Present bias

Biological Parallel

Squirrels and chipmunks cache nuts for winter—future planning—but when hungry now, they eat caches instead of foraging. Black bears entering hyperphagia before hibernation demonstrate the same pattern: starvation-response and metabolic-suppression circuits prioritize immediate energy over future stores. Present bias evolved because immediate threats (starvation, predation) kill before future benefits arrive. Grizzly bears will raid salmon streams today even if it depletes tomorrow's population—the immediate-use-strategy dominates. The bias is not weakness—it is survival prioritization. When glucose drops and cortisol spikes, the brain treats now as existential and later as hypothetical. Future you cannot benefit from present death.