Have you ever wondered whether you practice the cognitive bias called Temporal Discounting in your everyday life and in the context of the looming climate catastrophes in particular? As humanity stands at the precipice of climate catastrophes, understanding the cognitive biases that influence our decision-making becomes vital. Temporal discounting is one of the biggest, most potent, and most prevalent in our cognitive biases arsenal.
As passengers on the proverbial Plato's Ship of State, we are all obligated to know where we are heading. No amount of temporal discounting will save us from ourselves. You see, Plato's "Ship of State" metaphor, found in "The Republic," compares the governance of a city-state to the navigation of a ship. In this metaphor, the ship represents the state, the captain represents the ruling leader, and the crew represents various factions or citizens. Plato uses the metaphor to argue that just as a ship requires a knowledgeable and skilled navigator to reach its destination, a state requires wise and knowledgeable rulers to govern effectively. Without such wisdom, the state is likely to be led astray by unqualified leaders, much like a ship would be if steered by untrained or incompetent sailors. This metaphor has powerful relevance to "Spaceship Earth" and the consequences of humanity's collective temporal discounting of the urgency of managing our planet.
One of the most significant biases affecting our responses to climate management is our collective temporal discounting. This cognitive bias leads individuals to prioritize immediate rewards over long-term consequences, often resulting in inadequate responses to pressing issues such as intense heat, wildfires, higher intensity hurricanes, sea-level rise, ocean acidification, air quality degradation, deforestation, loss of arable land, declines in agricultural yields in the face of increasing demand for food, natural resource depletion, the mass migrations of deadly viruses to cooler zones, the emergence of zoonotic diseases, the inexorable rise in morbidity from respiratory diseases, higher frequency of heart attacks and strokes in vulnerable individuals due to an increase in blood viscosity from high temperatures, widespread mental health crises, water scarcity, etc.
These are just a "few" direct consequences of humanity's collective choices to consume at an unbridled pace while exacerbating the rate of depletion of non-renewable finite resources. These challenges have the potential to put significant strain on global financial systems, creating massive impediments in our collective efforts to protect vulnerable populations as well as inhibiting our capacity to realize humanity's full potential. If you think you are safe from these looming catastrophic system failures, think again. No one is. No amount of wishful thinking or head-in-the-sand syndrome will save us from ourselves.
Temporal discounting refers to the tendency of individuals to devalue consequences (or benefits) that occur in the future compared to those benefits and rewards that are immediate. This bias is rooted in human psychology, where immediate gratification is often prioritized due to evolutionary factors that favored survival. For instance, in ancestral environments, securing food or shelter in the short term was more crucial than planning for long-term sustainability. The "Eat now, otherwise the hyenas will eat it later" syndrome exemplifies this behavior. Think of the zero-sum bias operating at full throttle.
In economic terms, temporal discounting manifests as a preference for smaller, immediate rewards over larger, delayed ones. This can be illustrated through various experiments, such as the classic marshmallow test, where children are given the choice between one marshmallow now or two marshmallows if they wait. The results demonstrate that many individuals struggle to delay gratification, a tendency that extends to larger societal issues like climate management. The implications of temporal discounting in the context of climate management are profound. The urgency of climate action often clashes with the allure of short-term benefits. Ever heard someone's misguided comeback, "Why should I worry? I will be dead by then." Does that sound like high empathy for future generations' children and grandchildren?
This cognitive bias can lead to a failure in collective action. Policymakers, businesses, and individuals may prioritize immediate economic growth or convenience over the long-term health of the planet. The result is a cycle of inaction that exacerbates climate issues, leading to more severe consequences in the future. The paradox is that the longer we delay action, the more costly and devastating the impacts of climate destabilization will be, creating a vicious cycle of temporal discounting that can jeopardize the quality of life for future generations.
Are you ever curious about the underlying reasons for humanity's tendency to undervalue the long-term impacts of not taking action on international agreements like the Vienna Convention, the Montreal Protocol, the Kyoto Protocol, and the Paris Agreement? Is this not a case of misguided zero-sum bias over positive-sum bias?
Is it possible that the prevalence of the "IBGYBG" bias is leading to a misguided sense of comfort? In simpler terms, are people starting to question the necessity of tackling global climate challenges because of the IBGYBG mindset? (IBGYBG refers to the tragic human trait of rationalization called "The I will Be Gone You will Be Gone" syndrome.)
You see, the fallacy of IBGYBG—short for "I'll be gone, you'll be gone"—is a mindset where individuals or decision-makers prioritize short-term gains or benefits, disregarding the long-term consequences of their actions. This mentality can be particularly damaging in the context of the climate crisis looming in our future.
The IBGYBG mindset leads to decisions that favor immediate profits or conveniences while ignoring the future environmental impact. For example, industries may continue to emit greenhouse gases or deforest land for quick economic returns, knowing that the severe consequences of these actions will manifest after they are no longer in power or alive. If our global economic model favors the "maximization of taking from today" over "the preserving of safety for tomorrow," how should our children and grandchildren rank us on our empathy index? The real tragedy of the "I'll Be Gone, You'll Be Gone" mindset is that it exacerbates the ethical problem of intergenerational injustice. Current generations, particularly those in positions of power, make decisions that will disproportionately affect future generations, who have no say in the matter. This is especially true with climate destabilization, where today's emissions will continue to affect the planet for centuries.
The IBGYBG mindset is a fallacy because it fundamentally misunderstands the interconnectedness of our world and the inevitability of climate impacts from today's inaction to tomorrow's human suffering. Even though the decision-makers may be gone, the consequences of their actions will catch up with society, causing widespread harm. This fallacy neglects the moral obligation to protect the planet for future generations and underestimates the potential for future crises.
Which then raises the big “elephant in the room” question: when scarcity becomes a global reality, and the epoch of abundance becomes a faint silhouette in our rearview mirrors, and inflation runs amok beyond the controls of the "wise" policymakers, and catastrophic system failures proliferate in "cascades" and empathy morphs into apathy, will altruism prevail among humans?
Think about it!