> But someone 15 years old? They must have simply bought it all, over a comparitively short period of time, for ungodly amounts of money. And when neither time, effort or sacrifice is involved, it’s very hard to trust the person to be genuinly interested.
If they bought it for "ungodly amounts of money", doesn't that imply some sacrifice? I mean, presumably, they gave up whatever else they could have instead used those "ungodly amounts of money" for.
Possibly, yes. But I feel it unlikely that anyone who spends that much more or less at once doesn’t have a lot more where that came from. And sacrifice is not measured in raw dollar value, it’s measured in the hardship you have to endure due to the things you gave up. If someone ate porridge for two years, that’s a sacrifice. If someone sold their third house, that’s not a meaningful sacrifice, even if what they gave up – the use of a whole house – is comparatively larger.
As another poster pointed out, if you read the linked article or the CultOfMac article that it links to then it's clear that he is interested. And I don't see why you care that he make some meaningful sacrifice, or how you feel entitled to judge that off the tiny amount of information we have? From what I remember of being in my early teens saving $2000 from mowing lawns would have been a huge effort, regardless of whether my parents helped my hobby. Cut the kid some slack - he's making a public museum out his collection, after all.
My only point is that we can’t judge a person with this kind of collection by the size of the collection alone. The effort and dedication usually needed to amass such a large collection is what we really admire (or should, anyway), and the size of the collection is usually a proxy for that, so at first instinct, we are impressed by this person. But the size does not imply effort and dedication in this case, for two reasons: Firstly, he’s too young to have been doing this for very long, so we don’t know if this will simply be a passing fancy of his. (I’m not saying it will be, I’m saying that in this case we don’t know; unlike a normal aging collector which we can reasonably assume to have put in the years required for our admiration.) Secondly, as a consequence of the first, he must have bought it all relatively quickly, and we all know that when you want something fast, it’ll cost you. Also, things like an Apple I don’t come cheap nowadays, no matter how many years you spend roaming flea markets looking for them. This suggests that he has a lot of money – much more than the average adult, even – which in turn suggests that he hasn’t made any significant monetary sacrifice in acquiring the collection.
So, we can reasonably deduce that he hasn’t spent much time, effort or money (for him, anyway) on this collection, at least compared to the usual collector with a comparable collection. Therefore, we can’t say anything about his dedication to and interest in this subject, because the collection alone does not demonstrate it.
I am not trying to denigrate him – I am simply not impressed by him yet.
If they bought it for "ungodly amounts of money", doesn't that imply some sacrifice? I mean, presumably, they gave up whatever else they could have instead used those "ungodly amounts of money" for.