Caring about the future is also problematic, because the utility of the distant future then overwhelms any considerations about the present.

Indeed! I am still waiting for this problem to be tackled. ... At what point are we going to enjoy life? If you can't answer that basic question, what does it mean to win?

This is the problem of balance. It is easy enough to solve, if you are willing to discard some locally cherished assumptions.

First discard the assumption that every agent ought to follow the same utility function (assumed because it seems to be required by universalist, consequentialist approaches to ethics).

Second, discard the assumption that decision making is to be done by a unified (singleton) agent which seeks to maximize expected utility.

Replace the first with the more realistic and standard assumption that we are dealing with a population of interacting egoistic agents, each with its own personal utility function. A population whose agent membership changes over time with agent births (comissionings) and deaths (decommissionings).

Replace the second with the assumption that collective action is described by something like a Nash bargaining solution - that is, it cannot be described by just a composite utility function. You need a multi-dimensional composite utility (to designate the Pareto frontier) and "fairness" constraints (to pick out the solution point on the Pareto surface).

Simple example: (to illustrate how one kind of balance is achieved). Alice prefers the arts to the outdoors; Bob is a conservationist. Left to herself, rational Alice would donate all of her charity budget to the municipal ballet company; Bob would donate to the Audubon Society. Bob and Alice marry. How do they make joint charitable contributions?

Obvious answer: They split their donation, thus achieving a balance between two interests. This would be an irrational thing for a unified rational agent to do, but it is (collectively) rational for a collective.

More pertinent example: generation X is in a society with generation Y and (expected, not-yet-born) generation Z. GenX has the power to preserve some object which will be very important to GenZ. But it has very little direct incentive to undertake the preservation, because it discounts the future. However, GenZ has some bargaining power over GenY (GenZ's production will pay GenY's pensions) and GenY has bargaining power over GenX. Hence a Nash bargain is struck in which GenX acts as if it cared about GenZ's welfare, even though it doesn't.

But, even though GenZ's welfare has some instrumental importance to GenX, in cannot come to have so much importance that it overwhelms GenX's hedonism. A balance must be achieved specifically because a bargain is being struck. The instrumental value (to GenX) of the preservationist behavior exists specifically because it yields hedonistic utility to GenX (in trade).

Would you accept "at some currently unknown point" as an answer? Or is the issue that you think enjoyment of life will be put off infinitely? But whatever the right way to deal with possible infinities is (if such a way is needed), that policy is obviously irrational.

Caring about the future is also problematic, because the utility of the distant future then overwhelms any considerations about the present.

Indeed! I am still waiting for this problem to be tackled.

It doesn't seem to be much of a problem to me - because of instrumental discounting.

your risk of dying function determines the frontier between units devoted to hedonism and units devoted to continuation of experience.

Enjoying life and securing the future are not mutually exclusive.

Indeed! I am still waiting for this problem to be tackled.

Why not try tackling it yourself?