Isn't demanding a high discount rate itself an exercise of using fancy math to support a pet conclusion? Although future generations are different from us, so t

Isn't demanding a high discount rate itself an exercise of using fancy math to support a pet conclusion? Although future generations are different from us, so too are current potential beneficiaries of charity; and though charity aimed at future generations can certainly have unanticipated effects, so too can charity aimed at contemporaneous people. My general ethics around philanthropy is to acknowledge uncertainty and that most people are grasping around in the dark to try to do the best thing. Despite that, it's likely that limiting consumption for personal benefit and directing that instead to things you think likely will do good is best. When people inevitably come to different conclusions about what that is, that's not a defect; that's allowing us to cover all our bases.