Thank you a lot for your comment! I agree with you, but please note that in this article I was not expressing my personal opinion, which surely has no particular value and no reason to be heard in public. I was trying to explain the ideas of Epicurus. So if you disagree with what is said in the article, you will disagree with Epicurus, not necessarily with me.

So let’s see. You say that whatever matters to someone should be an acceptable choice that we should respect. Epicurus would not necessarily disagree. But he says the following: “No pleasure is in itself evil, but the things which produce certain pleasures entail annoyances many times greater than the pleasures themselves.” (Principal Doctrines, № 8).

So there is nothing intrinsically bad about your choice of a Tesla or iPhone. But we should realise that if you want to have a Tesla, you will have to also accept the “annoyances” that a Tesla brings along with it: the need to make enough money to be able to buy it, which means that you have to find a good job first, which in turn means that you have to graduate with a good grade, which in turn means that you will probably first have to pay off your study loan, and then get a job that probably will require you to work overtime, with the result that you will not see your family often enough, and so on. These are the “annoyances.” And if you put these opposite the gain in happiness you will get from a Tesla, when you finally have it, you have to make a cool, detached calculation, and evaluate whether the Tesla is still worth it. Had you settled for an old Toyota instead, you would now have more money in your pocket, less debt, perhaps a more fulfilling family life, less stress at work, and so on. So this is your choice. Epicurus is not really saying that a Tesla is bad; just that you should be aware of the real cost in terms of “annoyances” when you choose to pursue owning one.

You can, of course, disagree, but this is his argument.

Many thanks again for your comment!