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Diamonds Are Bullshit

blog.priceonomics.com

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Re: Diamonds Are Bullshit

#381

Post by Karunamon »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #114
Zimahl wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's just all agree that we can send a man to the moon but there will never be an algorithm that can help you figure out even 1% of the female psyche.

> Let's just all agree that we can send a man to the moon but there will never be an algorithm that can help you figure out even 1% of the female psyche. This was the comment that convinced me that you are a sexist.

s/female/human/g

Considering the readership of this site will be predominantly male anyways..

(And for the love of pascal would you please stop bandying about the "sexism" label? It is literally nothing more than a personal attack that adds nothing to any conversation)

Re: Diamonds Are Bullshit

#382

Post by brokentone »

Interesting post, which sums up as so: "Nearly every American marriage begins with a diamond because a bunch of rich white men in the 1940s convinced everyone that its size determines your self worth." - I get the correlation with rich and men, but is the race baiting language really necessary?

Re: Diamonds Are Bullshit

#383

Post by apendleton »

larrys wrote: post #372
steveklabnik wrote: post #4

It's linked within the article, but it's worth pointing out that "Have you ever tried to sell a diamond"[1] is very much worth your time, and has been discussed here many times. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4535611 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1405698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1110283 1: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-you...

Noting that the Atlantic article is 30 years old. More recently I was able to sell a diamond for approx. what someone paid for it roughly 10 or 12 years ago. It didn't appreciate but it didn't exactly loose value over the retail purchase. ymmv for sure but this is one data point from my personal experience. (Gave the diamond ring on consignment to a jeweler and after 2 years it sold not sure what the retail buyer pai…

Sure it did. There's been inflation over the last ten years. That amount of money has less buying power than it did.

Re: Diamonds Are Bullshit

#384

Post by WildUtah »

rayiner wrote: post #213
guylhem wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You talk about oil and injustice, but there is no reasonable cost effective substitute to oil at the moment, while there are better alternatives to natural diamonds - man made diamonds - which could easily become cheaper too. > "If you're an American, your comfortable life exists because of the American government's willingness to inflict violence on other people to maintain our status in the world" There are few alt…

De Beers isn't a monopolist and hasn't been once since 2000, when key producers in Canada, Australia, Russia, India, etc, started selling diamonds outside the channels. The negative externality caused by diamonds is tiny in comparison to the ones caused by fossil fuels. For individuals, there are reasonable, cost-effective substitutes to reduce oil consumption. I take an electric train to work and walk everywhere els…

People choose to drive, they choose to live in places like Silicon Valley where driving is part of the culture, they choose to live in suburbs, etc.

Not in the USA.

Building anything other than car-dependent sprawl is illegal in the USA. The few areas grandfathered in before New Deal laws and regulations in the 1930s are expensive for their scarcity. It's a major driver of NY and SF real estate prices that you're not allowed to build anything like them anywhere in the USA.

And if you do move to NY or SF, you're not doing the environment any good. You just displaced someone else out of the city into car-dependent sprawl. The only way to use quality and efficient urbanism to improve the environment is to build more of it and no demand or price increase will do that because, as I mentioned, it's illegal.

I recommend "The High Cost of Free Parking" by Dr. Shoup, and "The Geography of Nowhere" by Kunstler if you want to understand more.

Re: Diamonds Are Bullshit

#385

Post by RileyJames »

Great article. Great argument to save me a fortune. If retailers only buy back diamonds at wholesale prices why isn't there a secondary market for diamonds? Wouldn't peer to peer trading of diamonds balance the market.

Re: Diamonds Are Bullshit

#386

Post by jmspring »

larrys wrote: post #371
jmspring wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment "making other women feel inadequate" is chauvinistic and generalizing...but at least you acknowledge it... My wife and I eschewed engagement rings or expensive wedding rings (her's was a little pricey, but from an artisan jeweler, but not a lot of bling), instead we opted for spending the money on property (not our main residence). At the least, despite ups and downs here in the states, it has held it's v…

"Charities or other personal investments really are a better option than the bling. " How do you put charities on the same level as personal investments? If you make an investment you have something that theoretically might increase in value (as your example "spending money on property"). If you give it to charity you feel good but that's not something that's not something you can retire on or insure the financial we…

I lump them in the "not throwing money away" bucket.

Yes, one is giving to others, one is giving to the couple. My point was, don't throw the money away on baubles.

Re: Diamonds Are Bullshit

#387

Post by apendleton »

larrys wrote: post #374
clicks wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

"that is of absolutely zero functional value when you can" So what's the functional value of entertainment then? It makes you feel good. A diamond makes a woman feel good. It's that simple. Doesn't matter why. It's for her. Not up to a man to judge the value anymore then you want a woman deciding the value of why you might spend you money on whatever makes you feel good.

It doesn't matter why, even if the "why" has been specifically conditioned into the both of you just so that the person selling the diamond makes a profit? That seems a bit... I don't know... tragic.

(To be clear, though, I'm a nerdy gay like the parent commenter, and I can't fathom a situation where either my boyfriend or I would ever want the other one to buy a diamond for any reason, so there's probably some component of the dynamics here that I don't fully grasp.)

Re: Diamonds Are Bullshit

#388

Post by Helianthus »

jlgreco wrote: post #367
Helianthus wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, point. And witness discomfort about making generosity a commodity.

Just needs the right marketing behind it to nullify that. Sell these pieces of charity jewelry to the public as not only ways to flaunt your wealth, as diamonds are, but also a way to flaunt your moral superiority.

Forgive me if I don't trust _marketing_, of all facets of society, to nullify that.

As much as I think it'd be a great alternative to diamonds, my feelings on the matter have quickly been drawn to the same cynicism about diamonds.

It's a problem that we want to flaunt our wealth, _however_ we do it. It's the root problem.

The diamond industry is flawed because it's acting exactly as desired: to fulfill our need for vacuous display.

And flaunting your moral superiority? Well, that's not as bad as flaunting your wealth, but only because it's less practical. People notice and _hate_ when you're morally superior.

Isn't that a sad commentary? That when bragging about morals is more easily attacked than bragging about wealth?

There's something interesting in how when the social drive to appear wealthy approaches appearing moral, it is diluted and weakened. Just mere contact with the idea of morality is enough to lose our respect for the egregious use of wealth.

Re: Diamonds Are Bullshit

#389

Post by jamesaguilar »

Karunamon wrote: post #381
jamesaguilar wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let's just all agree that we can send a man to the moon but there will never be an algorithm that can help you figure out even 1% of the female psyche. This was the comment that convinced me that you are a sexist.

s/female/human/g Considering the readership of this site will be predominantly male anyways.. (And for the love of pascal would you please stop bandying about the "sexism" label? It is literally nothing more than a personal attack that adds nothing to any conversation)

I meant it as a personal attack for the reprehensible views he has expressed in this thread.

Re: Diamonds Are Bullshit

#390

Post by [deleted] »

mistercow wrote: post #354
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…

>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…

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