Much of time-discounting is due to uncertainty. Because you’re more and more uncertain what the impact of a decision will be the farther you look into the future, you weigh that impact less and less the farther into the future you go.
But if you can find a way to predict future impacts that is unbiased, then you don’t need to time-discount due to uncertainty! Um… do you?
No, I think you still do, because your probability distribution’s variance increases the farther you look into the future. Rats.
Here’s another possible objection:
Much of time-discounting is due to uncertainty. Because you’re more and more uncertain what the impact of a decision will be the farther you look into the future, you weigh that impact less and less the farther into the future you go.
But if you can find a way to predict future impacts that is unbiased, then you don’t need to time-discount due to uncertainty! Um… do you?
No, I think you still do, because your probability distribution’s variance increases the farther you look into the future. Rats.