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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

#551

Post by drdeca »

totalZero wrote: post #515
beaconstudios wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> When you say "I'm no expert, but..." on HN, people take it literally.

I'm not understanding this. What other way to take this is there? "I'm no expert, but" is indicating that -- oh, I think I see what you mean by the non-literal meaning, maybe.

The literal meaning would be a disclaimer as to how much others should take one's perspective into account / how much others should trust/believe what one is saying,

whereas the non-literal meaning would be indicating that the situation is kind of sarcastic or something, either because one is well versed in the topic, and therefore should be considered credible, or because the thing being said is obvious and usually shouldn't even need to be said.

Is that right? Is this the distinction you meant?

edit : I'm sure I'm kind of serving as an example of your point by saying this, but, whatever, I don't regard that as a problem.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#553

Post by akiselev »

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…

> Beyond basic survival requirements, social signals are one of the most important concepts in human society!

These social signals are a core human survival mechanisms since at least the birth of agriculture. When the climate turned for the worse or food was scarce, nomadic tribes just migrated to an environment with better conditions. In an agricultural society, clans had to develop a different mechanism that took advantage of agriculture's strength: large surpluses around harvest time that couldn't easily be stored through the winter. This is where the concept of banquets was born and there's archaeological evidence of hunter-gatherers and farmers participating in them together in the Early Neolithic, when agriculture just getting started.

Instead of moving to find food, humans adapted to create strong social bonds between clans by elaborate social signals. Banquets, parties, and feasts were fundamentally saying "we've got a surplus now and we'll share it with you with the understanding that you'll share your surplus when you have one." Dowries and marriages were just a formalization of that unspoken social contract. Today someone might throw a big wedding or party as a show of status but back then, they were grand events because all of the best food spoiled quickly and it served zero purpose to hoard it.

That said, what the diamond ring industry has evolved into is something quite new.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#554

Post by midjji »

Well unless you light them on fire?

That said I wonder if this isnt because its easier to restrict supply with branded artificial diamonds, compared to mined ones. If they expect the diamond rich regions of africa to stabilize in the next two decades, then they have to move away from natural diamonds asap.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#555

Post by NikolaeVarius »

Judgmentality wrote: post #535
toast0 wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I try to tell people I don't have a birthday anymore. Because if I tell people not to get me anything, sometimes they hear please get me something. Ugh.

> I try to tell people I don't have a birthday anymore. Never thought of that. I'd imagine the ensuing conversation is even more problematic though? "What do you mean you don't have a birthday? That makes no sense!"

No, just respond with "I stopped caring".

Maybe could also tack on that you count winters to tell your age.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#556

Post by AriaMinaei »

beaconstudios wrote: post #506
NikolaeVarius wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except this particular social signal was entirely made up by a corporation. Social signals that cost significant resources for something worthless are stupid.

> Except this particular social signal was entirely made up by a corporation. They didn't make it up, they just made a display of wealth (and therefore social status) associated with their product. Brands do that all the time but the signal has always existed. The advertising serves to put the association between the product and wealth into the common knowledge - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_knowledge_(logic)…

>> Social signals that cost significant resources for something worthless are stupid.

> No, you just don't understand social signals, which was my point.

I don't think OP denies the utility of signaling, only that as an intelligent human being, one must not feel absolutely helpless in accepting and perpetuating all instances of signaling that their peers do.

There are many different cultures with strong means of signaling one's devotion to a partner, without having to essentially burn a small fortune to enrich an exploitative industry. It doesn't even have to be non-materialistic. Many cultures have the gold ring/necklace. It's a signal of a fortune spent, and a retained safety net because gold is tradable.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#557

Post by beaconstudios »

drdeca wrote: post #551
totalZero wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> When you say "I'm no expert, but..." on HN, people take it literally. I'm not understanding this. What other way to take this is there? "I'm no expert, but" is indicating that -- oh, I think I see what you mean by the non-literal meaning, maybe. The literal meaning would be a disclaimer as to how much others should take one's perspective into account / how much others should trust/believe what one is saying, wherea…

the non-literal form is showing humility. It's not sarcasm - even if you are a literal expert (as in SME) on the topic it's acknowledging that you are still aware of your own fallibility - as the parent said.

I don't think I've ever met anybody in real life that interacted the way HNers do. I always assumed it was a social affect where everybody pretends to be a robot because that's the culture of the site, in the same way people form pun chains on reddit. Is this an American thing, or maybe just a software engineer thing? I mean, I work in the software industry as a developer (granted, in the UK) so I figured I would've run into it by now if it were industry specific.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#558

Post by beaconstudios »

AriaMinaei wrote: post #556
beaconstudios wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Except this particular social signal was entirely made up by a corporation. They didn't make it up, they just made a display of wealth (and therefore social status) associated with their product. Brands do that all the time but the signal has always existed. The advertising serves to put the association between the product and wealth into the common knowledge - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_knowledge_(logic)…

>> Social signals that cost significant resources for something worthless are stupid. > No, you just don't understand social signals, which was my point. I don't think OP denies the utility of signaling, only that as an intelligent human being, one must not feel absolutely helpless in accepting and perpetuating all instances of signaling that their peers do. There are many different cultures with strong means of sign…

I can understand disagreeing with social signalling, but this comment tree is rife with people dismissing social signals as irrational, or completely missing the plot by pointing out that you could get a synthetic diamond for much less money. It just speaks to ignorance rather than disagreement.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#559

Post by [deleted] »

Scheherazade wrote: post #493
dkarras wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, seeing an otherwise healthy, and free-thinking human being turn through their behaviour into almost a sub-sentient machine running pre-programmed scripts, would errode a bit of the soul in almost everyone. As some of their childhood naivete is forever extinguished. At least now they’ve gained through this experience a deeper perception of the true nature of reality.

[deleted]

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#560

Post by mariodiana »

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…

A natural diamond is nature's NFT.
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