By creating a false dichotomy that presents one option which is obviously advantageous—while at the same time being completely unrealistic—a person using the nirvana fallacy can attack any opposing idea because it is imperfect.
It is also related to the appeal to purity fallacy where the person rejects all criticism on basis of it being applied to a non ideal case.
The nirvana fallacy was given its name by economist Harold Demsetz in 1969,[2][3] who said:[1] The view that now pervades much public policy economics implicitly presents the relevant choice as between an ideal norm and an existing "imperfect" institutional arrangement.
It is common for arguments which commit this fallacy to omit any specifics about exactly how, or how badly, a proposed solution is claimed to fall short of acceptability, expressing the rejection only in vague terms.
Alternatively, it may be combined with the fallacy of misleading vividness, when a specific example of a solution's failure is described in emotionally powerful detail but base rates are ignored (see availability heuristic).