The problem with hyperbolic discounting (which is not shared by exponential discounting) is that it's not invariant under translation in time: the question of whether you prefer a reward of _r_ at time _t_ or a reward of 2<em>r</em> at time (_t_ + _c_) shouldn't depend on _t_, because then versions of you at different times are in conflict with each other: the agent just before the smaller-sooner reward wants to grab it in her unthinking short-term greed, even _knowing_ that her future self will damn her for it (_her_ wiser, more cunning greed being fixed on the later-and-greater alternative).
Consider the plight of a(n aspiring—an ostensible?) writer, who has been hoping (_planning_ would be too strong a word) to write a great Sequence of nuanced commentaries on weighty matters so dear to her heart that they, perhaps more than anything else, constitute _the theme_ that her life is _about_. And yet hour turns into day turns into week turns into month turns into year (perhaps _only_ a year _so far_), and but a slow tickle of content emerges from her RSS feed—and even that tends to be meandering observations and silly word games that manage to avoid the serious (earnest, lucid, heartbreaking) analysis that are to constitute the fruition of the theme.
The problem with hyperbolic discounting (which is not shared by exponential discounting) is that it's not invariant under translation in time: the question of whether you prefer a reward of _r_ at time _t_ or a reward of 2<em>r</em> at time (_t_ + _c_) shouldn't depend on _t_, because then versions of you at different times are in conflict with each other: the agent just before the smaller-sooner reward wants to grab it in her unthinking short-term greed, even _knowing_ that her future self will damn her for it (_her_ wiser, more cunning greed being fixed on the later-and-greater alternative).
Consider the plight of a(n aspiring—an ostensible?) writer, who has been hoping (_planning_ would be too strong a word) to write a great Sequence of nuanced commentaries on weighty matters so dear to her heart that they, perhaps more than anything else, constitute _the theme_ that her life is _about_. And yet hour turns into day turns into week turns into month turns into year (perhaps _only_ a year _so far_), and but a slow tickle of content emerges from her RSS feed—and even that tends to be meandering observations and silly word games that manage to avoid the serious (earnest, lucid, heartbreaking) analysis that are to constitute the fruition of the theme.