Hey HN - long-time lurker and decided to start writing essays (inspired by PG and many of y'all as well). This one came from months of joking with my friends about different "fancy rug" problems which led me to think about my own "fancy rugs". Enjoy!
Merging all the dimensions of the question into Value as a function of Cost seems part of the challenge.
Value is such a subjective concept. You finally get down to "We all need things transcending pure utility, connecting us to stories bigger than ourselves." at the end of the post.
Even if "bigger than ourselves" takes on some explicit religious angle--thinking the Amish here--there is still copious room to dislike the fact that the Amish are rolling around in "them new-fangled buggies" instead of being on foot like they were in the Good Book.
I think part of the Amish line of thought is instead of randomly and quickly adopting technology/growth a community should take time to understand what the impacts are of using them.
Some people think Amish don't use electricity, but that's not true. You'll find quite a few of them with things like solar panels and LED lights. These things tend to have very long lifespans and no grid connections limiting needs from outsiders.
The Amish way is ultimately impractical to practice without being embedded in a society which is much larger and inimical to their own way of thinking as otherwise those willing to both bear the cost of accepting modern ways of and willing to do violence burn your shit and settle on your land. In more peaceful times people may chose only to impoverish your people and buy your lands but the net effect is the same.
The inherent built-in futility limits the virtue of this approach.
Indeed, and the infrastructure behind these are very communally owned.
I guess if the unit of group analysis stays small enough, they can avoid the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons .
I have to ask... why the extra lettuce? At In-N-Out I sometimes ask for less lettuce because I feel like it's unnecessary filler compared to the other ingredients, lol. Maybe they've just been giving my unused lettuce to you...