661–670 of 686 posts
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for most people what you describe is even more expensive and impractical than buying a mined diamond
Impractical, sure. But the average cost of a 7 day trip to Freetown, Sierra Leone is less than 1/2 the average cost of an engagement ring. $2,500 compared to $5,500 on average.
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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…
> 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
Social signaling and status symbols come up frequently on HN, and in this thread no less. Truly, in ordinary circles these concepts don’t come up and people aren’t even aware that what they’re doing is a concept that’s studied.
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I'm sure the jewelry businesses were peddling it, but I don't recall it ever being mentioned amongst people as if it were a cultural thing. Then again, maybe women talk about this kind of stuff, whereas men don't.
I have not once heard this being mentioned as a metric. Most people I know don't really care at all (I'm 25 for reference), since they generally don't have the money to waste on such frivolous purchases.
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If your threat model includes you disguising as someone else, sure. If your threat model includes crazy people stalking you, my decision is justified.
That is really unfortunate. At least in germany you can go to the Einwohnermeldeamt (citizen Report office) and can request a blockage into your data. This should be enough for a stalker. Are you allowed to decide what happens to your partner in case of an emergency? Or to decide for her if she is unable to decide anymore? Also would you save taxes? Here our income is combined and divided 50/50. When I earn 100k and…
Look up 'marriage tax penalty', if you want to know more.
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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!"
I mean, if I have to put it on a form, that's one thing, but like office people don't need to know when it is.
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In Germany it is not a thing either. Discreet gold/silver rings are much more common. I like it, it is less decadent and you can wear the ring every day.
That's weird, all my SO's friends who are engaged/married here in .de got diamond engagement rings. They also wear a wedding band, and tend to only wear the engagement ring on special occasions..
In my direct environment many people broke with that tradition.
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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.
Both times I got engaged (only got married once, though), I brought my partner to the jewellery store to pick out rings we both liked, as it would be something we'd be wearing for a non-determined time and I'd say that being happy with that trumps the whole "propose with a ring out of nowhere in public".
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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'…
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What I meant was what if it turns out diamonds are not special after all? Lab grown diamonds are diamonds. Whether one comes out of the ground or from a lab, maybe they aren’t that special.
Ah. A lot of economists have argued that the "value" of something is based on the labor cost of production. So given that viewpoint, mined diamonds would be worth more than lab ones, even if they were identical in every way (yes, I also think this is silly, but that's what the market's indicating even today).
(And yes, those economists would tend to get laughed out of the room these days)
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> However, my feeling is I don't trust this 100%, and for my SO having a "real diamond" meant a lot. For me, in this case, the need to get a "real diamond" for my SO trumped my ethical stance on where the diamond was sourced. Lab grown diamonds are real diamonds. There is a simple, easy, and cost-effective solution to the problem you seem to have skipped over here.
I agree with you, which is why I put real diamond in quotes here. Lab or earth grown, both are real. Sadly, not everyone sees lab grown as having as much desirability as earth grown diamonds. While I would be open to receiving a lab diamond, I've met many people for whom it would be seen as a budget option. Although through an objective lens they are the same, for a lot of people there is an emotional difference betw…
Fortunately, almost no diamond-wearer has the ability to tell the difference, which alludes to the easy solution.