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Diamonds Are Bullshit

blog.priceonomics.com

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Re: Diamonds Are Bullshit

#351

Post by prawn »

arbuge wrote: post #195
jpdoctor wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My wife wanted a ruby ring, not diamond, for our engagement. I consider this an amazing social signal: She is verifying that you have a proper amount of resources to burn, but does not want her girlfriends to easily calibrate how many you have. Therefore, she leaves them a little bit in the dark about what a great catch you are (because most women can't calibrate ruby pricing by just looking.) My compliments to you…

Good guess, but that's not the reason :-) She's from China and ruby is her birthstone.

Even the stone too is pushed by tradition and marketing - birthstones have been standardised and adjusted at points by industry associations. :|

Re: Diamonds Are Bullshit

#352

Post by mgkimsal »

lectrick wrote: post #342
enraged_camel wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't have anything to do with financial security. Look, if your man is spending three months worth of salary on a piece of shiny rock, he is exercising poor financial judgment and that is a signal against future financial security. Women want diamonds not because of any symbolic reasons ("Diamonds are forever!") but because of reasons that are much more practical: they want to be able to show off the diamonds t…

What if I bought a nominal ring and instead threw the rest of the money (and then some) at a REALLY awesome vacation for us?

Havent't you heard? A vacation is a few days, but A Diamond Is Forever.

Re: Diamonds Are Bullshit

#353

Post by npc »

will_brown wrote: post #221
guelo wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I thought it was an interesting statement so I looked into it a little. I personally was less curious if there was a difference in the way men and women react to a constant advertisement, but I wanted to know the % of marketing dollars spent marketing towards women vs men. I did not find those exact numbers, but stumbled onto : http://www.she-conomy.com/facts-on-women There are a ton of crazy figures to digest on tha…

85% dollar-wise, or 85% of items purchased? Because I would argue that men tend to make fewer, but more expensive purchases, eg big tv, high end stereo, etc. I would still believe that things are skewed a bit since married women tend to make more of the purchasing decisions than their husbands (from what i understand), but 85% seems awfully high to me.

Re: Diamonds Are Bullshit

#354

Post by mistercow »

enraged_camel wrote: post #304
maratd wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so they just leave De Beers to run around gouging consumers That's kind of missing the point. If diamonds were 5 bucks a piece, women would no longer be interested in receiving rings bejeweled by them. A woman wants a man who is financially secure. If you can't afford a shiny rock, you can't afford what's coming after it either, so there's no point.

It doesn't have anything to do with financial security. Look, if your man is spending three months worth of salary on a piece of shiny rock, he is exercising poor financial judgment and that is a signal against future financial security. Women want diamonds not because of any symbolic reasons ("Diamonds are forever!") but because of reasons that are much more practical: they want to be able to show off the diamonds t…

>Women want diamonds not because of any symbolic reasons ("Diamonds are forever!") but because of reasons that are much more practical: they want to be able to show off the diamonds to their group of (female) and boost their social status among them.

I suspect that the demand for diamonds for both men and women has way less to do with that kind of forward thinking (or subconscious status weighing), and way more to do with what an incredibly expensive marketing juggernaut has hammered into their heads since they were children. A lot is made of status games and seeking evolutionarily fit mates, but it seems to me that "advertising works" is a perfectly adequate solution.

For a somewhat analogous perspective, consider soft drinks. Do people buy Coca-Cola rather than a cheaper store brand because they want to signal their high status? No, they buy it because a ton of money has been spent convincing them that it's superior. And sure, some of them really would prefer Coke in a vacuum. But it's almost certain that a very significant chunk would be either indifferent, or prefer the generic brand in a world without advertising.

Re: Diamonds Are Bullshit

#355

Post by evmar »

mertd wrote: post #280
evmar wrote: post #68

Walmart recently ran a survey about expected costs of engagement rings and found Americans' expectations have been changing. http://news.walmart.com/news-archive/2013/02/04/walmart-surv... (Disclaimer: I work on the tool they used to conduct the survey, which is why I know about it.)

Was it done on Walmart shoppers? That would be a huge selection bias.

Briefly, no. You can read more about on our site (it's mentioned at the end of the article), but: we (try to) survey a representative sample of people in the US, and external validations have found we do a pretty good job of it (comparable to a more reputable polling organization).

Re: Diamonds Are Bullshit

#356

Post by mistercow »

dkural wrote: post #350
mistercow wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A woman wants a man who is financially secure. If you can't afford a shiny rock, you can't afford what's coming after it either, so there's no point. What a quaint and gross way of looking at the world.

Except it happens to be factually, empirically true. Read the behavioral & social psychology literature; double blind experiments.

[citation needed]

Re: Diamonds Are Bullshit

#357

Post by jenius »

enraged_camel wrote: post #304
maratd wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so they just leave De Beers to run around gouging consumers That's kind of missing the point. If diamonds were 5 bucks a piece, women would no longer be interested in receiving rings bejeweled by them. A woman wants a man who is financially secure. If you can't afford a shiny rock, you can't afford what's coming after it either, so there's no point.

It doesn't have anything to do with financial security. Look, if your man is spending three months worth of salary on a piece of shiny rock, he is exercising poor financial judgment and that is a signal against future financial security. Women want diamonds not because of any symbolic reasons ("Diamonds are forever!") but because of reasons that are much more practical: they want to be able to show off the diamonds t…

You absolutely nailed it with this comment. Was reading pieces of the debate out loud to my girlfriend, who is rather rational and intelligent but for some reason still wants a diamond ring (and I couldn't really figure out why) - when I read this and looked over, I knew you got it 100% right. Well done.

Re: Diamonds Are Bullshit

#358

Post by RDeckard »

mistercow wrote: post #344
maratd wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so they just leave De Beers to run around gouging consumers That's kind of missing the point. If diamonds were 5 bucks a piece, women would no longer be interested in receiving rings bejeweled by them. A woman wants a man who is financially secure. If you can't afford a shiny rock, you can't afford what's coming after it either, so there's no point.

>A woman wants a man who is financially secure. If you can't afford a shiny rock, you can't afford what's coming after it either, so there's no point. What a quaint and gross way of looking at the world.

>What a quaint and gross way of looking at the world.

Yet very pervasive.

Re: Diamonds Are Bullshit

#360

Post by drivebyacct2 »

clicks wrote: post #276
rayiner wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I disagree on the point that the role of motherhood inextricably falls down on a woman's turf for the years to come. As a practical matter, the latter follows the former, almost inexorably. Between the negative stigma of being pregnant at work to the negative stigma of taking maternity leave, to the negative stigma of having to be there for your young child when it is still in the "I need my mommy" stage (which…

Rayiner some of your other posts are showing up as dead. I suspect this may have something to do with your other posts receiving negative points (HN algo tripped up by that probably). I'd recommend dropping a small note to info@ycombinator.com telling them to do something about this. edit: I just did, let's see what they do about it. (and it was this post that is showing up as dead: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?…

Grinds my gears. Hellbanning is so damn rude, and I don't see how the algo can screw up with someone who has as much rep and average as rayiner.
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