids are visiting. Okay. Uh, or they visit time to time. It’s a frequent thing, but un unscheduled, we’ll say. Yeah. And you know that he has a loving family that comes to see him often. Yep. What do you do then?

[00:31:57] Cameron: So, uh, are you asking me well, or are you trying to figure it out because I, well, I’m thinking about it. This is a thought experiment. You know, you know what you would do. I’ve already gone through this. You know what you do.

[00:32:07] Hyatt: Yeah. I wonder if my first thoughts are what you would do. ’cause immediately what comes to my head is setting up preventative.

[00:32:20] Hyatt: Measures to tell the family hazardous area of flood incoming. Mm-hmm. Um, stay away, you know, death, scary things, you know? Yeah. And try to cover all the bases. Go to all the trails, all the roads that lead to the skies. House. Um, because, and if I can give that family opportunity to choose not to go down there, I want them to have ever every opportunity to choose what I would choose for them.

[00:32:57] Cameron: Yeah. Okay. Great. So you’ve done that, and then this is where a lot of, okay, so let’s take global warming, cli climate change. Okay. Uhhuh, I think this is where. Uh, people who. Are genuinely concerned about the welfare of the human race in the near future because of the consequences of climate change. This is where they’ve messed up.

[00:33:26] Cameron: Mm-hmm. Is, they’re like, well, we posted all these signs and people still aren’t, you know, they’re still visiting grandpa. And so then they start saying things like, it’s gonna happen by date. Mm. Yeah. It’s gonna, and,

[00:33:41] Hyatt: and every, so you’re lying to them now.

[00:33:43] Cameron: They, they’ve, they’ve taken and they’ve politicized the science and they’ve made it so that everything is suspect because everything is motivated.

[00:33:56] Cameron: Beyond other things. So let’s, uh, let’s have, have a third party in this situation. Okay? Third party is trying to gain control of something and so they’re using the fact that the dam’s gonna break. And so Joe, who lives in the shack and has his grand babies coming and visiting, From time to time doesn’t believe that the dam’s gonna break.

[00:34:21] Cameron: Even though you have all that knowledge, doesn’t believe you, believes that you are motivated by that third party whose interest in, in whatever the control is that he’s after. So that’s what’s going on in his mind. That’s why he’s not leaving, that’s why he’s not leaving because it’s been stated so many times.

[00:34:41] Cameron: Inaccurately. Mm-hmm. That and overboard. Too much emotion. Not enough. Well, it’s your choice, but here’s the consequences. So now he doesn’t believe it and he’s told his family. And they believe grandpa and he has a track record of pulling out article after article and warning letter after warning letter saying, look, this has been going on for 50 years.

[00:35:06] Cameron: They keep saying the dam’s gonna break any day now and it’s not gonna break. Yeah, I, I did a soil sample and I know, I mean, I tasted it and it tastes like dirt. It’s gonna be fine, you know, whatever it is.

[00:35:20] Hyatt: Yeah. And, okay. Anything else? No. So, This one intrigues me, this aspect, because I’m gonna bring it back.

[00:35:31] Hyatt: I don’t even know. Um, ’cause this is a while ago that we were talking about somebody not knowing that they’re in a bad s situation. Yep. Um, so he, he genuinely believes, That this is true. That his reality is true. Yep. And, and, well, I don’t wanna say his reality. ’cause you know, it’s hard to say that people have different realities.

[00:36:02] Hyatt: Reality is reality. Yeah. But his beliefs of reality is he believes those things are true. Right. Um, that is where it is difficult, because for me, let’s say, Global warming is going to kill us in a year, and they’re telling me this. Mm-hmm. And I’ve done all my research and I am 100% positive for myself that global warming isn’t gonna kill us.

[00:36:31] Hyatt: Uh, and that maybe if I recycled for a month, it would be fine. Yeah. You know, if, if I were to choose to not recycle, I would not be okay with somebody. Coming into my house and recycling for me. For you. Yeah. It, that’s, that’s, you know, an undeveloped example. But, but I wouldn’t be, you can’t take that agency away from me if I chose and it really was gonna happen, the world would end because of global warming.

[00:37:05] Hyatt: Uh. That would be something that I wouldn’t be okay with, uh, having that agency taken away. So, so applying that to this family, it’s like, what can I do that isn’t taking away their choice? Their choice, because I still can’t do that even though this person is misinformed and they don’t believe what is.

[00:37:33] Hyatt: What is factual, what is true because of all these examples, all these, um, all these facts and, and real evidence that his side is true. Yeah. So what, what, what would you do at this point?

[00:37:52] Cameron: Okay, so for this part, there’s still a randomness and an act of God. Part involved. Mm-hmm. Because it’s from time to time I’ve put up the warning signs.

[00:38:06] Cameron: I’ve tried to be accurate, I’ve tried to give him the information so he can understand what it is I know. And as recognizing that I’ve warned the family, but they’re choosing to believe Grandpa, uh, I’m going to leave it to God and. Stand ready to help the deal with the flood aftermath. Mm,

[00:38:37] Hyatt: wowy.

[00:38:40] Cameron: Wow. It gets worse. Oh, okay. Go ahead. Before,

[00:38:43] Hyatt: yeah, before you, before it

[00:38:45] Cameron: gets worse. Uhhuh,

[00:38:49] Hyatt: that is a big part, is letting them choose and then, Being prepared for the consequences of their decision. Yeah, because, so let’s say for this example, you know the dam is gonna break. It’s gonna break soon. You don’t know when they’re choosing to stay. And you say, okay, well here’s the numbers I can call for search and rescue.

[00:39:22] Hyatt: Maybe even contact search and rescue and say, Hey, these people are going, going to be in this situation soon. But just that, that being ready, um, because there’s nothing more you can do. Mm-hmm. They’re making their own decision completely relates to when somebody is. Is in a harmful position that they don’t, that they don’t realize.

[00:39:51] Hyatt: Mm-hmm. And, uh, once, once they’ve made their decision, you can back off. But that doesn’t mean you still can’t help later and, and not giving up and being ready for the consequences.

[00:40:06] Cameron: Um, yeah. And some would argue that it’s morally justified at this point to take away that guy’s agency and lock him up.

[00:40:16] Cameron: ’cause you know, at any point along this path, if it’s, well, it’s for his good, it’s it’s

[00:40:22] Hyatt: for the other people too.

[00:40:24] Cameron: That’s right. The grandkids who are showing up. ‘

[00:40:27] Hyatt: cause is this guy responsible for their

[00:40:29] Cameron: deaths? That’s right. So now here’s where it gets really hard. Their parents, the grandkid’s, parents pass away and he adopts the kids.

[00:40:42] Cameron: Ooh. So now they’re there all the time. Yeah.

[00:40:47] Hyatt: And legally don’t have their own.

[00:40:52] Cameron: Okay. Continue. Yeah, no, you, you identified the issues. So now they are not in a position to make the decisions for themselves. And they’re at risk because of the grandpa who has legal custody of ’em.

[00:41:09] Hyatt: That is, Hmm, my, okay, I’m gonna shoot out.

[00:41:14] Hyatt: My first immediate thought yeah. Was get in there, kidnap those kids because you know that that’s my instinctual. If I had like 30 seconds to act, I would probably start heading there. Mm-hmm. Because, I can’t think of a way out that fast other than, you know, just saving those kids. Yeah. And so there’s a question when somebody, okay.

[00:41:46] Hyatt: When somebody needs saving. Yeah. When is it okay for you to save them? I mean, if someone’s sh drowning in the ocean mm-hmm. You don’t go up to them and say, do you wanna live? No. So when it comes to those kids, you say, do you wanna live? Um, yes. I think they would say, yeah. Uh, what do you have to do to save them?

[00:42:16] Hyatt: And are you taking away their agency? I don’t think so. That’s right. Because if they choose for you to let, if they choose to let you save them in, in

[00:42:28] Cameron: this situation, did they have agency to lose? I don’t think

[00:42:33] Hyatt: so because they’re in custody of the grandpa. Yeah. And in the same way that. Kids can be taken away from abusive parents by the government.

[00:42:47] Hyatt: Uh, I don’t think that is taking away agency from the kids unless they, you know, fight against it. But I don’t, I don’t have enough information about. How, uh, how custody of children works. Yeah.

[00:43:06] Cameron: See, so let, let, um, let’s just say that there wasn’t a transfer of custody. Let’s just say that it was the parent who in the grandpa dies and the mom and dad inherit the shack.

[00:43:20] Cameron: Mm-hmm. And they move in with their kids. Mm-hmm. And they’ve just had a family tradition that this is the way it is. The dams, everybody’s threatening that the dam’s gonna break. Yeah. But I, we, we don’t believe it. They’ve been saying it for 50 years.

[00:43:41] Hyatt: So the parents have adopted the, the shack, the the shack and the grandpa’s stance on the shack.

[00:43:50] Hyatt: Yeah. Which is they’re, and they will not be swayed. Nope. So, I taking away the kids at this point.

[00:44:04] Hyatt: I think it’s safe to say that the adults are a, not a lost cause, but a sure answer of if they choose to stay, they choose to stay. Mm-hmm. You can’t do anything about it. It’s the kids that are still the question. Yeah. Because those kids, if they don’t have the agency by their parents to leave,

[00:44:30] Hyatt: yeah. They don’t. Are you, are you morally not obligated, but are you, is it okay to morally give somebody agency when they don’t have it?

[00:44:49] Cameron: So depending on the age of the kids there, that is one of the factors. Okay.

[00:44:55] Hyatt: Yeah. I want to hear, hear more about this.

[00:44:58] Cameron: All right, so teenagers you can inform. Mm-hmm. And persuade younger kids, they wouldn’t be able to conceptualize the risk anyway.

[00:45:15] Cameron: Mm-hmm.

[00:45:17] Hyatt: So

[00:45:19] Cameron: let’s pretend like, so for the older kids, if they were teenagers, you inform they’re, they’re at this point able to make their own decisions ’cause they’re able to choose. And worst case scenario, they just ask for help and say, Hey, uh, everybody says that this dam’s gonna break. I don’t want to drown.

[00:45:40] Cameron: I, I I want out. Boom happens. Yeah, no problem. Yep. Children under the age of, let’s say, I don’t know, eight years old, the now, it just gets harder. Mm-hmm. So where do the parents’ rights to raise the children as they see fit? End?

[00:46:10] Hyatt: Yeah. At this point of the. Thought problem. Mm-hmm. What do you call it? A thought experiment.

[00:46:18] Hyatt: A thought experiment, yeah. At this point of the thought experiment, it comes down to time. Okay. Because if you knew, if I knew the dam was breaking that day, I would go in there, child, child under eight, multiple children under eight years old. I’m going to take them and I’m going to get them out of there because they don’t have the capacity to choose for themselves.

[00:46:45] Hyatt: In the same way that if a parent was standing on the street and their kids were walking into the road, I’m going to get their kids and I’m going to save them. And, and maybe if the, maybe if the parents are in the street with the kid making the kid walk with them in the street and the kid doesn’t want to go, or maybe the kid does want to go and there’s inevitably gonna be a bus that hits them.

[00:47:13] Hyatt: I’m still going to save the kid, and if the parent wants to stay in the street, I think I would still save the kid. Okay. So I don’t know where that comes because if you save the children, if you’re, if taking them away and the dam is gonna break a month later. How much does the time have to do with it?

[00:47:40] Hyatt: And what would you do first before, before we move on from saving the kids under

[00:47:45] Cameron: eight? Yeah. Okay. So the, the issues that I see is you don’t know the hour or the day that the dam is gonna break. Mm-hmm. So it’s not in, IM imminent. Imminent, what’s the word? Imminent. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So because of that, you actually don’t have a right to take the kids.

[00:48:13] Cameron: That’s my, that’s where I landed, and this is where I think a lot of people could disagree. And I would be like, yeah, you know what? That. I’d be okay if I’m wrong here. Uh, the, you know, wake me up tomorrow morning. Maybe I choose different because it’s so, it’s such a tough choice. Yeah. Because for me, the kids don’t have agency.

[00:48:39] Cameron: They, they are, the, the sin is upon the parents, the adults who are making the decision for the kids, and they’re gonna be held account accountable. For their actions. Yeah. Based on their knowledge and based on all the warnings they’ve received. Taking the kids is such a immoral act that it has to be, it has to be, it’s completely justified and about to happen.

[00:49:13] Cameron: Mm-hmm. It can’t be, well, it could have happened. So this is where child Protection protective Services, um, their job has to be crazy difficult because they have to go into a situation and they could probably foresee that awful things are going to happen. Mm-hmm. But they can’t act until it’s about to happen or it has happened.

[00:49:39] Cameron: Yeah. Wow. That’s, that’s rough. I, I couldn’t do their job. That is rough. And there’s also all of those examples of them overstepping their bounds trying to I see. I And then they were wrong. They were wrong

[00:49:56] Hyatt: and then they’re wrong morally. That’s right.

[00:50:01] Cameron: So the thought, the thought experiment, I have to let the kids potentially suffer because of their parents.

[00:50:13] Cameron: Rights to be their parents. Mm-hmm.

[00:50:20] Hyatt: Yeah. And I

[00:50:22] Cameron: would Because you don’t know it’s about to happen.

[00:50:28] Hyatt: I’m, I’m thinking about

[00:50:30] Cameron: if I agree. Yeah, no, I, because I argue with myself on this.

[00:50:36] Hyatt: Yeah. It’s so, it’s so hard ’cause. What, what is right? And what would I do? Because yeah, would I be able to choose the morally correct side? Uh,

[00:50:59] Hyatt: and, and when it comes to these crossroads, you bring religion back into it, you bring God back into it, and you say, Where is the line? You ask, um, you know, what, what can I do in this situation that, uh, would help? And that is, uh, okay. And hmm. I think when it comes down to, Whether or not it’s okay to take the kids and you don’t know when mm-hmm.

[00:51:44] Hyatt: It’s not okay to take the kids. Uh, so I agree with you and I’ll bring back the Be ready to help. Yeah. Be ready to help. When the dam breaks, uh, ready to look for the kids or maybe just ready on standby, waiting for news that the dam is gonna break soon, or if I know the hour. Mm-hmm. You know, but, wow. Yeah.

[00:52:15] Hyatt: That’s hard. And it, the, the sad, the sad part is that you sometimes you just have to wait till. They’ve messed up. Mm-hmm. Or till What’s, what’s the worst that can happen? Happens. Yeah. Uh, because you can’t take away their agency and you can’t do what you know would be best for them because they’re making a decision.

[00:52:44] Hyatt: Ooh.

[00:52:47] Hyatt: So. Hmm.

[00:52:54] Cameron: I, I think we’re gonna post this. Okay. I would like to know what other people think. So add some comments. We should probably start the video with that.

[00:53:05] Hyatt: Yeah. Here’s the question. What are your thoughts? This is ours, you know? This is where we are. Yeah, because I would like to know if somebody else has found a way.

[00:53:15] Hyatt: We, because with me and you, we’ve, we’ve covered, you know, pretty much the same bases, a couple, you know, side tangents. Mm-hmm. I also know that we agree on a lot of things and that Yeah. A lot of my beliefs and, uh, the things I’ve learned have come from discussing with you. Yeah. So not, I’m not saying that.

[00:53:41] Hyatt: I am only voicing your opinion, but I’ve learned in such a way that, uh, I would come up with some similar responses. So, yeah. Yeah. What, what ideas do, uh, do you guys have for this thought problem? Thinking problem? What, what do you call it?

[00:54:02] Cameron: Uh, thought

[00:54:03] Hyatt: experiment. Thought experiment. Yeah. Um, is there a way.

[00:54:09] Hyatt: The way to do the right thing, uh, that we didn’t consider.

[00:54:16] Cameron: Yeah, let us know.