71–80 of 270 posts
It's crazy to prefer a natural diamond for anything other than a collectors' item. It's not about being 'cheap' - whatever your budget is, if you're picking an engagement ring say, why not get a technically superior (or larger) stone for the same price tag?
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> The difference between a $200 and a $2000 bottle of wine is mostly how expensive the thing you are drinking is. Yes, but the subset of people that can afford and would drink a $200 bottle of wine is hardly any bigger than the subset of people that can afford and would drink a $2000 bottle of wine. It makes perfect sense to me why people would drink the $2000 bottle of wine. Why not? They've got the money. If you ba…
but the subset of people that can afford and would drink a $200 bottle of wine is hardly any bigger than the subset of people that can afford and would drink a $2000 bottle of wine. I don't think this is correct. Most wine nerds/enthusiasts I know (and I include myself) would consider dropping $200 on one of their 'dream bottles' in the right circumstance, especially if splitting the cost with a couple of friends. I…
I also have a friendly relationship with a local wine shop, where I usually buy bottles for 10-15 bucks. They also carry (and sell) many bottles at 5K a pop and up.
And if you want to get all mathematical about it, assuming the right kind of power law distribution, it is more likely to see one person who would pay 2000 for a bottle than to find 2 people who would pay 200.
power law stats is weird. Once you are outside of the bell, the bell area has NO constraint on the observation. Unlike Gaussian and similar distributions, where probability falls off very rapidly as you move out of the bell.
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The flaw isn't 'wanting the diamond', the flaw is 'being aware of the horrific nature of the industry and still wanting the diamond'.
I’m sure the coffee you drink and the tshirts you wear and the phone you use are all ethically sourced eh? We’re all deluding ourselves for the sake of sanity + having nice stuff.
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I pitched this to my wife a few years back. She insisted she’d rather have a smaller natural diamond. It makes no sense to me. Shiny carbon is shiny carbon to me. There’s no real logic in it. But given it’s a status symbol that derives its value from its rareness, I suppose it’s no different than a Luis Vutton or a Rolex. It’s not about the function, it’s about the fact that you can afford one. I hate that mentality,…
> Shiny carbon is shiny carbon to me You're only considering intrinsic value. That's helpful for raw commodities. For nearly everything else, value is tied to perception, history, etc. If I have two identical baseballs, they're both "just" baseballs. But one of them could have much more value due to its history: maybe it was a homerun ball by a famous player, or a ball that I or a family member hit/caught. Same funct…
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I pitched this to my wife a few years back. She insisted she’d rather have a smaller natural diamond. It makes no sense to me. Shiny carbon is shiny carbon to me. There’s no real logic in it. But given it’s a status symbol that derives its value from its rareness, I suppose it’s no different than a Luis Vutton or a Rolex. It’s not about the function, it’s about the fact that you can afford one. I hate that mentality,…
The difference would be, that one was made artificial in a human machine in a lab - and the other by raw natural forces in the wild. There is no practical value in jewelry anyway, it is a status symbol and the context of coming from the wild extracted under wild conditions (and maybe violently, ooh, blood diamonds, how exiting, erm shocking) has of course a higher symbolic value. So a artificial made one would be con…
What do you suppose is the value that distinguishes these two processes? The story? Or is it the persistence of the naturalistic fallacy, surfacing in all sorts of places and in all kinds of minds including those one would expect are habitually vigilant against what is essentially a generalized form of superstition.
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I pitched this to my wife a few years back. She insisted she’d rather have a smaller natural diamond. It makes no sense to me. Shiny carbon is shiny carbon to me. There’s no real logic in it. But given it’s a status symbol that derives its value from its rareness, I suppose it’s no different than a Luis Vutton or a Rolex. It’s not about the function, it’s about the fact that you can afford one. I hate that mentality,…
I personally find the decision to buy lab grown diamonds to be weirder, because if you are already thinking logically rather than emotionally and can resist the social pressure then why waste money on a diamond at all? There are plenty of gems or metals out there that are cheaper, prettier, more rare and hold their value better than diamonds (whether natural or lab grown).
Frankly I'm amazed it took this long for people to realize diamond isn't that special a material, at least considering how easy it is to make.
Not just that, even natural diamonds just aren't that rare. This is what happens when one company corners a market, and controls supply and marketing.
People thought that was the beginning of the end for de Beers, and between that and better synthetics that seems to be how things played out.
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I personally find the decision to buy lab grown diamonds to be weirder, because if you are already thinking logically rather than emotionally and can resist the social pressure then why waste money on a diamond at all? There are plenty of gems or metals out there that are cheaper, prettier, more rare and hold their value better than diamonds (whether natural or lab grown).
Because lab grown diamonds are naturally grown, unless humans are supernatural.
so my plastic bottles are naturally grown?
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Might lab-grown diamonds have reached a point of being indistinguishable from natural diamonds such that people pass off lab-grown diamonds as natural diamonds without anyone being able to tell?
I have read that the distinguishing feature is that natural diamonds have flaws. Entrapped dirt or what have you that is not found in the sterile environment of the synthetic ones.