ext_122761 ([identity profile] j4.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] ewx 2007-01-26 02:47 pm (UTC)

I'm not sure I'd entirely agree that it's then irreplaceable, as I'd understand the word. I think the word has a stronger meaning than “it'd be a bit of a nuisance to lose it”.

I was understanding the word to mean "could not be replaced", rather than necessarily implying a value judgement. Is that just a wilfully over-literal reading?

I also wondered whether you counted as "irreplaceable" things which were not exactly replaceable but functionally replaceable. E.g. if my bike was stolen, I wouldn't be able to get the same bike (with my stickers on it, and adjusted to my height, and in fact Raleigh probably no longer make that model) but I would be able to get another bike.

in the case of people who've already lost data that seems closer to willful blindness

Or a decision made based on experience. If you've only lost any data once in 10 years, then you might reasonably believe that the risk of losing data was fairly small, & that while that once-in-a-decade experience was a nuisance, the faff of setting up backups is greater.

e.g. I've only had a bike stolen once in 10 years (living in Oxford and Cambridge throughout that time), so personally I don't feel it's worth spending money on a stronger lock (or time on locking/unlocking multiple locks). Depending on how much of a blow that theft was to different people, they might draw different cost/effort/whatever conclusions from the same stats.

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