The whole study doesn’t take into account individual preferences, it asumes that if someone has some amount of food/water/money/… etc is happy and ok, and then checks if that can be achived usin less than an arbitrary amount of energy.

Spoiler: people are different. Some would happily sacrifice any of the previously mentioned variables to achive something that they subjectively perceive as value.

Again, the fatal arrogance of believing that person “A” can know what is better for person “B”, even better than “B” itself. Another wet dream from the mind of a social engeneer