Earlier quoted context omitted.
Imagine the next war will be financed with NFTs.
Not really. NFTs are closer to paintings and intellectual property than conflict diamonds/minerals.
That was a joke..
Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever
371–380 of 686 posts
Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever
#372Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is all correct! I've worked in the diamond business for almost a decade now and see people complain on HN and Reddit constantly about diamonds all while barely understanding the industry at all. The common complaint of "you can't sell them for what you paid" is a dumb complaint because they don't understand the HUGE markup the stones receive at retail. Here's the profit margins that the stones receive along the…
> The common complaint of "you can't sell them for what you paid" You and the other person gives loads of reasons why people giving that complaint are entirely right. The marketing is (partly) that it is valuable. In practice you'll not be able to resell it for a similar value.
I was hoping the takeaway would be “don’t buy diamonds from retail”. BlueNile is the best option here in the US for buying diamonds, usually around a 10-15% markup over wholesale.
Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever
#373Earlier quoted context omitted.
The flip side though, is that you're making diamond miners unemployed. I suspect if they had alternate employment opportunities available that were more pleasant/better-paying, they'd have already taken them. So losers are the poor folks digging in the ground and winners are the companies who've just built themselves a lab. Maybe a way out of this, would be price up the grown diamonds to include a charitable donation…
This argument is as old as time. There even was a satirical text on the matter 2 centuries ago ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Bastiat#Eco... : The Sun, being an infinite source of free light, is unfair competition to candlemakers and should be blocked to allow the economy to grow and people to make a wage.
And yet we still don't have a good solution for the societal problems it causes.
Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever
#374I'm at the marriage age right now and I see tons of my friends getting married. A friend got proposed a couple of months ago and her ring is ~40k USD. In my opinion, that's crazy since they're spending ~30k CAD on their wedding. My partner also mentioned that she'd like a wedding ring of the same calibre since according to her - diamond ring is how much love / value / worth I hold for her. Furthermore, a significant…
> diamond ring is how much love / value / worth I hold for her
Wow.. I find it hard to believe how someone can say/repeat such a statement about the size and authenticity of a shiny rock to equal the love you have for the person. It sounds so materialistic - but, I can't blame her either, it's part of the value system of the surrounding society she grew up in. It's impressive how effective the diamond industry's marketing has been over the last century or so.
Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever
#375Random 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…
You heard a different question to the one the women heard. You heard "Do you want this man-made item that is functionally identical to a naturally occurring item". The women heard "Do you want the jewelry that symbolises your love to be real or fake?" Functionally, there is almost no difference in an item containing a diamond and an identical one containing worthless rock. But, you know, jewelry derives almost all of…
> Jewelry that is neither expensive nor rare stops being jewelry.
Costume jewelry is usually neither expensive nor rare, and yet it remains popular with certain demographics.
Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever
#376Earlier quoted context omitted.
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/
You should where possible create rituals which do have a direct purpose anyway. Big example of real rituals which have purpose, Key Signing Ceremonies. Small example, when I leave somewhere I always pat both pockets twice, everything I absolutely need is always in those pockets, keys, wallet, phone. And so I won't leave them behind. The weird thing about the diamond engagement ring is that it isn't a powerful symbol…
> when I leave somewhere I always pat both pockets twice, everything I absolutely need is always in those pockets, keys, wallet, phone.
After my wallet fell out of my pants pocket into my office chair and I thought I'd lost it for 2 days, I updated this ritual to do it every time I walk through a doorway. That way if I lose something I know exactly which room it's in.
Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever
#377I'm at the marriage age right now and I see tons of my friends getting married. A friend got proposed a couple of months ago and her ring is ~40k USD. In my opinion, that's crazy since they're spending ~30k CAD on their wedding. My partner also mentioned that she'd like a wedding ring of the same calibre since according to her - diamond ring is how much love / value / worth I hold for her. Furthermore, a significant…
> My partner also mentioned that she'd like a wedding ring of the same calibre since according to her - diamond ring is how much love / value / worth I hold for her.
I don't really understand situations where peoples' partners say things like this and it comes as a surprise. This feels like an extremely aggressive statement on how they view your relationship, and the level of trust and mutual understanding you have.
I just can't imagine getting to the point of considering marrying someone and not knowing well in advance that they will hold an opinion like this. And if they seemed like the kind of person who would have this opinion... I probably wouldn't be staying with them, because it seems like it would flag a variety of other uncomfortable personality traits.
How did you react? Was it a surprise to hear this?
Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever
#378Married 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?
Paraphrased from a previous comment of mine ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26699188 ): I did not get a dianmond, but a Moissanite ring. A couple of things I learned along the way: - I bought the ring and the Moissenite seperately. I bought the ring at a regular jewelry store (my spouse found one she liked). It is a very HARD sell when you buy the ring to also get the diamond. I ended up buying the ring online…
Interesting. When I went in to a jeweler to get my Wife's ring appraised for insurance purposes, the tester they pulled out said that one of the (3) diamonds was moissenite. Not surprised that those testers are nearly worthless.
Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever
#379Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The burning of significant amount of wealth is a costly signal of commitment to the receiver. So why not buy something practical and expensive? Like a house or a car?
You're thinking in terms of real people, not what weird things rich people do with their money. The uselessness is part of the point.
> The uselessness is part of the point.
Reminds me of these outrageously expensive dishes some places are selling, where they put gold on the food, and other expensive ingredients that don't fit, all for the sake of creating the most expensive burger/steak/pizza whatever.
Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever
#380Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Okay class, child labour, a few thousand poor people dead, terrorist groups starving hundreds of thousands, destroying schools and libraries. That is where diamonds come from. How many would still want a natural diamond because diamonds are forever?" The elephant in that lecture hall was probably the hypocrisy. I think if you still raise a hand after hearing all that, the issue isn't branding at all. It's narcissim,…
I personally fully agree, but unfortunately not everyone thinks as logically as you or I. I talked about this with my wife recently, and even though she had a vague idea of the horrors that mined diamonds bring, she'd still continue to buy/want mined diamonds. She sees mined diamonds as more "real", and finds it difficult to believe that her diamonds in particular would be part of the problem - as if it somehow would…
Partial solution: change product labeling laws /consumer protection laws/trademark laws/etc to have an exception for diamonds that allows all diamonds regardless of origin to be labeled as natural and/or mined diamonds.