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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

#221

Post by notyourday »

Kalium wrote: post #210
notyourday wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Part of the significance of the gesture is the level of painful expense involved. So making the item much cheaper also cheapens the gesture. Call it what it is: diamonds are a down payment from a man to a woman for access to sex. The higher the price, the higher the value he assigns to it.

Nope. Nope nope nope nope.

In the alternative universe women who can't afford diamonds, buy diamonds for men. In the same alternative universe, the families of men look at the Cs of the ring and judge if "she is good enough for him". In the same alternative universe, men get together, pull out their diamond rings and discuss if those rings are worth the sacrifice. And in the same alternative universe the commercials on TV are "She went to Jared!" and "Give him the gift of Pandora"

Alas, in our universe it does not happen.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#222

Post by chrisseaton »

myfavoritedog wrote: post #173
chrisseaton wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

If an analogy doesn't help you look at a situation any differently... is it a good analogy?

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#223

Post by pydry »

KennethPT wrote: post #201
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?

Alternate view: Almost everything in life is ridiculous when you view it with cold logic. It's utterly ridiculous to put golden balls on a fake tree in your house every year, but due to societal constraints most people in Western societies do it. Your SO probably doesn't want a logical gift, she wants something sentimental that makes her feel that you care about her. For some people, that's an expensive rock with no…

Rituals do make a lot of sense even if the content of them makes no intrinsic sense:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-rituals-work/

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#224

Post by rndgermandude »

heliodor wrote: post #172
xenocratus wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>The societal answer is at least two months.

Might be an American thing? My parents spent about 1 month worth of my dad's salary on two wedding rings a long time ago. My dad actually wanted to buy a far more expensive ring for my mom, but she insisted to keep it simple and "cheap" and "unproblematic" to wear. Same story in the rest of the family.

Friends (usually a lot younger than my parents) spend even less on rings, I'd estimate 400-600 EUR per ring from what I keep hearing.

I've heard about that two months rule before, in American TV shows and movies, never thought about it. Now I wonder if it's really an American thing, or if people around me are just cheapskates :P

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#225

Post by evrydayhustling »

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…

Diamond branding taps into a much more fundamental obsession with scarcity, which manufactured objects cannot provide. Scott Galloway explores this really well in a recent post comparing NFTs to long-standing art world practices: "Scarcity has always been a function of bits, not atoms." [1]

I wonder if synthetic diamonds that were organized into specifically limited editions would hold more value...

[1] https://www.profgalloway.com/scarcity-cred/

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#226

Post by MereInterest »

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…

That an emotional attachment exists explains why a difference can exist, but doesn't explain why the attachment points in the direction that it does. Lab-grown diamonds could just as easily be the ones with emotional attachment, perhaps emphasizing how much hard work, research, ingenuity, and dedication went into making that diamond as a symbol of the hard work and dedication one is willing to put into a relationship. That the emotional attachment is specifically toward mined diamonds shows the strength of marketing.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#227

Post by faet »

tda wrote: post #63
intsunny wrote: post #21

I wonder how well this Reddit-famous commentary about the diamond industry has aged: https://reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/8pb8d5/i_grow_diamonds_i_...

There was an article the other day that talked about the resale value of diamonds. Basically jewelers refuse to buy back diamonds at any reasonable price (compared to original retail value. And refuse to make new rings with old diamond etc. So there is very little market for second hand diamonds. Sounds like a business ready to be disrupted Edit: Found the article: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/15/fashion/jewelry-d…

Diamond prices are fairly stable, the issue is jewelers mark prices way up and most people don't know what a good price is. If a diamond goes for $5k wholesale, chances are they're looking to sell it for $10-20k. Since most people only buy 1-2 engagement rings in their lifetime they don't know what is a reasonable price. They "shop around" at three stores that are all owned by the same company. So they end up paying $15k for a ring. Then if they need to return it they only get $5k for it. They overpaid due to the emotion of the moment and expect to get something close.

Even in the article you listed there were a number of offers all close to each other. ~8-10k is a 'reasonable price' for that ring.

Most jewelers I've interacted with are more than happy to buy your diamond for a bit under wholesale cost. They're also happy to make rings with old diamonds. They make money selling settings too.

One issue is the public. There are a number of people who don't want a "Used Ring". But, there are a large number of diamonds being sold that have been owned previously.

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