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Comment by pksadiq | Hacker News Reader

>> When you see someone driving a nice car, you rarely think, “Wow, the guy driving that car is cool.” Instead, you think, “Wow, if I had that car people would think I’m cool.” Subconscious or not, this is how people think.

> Just realized that that is how I think... :facepalm:

When I see someone spending too much money on unnecessary things (unnecessary according to my current view) I think: "If I get rich I should donate a lot of my money to people in need." But along with, I do also think: "Did this guy too would/did think the same if [s]he is in short of money?" or "Will I change my mind if I get too much money?"

We can do dream or think of our actions in many hypothetical situations. But we can't ever be sure what we would actually do if such a situation happen.

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And he/she could already be giving a lot to people in need. We have no way of knowing, so should not judge.

But there is a point where being a rational human being is defined by judgement. After all, knowledge and wisdom is the judgemental discernment between the good and the bad.

Smoking, ceteris paribus, generally has bad effects.

Lack of fitness and personal nutritional health, ceteris parbius, is a bad.

Lack of education and pride in ignorance, ceteris paribus, is bad.

In the same way, although we shouldn't throw out or disown members of the human species just because they partake in objectionable or flawed activities (after all, none of us are perfect), it would be a better world if we could recognise that conspicuous consumption, ceteris paribus, is a "bad thing", not something to be admired or desired.

Had to look up a lot of fine words to discern that answer. But I still stand by that you cannot equal expensive cars with conspicuous consumption as in the definition "the spending of money on and the acquiring of luxury goods and services to publicly display economic power".

You can buy expensive cars for other purposes than showing off.

And you cannot equal driving in expensive cars with evil/bad. The striving for that expensive car can be the exact motivation that made that guy or girl work extra hard for creating something valuable to the world.

Life is easier if you put people into boxes, but in reality you have no idea about their way of life, struggles. motivations or contributions to society.

Hence the phrase "ceteris paribus".

A man MIGHT have committed murder through altruistic means and ends, maybe smoking two packs a day or his cocaine habit got him through some hard times and energized him to achieve some good, and maybe the obese man put off exercising while he wrote the greatest novel the world has ever seen, but all those edge cases are nought when communicating in vaguely normal language.

Could the man in the Ferrari be a saintly dynamo of productive energy who bought the car due to some deep seated fundamental need for a luxury vehicle independent of ego or insecurity, having been unaffected in his character in all other regards and character-constituent corollaries? I suppose we must admit it a physical possibility, but one utterly unlikely and useless if we wish to discuss conspicuous consumption just like we reasonably discuss everything else.

More so, judgemental neutrality is sometimes not neutral. There comes a time when positioning yourself in a position of non-judgement makes you work as an apologist/stooge of the very persons and interest that profit from being able to partake in such activities with no one holding them to account.

Just as the ability to say "let it be" in terms of markets and life often displays wisdom, there is also a time when it intently supports the unjust and corrupt.

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