The problem we all face is “The physical fallacy”. All of us, even those [in] the social sciences, have an innate bias where we are happier fixing problems with stuff, rather than with psychological solutions – building faster trains rather than putting wifi on existing trains, to use my oft cited example.

But as Benjamin Franklin (no mean decision scientist himself) remarked “There are two ways of being happy: We must either diminish our wants or augment our means – either may do. The result is the same and it is for each man to decide for himself and to do that which happens to be easier.”

There is no reason to prefer one solution over another simply because it involves solid matter rather than grey matter. This is an interesting area where the advertising industry and the environmental movement (rarely seen as natural bedfellows) sometimes find common ground. Intangible value is the best kind of value – since the materials needed to create it are not in short supply.

http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2013/03/decision-making-psychology-with-rory-sutherland/

// There is a third way: embrace your wants while augmenting your means. Ben lived in a pre-Kobayashi Maru world.