201–210 of 455 posts
All that jewelry industry looks fake to me. There is absolutely no value in man-made or nonmanmade jewels at all. I am wondering why people pay even a penny for that.
(1) makes people look more attractive, and
(2) enables conspicuous consumption.
Humans aren't Vulcans who make decisions rationally. We're apes with a facility for reason tacked on as an afterthought.
Interestingly enough, this starts to bring up questions that have previously only been super active in science fiction circles, particularly, Star Trek: If you can perfectly recreate something down to the molecular level, what actually has value? (Assuming, someday, that synthetic versions are excessively cheap, in Star Trek's case.) If you can replicate cooked food perfectly, will people still claim that "real" food…
Star Trek frequently discussed things being slightly off when replicated. Troy wanted "real" chocolate when in a seriously bad mood. Picard kept cases of real caviar for special occasions. I mean, it's a writing trope designed to point out that they are far away from home and play with the concept that scarcity creates value and thus is interesting to human(oid)s. The ideals of a moneyless society by virtue of just b…
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Or the staggering number of anti-GMO laws and business ad campaigns.
Educated people who hate GMO are instant signal that they don’t understand science. A good filter
At one point in time I thought GMO was a necessary evil, in order to feed the world better. Simplot used to pride their GMO potato that has much better yields then anyone else on the planet. But climate changes proves no breed is best for all time. In the mean time, a few European companies ; failing to combat the GMO production yield and had comparatively worse climate to grown potatoes, manage to outrun any US companies potato yield with machine learning. This is of course an over simplify version of it, but the story proves we don't need GMO to feed the world.
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If it's any solace, I understand the secondhand market for diamonds to be quite weak.
Purposefully weak, to my understanding, to discourage a secondary market. I remember an article years ago that went into detail about De Beers' manipulation of the market, and how change from "larger is better" to "clearer is better" happened just as a large mine outside of De Beers control opened that had quite a few large diamonds coming from it on a regular basis. That same article made some assertions about the s…
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We as humans just need to be less stupid. Srsly no one cares if a stone is real or not.
Everyone is "trying" to be less stupid. But selling my wife's diamond rings and buying cubic zirconia replicas at this point feels like a very stupid move even though I know I will net a bunch of money up front, I hear divorces are very expensive.
When that happens I wonder what will become of the 'rule' that says a man should spend 3 months salary on a wedding ring. Perhaps a Rolex watch will substitute for a diamond ring in signalling to your friends that you have a rich husband?
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Purposefully weak, to my understanding, to discourage a secondary market. I remember an article years ago that went into detail about De Beers' manipulation of the market, and how change from "larger is better" to "clearer is better" happened just as a large mine outside of De Beers control opened that had quite a few large diamonds coming from it on a regular basis. That same article made some assertions about the s…
I believe “Have you ever tried to sell a diamond” (1982) https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-yo... is what you’re thinking of - it’s a great article and feel ahead of its time in style/composition.
"Lightbox will transform the lab-grown diamond sector by offering consumers a lab-grown product they have told us they want but aren't getting: affordable fashion jewelry that may not be forever, but is perfect for right now" This is clearly a play to devalue the image of man made diamonds. "May not be forever" my ass, it's the exact same thing. Their goal is probably to try to quickly drive the price of man made dia…
Smart move. Throw enough marketing dollars at misinformation and you can convince hordes of people to doubt facts. Case in point. Despite overwhelming evidence there are people today who still debate climate change.
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It may be a lie, it may be marketing speak, but it's not dumb - they are sitting on a huge stockpile of natural stones, admitting that lab grown diamonds are the same (or even better due to the lack of flaws) than natural diamonds would lose a lot of money. So he has to say something that preserves the value in natural diamonds.
Yes, I understand the strategic value of his words. My speechless stems from my inability to find a profound way to express my dismay that we live in a world where such farcically untrue statements are standard operating procedure. The statement is nonsensical; he knows it, we know it, he knows that we know it, and we know that he knows that we know it. And yet despite the utter transparency of the lie, no CEO would…
Don't give me a story, give me a MOQ, spec sheet and a quote.