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Diamonds Are Bullshit

blog.priceonomics.com

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Re: Diamonds Are Bullshit

#121

Post by collypops »

rayiner wrote: post #115
drivebyacct2 wrote: post #17

Maybe I'm spoiled as a nerdy (and interested in nerdy) gay guy, but I pity those in this thread saying that their fiancee wouldn't listen to reason about this. It slays me that "tradition" is so important to people that they will waste such vast amounts of money and prop up such a gross, violent industry in the face of reason.

It irks me a little bit that the issue is painted as one of "reason" versus lack thereof. There is a rationality in adhering to social convention. My wife is a diamond nerd, as well as one of the most rational people you'll ever meet, and she'd explain it this way: the diamond is a test that serves various useful purposes from the perspective of the woman: 1) It demonstrates the man's ability to provide; 2) It demons…

1) It demonstrates the man's ability to provide useless expensive things rather than their willingness to prepare for tough financial times (which are more common at this early stage in family life).

2) See: 1)

3) It demonstrates to the woman's peers that she is shallow enough to respect social standing over more admirable (and important) qualities, unless they're just as shallow.

Re: Diamonds Are Bullshit

#122

Post by spydum »

guelo wrote: post #97
Zimahl wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pity those in this thread saying that their fiancee wouldn't listen to reason about this. Karma be damned but women as a whole are swayed more by marketing then men are. They've been sold the princess wedding, the diamond ring, the brand-name clothing, etc. It's difficult to break them of this so sometimes the fight isn't worth it. I didn't pay for my wedding so that was my in-laws problem although it wasn't grandi…

> women as a whole are swayed more by marketing then men are Either you provide a scientific cite for that claim or that is a straight up sexist statement. In case you haven't heard there's a lot of stupid irrational purchasing behavior by guys too.

Yeah I think this would be a hard conclusion to jump to. There have been numerous papers on the benefits of market segmentation by gender to improve marketing effectiveness due to differences between genders.. But I don't know if any studies that can show with any confidence that one gender is more susceptible overall. It is always broken down by marketing approach (approach x effectiveness by gender). So, it is fair to call the spade a spade.

Re: Diamonds Are Bullshit

#123

Post by clicks »

rayiner wrote: post #115
drivebyacct2 wrote: post #17

Maybe I'm spoiled as a nerdy (and interested in nerdy) gay guy, but I pity those in this thread saying that their fiancee wouldn't listen to reason about this. It slays me that "tradition" is so important to people that they will waste such vast amounts of money and prop up such a gross, violent industry in the face of reason.

It irks me a little bit that the issue is painted as one of "reason" versus lack thereof. There is a rationality in adhering to social convention. My wife is a diamond nerd, as well as one of the most rational people you'll ever meet, and she'd explain it this way: the diamond is a test that serves various useful purposes from the perspective of the woman: 1) It demonstrates the man's ability to provide; 2) It demons…

    1) It demonstrates the man's ability to provide; 2) It 
    demonstrates the man's willingness to forgo the other 
    things he could buy with the money for a gift for her 
    that does not directly benefit him in any way; and 3) 
    It demonstrates to the woman's peers her husband's
    social standing.
To play devil's advocate here: If you substitute 'ring' with 'a $3k donation to redcross' you could still potentially qualify all of those 3 conditions. The pertinent question is: why spend a large amount on a rock with possible associations of slave labor that is of absolutely zero functional value when you can ... well, spend the amount on anything else of value, and indeed still meet those 3 qualifications.

Re: Diamonds Are Bullshit

#124

Post by InclinedPlane »

rayiner wrote: post #115
drivebyacct2 wrote: post #17

Maybe I'm spoiled as a nerdy (and interested in nerdy) gay guy, but I pity those in this thread saying that their fiancee wouldn't listen to reason about this. It slays me that "tradition" is so important to people that they will waste such vast amounts of money and prop up such a gross, violent industry in the face of reason.

It irks me a little bit that the issue is painted as one of "reason" versus lack thereof. There is a rationality in adhering to social convention. My wife is a diamond nerd, as well as one of the most rational people you'll ever meet, and she'd explain it this way: the diamond is a test that serves various useful purposes from the perspective of the woman: 1) It demonstrates the man's ability to provide; 2) It demons…

Sure, but there are different ways of signaling such things. If someone is so tradition-bound they themselves don't value the relationship itself higher than some specific traditional signaling method then that's typically a strong indicator of their lack of commitment to the relationship.

tl;dr if a woman will only love you / stay with you when you buy them expensive things they don't actually love you.

Re: Diamonds Are Bullshit

#125

Post by pavel_lishin »

rayiner wrote: post #115
drivebyacct2 wrote: post #17

Maybe I'm spoiled as a nerdy (and interested in nerdy) gay guy, but I pity those in this thread saying that their fiancee wouldn't listen to reason about this. It slays me that "tradition" is so important to people that they will waste such vast amounts of money and prop up such a gross, violent industry in the face of reason.

It irks me a little bit that the issue is painted as one of "reason" versus lack thereof. There is a rationality in adhering to social convention. My wife is a diamond nerd, as well as one of the most rational people you'll ever meet, and she'd explain it this way: the diamond is a test that serves various useful purposes from the perspective of the woman: 1) It demonstrates the man's ability to provide; 2) It demons…

Wouldn't it make more sense for her husband to take that money, and purchase a bond (or security, or something else that's guaranteed to raise in value) and put it in her name, and her name only?

Re: Diamonds Are Bullshit

#126

Post by YooLi »

rayiner wrote: post #115
drivebyacct2 wrote: post #17

Maybe I'm spoiled as a nerdy (and interested in nerdy) gay guy, but I pity those in this thread saying that their fiancee wouldn't listen to reason about this. It slays me that "tradition" is so important to people that they will waste such vast amounts of money and prop up such a gross, violent industry in the face of reason.

It irks me a little bit that the issue is painted as one of "reason" versus lack thereof. There is a rationality in adhering to social convention. My wife is a diamond nerd, as well as one of the most rational people you'll ever meet, and she'd explain it this way: the diamond is a test that serves various useful purposes from the perspective of the woman: 1) It demonstrates the man's ability to provide; 2) It demons…

1,2, & 3 can be accomplished by lots of gifts that aren't diamond rings. Why waste the "gesture" on a diamond ring, that if the husband leaves (divorce, death, whatever), isn't worth even close to what was paid for it.

Re: Diamonds Are Bullshit

#127

Post by SteveGerencser »

I'm in the jewelry business. Don't really care for diamonds at all, I prefer color. But the real point is that since the mid/late 80s this exact same argument comes up every year or two. Even using the same, outdated, no longer true "facts". And it's always in the guise of an enlightened rant.

I tend to think they are usually written by a guy who's girlfriend wants a diamond and he doesn't want to spend "all that money" on a rock.

Its "fashion" people. It is a "luxury" item. No one has to buy them. Besides, there are some great clear alternatives out there if someone is set on a "diamond". White sapphire, white topaz, moissanite, there are even some very nice CZs out there, but I'm sure those are way over priced as well.

Re: Diamonds Are Bullshit

#128

Post by michaelt »

clicks wrote: post #15
stephengillie wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to make posts like this. I'm starting to feel like these words will merge in the next 100 years, and either form will be correct for all usages. This kind of errata in our language doesn't help us do anything and it just causes confusion and frustration.

I'm going to delete this post in 30 minutes, but man, I'm just screaming to say... it is so peculiar that he consistently kept making that mistake (along with a bunch of other ones). It looks like the guy is a graduate from Stanford's business school... and is the co-founder of Pricenomics. What the heck. Edit: heh, I guess I won't delete it now (to preserve continuity of extant conversation). Sorry.

  It looks like the guy is a graduate from 
  Stanford's business school... and is the 
  co-founder of Pricenomics. What the heck.
I used to make that mistake - or what I assume was the mistake, which now seems to have been corrected.

Many guides to using apostrophes [1,2,3,4] say they can be used for contractions (the dog's outside) and to indicate possession (the dog's ball) - Why shouldn't something possessed by "it" use a possessive apostrophe?

Some people tried to correct my using of "it's" to indicate possession by explaining "Apostrophes are used for contractions like it is" which was unconvincing as obviously they can be used to indicate possession.

It wasn't until I got to college that someone gave me a satisfactory explanation: It/Its belongs to the same class of words as he/his, her/hers, your/yours, who/whose which do not follow normal apostrophe usage rules as the rules are descriptive, not prescriptive and nothing obliges the language and its users to be consistent.

[1] http://www.economist.com/style-guide/apostrophes [2] http://www.angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif [3] http://lilt.ilstu.edu/golson/punctuation/apostrophe.html [4] http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apostrophe

Re: Diamonds Are Bullshit

#129

Post by robotmay »

One of my favourite customs for propositioning marriage has, unfortunately, largely died out.

In Wales, and I believe parts of Scandinavia (which opens up interesting theories as to vikings bringing the custom to Wales), a man would propose with a spoon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovespoon

To me that is infinitely more expressive and thoughtful than purchasing a transparent rock. Maybe it's because I currently live in Wales, or the fact that I carve spoons for fun, but there's a romance there which I just can't see in a ring.

Unfortunately the pressures of society (especially not helped by Disney fairytale romances) seem to have brought us to the point of no return. My girlfriend knows that diamonds are worthless, but I know that were I to propose without one that there would be a part of her which felt like she was missing something; even if she didn't want to feel that way.

Re: Diamonds Are Bullshit

#130

Post by arbuge »

jpdoctor wrote: post #26
arbuge wrote: post #13

"So here is a modest proposal: Let’s agree that diamonds are bullshit and reject their role in the marriage process. Let’s admit that as a society we got tricked for about century into coveting sparkling pieces of carbon, but it’s time to end the nonsense." Hear hear, but good luck convincing zillions of single women that they'll be the first generation in living memory to miss out on their carbon.

The carbon is a proxy (which is missed in the article, among other things.) It's social signaling. Or to put it another way: How many $$ can your man throw away without incurring pauperhood?

I agree with this. My wife wanted a ruby ring, not diamond, for our engagement. The expectation clearly was that it would still be expensive though!

The marketing campaigns by jewelers have first and foremost been successful at setting an expectation of big spending. The stone type itself might be somewhat negotiable.

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