Thomas Thwaites

“A promise made by a man, to be kept as a goat.”
― Thomas Thwaites, GoatMan: How I Took a Holiday from Being Human

“We compare what we have with what other people have. Poverty, then, is relative—that’s not to say it isn’t a very bad/uncomfortable/life-shortening/fatal position to be in, just that it’s not an absolute. What it means to be “poor” changes through time and across the world—as does what it means to be “rich,” “well off,” or merely “comfortable” (though what it means to be “starving” is flatly invariable). In terms of toasters, if everyone else has a toaster and I don’t, well, I’ll feel a bit deprived, and I’ll go and buy a toaster if I can afford it. The fact that wealth is relative is, I think, one thing that drives the economy. It’s not that people have “infinite wants” (as economists traditionally claim), just that no one wants to be at the poor end of the scale.”
― Thomas Thwaites, The Toaster Project: Or A Heroic Attempt to Build a Simple Electric Appliance from Scratch