[baddox]

It’s usually pretty clear why you can’t have both: because resources can’t be used more than once (like money), or recharge at a certain rate (like mental energy).

I think the bigger issue is that future payoffs are inherently riskier. Spending a resource now for some utility now (like buying a movie ticket at the cinema) carries a much lower risk than even the safest 5-year investment.

I think that risk is the primary cause of time discounting, although there are others. Certain goods may have inherently less utility if you buy them later (an obvious example being a medical treatment for an ailment you have now).

What is interesting to me is why different people have different time preferences, other than obvious variables like age, wealth, education, etc. Is just a personality trait like any other? I’m also curious what people think about their own time preferences. Do people wish their discount functions were different? Obviously I sometimes regret decisions like staying up late, where I knew full well I was “screwing over my future self,” and I obviously can’t yet know how I’ll think about my long term low-discount actions, like saving money for retirement.

[torstenvl]

There's some evidence of a genomic component to future discounting. There's a section on it in Robert Sapolsky's excellent book, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst.

[baddox]

I’d be surprised if there wasn’t some genetic component, just like presumably every preference or personality trait.

I wonder what the sweet spot is, in the context of human biological and cultural evolution. You can obviously go too far in either direction.