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

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#91

Post by lewisflude » Tue, May 04, 2021, 11:04 AM UTC

simias wrote: post #68

lewisflude wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not married, but engaged! I ended up buying a diamond on James Allen (they allow you to select earth created or lab created). They allege their mined diamonds are "conflict free" https://www.jamesallen.com/education/diamonds/grading-confli... . 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…

Did your SO explain why it's so important for them to get a "real diamond"? While I understand wanting a valuable piece of jewelry as a token of the value of your relationship, I must admit that the extreme fixations on specifically diamonds always seemed rather odd given that there are so many other beautiful gemstones to chose from. Of course it's also cultural thing, I think diamond engagement rings are especially…

I'm not in America, but she studied jewellery and has a deep interest in gemstones. The story of it being formed in the earth over a long period of time is what gives earth diamonds something that lab diamonds just don't have, purely the story. I think this is largely down to the marketing of diamonds which has really embedded itself in the culture of jewellery and the rituals around getting engaged.

We did discuss the ethical concerns of earth vs lab diamonds beforehand, and the decision to go with an earth diamond was intentional.

The diamond was a yellow, cushion cut diamond. I agree, there are other gemstones that are often overlooked and have beautiful qualities.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#92

Post by ddorian43 » Tue, May 04, 2021, 11:05 AM UTC

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…

Thats the point you should've realised that people aren't most of the time rational but emotional.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#93

Post by tromp » Tue, May 04, 2021, 11:05 AM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #49

mhroth wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask your partner what they want. Then do that. Your opinion on this matter is not particularly important ;)

Your opinion on this matter is not particularly important ;) Although you should bear in mind there is a correlation between the amount spent on getting married and the likelihood of divorce.

Is that a positive or a negative correlation?

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#94

Post by rlv-dan » Tue, May 04, 2021, 11:05 AM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #35

Good for them. It's literally the same material, and we can now use scientific and engineering advances to remove the need for people to toil and die underground to get them. Hopefully the process is more environmentally friendly too. They are real diamonds. I find it hi-goddamned-larious that the moment these became viable, the industry switched from "Diamond purity is the be-all and end-all and you must have the cl…

Why do people pay insane amount for a box copy of Super Mario Bros, a game you can play one pretty much any device. ROM dumps are literary the same data.

I guess rarity is hard to set a price on. And people like being rare and unique.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#95

Post by InvOfSmallC » Tue, May 04, 2021, 11:05 AM UTC

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?

Had to buy it. There was a huge fight about me not threating her well because of this f'ing diamond.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#96

Post by aliyfarah » Tue, May 04, 2021, 11:05 AM UTC

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…

Thanks for the story, that was a very good analogy by your prof.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#97

Post by lewisflude » Tue, May 04, 2021, 11:06 AM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #88

lewisflude wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you buy a mined diamond, you are paying for the story, of it being a finite thing, formed in the earth over a very long period of time. Lab grown diamonds don't have that story. Separately, the work that goes into cutting/finishing diamonds is incredible and there is a huge amount of variety between individual diamonds. They are very fascinating things.

>When you buy a mined diamond, you are paying for the story, of it being a finite thing, formed in the earth over a very long period of time. Lab grown diamonds don't have that story. I do not know who the “you” is here, but I would bet most people that want to consume diamonds (especially mined) as an end user for display purposes want to do so to signal their (potential) purchasing power, especially amongst their n…

The "you" here is someone buying a mined diamond. I would imagine you're right on status being one of the top reasons someone buys a diamond in the first place. There's other reasons (aesthetics, tradition), but I think the earth diamonds status as a rare expensive thing and it's artificial scarcity is what keeps them so desireable.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#98

Post by goldcd » Tue, May 04, 2021, 11:06 AM UTC

rodgerd wrote: post #61

goldcd wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flip side though, is that you're making diamond miners unemployed. I suspect if they had alternate employment opportunities available that were more pleasant/better-paying, they'd have already taken them. So losers are the poor folks digging in the ground and winners are the companies who've just built themselves a lab. Maybe a way out of this, would be price up the grown diamonds to include a charitable donation…

> I suspect if they had alternate employment opportunities available that were more pleasant/better-paying, they'd have already taken them. Spoken like someone who thinks that mining is conducted by volunteers.

erm in the vast, vast majority of cases they are..

Most of the world's diamonds are coming out of open-cast mines and most of those are in Russia.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#99

Post by Nursie » Tue, May 04, 2021, 11:06 AM UTC

rlv-dan wrote: post #94

Nursie wrote: post #35

Good for them. It's literally the same material, and we can now use scientific and engineering advances to remove the need for people to toil and die underground to get them. Hopefully the process is more environmentally friendly too. They are real diamonds. I find it hi-goddamned-larious that the moment these became viable, the industry switched from "Diamond purity is the be-all and end-all and you must have the cl…

Why do people pay insane amount for a box copy of Super Mario Bros, a game you can play one pretty much any device. ROM dumps are literary the same data. I guess rarity is hard to set a price on. And people like being rare and unique.

It's not exactly the same thing though, there's a difference there, you get the physical object.

I agree that some people value rarity and uniqueness, but it doesn't look to me like diamonds (natural or otherwise) provide that.

Re: Pandora says laboratory-made diamonds are forever

#100

Post by eru » Tue, May 04, 2021, 11:07 AM UTC

simonh wrote: post #71

Nursie wrote: post #35

Good for them. It's literally the same material, and we can now use scientific and engineering advances to remove the need for people to toil and die underground to get them. Hopefully the process is more environmentally friendly too. They are real diamonds. I find it hi-goddamned-larious that the moment these became viable, the industry switched from "Diamond purity is the be-all and end-all and you must have the cl…

If the best option available to people was diamond mining, by taking that away from them we’re by definition pushing them into an even worse option. That’s a big problem I have with a lot of the do-good commentary on developing world labour. Taking away options from people, even bad ones from our point of view, isn’t necessarily doing them any favours. None of these peoples options are going to look good to us. Actua…

> If the best option available to people was diamond mining, by taking that away from them we’re by definition pushing them into an even worse option.

Couldn't you say that about any and all technological advances?