Well, not really. In fact, I doubt I am qualified to say whether something, or anything, is indeed too much, when taken in the context of the evolution of global civilization (although there will still be ranting). I might just be having another self-indulgent episode of introspection from which some great new personal epiphany will spring forth. I will later find out this burst of wisdom is fairly common knowledge among my peers. There is an equal chance that it is not, but they will laugh derisively because they are incapable of dealing on an emotional level with this discovery…
Last night I happened to glance down at the space under my television. Nothing particularly special about the moment, I just happened to look down. And I saw my dust-covered XBOX, Gamecube, and original NES. And then I looked over at my bookshelf, where I keep all the games I never finished. For the record, almost every single game I own is still on that shelf, and I have about twenty five games. I have not even played some of them. Ninja Gaiden (for XBOX) sits barely touched (I think it has two hours of gameplay on it). Ghost Recon: Island Thunder (XBOX) was still in it’s orginal shrinkwrap until recently, and I only opened it to play an online game with Colin. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3 (XBOX), one of my old favorites, collects dust. Grand Theft Auto 3 and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, barely touched. It reads like a death roll. And I have a Gameboy Advance sitting in a drawer. And now the Sony PSP is out. And I think this has triggered my state of distress.
We spend too much on pointless things, especially toys. All the bleeding-edge tornado chasers out there, the early adopters who believe their own strength of character or social status is tied to the latest, greatest techno-craze, are the advance scouts of the masses. People with microwave attention spans and the decision-making skills of a puppy offered his choice of steak in gravy or… steak in gravy.
I don’t blame marketing hype. I don’t blame corporations. They are out to make money, and are masterful at manipulating the soft clay of our minds into forms suited to their economic growth. I blame us. We give them the clay. We look at our neighbor’s TV and want it bigger, we look at their video games and want more graphics, we see their iPod and want a different color. Hell, they see their iPod and want a different color. I know a woman at work with three iPod minis, all identical except for color.
You could argue that if someone has the money to waste, then they should be allowed to do whatever they want without criticism. My response to this is a resounding NO. Bad dog! That kind of thinking is positive reinforcement for corporations and advertising to continue what they are doing. Buy what you need, what you can justify through practical means.
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Wow, and to think just a couple of nights ago you were justifying the purchase of $100K-300K vehicles. You might say you are having an epiphany, and others might say temporary insanity.
And, just an hour ago, you were blueprinting your plan to build and install a PC/GPS?DVD player into your car. You should layoff the soy milk. I think it is messing with your hormone levels.
And seriously:
You try too hard.
I am inclined to think this is your idea of an April Fool’s joke. I mean, it is quite funny… if you were here, you could hear my derisive laughter.
I think justifying the expense of a $300,000 vehicle is temporary insanity. No one needs that much car. Ever. As I said, I never expect to pay more than $20,000 for a new or off-lease vehicle. There is a difference between liking something nice and comfortable, and just being wasteful.
As for the computer int he car, I intend to buy used machinery. Recycle. And I am trying to build a system that will do GPS, entertainment, productivity, and a few other things. Multi-function. My argument is not against spending money on stuff, it’s against wasting on truly pointless stuff just because it seems cool.
And I wasn’t ‘trying’ anything. All my peers ever do (and I use the word to avoid getting into a flamewar about who was specifically mentioned) is make fun of my opinions. Well, to whomever doesn’t like the way in which I choose to exercise my First Amendment rights, screw you in advance of your comments (or in this particular case, after).
Not an April Fool’s joke. I just happened to be sitting around, looking at stuff I can get rid of, and realized I have spent collosal amounts of money on pointless things. Things I don’t even USE, let alone need.
I think the greater epiphany should be not that you have tons of wasted stuff, but (like in the case of the car computer you are considering) it always seems useful at the time. It always seems like you will get plenty of use. There is always a justification. There is nothing you can say that will convince me that your car-puter is something that you “need”, or even something that will see long-term regular use.
And, screw you too… I don’t know why, but I felt I needed to share in your misplaced anger for a moment. Maybe you need to cut down on your caffeine intake? Dunno.
You make a valid point, and I certainly tend to agree. If I can get rid of the massive techno-erection the thought of a carputer induces, I might decide to shelve the idea. Those are the sorts of things you can reason away. Sometimes those reasons ring hollow in retrospect, sometimes they actually make sense.
For example, I own a Fossil watch I bought for $60 on sale. Regular price was $200. I thought, great, I need a watch, and this is on clearance. I COULD have purchased a Timex for $20. But my watch is 4 years old and counting. That was probably a good decision. Sadly, not a whole lot of my past spending passes this simple test.
But more importantly, I was rallying against truly pointless and indefensible spending, like three, THREE iPods. Each a different color to match different purses.
Ah… so, other people’s spending. I see now.
So…
If you have too much junk and you don’t use it, why don’t you just get rid of it? And if you think buying stuff like new computers is a waste of money, which I submit it certainly *can* be, then why don’t you stop buying that stuff?
I think your “siren song of marketing”, the “soft clay” or whatever, is total bullshit — cover for your typically arrogant sneering at the supposed folly of other people, even while you admit that you’ve made foolish purchases yourself.
It will be interesting to see, in the light of this “revelation”, if your purchasing habits change significantly. Somehow, I doubt they will.
While I agree with the core of your commentary J, as usual I find the substance you couch it in to be the same old pseudo-intellectual posturing (or ‘bullshit’, if you prefer). That is, I think you serve your own ego and not much else by making condescending arguments with lots of words, but no reasonable purpose.
That aside, nowhere in my rant do I propose that I am any better than anyone. I repeatedly remark on my own inability to escape the ‘addiction’ that is consumer tech spending, and if anything, I put forth my hope that I can resist the temptations and thus avoid perpetuating the hypocrisy I already display. Also, I don’t own THREE iPods.
And I have avoided buying lots of toys. I got rid of my PocketPC and most of my disposeable equipment. I still run my tired old AMD Athlon XP 2100+ and Epox motherboard, even though I get weird hardware faults every few days. I’m hoping that frugality forced upon me by the purchase of my car will stick with me even though the stranglehold of a tight budget may not.
I make these hopes not because I think I am better, but because I think it’s idiotic to continue riding the consumer wave to Nirvana. If I choose to sneer at practices I find incomprehensibly stupid, it’s my right to do so. And as long as I can avoid being a hypocrite, I can sneer without being disingenious.
Also, my rant was not against spending. Why buy a new(er) car at all, when I could have bought a junker for two or three thousand?
Some things are worth the price, and some things are not. I don’t think we should become a nation of hunter-gathering ascetics. I’m all for having an MP3 player, and a computer, and a laptop. Capitalism works, after all.
I am against pointless excess. Excess for the sake of it. I’m against ostentatious jewelry and paying for a namebrand (unless said brand is backed up by some solid quality). I’m against matching a $250 piece of personal audio equipment with a gods-damned PURSE.
How much HDD space do you own?
I think you will find that if you don’t make references that allude to your peers “being incapable” of things, you will find less vigorous responses to your posts. But, then again, you once remarked that your rants were created to provoke such responses, so…
Dude, you should compare your list of nonsensical gadgetry with the lady who owns 3 iPod minis and see who wins.
Repeat after me:
Do not feed the troll.
Ok, here’s a challenge. Point out one specific place in my short comment where any of the above applies at all. “Pseudo-intellectual posturing”? I mean, I didn’t exactly quote fucking Descartes, did I? Maybe you should go reread the defintion of pseudo-intellectual a few dozens times so that it sinks in.
Still, you neatly side-stepped just about everything I wrote.
You know, everytime I bother to reply to one of your stupid rants, I *know* that you’re going to pull some shit like this. Yet for some reason, I reply anyway…
That’s the beauty of being an individual, Dave. You don’t have to read/feed/absorb/discuss/comment if you don’t want to.
Of course, first you’d have to squint to find the troll in our little group. Who is the pot to whose kettle around here?
Mmm… pot.
Is it me, or did you edit the post since it first went up, Carl?
Saying this:
Certainly doesn’t seem to serve a purpose. For one thing, you are calling me a hypocrite. Unless you can point out where and how I have incriminated myself in an unadmitted hypocrisy in my write-up, it’s pointless. Taking up an entire paragraph to do so while using adjective-laden sentences to insult is posturing. It seems that you think your intelligence entitles you to make these accusations, since I can find no other logical reasons for your repeated behavior. Personally, I don’t actually see demonstrable wisdom in your arguments. So, though they certainly SEEM intellectual, as they have no relevance and serve no purpose, I am forced to conclude you skimmed through the article and puked up whatever came first to mind. Using a good vocabulary to make a statment void of substance strikes me as the very definition of ‘pseudo-intellectual’.
no, I did not edit my post at all.
I chalk my cynicism up to the fact that you commented just two nights ago how it was fine for a person to spend “X” amount of money, if they have enough money to do so. Despite my arguing that the relative cost of an item to a person doesn’t necessarily change the absurdity of the item (I think you were drooling over the Maybach and stating how it is fine for a billionaire to buy one, since they can afford it.)
And again, were discussing just this morning spending $500+ so that you could have a computer in your car… yes, in your car.
So, yes, maybe you had a change of heart… but, I am rolling to disbelieve… Ooh… natural 20. I win.
LOL
Fuck you.
So buying an Xbox and a Gamecube is fine, but buying several different iPods isn’t? You’re not better than the rest of us, but you sneer at the foolishness of our incomprehensibile stupidity?
How are those statements not hypocritical again? Perhaps you can use your unfalliable wisdom to explain that to me.
You know, maybe you’re not better than the rest of us; maybe I’m just incapable of dealing on an emotional level with your amazing discovery that you spend too much money on stuff you don’t need.
Aw, fuck. Stupid non-editable comments.
I hope that was the edit that you wanted to make.
Hrm. Looking at the Wordpress Codex, it makes me think you should be able to edit your comments. Bizarre.
Thanks. Dave actually just reminded me that we’re all authors on the blog via IM. I’m not used to that, and I had completely forgotten about it.
Seriously… what the fuck is wrong with me? I can’t type a damn comment. Colin, is it too much to ask you to fix my last comment as well?
Ah, but see, J, I admit my own complicity in the cycle of stupidity. I also said I would try to no longer buy things I didn’t need. I also hoped that I’d be able to stick to that resolution.
Of course you admit to it, that’s what makes you a hypocrite. You sneer at others for the very fault to which you admit.
Unlike you, I don’t pretend that I have some special virtue when it comes to how I spend my money — because I don’t sneer at those who spend their money foolishly. We’ve all done that, and I think we’ve all realized we’d be better for spending our money wisely.
Actually, admitting to it doesn’t make me a hypocrite. Sneering at the act while continuing to do it would, however.
Of course, I suppose you could fairly say I am a hypocrite anyway (though again, your assertion that the admission somehow makes me so, rather than my actions is completely incorrect), since Saint Augustine, who gave up his hedonistic ways to condemn them when he embraced Christianity has certainly always seemed nothing more than a hypocrite to me. So yeah, I guess you could say that.
“Give me chastity, oh Lord. But do not give it to me yet.”
Excuse me? Condeming sin is not the same thing as sneering at sinners.
LOL
OMFG
You do have a lofty view of somehistorical figures, don’t you.
I’m not getting into a religious argument, especially over a man who has been dead for 600 years, with you. I am certain he sneered at someone at least once. And the fact that he engaged in an act which he later turned away from and spoke out most vehemently against… seems hypocritical to me. Especially since in those times ’speaking out against’ these heretical acts pretty much meant ‘burn their asses at the fucking stake’.
And you know, I went over my original article… and I STILL don’t see where I ’sneered’ at anyone. I said, basically, “This is what we do. We suck. We should stop doing it.”
I’m sorry, but what the fuck does St. Augustine have to do with your argument again? Oh, nothing, that’s right.
How about this?
Admittedly, it was in a comment, but hey, you still wrote it! If the shoe fits, wear it.
If St. Augustine was a hypocrite, well that’s just too fucking bad. Doesn’t change the fact that you are, does it now?
Oh, and:
followed by:
If you didn’t want to get into a “religious argument”, then why did you bring a historical religious figure up? Oh, that’s right, as a smoke-screen. Well done!
Also, I’d like to rebut one more thing that you wrote:
We don’t “make fun of your opinions”, we point out that they are completely nonsensical. Regardless, your “First Amendment rights” have fuck all to do with it, since last time I checked, we weren’t trying to stop you from _voicing your opinions to start with_.
So you know, rant away. But don’t expect us to agree with what you write just because you have the means and desire to do so.
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