Subject:
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Re: Lego Hobby Blues
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Wed, 7 Dec 2005 19:00:30 GMT
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Viewed:
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2001 times
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In lugnet.general, Bruce Hietbrink wrote:
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Hey Thomas,
A good and thoughtful post, but I have to disagree with some of the points.
Swanberg - Yes, there is the Michael Jackson factor and we all like to
gossip, but I do think there were some relevant questions that did impact the
community: Would this reflect badly on our hobby if non-AFOLs saw this on the
news? If we bought from his store in the past, did we have some liability in
regards to the receipt of stolen goods? Was there any possibility that
prosecutors would call for a total audit of Bricklink sales, and perhaps shut
down sales from all Bricklink stores while said audit continued? In the end
I don’t think any of these fears came to fruition, but they were certainly
thoughts I had when I first heard the story.
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These are good and valid points. The kind of thing that I totally understand
being thought about and discussed. But there seemed an almost “stone him” kind
of mean-spiritedness about what I saw online too.
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How much is too much? - This is a very important question, but not just in
regards to LEGO consumption. When I stop by a drive-through in the evening
because I just want some fries as a snack, and I see a homeless guy standing
there, suddenly I feel like crap. I’m grabbing a snack, which I probably
shouldn’t eat anyway, and maybe this guy hasn’t eaten today. What do I do?
Do I empty my wallet to him and swear off all non-essential food and eat
plain rice for the rest of my life, giving all other money to the poor? Or
do I give him my loose change and think that’s enough? Or do I decide to
give a certain ammount each month to various charitable organizations? All
non-essential expenditures (and by non-essential, I’m including anything
beyond two changes of clothes, plain rice for all meals, and the cheapest
rathole apartment you can find) comes into question if you push it. I don’t
think that that level of sacrifice is required to be a moral person, though.
I do think that there is some balance between being charitable with your
disposable income, and spending on yourself. I suppose it is between each
person and their own conscience whether they are living up to that. Just to
take another example--I drink a couple of cans of soda every day. That means
that each day I spend one to two dollars a day on something that, quite
frankly, is needless; I could easily walk down the hall from my office and
drink from the water fountain. Spread over the last five years, this means
I’ve spent $2500 on something as stupid as Diet Coke.
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I do this kind of thing too!!
If you put it that
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way, it looks horrible. I could have given that money to hunger relief or
whatever. On the other hand, no one would really call someone extremely
selfish for buying a can of soda. Something similar could be said about
LEGO. Yes, over the years I’ve built up a sizable collection, but I’ve done
it in bits and pieces, especially grabbing up things on sale if I find them.
Now I do think it would be over the top if I decided to buy every set new
when it came out, but each person is in a different situation. Other AFOLs
here might easily make three times as much as I do each year. What if,
unbeknownst to me, they give fully half of their disposable income to the
poor? They’d still have more to spend on LEGO than I do, and I don’t think
we could call them selfish for doing so. So I can’t go around saying that
this person or that is selfish for having a larger collection. It all
depends on each person’s situation.
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I guess it is best to base it on percentages rather than amounts. I spend a
greater percentage of money on Lego than I do giving to charities. I have guilt
about that.
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As to the splitting of the community, this is a topic that has been covered
many times in the past. I truly believe that a growth of sites has led to a
growth in the number of people involved in the hobby. Yes, it is harder now
to know everything that’s happening in the community, but it’s a much larger
community. I do think that most things are still on Brickshelf (though some
things have never been on Brickshelf - e.g. Eric Harshbarger has never had a
Brickshelf account AFAIK), so it’s still possible to see most things that are
happening. Simply put, is it better to have 1000 people who post in one
forum, for 2000 people who post in five forums? I vote for the second
option, but I understand if others prefer the first.
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For Lego stuff, the first option is better for me, because I am not going to
check five forums regularly. But I see your point.
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Lego Hobby Blues
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| (...) (snipped a lot of interesting stuff) (...) Look into LENNI.. while it does not allow you to post from a single interface, the aggregation it gives you at least gives you a single view of the many communities that choose to make their content (...) (19 years ago, 7-Dec-05, to lugnet.general, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Lego Hobby Blues
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| Hey Thomas, A good and thoughtful post, but I have to disagree with some of the points. Swanberg - Yes, there is the Michael Jackson factor and we all like to gossip, but I do think there were some relevant questions that did impact the community: (...) (19 years ago, 7-Dec-05, to lugnet.general, FTX)
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