Why have a small, cozy place when you could live in a van down by the river? Why buy clothes when you can drape yourselves in discarded blankets? Why eat beans when you can haunt the dumpsters behind the local restaurants?
Of course it's a fallacy. One has to draw a line at some point. To me that line would be a way, way cheaper expense than a big, polluting truck. But it seems that to you, if I can't own a truck, I must go all the way to living in shanties/favelas and dumpster diving.
How do you decide where to draw the line? What’s the rational way to put some pleasures under the “rational” category and others under the “irrational” category?
You calibrate on what people were satisfied with thirty or a hundred years ago, eliminating modern status-seeking. You ask yourself "Would I be horrified to live like that, or do I just think I'm too good for it?" Like there's no way I am going to live as a boarder with another family, but I can definitely make my own lunch.
