Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever • Hacker News Board

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#601

Post by samatman » Tue, May 04, 2021, 8:12 PM UTC

moistbar wrote: post #375

lelanthran wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure but, please, let's show some context sensitivity.

An engagement ring is emphatically not costume jewelry, and if you don't understand that "real jewelry" is an important sense the antonym of "costume jewelry", well, now you do.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#602

Post by AlwaysRock » Tue, May 04, 2021, 8:14 PM UTC

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…

> My biggest mistake was including her in the decision. > When I showed her what I'd picked out, it quickly devolved into a lot of uncharacteristic tears and shouting.

I do not think you would have had a better experience if you did not include her.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#603

Post by MrVu » Tue, May 04, 2021, 8:15 PM UTC

It's a win-win for the company gets the image of caring for the environment, and they can buy the Lab diamonds for a 15000% mark up. So if you buy a $1,000 Lab Diamond, they are literally getting it for almost $7. All it really is, is heating up carbon.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#604

Post by AtlasBarfed » Tue, May 04, 2021, 8:16 PM UTC

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…

It's from birth at this point. Generational indoctrination.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#605

Post by icoder » Tue, May 04, 2021, 8:20 PM UTC

bevesce- wrote: post #566

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…

Is this an American thing? I'm polish and this whole discussion is just mind boggling. I don't know anybody who would had such high (monetary wise) demands

It seems it is, I'm Dutch and also don't recognise this at all (but not married yet, so who knows). It does remind me, again, how many HN and Reddit discussions so often are by default seem US-centric, until stated otherwise. I am very much willing to accept though that the fact that this annoys me a bit is my own problem.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#606

Post by pvarangot » Tue, May 04, 2021, 8:21 PM UTC

bevesce- wrote: post #566

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…

Is this an American thing? I'm polish and this whole discussion is just mind boggling. I don't know anybody who would had such high (monetary wise) demands

It's more of a white people that watch movies thing I think. So yeah mostly American but you see pockets of it on different cultures, one of the common threads that I find is that people that like this also like their houses to look as if they were designed for the set of a romantic comedy.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#607

Post by jschwartzi » Tue, May 04, 2021, 8:22 PM UTC

amalcon wrote: post #428

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 brought my now-spouse along for ring shopping, on her own theory that she'd be wearing the thing and should therefore have some input. She was actually more opposed to mined diamonds than I was at the time. We talked about this extensively, and considered both lab gems and corundum gems (ruby/sapphire). We went through over a dozen jewelry stores, each of them pushing mined diamonds so hard that it angered us. The…

My experience was different. I ended up going to one of the Shane Company stores on the west coast and the salesperson didn't push diamonds at all. She showed me damn near every red/pink sapphire in the store until I found one I wanted to present. And when it turned out my wife didn't like the color as much as I thought they bought the old stone back at full-price and sold us a new one in a color she loves.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#608

Post by lelanthran » Tue, May 04, 2021, 8:28 PM UTC

moistbar wrote: post #375

lelanthran wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> > 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.

Okay, let me clarify: Jewelry that is neither expensive nor rare stops being jewelry, it becomes costume jewelry.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#609

Post by kixiQu » Tue, May 04, 2021, 8:28 PM UTC

moistbar wrote: post #375

lelanthran wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Fine jewelry" and "fashion jewelry" are the category names, typically.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#610

Post by nickik » Tue, May 04, 2021, 8:31 PM UTC

Frost1x wrote: post #454

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 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'…

This is partly a myth. More important was the non legal enforcement of engagements. Many couples in the past would start to have sex when engaged. If the engagement is not legally secure, the diamond basically serves as signal. That why 3-month salary make sense.

If I buy a 3-month salary worth diamond I'm probably not gone leave you after a month.

Its an easily portable high value item that also serves as signaling for the person wearing it. It makes more sense then livestock in the modern world.

Marketing had something to do with it, but its more complex then that.