"a) Restoring Avebury
b) Helping little orphan children
c) Waging war on another country to get their oil

Mmmm. Which one would they choose?"

Doesn't mean it's right does it? You would protest against c) I assume? If the reason for the protest was purely financial would you use a) or b) as an argumenent against it? Which one would you choose if those three were on the table (and let's face it they are always on the table)?

And this answers PeterH's question - it's a middle class hobby. Getting out there and seeing this stuff makes us feel good. It gets us away from our lives at the office and the daily grind. Those of us fortunate enough to have the free time and resources to do it get out there and do it - we could easily choose to do something else with that free stuff, but we don't. We opt for directly making ourselves feel good. I'm no exception here. I could easily choose to donate the money I spend on doing this to truly worthy causes, but I don't. To be honest sometimes I feel pretty shit about that (although I do give to charity regularly).