Obligatory mention: "Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?" (1982) [0]
[0]: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-yo...
The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge
451–460 of 619 posts
Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge
#452Earlier 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 seriously doubt any regular person can tell the difference between diamond and moissanite, or even cubic zirconia. Of course it's bad policy to lie to your wife-to-be but technically I feel safe saying you could buy any of these and still claim it's a diamond - at least until they decide to pawn it but by that time it's also less important for your relationship I guess.
If you put them next to each other anyone can tell they are different. Anyone who has seen a few diamonds up and close will see that the moissanite looks different.
Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge
#453Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Part of the comparison here is that the alternatives are both cheaper and practically better. It's not the case here, because you're not buying gems for their practical value. If you were, then there would not be an issue - lab-grown diamonds for cutting things would be even cheaper than they are, and you wouldn't care about other gems unless you were playing with lasers or something. As much a I hate it, the entir…
Jewelry is not unpractical, it's like an insurance for bad times. When shit hits the fan you still have your jewelry to sell.
I mean, sort of? The median woman who wants the gorgeous diamond ring from her husband is NOT thinking “This will be great insurance in case we become destitute”. Because everyone knows the resell value is terrible! Worst return on an insurance policy ever.
They want them because they are pretty and because – like it or not – it’s what society has taught them to expect.
Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge
#454Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most people have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 16 great grandparents, etc out to several generations before incest kids in. Many of those people stayed in place, but when you’re talking hundreds of thousands of people they aren’t all sedentary. Even just within Africa there’s been a huge amount of migration recently. Not all of this was even voluntarily. I have ancestors that trace back to Spanish Armada in 1588 getting…
Spices are new to most of the world outside of elites. Food used to be very bland for most people. Meat was super expensive for most people, it was hardly a mass market thing to be eaten every day. I could go on and on :-) Thomas Jefferson was an American elite. Americans have had it much better, or at least richer, than most of the rest of the world, for far longer.
Again new != more common. Peoples diets can change significantly even if the foods they eat doesn’t.
That said meat was more common than generally portrayed. Fish has been a staple food in much of the world for a long time. Dramatically lower human population until recently means overfishing has largely been a more recent concern.
Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge
#455Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I guess that works for most men. Personally, one of my criteria is that she can't want a diamond, that might sound crazy but I want a partner in life that is financially sensible and fiscally responsible, we have to leave our children with more than we were left with or we have failed, that is a core part of my philosophy of family building. Thankfully I found her. I also had a talk with her dad about it after I met…
And she may be looking for someone who can afford to purchase a single luxury good without going broke?
Of course these days by the time you get to the jewelry phase, this kind of matchmaking is usually resolved anyway. I suspect the tradition started much longer ago when folks got married very quickly (compared to today’s standards).
Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge
#456Wedding ring idea: a ring with a tiny QR code pointing to a blockchain transaction in which a freshly minted bitcoin was burned.
Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge
#457Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wouldn't marry anyone whose happiness is dependent on a artificially expensive hard and shiny rock whose prestige was inflated for years by an industry built on slave labor, especially when far less expensive alternatives exist. If she is apprised of the alternatives and still demands "No I want EXPENSIVE shiny thing" then it's cultural shaming factoring into the decision making. You have to reevaluate what she see…
The irony that you definitely typed this on a device that was partially or fully made in inhumane conditions by people below the poverty line.
We don't choose to purchase slave phones, computers, etc. over free trade alternatives. Choosing blood diamonds over artificial diamonds, makes the cruelty the point, no?
Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge
#458Earlier quoted context omitted.
The reality is the person with lower leverage in the relationship does the keeping of the one with higher leverage happy. In marriages men have the lower leverage due to various reasons. One of which is favorable treatment of women in the family courts.
If your wife is using that as leverage over you, your marriage is already done for.
At 50% rate, it’s not a tail risk! Not to mention the men that “stay in it. Cuz cheaper to keep her”!
Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge
#459Earlier quoted context omitted.
They literally paying to go to the clink. Nothing that a marriage license permits you to do that you can’t do without one. Except you can be liable to get sued when the relationship ends. Literally the only differentiator of significance.
It's good for taxes here to be married officially
50% chance you will divide everything. Risk a dollar to pick up pennies. Risk vs reward.
Re: The diamond world takes radical steps to stop a pricing plunge
#460Earlier quoted context omitted.
They literally paying to go to the clink. Nothing that a marriage license permits you to do that you can’t do without one. Except you can be liable to get sued when the relationship ends. Literally the only differentiator of significance.
That depends on where you live. In some places parental rights are linked to marriage.
You have parental rights even without marriage, in America and the western world.