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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

#511

Post by faet »

55555 wrote: post #477
_fat_santa wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like if you took and old diamond ring, reset it and refinished it, there would be no way to tell that it was "used". Maybe resetting it will introduce some flaws that weren't there before. Kind of crazy when people say they want a "new" diamond, uh....well all of them are literally millions of years old unless it's lab grown.

> I feel like if you took and old diamond ring, reset it and refinished it, there would be no way to tell that it was "used". Maybe resetting it will introduce some flaws that weren't there before. Can anyone who works in the diamond industry respond to this? Can anyone tell if a diamond has been made into a ring before? Would it damage the diamond to remove it from the ring? This sounds like an opportunity to plaste…

Not in the diamond industry. But, most diamonds are etched with a serial number. GIA etches a report number you can look up online for instance. Similar to a VIN you could probably google it and see if it's been listed/sold elsewhere. Unlikely though as the turn around on diamonds is very low.

The easiest way is to determine through the setting. Styles change. If it's a setting from the 50s that isn't made anymore it's probably old. If it's a setting from a company that is Diamonds are not damaged when swapping settings. They are often removed and reset if a prong breaks for instance.

Most people just don't want to buy from estate sales or auction. So, jewelry stores will do that, clean it up, put it in a new setting (or leave it as is), and resell it as 'new'.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#512

Post by globular-toast »

dijit wrote: post #345
globular-toast wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's sexist about it? 85% of engagement rings are bought by men, for women [0]. Are statistics sexist? [0] https://www.jewellermagazine.com/Article/8591/Women-spend-mo...

Jarring worldview to hold. Buying rings isn't the problem- you stated "the value of a ring is how much a man is willing to pay for access to sex". Without a further breakdown of why you think that's a reasonable statement to make it just sounds weirdly myopic. People pay more because of status "I am a good provider and I can prove it", or because the woman wants to feel valued. It doesn't go back to sex, not for a lo…

There is a name for a relationship that begins without sex. It's called a business partnership and I can assure you they don't involve diamond rings.

Give me one reason why a man would enter a sexless marriage.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#513

Post by meshenna »

symlinkk wrote: post #474
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 don’t see what’s so hard to understand. The entire point of buying a ring is that you’re showing her how much you care by spending a bunch of money on something special. Instead, you decided to save money and get something that’s not as special, and that hurt her feelings.

> showing her how much you care by spending a bunch of money on something special

If this is what the other person expects out of a relationship it's time to jump ship ASAP.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#515

Post by totalZero »

beaconstudios wrote: post #473
akarma wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many women won't directly tell their partner "I want you to spend a couple months' salary on a beautiful diamond" because it's tasteless to request and it removes all the meaning behind the man doing so, but they'd also be disappointed if the man didn't do so unprompted. People and their emotions are complex like that. I don't think there's any glaring issue with either party above, but it's like you expect all women…

there's nothing rational about HN's brand of rationalism - which is really just materialist reductionism. In this thread alone are dozens of people completely blind to the concept of social signals, thinking instead about price, clarity and the vague notion of distant moral dilemmas. Beyond basic survival requirements, social signals are one of the most important concepts in human society! To exclude them from your c…

Yeah, I agree. I'd go even further and say that although the tech conversations on HN are substantive, the vast majority of non-tech conversations are devoid of social awareness (in the same way as a bunch of developers who don't get out much). For example, sometimes people here don't register deference as a prosocial aspect of cooperation. When you say "I'm no expert, but..." on HN, people take it literally.

If you want to get a ring for your significant other, the whole point is to buy something unnecessary as a symbol of the organic constance of your love. Nobody needs a diamond ring. If you tell a woman that her diamond came from a lab, you should accompany that fact with a better narrative than "this was the most economical rock available within your preference constraints."

She wants to love her ring, so give her a reason. Tell her that you wanted to buy her something big without feeling like it was an extravagant use of your shared nest egg. Explain why gem clarity is so important to you, because your vision of the future as a couple is unmarred by doubt. Talk about how lab-grown gems are a more ethical trade and symbolize a desire to avoid unnecessary conflict in your relationship. Remind her that even a diamond is not forever, so if she wants another ring next year you'd be happy to propose again with a superior gem.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#516

Post by gandalfian »

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…

Didn't ice cubes made from icebergs command a premium price once? Don't know if it was deserved.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#518

Post by BenjiWiebe »

yrgulation wrote: post #114
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?

I simply didn't care - bought a meteorite ring instead. Everyone is impressed as few know such a thing exists. I even tell them it's rarer than diamonds (I don't know that for a fact, but it makes a good story for the wow factor).

Well meteorite rings are definitely rarer than diamond rings.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#519

Post by astura »

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…

>When I showed her what I'd picked out, it quickly devolved into a lot of uncharacteristic tears and shouting. It took a few more tries, and then she explained. Apparently a lab grown diamond meant my love for her was also artificial, a budgeted ersatz stand-in for the real thing

I'm wondering how, if you picked it out, she even knew the diamond was lab grown? Did she start grilling you immediately? Or did she get the microscope out? Maybe I'm a total moron but I can't tell the difference by just looking at it.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#520

Post by aerostable_slug »

bsanr2 wrote: post #444
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…

More fundamentally: we're conditioned to privilege our ambitions (or maybe just grand ambitions in general) over things like concern for the horrific-yet-ultimately-banal suffering that enables them, or for building and maintaining a stable and sustainable "floor" for human existence. We pour funding into tech startups that promise to maybe change the world when we know that we can move the needle (often for a fracti…

> we know that we can move the needle (often for a fraction of the cost) by spending on basic needs and not looking for a direct ROI

Based on San Francisco's experience, I'd say spending other people's money isn't enough to do much about the homeless issue. Further, I suspect a startup that moves the economy upwards results in citizens with more disposable income to donate to good causes. Ideally, the competition for those funds leads to increased effectiveness from those good causes (because I'm not going to donate to someone who doesn't efficiently get food to the mouths of the hungry so to speak).

Also, the "shiny things" often bring tangible and less tangible benefits (e.g. technology advances, societal celebration of science & engineering), whereas quite a bit of our social programs seem like money pits with no real outcome other than feeling good about burning all that time and treasure (see above re: SF and the homeless). I'm reminded of people who protested going to the Moon, arguing instead that the funding should be spent on welfare programs. The difference is that going to the Moon is a quantifiable win and also brings interesting benefits to society, and there is an end state where the job is done. Welfare, as it is currently structured, does nothing to actually solve the problem of systemic poverty so its job is never done. It's not even clear if increasing or decreasing funding really does much about the problem.

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