481–490 of 619 posts
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If you think that just because a mine isn't in Africa that means it's a good place to work then I disagree
I work at one at the aforementioned diamond mines in Canada and it is in fact a good place to work. Cold as shit but safety is the number one concern.
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Yikes, that's quite the binary distinction... Surely there is room between those subjective descriptions of people for "hey, I like this thing even though it's irrational, ok?" Let people live their lives and you do you. People aren't a "provider mannequin" just because they like to make their partner happy.
People who make irrational choices about large financial purchases don’t make good long term life partners.
I know that a 33k Mazda3 and a 33k Honda Civic are "similar", but neither of them are exactly worth the same 33 thousand dollars. But who cares, really? Ultimately, even a 33k purchase is a "throw" away. You're not gonna compare control arm thickness to find the better value, and you're not gonna examine where the materials came from.
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The irony that you definitely typed this on a device that was partially or fully made in inhumane conditions by people below the poverty line.
We don't choose to purchase slave phones, computers, etc. over free trade alternatives. Choosing blood diamonds over artificial diamonds, makes the cruelty the point, no?
It SHOULD be easier to make an industry of fairly-sourced tech than it is to make an industry of fairly sourced minerals.
But the tech industry makes far far more off of their slave labor than any mining industry, and the average person is far more likely to ignore the guilt of a device they need to use daily than a rock they wear occasionally.
I would like to take this moment to thank https://diamondssuck.com/ for preventing me from buying my wife a diamond, and getting her a much prettier moissanite instead. It's been on hn's front page several times.
Guys, buying diamonds, can complain all day about what a rip off it is (it is). But if you apprise your fiancé of the alternatives / opp costs (moissanite, man made, second hand, etc) and she still wants a new diamond, just get her a new diamond. It will make her happy for years. My wife had her heart set on a pink diamond, so that’s what I got her. I made it clear though that if I got this, she is not getting a new…
Point is... marketing rules the world, programming just supports it.
Edit: To be fair, I showed her the other options and she likes the ring I got her on sale more than all the other options that were available. And she was very happy that the rest of the money was spent on us.
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Guys, buying diamonds, can complain all day about what a rip off it is (it is). But if you apprise your fiancé of the alternatives / opp costs (moissanite, man made, second hand, etc) and she still wants a new diamond, just get her a new diamond. It will make her happy for years. My wife had her heart set on a pink diamond, so that’s what I got her. I made it clear though that if I got this, she is not getting a new…
I wouldn't marry anyone whose happiness is dependent on a artificially expensive hard and shiny rock whose prestige was inflated for years by an industry built on slave labor, especially when far less expensive alternatives exist. If she is apprised of the alternatives and still demands "No I want EXPENSIVE shiny thing" then it's cultural shaming factoring into the decision making. You have to reevaluate what she see…
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Love is irrational. If you avoid all irrational things, you are not human.
Hate is irrational, and yet it does not justify murder. Similarly, you can love w/o sabotaging the relationship by marrying, giving the other party a red button and a strong incentive to press it, effectively pushing the relationship out of balance. Statistically, they will. And statistically, you'll be screwed.
Diamonds are a scam and an ethical minefield, but I disagree with the notion that women are brainwashed or shallow for wanting one. It’s not about the diamond. It’s about wanting a man with enough resources to waste on a diamond. A diamond’s lack of intrinsic value or utility is a feature. The waste is the point. In a sea of potential mates, finding one who can throw away $3000 as though it were nothing, is a great f…
Diamonds are a scam and an ethical minefield, but I disagree with the notion that women are brainwashed or shallow for wanting one. It’s not about the diamond. It’s about wanting a man with enough resources to waste on a diamond. A diamond’s lack of intrinsic value or utility is a feature. The waste is the point. In a sea of potential mates, finding one who can throw away $3000 as though it were nothing, is a great f…
From my experience with my wife, I think it was much more practical.
Really for her I think it was mostly like "I want to take this seriously and am going to be wearing this ring (or displaying something) all the time and so want to be sure I know what it is and that it's durable."
She doesn't really wear jewelry at all except for her wedding and engagement ring, so she just hadn't thought about engagement rings or jewelry very much period. A diamond was a known quantity, something she could trust, something neutral in color, durable, and so forth.
The metal artist that we went to really liked moissanite but at the time it was the first we had heard of it. At the time synthetic diamonds were more something on the horizon than something you could actually buy.
I think if she had known about moissanite earlier and had time to get familiar with it she probably would have been happy with it.
I would like to take this moment to thank https://diamondssuck.com/ for preventing me from buying my wife a diamond, and getting her a much prettier moissanite instead. It's been on hn's front page several times.
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acknowledgement of irrationality, especially one that isn't accompanied with a wish to better themselves away from that irrationality, would be a major red flag for me personally entering into a long-term relationship. there is also a great distinction between "Yeah I know another helping of chocolate syrup on my ice cream is a bad decision, but it'll make me feel good today.", and "You need to make a 10kUSD+ purchas…
> "You need to make a 10kUSD+ purchase on a totally arbitrary piece of jewelry that very well may have incited real human suffering and violence, even though I know that desire is irrational and poorly balanced." That's a tricky topic to broach. Drop one zero from the price tag, and this definitely applies much more to your smartphone and computer than it does to gems. Drop one or two more zeroes, and this covers the…
In terms of living a more ethical life (on several different levels), this is a crude but generally effective way to go about it.