Neither are your “true preferences”—but preferences changes lead to self-defeating behaviour. If you put your vodka in the loft in the morning to prevent yourself drinking it, and then get it down again in the evening when you change your mind, that’s two trips into the loft whose only purpose is to counter each other, which is wasted effort by any measure. Whatever you value, it has to make sense to “straighten out” your preferences so you’re not fighting against yourself.
Also, I really do mean “short-term” vs “long-term”; it’s not a proxy for “fun” vs “praiseworthy”. I had a friend who was damaging her health by taking too many class A drugs. One of the things I tried to say to talk her out of it was that since she liked class As, her goal should be to maximize the total amount of class As she took across her whole life. As it is, her health is now so bad she’s had to cut them out altogether, whereas more care when younger could have meant a lifetime of enjoying them.
Oddly, I haven’t regretted it yet. If anything, the things I regret most tend to be those things I have been told to do in order to improve my future prospects. (For example, I could have had less misery in my life if I had been allowed to drop out of college.)
So on those occasions either the costs have yet to present themselves fully, or you misassesed the future cost/benefit sheet for those decisions at the time. You speak as if you now expect to consistently misassess such things in future and are weighting things in favour of your short-term thinking to counter that. I’m pretty sure that’s not rational.
I tend to view my short-term preferences as my true ones instead of my long-term ones.
Neither are your “true preferences”—but preferences changes lead to self-defeating behaviour. If you put your vodka in the loft in the morning to prevent yourself drinking it, and then get it down again in the evening when you change your mind, that’s two trips into the loft whose only purpose is to counter each other, which is wasted effort by any measure. Whatever you value, it has to make sense to “straighten out” your preferences so you’re not fighting against yourself.
Also, I really do mean “short-term” vs “long-term”; it’s not a proxy for “fun” vs “praiseworthy”. I had a friend who was damaging her health by taking too many class A drugs. One of the things I tried to say to talk her out of it was that since she liked class As, her goal should be to maximize the total amount of class As she took across her whole life. As it is, her health is now so bad she’s had to cut them out altogether, whereas more care when younger could have meant a lifetime of enjoying them.
I’ve made conscious decisions to try to care as little as possible about my own personal (distant) future, especially since I don’t expect my life to improve in the future.
You can anticipate now that you will regret that decision later.
Oddly, I haven’t regretted it yet. If anything, the things I regret most tend to be those things I have been told to do in order to improve my future prospects. (For example, I could have had less misery in my life if I had been allowed to drop out of college.)
So on those occasions either the costs have yet to present themselves fully, or you misassesed the future cost/benefit sheet for those decisions at the time. You speak as if you now expect to consistently misassess such things in future and are weighting things in favour of your short-term thinking to counter that. I’m pretty sure that’s not rational.