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by sheeps 5318 days ago
Exactly. Distance in time means greater uncertainty of reward, and greater uncertainty means lower motivation to go after it in the first place.
1 comments

Except that this factor isn't consistent with the known uncertainty discount, even if we and the person in question understand the discount rationally.

In fact, it is often wildly different from the known rational answer. In other words, we have some hardcoded responses to scenarios that are probably built on evolutionarily rational behavior, but which don't apply well to specific scenarios in which the "correct" rational behavior is easily determined.