Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 619 posts

Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge

#331

Post by AlecSchueler »

oblio wrote: post #317
koonsolo wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Looking for a woman which doesn't have irrationality? Well, good luck with that! ;) [1] > Nobody is perfect, and when choosing a life partner, you will also need to accept things that you might not like that much, but are still very small compared to all the things you do like. The casual misogynism [1] doesn't really add anything to the useful idea presented later in your comment.

I find myself increasingly alienated from the crowd here because of the daily misogyny, but I interpreted this more as "we are all irrational creatures."

Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge

#332

Post by stef25 »

xivzgrev wrote: post #46
brink wrote: post #3

I 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.

Guys, buying diamonds, can complain all day about what a rip off it is (it is). But if you apprise your fiancé of the alternatives / opp costs (moissanite, man made, second hand, etc) and she still wants a new diamond, just get her a new diamond. It will make her happy for years. My wife had her heart set on a pink diamond, so that’s what I got her. I made it clear though that if I got this, she is not getting a new…

> My wife had her heart set on a pink diamond, so that’s what I got her. I made it clear though that if I got this, she is not getting a new one for a long time (she has a tendency to want to rent / sample / change things up). So to her credit she did her homework and spent a few months picking the best one.

Sounds like me talking about my toddler and his Legos

Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge

#333

Post by RandomLensman »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #328
RandomLensman wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A large diamond actually looks pretty nice (and very different from mossianite), not sure why that is devaluing the agency of anyone (provided the costs are relatively easy to afford). Even uncut diamond crystals have a very particular "fatty" shine to it that some people might like and enjoy.

I agree, diamonds are cool. However I've seen demands that a fiancé purchase a real diamond, not a much cheaper "synthetic" one, even though it's structurally identical. That this was even a notion affirmed my assumption that the psychological importance of purchasing a diamond is tied to the price itself.

I wonder if shown a price-y sapphire the diamond would still come out on top, i.e., price and being a diamond matters

Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge

#335

Post by luca3v »

I understand that diamonds are the kind of Veblen goods for which people are willing to spend a lot of money because they are expensive, in a logic-defying circular way, and that the presence of a cartels- makes prices artificially high, but there are still two things that I can never wrap my head around:

1) That if someone wants to sell a used diamond, they get pennies on the dollar. It's reasonable that they would sell at a small discount compared to wholesale prices, because of the extra work of authenticating it, the small volume etc., but the difference is so great that one assumes that some businesses would step in and take advantage of the arbitrage opportunity

2) That there is any difference at all in prices between mined and lab-grown diamonds. They are literally the same material, and lab-grown diamonds are as "real"as the mined ones

Just consider gold. You can sell used gold at a small discount compared to spot prices, and if there was a cheap way to make "lab grown" gold, I am sure it would sell at exactly the same price as mined gold

Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge

#336

Post by defrost »

amrocha wrote: post #295
defrost wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of diamond mines, many in Canada, a number in Australia, there are a number that are mobile marine based ventures with state of the art ships sucking in sediments and sifting for diamonds. https://edition.cnn.com/2018/09/03/africa/marine-diamond-min... None of your comments applies to any of the mines mentioned; Canada, Australia, and the marine operations all abide by OSHA regulations and pay good wa…

If you think that just because a mine isn't in Africa that means it's a good place to work then I disagree

The marine mining ships I linked work in Africa, I've worked in several types of mines, I've had a career as an exploration geophysicist, and I worked on a resource intelligence mapping project that took me to mines across the globe.

There are mines I wouldn't work in, there are many mines I'd have no issue working in.

Which mines have you you worked in and what was your role?

Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge

#337

Post by KSteffensen »

koonsolo wrote: post #308
serf wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

acknowledgement of irrationality, especially one that isn't accompanied with a wish to better themselves away from that irrationality, would be a major red flag for me personally entering into a long-term relationship. there is also a great distinction between "Yeah I know another helping of chocolate syrup on my ice cream is a bad decision, but it'll make me feel good today.", and "You need to make a 10kUSD+ purchas…

[flagged]

[flagged]

Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge

#338

Post by kamray23 »

jojobas wrote: post #177
throw_m239339 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole diamond market absolutely is a scam, you'd think it would violate some anti-trust laws of some sort but apparently no, everything is "legal"... go figure.

There are plenty of perfectly legal scams. You can buy "quantum radiation remover stickers" on eBay, have been there for years. Apple stores get overnight queues of people on release dates. Homeopathy is paid for by the German public health system.

You can buy lots of "quantum radiation remover" and "negative ion quantum shield" products which purport to create negative ions and shield you from radiation on all platforms. Most of them do actually generate ions if you measure air around them with a legitimate calibrated ionometer. But of course, that takes energy. Where is a rock or a sticker going to obtain the energy to constantly ionize the air around it? Radioactivity, of course. Most of them are radioactive. And not the fun kind of radiation, not like, microwaves. No, it's the full range of inherent radioactivity the world of unstable nuclides can provide! And people plaster these on their clothing and wear them as amulets all day.

I don't know how people get away with this.

Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge

#339

Post by oblio »

callalex wrote: post #239
tired-turtle wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, I’m fervently anti-diamond (they’re silly imo), but I can acknowledge that, to some, they represent (I think?) a lasting commitment and are a cultural tradition. If the desire is emotional, then there’s no reasoning with it anyway. (And not everything in life need be logical.)

Does it count as a cultural tradition if it was manufactured within the last 2 generations? It’s kinda like asking a family if they celebrate Toyotathon or Hondadays as a tradition.

Yes, it counts. If you look at most modern traditions, 90% of them are less than 100-150 years old.

Christmas today looks nothing like Christmas in 1900, across the world.

Most of the foods today (and I'm not talking about fast food) were invented in the same period. At least their modern incarnations, sometimes they have really old names but the old versions had very little in common with the current food.

Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge

#340

Post by 05 »

Spooky23 wrote: post #114
kibwen wrote: post #107

Earlier 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 since most connectors use gold plated pins and lead free solder has silver in it, don’t buy electronics..
Post reply on HN