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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

#451

Post by klmadfejno »

sangnoir wrote: post #405
klmadfejno wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

Social signaling and innate competitiveness is a hell of a drug. A former all-Linux employer had standardized on issuing Dell laptops, and everything was fine. Until some joiner in middle/lower management petitioned for a Macbook Pro and got it, and a couple more popped up in the Excel-jockey stratum, and the floodgates were opened. PMs and team leads all started to report all sorts of "problems" with their old lapto…

Cocaine is also a drug, and yet, one doesn't need to date someone addicted to either.

> I wouldn't go that far - we all have hobbies/interests we are passionate about that we're not utilitarian about and are willing to go all-out on. Judging a person on one axis feels like a mistake to me.

I don't this is a hobby so much as a world view, or as you stated, an addiction. To me it indicates a very materialistic, shallow worldview. If 40k rings are required to show love, what do they think of people who aren't as wealthy? What would they think of you if you lost your job? Heck if someone's marrying you, why do you need to show your love at all, shouldn't that be established to them?

I think you should be incredibly judgy about who you choose to marry.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#452

Post by vel0city »

Loughla wrote: post #261
lettergram wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I personally don’t think natural diamonds are any more valuable than synthetic. I understand the scarcity and way it’s used to show status (similar to cars, we don’t need great ones). That being said, what I actually took away from that comment... was that the teacher in geology class was presenting effectively political argument as opposed to teaching. Explaining the process of fine, but given what you describ…

>I think everyone kinda knows about synthetic diamonds, they just don’t care. I 100% disagree. The stigma around cubic zirconia and 'fake' jewelry is real and alive, and absolutely carries over to any kind of man-made gems. I also don't think most people have any idea at all about the issues in the gem trade. Source: My highly educated co-workers who were astounded to read about conditions in emerald mines after Elon…

Cubic zirconia (Mohs 8) is less hard than diamonds (Mohs 10) or Moissanite (Mohs 9.25). For something that gets a lot of wear, the CZ will get scratched up and have its edges rounded off more over time than diamonds or Moissanite. But, if its something that only gets occasional wear this is likely not going to be too much of an issue. Just don't go banging your stone on a pile of diamonds.

CZ also has a lower refractive index and less dispersion than either diamonds or Moissanite.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#453

Post by an_opabinia »

evrydayhustling wrote: post #442
Nursie wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Potentially synthetic diamonds could destroy the scarcity appeal of natural diamonds.

Right or wrong, Galloway's thesis would specifically reject that idea. Synthetic diamonds are equivalent (or superior!) on an atoms level. But on a bits level they lack the history of being formed in the Earth's crust, which stays scarce. Diamond marketing exploits that to good effect -- most diamonds are marked and registered in a database that traces its unique history. Doing so makes it possible to value the histo…

> most diamonds are marked and registered in a database that traces its unique history

Most engineering projects around cultural products change (not necessarily improve) the "registered in a database" process. Whereas most value comes from creating / enriching a "unique history."

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#454

Post by Frost1x »

washadjeffmad wrote: post #406
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 went through this not that many years ago buying a ring for my SO. My biggest mistake was including her in the decision. She described what she wanted exactly– nothing gaudy or ostentatious, just a singular, tasteful stone on a plain band. Couldn't be simpler, could it? Finding stones that met her criteria was easy. Some were natural diamonds, some lab grown, many moissanite. From the outset, she said the meaning o…

>I don't know what kind of spell the diamond people cast on otherwise reasonable women to make them able to reduce the totality of a life and experiences shared together into a single crystalline bet, but they need to package it and sell it to the military.

The militaries of the world invented it, it's business that bought it. Much of this diamond/marriage symbolism stems back to the late 1940s post WWII with DaBeer's engagement ring ad campaigns.

WWII involved a lot of R&D in psyops and effects of propoganda. Sure, these strategies always existed but it became part of scientific research, was refined and weaponized to manipulate perceptions of people using non-kinetic approaches to try and avoid or minimize kinetic warfare. After the war in the mid 40s ended, where do you think all that expertise in propoganda from military went? Business marketing and advertising sprouted from much of this expertise. Marketing and advertising always existed before then but there was a dramatic shift in how things were sold creating armies of refined snake oil salesmen.

In the late 40s, DaBeers ran a massive ad campaign employing such propoganda that shifted culture into associating diamond rings with marriage. There had been dowries and other exchanges of wealth and power in marriages before (it's often been a basis for marriage) that but DaBeers managed to shift that in culture in the west to the diamond ring. It's now so deeply ingrained in culture and people's perceptions that it can make otherwise rational people irrational.

Do not ever underestimate the power of propoganda in its various forms. Pyschogical manipulation runs rampant in business marketing and these are the effects. We've culturally accepted it for a variety of reasons. I question if we should continue to accept these practices in business.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#455

Post by dkarras »

danbruc wrote: post #443
washadjeffmad wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went through this not that many years ago buying a ring for my SO. My biggest mistake was including her in the decision. She described what she wanted exactly– nothing gaudy or ostentatious, just a singular, tasteful stone on a plain band. Couldn't be simpler, could it? Finding stones that met her criteria was easy. Some were natural diamonds, some lab grown, many moissanite. From the outset, she said the meaning o…

Apparently a lab grown diamond meant my love for her was also artificial [...] Why then a ring [with a diamond] at all? It's nothing special at all, just what everyone does. Almost the definition of replaceability and arbitrariness. There is no connection between the relationship and a random ring with a stone you buy at some random jewelry store. Why not something individual, specific to the relationship? Every $1 t…

It is not a rational argument, result of some cultural indoctrination. Media, friends, peers... Everyone is susceptible to such influence to some degree but not aware. Still, must be sad to witness.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#456

Post by rhacker »

washadjeffmad wrote: post #406
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 went through this not that many years ago buying a ring for my SO. My biggest mistake was including her in the decision. She described what she wanted exactly– nothing gaudy or ostentatious, just a singular, tasteful stone on a plain band. Couldn't be simpler, could it? Finding stones that met her criteria was easy. Some were natural diamonds, some lab grown, many moissanite. From the outset, she said the meaning o…

Married about 12 years (together 16). I bought my then future-wife a ring for $200. She didn't care it was small or that it was a tiny fraction of my salary - we both wore our rings for everyone else for a year or so... My personal do-over would be to have purchased an even cheaper ring (or none at all) so we could buy more useful things, and she would agree.

In any case, the spell doesn't work on everyone.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#457

Post by danbruc »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #433
washadjeffmad wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went through this not that many years ago buying a ring for my SO. My biggest mistake was including her in the decision. She described what she wanted exactly– nothing gaudy or ostentatious, just a singular, tasteful stone on a plain band. Couldn't be simpler, could it? Finding stones that met her criteria was easy. Some were natural diamonds, some lab grown, many moissanite. From the outset, she said the meaning o…

I would have immediately ended it right there, but that's probably why I'm single. Every time I was in a relationship long enough to discuss marriage, I made it clear that there is no way I would ever buy a diamond. Only one was actively on board with it, because she liked the idea of picking out an alternative gem.

Take the money and have a nice honeymoon, buy two $5 seashell necklace at the beach. There are so many ways to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars that are way better than investing them into small chunks of metal.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#458

Post by Nursie »

evrydayhustling wrote: post #442
Nursie wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Potentially synthetic diamonds could destroy the scarcity appeal of natural diamonds.

Right or wrong, Galloway's thesis would specifically reject that idea. Synthetic diamonds are equivalent (or superior!) on an atoms level. But on a bits level they lack the history of being formed in the Earth's crust, which stays scarce. Diamond marketing exploits that to good effect -- most diamonds are marked and registered in a database that traces its unique history. Doing so makes it possible to value the histo…

> Doing so makes it possible to value the history as unique

It may make it possible, but I would dispute that many people really care all that much about the story. Sure, they care about 'real', but what that means is up for debate.

> the target buyer is focused on whether others recognize the value

Pretty solidly they don't, hence the abysmal second hand values! But you're not wrong - to split hairs I think it's whether others recognise how much was spent, which lots of people confuse with value :)

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#459

Post by dec0dedab0de »

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…

This is great, I want to go back a decade and relive an argument I had about this with a co-worker who was ring shopping for his now wife.

I was trying to explain to him that diamonds are worthless, they have little resale value because they're not fungible, the rarity is being manipulated, and man made diamonds are indistinguishable without a special tool.

His position was that he can't get his fiance a "fake diamond" and I said just because it's man made doesn't mean that it isn't real. We went back and forth a bit, and started to get heated, and eventually I said "If I make a sandwich it doesn't mean it's not a real sandwich!" which made our other co-workers laugh hysterically and repeat for years. Ice would have made the point much better than a sandwich, but I suspect I wouldn't remember the story.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#460

Post by [deleted] »

swat535 wrote: post #402
GordonS wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I personally fully agree, but unfortunately not everyone thinks as logically as you or I. Yes they don't because of marketing. If we want to really change this, the narrative, the media and marketing has to change from: Earth Diamonds = Status of eternity and "foreverness" to Earth Diamonds = Status of child abuse. With massive campaigns from media and celebrities, people can be shamed into changing their behaviour…

[deleted]
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