Went with a lab grown diamond from Brilliant Earth and my (now) wife was ecstatic that she didn't have to feel any gilt over the stone or feeling pressure from friends trying to explain why she went with an alternative. We were both extremely happy with the ring.
Diamonds Suck (2006)
311–320 of 618 posts
Re: Diamonds Suck (2006)
#312Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If I purchased an alternative gemstone for my fiancé, her parents would've been upset with me And that would be the right time to let them learn about blood diamonds or give them their much deserved shaming.
Pissing off your potential future parents-in-law will not win you the love of your fiancée. You have to weigh the gains against the consequences.
Why would I be the one arguing with my in-laws? If she's not openly offended at the presumption of blood diamonds, she's not really my type.
Re: Diamonds Suck (2006)
#313I love this article, but why not discuss other options as well. You show CZ in your table, but don't discuss how its a perfect stone with no discolorization, and significantly cheaper than even moissanite. Its perfection means it will never pass as a diamond to a jeweller, but it looks amazing to everyone else. I bought my wife a huge CZ ring and she loves it and the cheap price tag. She lost it once and I just bought another just like it.
Re: Diamonds Suck (2006)
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
Horse may be a better example. Meat from carnivores tends to concentrate more toxins, which actually is a rational reason to avoid it.
Horse meat is quite normal in western culture, unless if by western culture you mean anglophone countries.
I can't reply to stouset for some stupid reason, but why is it "absurd" to not want to eat horse for texture reasons? My understanding is that horse meat generally does not taste that good and is very tough, because those animals get a lot of exercise; it's like deer meat. Some people like venison, and there's no stigma attached to eating it, but it's hard to buy because demand is low (and they're not raised as livestock), and the meat is generally considered "gamey" and difficult to cook properly so it's tender instead of tough and nasty. Cow and especially chicken is popular meat because it's both relatively cheap and rather easy (and fast) to cook. It's really hard to screw up cooking chicken in fact.
Re: Diamonds Suck (2006)
#315I recently spent a little bit of time looking into this and one thing that was interesting is how much the look of a stone is also relying on the quality of the cut.
You can get diamonds/moissonites/cz in the same cut, but they will look like night and day, depending on how well it seems to be done. Some lab created stones / replicants look indistinguishable from a diamond whereas others look very much like they're made from glass
Re: Diamonds Suck (2006)
#316Gee, ever since she was three years old and playing with Disney dolls, e.g., Cinderella, she was dreaming of HER dream man, on a white horse, in shining armor, picking her up and carrying her off to their love nest castle on the top of the mountain. Alas, with current economic conditions -- those suits of shining armor and white horses can really set a guy back -- she gets a guy, he did just take a shower, in blue de…
Phil Greenspun is leaking onto this forum, clearly.
Re: Diamonds Suck (2006)
#317So this is Silicon Carbide? I'd love to see someone grow one of these crystals. The raw materials and the processes needed are, from what people have told me, simple but no one has ever gone past "don't worry about it".
The raw materials are cheap, but growing crystals of SiC isn't easy, and it took quite a long time to work out the growth processes. It helps that it's more or less conventional crystal growth and doesn't require super high pressure, as does one of the two main ways of growing diamond.
Here's a presentation on some aspects of growing silicon carbide (which in its low-defect state is clear & colorless, i.e., Moissonite) [1]. One thing to note is that growth temperatures exceed 2000°C - that's difficult territory for engineering apparatus that's both reliable and cheap.
A lot of the impetus for high quality SiC growth came from developing it for super high power FETs and other power switching semiconductors. That growth tech bled over into gem SiC growth.
[1] http://www.leb.eei.uni-erlangen.de/winterakademie/2005/resul...
Re: Diamonds Suck (2006)
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you get to the point of explaining why you're against diamonds? Was she able to tell you why she wants a diamond in particular? To resolve this issue it would be good to exchange the exact, real reasons why one side wants the diamond and the other doesn't. But even then, it may end up your GF will insist on the diamond - while all the rational-in-the-vacuum reasons are against diamonds, there's this whole thing c…
> So if she insist, don't be angry at her - be angry at De Beers. By doing so, you're ignoring her agency and her role in the problem. It's not like DeBeers has some kind of mind control laser pointed at the brains of every woman in the world. They put out advertising, and some people fall for it. If you need to be angry about something, be angry about our education system which fails to teach people to think critica…
I'd agree with you if this were any other product. The marketing campaign in this instance was so utterly, totally, disastrously successful that it's become a cultural phenomena.
Really, you've got to hand it to them. And I have to agree it's not a fault to be sensitive to the judgement of your peers.
Re: Diamonds Suck (2006)
#319I'm the OP - surprised to see this at the top of HN today, but happy to post a quick update: My wife and I have been happily married for ten years now. She loves her ring, and it has held up extremely well. (She just had the band resized, absolutely no issues with the stones.) No one has ever thought it was anything other than a diamond ring, which includes several years of daily scrutiny from crazy New York City bri…
We came to a similar conclusion. Although we had already bought a diamond ring. After researching, we figured out that we could sell our diamond (we only got about 60% of the original price back from a diamond broker) and buy a twice as large synthetic diamond and still save several thousand $. There is only upside as far I can tell: it looks better (clarity), is bigger (no can tell the difference between a real and…
I'm sorry about the 40% haircut. Any jeweler worth doing business with should refund a ring minus the cost to set it.
Diamonds cannot be used, as there is no such thing as a new one. Certainly they can be damaged but that's totally different.
I figure if you buy something a billion years old and return it a few months later in exactly the same condition, if you can only get 60% back then you dramatically overpaid.
Re: Diamonds Suck (2006)
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
She just wants to show the world that you would hurt poor people for her.
What are you even talking about? You do know that diamonds come from other places than war torn Africa, right?
The gem you're buying may not come from war torn Africa, but increased demand will be reflected there. Smuggling is a thing, and the Kimberly Process is flawed.
... or at least that was the state of things last I looked into this in depth; my knowledge may well be dated.