Can't live without it (2)

[ewx]

Comments:

• Four people apparently have exactly one irreplaceable thing. I'm curious what it is l-)
• Quite a few people don't have backups despite having lost data because of it. Perhaps they now have nothing left that's irreplaceable, but apart from that, what are you people thinking?
• Lots of people have lost data because their backups failed; which points out a question I missed, whether people test their backups - untested backups having a nasty little habit of turning out not to work, or not containing the files you thought they did.
• Another arguably missing question was about whether you'd actually be able to replace replaceable things - I couldn't afford to replace my house on my own if it burned down, but it's insured against that. (You can't conveniently test this kind of backup, but you don't hear so many stories of people's home insurance turning out not to work as you do data backups.)

Comments

could not be replaced

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Bikes can be replaced with other bikes (within reason, money permitting, etc); your six-year-old's first painting can't be replaced with other six-year-old's paintings. (Literalistically, they can, of course, but that's not what anybody means when they say it.)

Re: could not be replaced

[naath.livejournal.com]

oh shit... when my bike is expensively upgraded I should probably insure it (or risk not being able to afford another one).

Re: could not be replaced

[j4.livejournal.com]

Your first bike can't be replaced with another first bike, though. It was my first proper grown-up bike that got pinched, and it had my Pembroke College sticker on it, and some little stickers that my boyfriend at the time had stuck on it, and I was a bit sentimental about it, but, y'know, if I'd had to lock it up with fifteen locks every night a) it might have still got stolen*, and b) I'd've never used it because it would have been too much hassle. The bikeness of it could be replaced, but the specific that-particular-bike-ness of it couldn't.

* I figure that if somebody wants to nick your bike specifically, they'll manage to do so, and all you really need to do is make it less appealing to an opportunist thief than at least one other bike in the same area.

I'm not sure how you could back up or insure your six-year-old's first painting. I suppose you could scan it... and back up the scan of course... 8-)

I also don't think either of those examples answers the question about whether the word "irreplaceable" necessarily means "of great personal/sentimental value". (OED supports my narrow reading here!) It also doesn't prove that everybody is equally sentimental about their property, or that everybody's risk assessment based on that sentimentality comes to the same conclusion...

e.g. (final example, I promise) my parents have kept pretty much all my & my sister's paintings, scribblings, etc; that's nearly 29 years of carting the damn things from house to house and storing them, but I suspect if they were all destroyed in a fire my parents would not actually be distraught about it, and they certainly wouldn't go to the effort of scanning each one in to ensure that they didn't lose them. I think there are some grey areas between "I would be inconsolable if these things were lost and will take every possible precaution to insure against this eventuality" and "pshaw, worthless, might as well throw them away now". Certainly most of my souvenir-ish things are things that I want to keep because when I happen across them they remind me of something good; if I didn't have them then I'd still have the good memories, but I just can't actually bring myself to throw the physical things away.

To be honest, sometimes I almost wish I could lose all that sort of junk by accident; it'd be upsetting at the time, but I wouldn't have to carry it around with me any more and in fact my life would go on exactly as normal afterwards.

Re: could not be replaced

[lnr]

Yup, I'm absolutely with you on the "couldn't replace, wouldn't be the end of the world or worth going to huge effort for, but I'm not just going to throw it away" stuff.

Re: could not be replaced

[mair_in_grenderich]

what about the stickers on the (j4's) bike? are they replaceable?

you can extract the key features of the thing/why you have it/why you want it and decide whether they are replaceable (I have that because it's pretty - replace with another pretty thing; I have that because my godmother gave me it - not so replaceable).

some things (collections) may be replaceable but a lot of time/hassle/effort to replace. is my time replaceable?