You start off by claiming that people are notoriously selfish and short-sighted, but mysteriously the rest of your post only applies this to the receivers of ai

You start off by claiming that people are notoriously selfish and short-sighted, but mysteriously the rest of your post only applies this to the receivers of aid. The givers are people too. More fundamentally, you're only looking at material outcomes. What I'm saying is that freedom (a non-material ouycome) is a good in itself, one which is under-considered in aid.