Gear Acquisition Syndrome: Do You Really Need All That?

I think many people mistake "having lots of stuff related to a hobby" as being the best way to enjoy it. Over time some will come to realise the value of quality over quantity.

Or the value of quality and quantity of quality

DrJo":n6md77ll said:

140' garden six sheds and no worries thank you very much! If you didn't have to pay for it like the "shoppers" did then whats to stop you from having a few too many projects on the go at once. Yes there's stuff that you really don't need (NOW) but it may come in handy sometime later......
As for surviving a nuclear winter I don't think I could be bothered.... But camping in the snow is cool if you gotta solid canvas tent, raised sprung bed and woodburning stove....

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Amen to that. Snow, canvas, wodburner. I'm there!

I'd say that a large number on here take a fetishistic approach to one or more of their hobbies including the retrobikes. I like the justification of curation, preservation and variation but saw one 'mr gumby' with eight virtually identical bikes plus others. Merely an observation rather than a criticism.

Beats football cards or top trumps!

highlandsflyer":2f5tv0an said:

I care!

Consumerism is ruining the country, mark my words!

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I think this is a good, fair, point - I also believe consumerism is ruining society.

Yes, yes, yes, some people will always bang on about how the market knows best, and how it's all good in the hood - but all the same, it's not.

Whilst Tyler Durden in Fight Club may have been something of a caricature antithesis to consumerism - there is a point - people just become victims to it, and economies become more than dependent on it, are predicated on an improbable, untenable prospect of continuous growth.

There's this notion - this idea, that human psychological maturity shows that gratification can be delayed - well we're moving beyond that, right back to: want now, have now - that's having all sorts of impact, not least on economy, but on society (look at all the theories postulated on the riots of a few years back), as well as general behaviourism, aspirations, and the vacuousness that tends to pervade, these days.

highlandsflyer":2ibhu6q2 said:

Britain used to be the epicentre of innovation, I reckon the trend to just buy everything stifles creativity.

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Someone somewhere has to keep coming up with new stuff for people to buy, though.

Dunno. I find it hard to get particularly worked up about how other people spend their money.

...

The 'great Council House sell off' and the rise of the Yuppie was the beginning of the end...

...before that a house was something you bought to live in; if your family got bigger and you needed more space you bought a bigger one (or a caravan if you had a big back garden!). Then, when you got a bit older and didn't need all that space you downsized to a nice little bungalow in the suburbs.

Now, thanks to Maggie and Sarah f*cking Beeny, society has plumbed new depths of greed and unfairness! :x

I had £120,000 of home cinema kit once

Was that the Odeon or the ABC?