Flushing 9 liters of perfectly good drinking water through the toilet, tossing away the crusts of your pizza or the leftovers of other food, taking the car for a 5 minute drive when you can take the bike or walk, going on holiday each year, buying a new tv every two years, having three computers in the house.... to me that's decadence.
You must have missed the part where I said a lot of Western stuff is over the top, but I was talking about the necessities.
For the record, not everyone is on the same scale here in the West. The toilets in my house are set for 1.5 gallons or 5.6 liters, which is a standard that newer facilities are made to here in the States compared to much more wasteful, older models. Are they still able to be better? I'm sure they are, but in modern plumbing systems,
some water gets used regardless...if you don't want to do that may as well dig a hole in your backyard and cover it with a shed for those winter mornings when your pee freezes before it hits the ground.
For the record I eat my pizza crust, I'm not among the wasteful bastards that often leave half a slice sitting in the mall food court. What waste food our household does produce, vegetable trimmings, etc. goes into the backyard to compost or feed the local fauna in the area, where either way it goes back into the system somehow.
All my drives are well past five minutes and not practical for a bicycle or a walk, sadly, but we do consolidate our outings to get as much stuff done in one trip as we can.
I don't go on holiday every year, actually, but don't wave you finger at the West if we do. An emerging China has proven
every single other country will do
exactly what the US does if it gets the means...there's no moral high ground here, it just boils down to can and cannot.
We've got/had TV's in this house that are well past ten years old, and I currently have ONE computer. Should I elect to buy another, it's because I'll have a need for it, not a frivolous purchase.
Decadence, by the way, is a very loose word with a lot of latitude in meaning. People have applied it through various cultural, political, and religious lenses, and often it boils down to simple personal or local perspective.