When is being short-sighted better than being “long-sighted”?

Yesterday I suggested that being “long-sighted” is better at using resources than being short-sighted; however, sometimes it is perfectly rational for individuals to make decisions that seem short-sighted.

One classical example is that in some countries, due to their political system designs, their politicians are more likely to make decisions that seem short-sighted. When making policy decisions, these politicians tend to choose policies which can have short-term effects rather than those whose effects have longer time lags. This is because politicians’ individual interests do not perfectly match the social general interests. Although politicians’ individual interests are to win their elections and to win elections often requires making policy decisions that can benefit the society, there is no obvious paradox between the two interests, the frequency of elections and the frequency of social benefits are different. The frequency of election is usually once every four to five years; on the other hand, social benefits are continuous effects, because of this, there is no clear cutting point on the time line to check the accurate effects of all types of policies. Therefore, to win public support, politicians are more interested in choosing the policies that can deliver results before the next election, and these policies often target short-term problems and benefits.

From the politician example, we can see that sometimes choosing between different options is based on individual interests, when an individual has a more urgent short-term goal, he/she is more likely to choose the short-sighted target. When individuals have similar targets but different constraints (politicians and voters have more limited time constraints than the entire society or our civilisation), more restricted time constraints is a reason for choosing short-sighted options.