@SteveRoth in real life, most things involve tradeoffs. when you eat ice cream cones, it's not just that there's "decreasing marginal utility". at some point (not too far above one cone!) not only do you "get" less from ice cream, but downsides like near-term nausea and long-term arterial plaques utterly overwhelm whatever pleasure you still get. eating 20 cones is not just little better than eating 1. it's much worse than eating none! 4/