We really do care more about the short-term future than the distant future.

How do you know this? It feels this way, but there is no way to be certain.

Alright. I shouldn't have said "we". I care more about the short term. And I am quite certain. WAY!

I believe you know my answer to that. You are not licensed to have absolute knowledge about yourself. There are no human or property rights on truth. How do you know that you care more about short term? You can have beliefs or emotions that suggest this, but you can't know what all the stuff you believe and all the moral arguments you respond to cash out into on reflection. We only ever know approximate answers, and given the complexity of human decision problem and sheer inadequacy of human brains, any approximate answers we do presume to know are highly suspect.

Huh? What is it that you are not convinced we shouldn't have? Control over the distant future? Well, if that is what you mean, then I have to disagree. We are completely unqualified to exercise that kind of control. We don't know enough. But there is reason to think that our descendants and/or future selves will be better informed.

That we aren't qualified doesn't mean that we shouldn't have that control. Exercising this control through decisions made with human brains is probably not it of course, we'd have to use finer tools, such as FAI or upload bureaucracies.

God does not care about our mathematical difficulties.

Then lets make sure not to hire the guy as an FAI programmer.

Don't joke, it's serious business. What do you believe on the matter?