Diamonds are worthless, but reject them at your own peril. When my friend proposed to his girlfriend of 3 years, because the ring didn’t have a diamond she said no.
He dodged a bullet if you ask me.
The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge
221–230 of 619 posts
Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
Splurging every once in a while does not inherently make someone “fiscally irresponsible.” For many people, especially on this forum, $3k-$5k for a ring is literally a few days work or less worth of pay. (Please no one get pedantic on ring cost to me, absolutely not the point of this comment)
It’s not the cost that’s the issue, it’s the underlying desire. Belief in astrology is seemingly harmless, but it’s a sign of underlying irrationality that I find unacceptable. The ritual around a hunk of carbon is the same category of thinking IMO. Also, ‘a few days salary’ rather defeats the rituals purpose.
Finding irrationality unacceptable is also irrational.
Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry for your friend, but that is a discussion you have to have at least danced around a little. Like which cut and whether she really cares about it. I'd say he dodged a bullet if she dumped him outright over that. I could understand a polite "no I don't like that ring, try again", but treating that like a deal breaker, wow.
She eventually accepted once he got a proper ring.
Oh damn nvm your friend is going to get fleeced first in credit card bills and then in divorce court. He got a proper ring instead of preserving his self respect and getting himself a proper wife.
Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
Splurging every once in a while does not inherently make someone “fiscally irresponsible.” For many people, especially on this forum, $3k-$5k for a ring is literally a few days work or less worth of pay. (Please no one get pedantic on ring cost to me, absolutely not the point of this comment)
It’s not the cost that’s the issue, it’s the underlying desire. Belief in astrology is seemingly harmless, but it’s a sign of underlying irrationality that I find unacceptable. The ritual around a hunk of carbon is the same category of thinking IMO. Also, ‘a few days salary’ rather defeats the rituals purpose.
> The ritual around a hunk of carbon is the same category of thinking IMO.
Positional goods have real effects, mediated by other people, in a way that astrology doesn't directly.
Reducing the role of such things is often good life advice, and pushing back on mined diamonds in particular is morally motivated as well, but I don't think it's right to consider it the same as astrology.
Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge
#225These threads are always great for men posting about how their wives love the imitation stones “just as much” and “I didn’t foolishly spend money.” As always, if it worked for your marriage, it worked, but many of us can sniff out a fake from across the room. And it will always look tacky and cheap and she will be wearing it, in theory, the rest of her life. I have visited exactly one jeweler in my life that set man…
A sensible man can sniff out a fake commitment tradition by getting the thing appraised. I'd rather have a "fake" diamond than a fake marriage.
Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
> for nothing Rather, I suspect they slaved away in the mines so that they wouldn't be whipped and have their hands cut off.
Don’t buy silver or gold either. The genocide of entire peoples was committed to extract them from Latin American mines.
And... not buying a gold chain today will reanimate how many fallen Aztec warriors?
(I'd never question your own choice to not buy it on those grounds, but proselytizing it seems to imply there are some stakes here that make it worth encouraging "everybody" to take up the same cause, and I just don't see how it matters.)
Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge
#227The diamond industry has a terrible problem. They promoted diamonds as "perfection". The most valuable diamond is supposed to be a crystal with no flaws.
Then they ran into the semiconductor materials industry. Wafer fabs want every atom where it is supposed to be.
So semiconductor materials manufacturers are very good at making crystals with few or no flaws.
So, now the synthetic diamond market looks like this.[1]
DeBeers has been frantically trying to stop the growth of the synthetic gemstone industry. (They lost on industrial diamonds decades ago; that's all synthetic and cheap.) DeBeers has an R&D program to develop test instruments. It is just barely possible at present to distinguish synthetic CVD (controlled vapor deposition) diamonds from real ones.[2] From that paper, it looks like some process improvement by the synthetic diamond makers could fix that. Detection involves exposing the diamond to a UV flash lamp, which makes diamonds fluoresce blue briefly, and examining the spectrum that comes back. Natural diamonds have a peak at 425nm, and some CVD synthetics have a peak at 435nm, at least for the ones tested.
There's a PR program for "natural diamonds". But there's also a PR program for synthetic diamonds.[3] The synthetics industry is gaining.
As an investment, diamonds are awful. They are really hard to sell.
[1] https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/cvd-diamond.html
[2] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pssa.201800292
[3] https://www.cnn.com/style/lab-grown-diamonds-popularity-2023...
Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge
#228I would like to take this moment to thank https://diamondssuck.com/ for preventing me from buying my wife a diamond, and getting her a much prettier moissanite instead. It's been on hn's front page several times.
I was in the market, but I came to find moissanite to be too sparkly. Still looking but thinking white sapphire is going to be the eventual purchase.
In my humble opinion, sapphires are a great choice, and they also come in a range of beautiful colors. We went with a pinkish-orangish one.
Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
> People with wives should tie their own happiness to their wife's, shouldn't they? I think it's more that the expectation that husbands exist to serve their wives is harmful. Be honest, do you really think a phrase meaning "keeping your husband happy and satisfied would make your life better" is not harmful?
The happiest relationships result from both partners putting the other first. This forum is predominantly men. As a woman, I see variations on that "keep the hubby happy" phrase all over womens' spaces. So yeah. Some equality here is a little refreshing.
I would strongly object that both putting the other person first is a surefire way for happiness.
Putting the other person first at your own detriment can easily lead to destruction.
Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s not the cost that’s the issue, it’s the underlying desire. Belief in astrology is seemingly harmless, but it’s a sign of underlying irrationality that I find unacceptable. The ritual around a hunk of carbon is the same category of thinking IMO. Also, ‘a few days salary’ rather defeats the rituals purpose.
Finding irrationality unacceptable is also irrational.
This isn’t some random person off the street, this is someone you’re hopefully spending the majority of your life with.
It’s ok to be picky.