lrb one of the luxuries people love to get up in arms about is air conditioning and it's such a good example of how selectively these conversations get framed. part of the reason so many people need AC is because building housing cheap, at scale, for profit so often means building with shitty materials and pre-fab / one-style-fits-all design, and consequently, many people's housing gets little to no protection from the heat without the AC. there are ways to build that are much more energy efficient and heat protective, but the US model is to instead cut corners building luxury units, which yields a built environment dependent on expensive and energy-intensive technologies like AC. similar goes for the dependence on cars. these things are still luxuries, despite them being necessary for a lot of people; the fact that they've become necessary is itself already a result of the immense accumulated imperial wealth of the US and how capitalist expansion affects urban development, infrastructure, etc. when a luxury becomes a necessity that probably doesn't mean you're suffering uniquely or extra; it means the standard of living you've come to expect or need was always and only made possible by the massive wealth you have & exist around already