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Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#171

Post by ErrantX »

veltas wrote: post #137
joeblau wrote: post #65

Random diamond story! As a freshman in college, I took a geology class and our teacher asked all of the women in our class to raise their hand if they would rather have natural or human-made diamonds. Most of the women (over 80%) raised their hands for natural. The reasons they gave all seemed to tie back to branding and natural diamonds being “real.” Then our teacher gave another analogy. He asked if people would ra…

Diamonds are precious partly because they're rare. If you find a way of 'making' a diamond it loses some of that value. It's interesting to me that someone would even try making a comparison between a precious stone and something like water/ice which is mostly desired for utility and not any sentimental reason.

Your comment proves the point on marketing; diamonds are not actually that rare, a lot of the scarcity is marketing plus control of supply by De Beers & others.

In fact, Diamonds are some of the most common gems in nature!

https://www.gemsociety.org/article/are-diamonds-really-rare/

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#172

Post by heliodor »

xenocratus wrote: post #111
joeblau wrote: post #65

Random diamond story! As a freshman in college, I took a geology class and our teacher asked all of the women in our class to raise their hand if they would rather have natural or human-made diamonds. Most of the women (over 80%) raised their hands for natural. The reasons they gave all seemed to tie back to branding and natural diamonds being “real.” Then our teacher gave another analogy. He asked if people would ra…

I think the question might be a bit misleading. "Would you rather have X?" isn't the same as "Would you rather your spouse buys you X?". I'd prefer having a natural diamond too, for the same reason I'd prefer having a piece of ember with an insect that was trapped there naturally millions of years ago as opposed to a man-made one that was produced last month. By no means would I buy a natural diamond or support the m…

The current narrative is more along the lines of, "How much work should your fiancee spend on declaring his commitment to you?" The societal answer is at least two months. Salary is the convenient measure for this. The ring is the communication medium.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#173

Post by myfavoritedog »

chrisseaton wrote: post #119
aliyfarah wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the story, that was a very good analogy by your prof.

> that was a very good analogy by your prof. Sounds like it wasn't because it didn't convince many people!

Because people are rational and can be convinced to abandon notions of value deeply ingrained since childhood because of a nice analogy during a single lecture?

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#174

Post by caf »

JCM9 wrote: post #166
veltas wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diamonds are precious partly because they're rare. If you find a way of 'making' a diamond it loses some of that value. It's interesting to me that someone would even try making a comparison between a precious stone and something like water/ice which is mostly desired for utility and not any sentimental reason.

They’re actually not all that rare. Big Hope Diamond stones yes, but your run of the mill variety that 99.9% of people have are not all that rare. The “rarity” comes mostly from the the tight grip a small number of companies have over mining and production of raw stones. You can make tap water “rare” if you run the waterworks.

It also comes from selling them as "this is a sentimental item that you should keep forever" and "these are bought as meaningful gifts so it would be gauche to buy one second hand" to limit the size of the secondary market.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#175

Post by stilley2 »

cyberpunk wrote: post #3

Married members of HN, what did you do if you think diamonds are utterly ridiclious however due to societal constraints some kind of ring is required for your SO?

My (now) wife picked out her engagement ring on Etsy. It's an antique ring with a sapphire gem. Of course that took away some of the surprise from the proposal, but we were of the opinion that the fact one wants to get married shouldn't be a surprise. And the time/place of the proposal can still be somewhat of a surprise, or at least special.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#176

Post by 2pEXgD0fZ5cF »

mhroth wrote: post #7
cyberpunk wrote: post #3

Married members of HN, what did you do if you think diamonds are utterly ridiclious however due to societal constraints some kind of ring is required for your SO?

Ask your partner what they want. Then do that. Your opinion on this matter is not particularly important ;)

> Your opinion on this matter is not particularly important

Feeling sorry for the people that go in a marriage with those kind of sentiments about their partner, or about relationships/marriage in general.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#177

Post by andromeduck »

simonh wrote: post #71
Nursie wrote: post #35

Good for them. It's literally the same material, and we can now use scientific and engineering advances to remove the need for people to toil and die underground to get them. Hopefully the process is more environmentally friendly too. They are real diamonds. I find it hi-goddamned-larious that the moment these became viable, the industry switched from "Diamond purity is the be-all and end-all and you must have the cl…

If the best option available to people was diamond mining, by taking that away from them we’re by definition pushing them into an even worse option. That’s a big problem I have with a lot of the do-good commentary on developing world labour. Taking away options from people, even bad ones from our point of view, isn’t necessarily doing them any favours. None of these peoples options are going to look good to us. Actua…

It's a resource curse.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#178

Post by paulcole »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #49
mhroth wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask your partner what they want. Then do that. Your opinion on this matter is not particularly important ;)

Your opinion on this matter is not particularly important ;) Although you should bear in mind there is a correlation between the amount spent on getting married and the likelihood of divorce.

Yes, although one isn’t necessarily causative of the other.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#179

Post by bildung »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #141
tom_mellior wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> our teacher asked all of the women Sounds like a pretty sexist thing to do. The same question can be asked without putting women on the spot. "If you were to buy a diamond, what would you rather choose?"

My initial instinct agreed with you,but I then wondered if there would actually be a relevant gender difference in answers. In western culture, still today I think,majority of men would be buying and majority of women would be receiving diamonds. It would be interesting if this affects answers. Would a buyer go for more practical cheaper option while receiver goes for more expensive traditional options? Or a differen…

> In western culture

This phenomenon has to be more localized than Western culture (the worldwide diamond consumption hints at it being US-specific?) - I for example don't know anyone who even contemplated buying one for proposing. Granted, this is purely anectotal, but over extended family and workplace colleagues this includes a bunch of milieus.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#180

Post by [deleted] »

qw wrote: post #104
joeblau wrote: post #65

Random diamond story! As a freshman in college, I took a geology class and our teacher asked all of the women in our class to raise their hand if they would rather have natural or human-made diamonds. Most of the women (over 80%) raised their hands for natural. The reasons they gave all seemed to tie back to branding and natural diamonds being “real.” Then our teacher gave another analogy. He asked if people would ra…

It's mostly about the emotional attachment. If you find two identical pens, and one of them was used by a famous writer, you would expect a price difference. There is no difference in the quality of those pens. They both work the same, and using the writer's pen will not make you a better writer by itself. I personally would not buy a natural diamond because of the ethical issues, but I do understand the students who…

[deleted]
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