16 ms·

Diamonds Suck (2006)

392 points by nsomaru 8y ago

icebraining 8y ago
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12944464 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12944464
nailer 8y ago
Another option: second hand diamonds, which diamond merchants will tell you don't exist. People die, if they don't pass their stones onto their children, this is where they end up. Sotheby's jewelly auctions. Know what you want, buy stones and ignore settings (they'll be dated and you can sell the metals), and know you're the only retail customer in a room full of diamond merchants. Another option: get a house deposit and work on building an eventual family with your woman rather than provide her with trinkets.
- ainiriand 8y ago
  It reminds me of one of my friends that owns 4 jewelries. One of those was converted to a sort of gold pawn broker when things got complicated in Spain. He showed me plastic bags full of diamonds that nobody wanted in the industry.
- wycy 8y ago
  How easy/hard is it to extract diamonds from these old settings and get a new setting for it? Where would one even go to get a diamond placed in a new setting?
  - nailer 8y ago
    Easy. If you have the stone you can get a new setting (and the stone placed in it) at most high/main street jewellers. Everyone who reuses their family stones gets this done, so the jeweller won't mind doing it.
- bowlich 8y ago
  I've thrown around the property idea myself (we already own the house). Instead of the big ring, or an expensive party. I could buy her ten acres somewhere nice for a future retirement-vacation house. The value is almost guaranteed to appreciate over the course of our marriage (which strikes me as romantic) -- and if there is an unfortunate divorce, she has a chunk of valuable land to sell instead of a useless rock.
isostatic 8y ago
> If I can prevent a single reader from needlessly dropping $6,000-10,000+ on a diamond engagement ring, this site will be a success. Financial worries are the #1 cause of stress in a married relationship - there is absolutely NO excuse to start your married life by taking on that level of debt. Average U.S. wedding cost $30k in 2014, while the average engagement ring was $5600, or 19% of the cost [0] https://www.valuepenguin.com/average-cost-of-wedding https://www.valuepenguin.com/average-cost-of-wedding While reducing/eliminating the cost of the ring is a big saving, the entire wedding industry is a shocking way to start your marriage (especially given about half will end in divorce)
- charlesdm 8y ago
  Not everything is about money though. Want to have an extravagant wedding? Fine. Want something basic? Also fine. Yes: diamonds, jewellery, mechanical watches etc are all bad value for money. People don't buy them because they're bad value. They buy them because they like wearing them, and women buy jewellery because it makes them feel pretty. That's life. It's fine throwing money away sometime.
  - darkcha0s 8y ago
    >mechanical watches [...] are all bad value for money Citation needed. Seriously, mechanical watches can be a great investment if you know what you are buying.
    - tgb 8y ago
      I think the meaning was in terms of a time keeping device not as a value store. The cheapest Walmart watch keeps time significantly better than the most expensive mechanic watch and many will last years of use.
  - koolba 8y ago
    > That's life. It's fine throwing money away sometime. Sure if you have the money. The problem is that most people don’t and spend what would be a down payment on a house on complete bullshit. It’s a terrible way to start a marriage and likely leads to higher rates of divorce.
maaaats 8y ago
What is the difference between a diamond and an expensive handbag or other accessory? If a thing is worth what people pay, how come diamonds are a scam and other items not? I have a hard time grasping this everytime an anti-diamond article pops up. I can see the logic in not using that kind of money on a ring, but not what's so special about the price/scarcity/fashion of diamonds compared to other luxury goods.
- kuschku 8y ago
  Natural diamonds are exactly the same as synthetic ones. Except you have to pay much more, and people have to suffer unnecessarily in mines for it.
- starbugs 8y ago
  Who said that other items are not a scam as well? I think the point the author is trying to make is that you can invest your money more wisely if you buy something that retains its value instead of depreciating drastically the moment you close the transaction.
- charlesdm 8y ago
  Just another guy pointing out WHY they're a ripoff. Most luxury goods are "ripoffs" (from a financial point of view). Yet plenty of people love buying luxury items for the feeling it gives them and the experience, and because the item (in comparison to a non luxury item) is still much better. Nothing wrong with that in my view. Personally I don't share they view they're a ripoff, but to each their own. Have you ever bought a mechanical watch? I have, and I loved the experience -- from researching and exploring it, to visiting a few jewellers, to getting a good deal, to finally getting the item. I look forward to the day when I can buy my (to be) wife amazing pieces of jewellery, regardless of the price.
  - deleted 8y ago
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  - stinos 8y ago
    Yet plenty of people love buying luxury items for the feeling it gives them For me that is the huge rip-off next to the financial part: for a lot of these luxury items the extra money doesn't get you proportionally more or better functionality nor quality (2 things which are imo actually worth money since they give you something practical and useful back). It's often more about looks and how it feels. But do the people really care about the looks themselves, or rather how they are perceived by others? And is that really worth pursuing? And does buying a feeling really work and how long does this feeling last? Also is the feeling 'real' or is it just made-up in the end because culture tells you it's like that?
mehwoot 8y ago
If you think that solely the physical properties of the stone are what matters then you dont understand the point of an engagement ring.
- tzaman 8y ago
  So what is the point of one?
  - deleted 8y ago
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- arethuza 8y ago
  Well, I do understand the point of an engagement ring - what I am completely flummoxed by is the idea that you should spend a huge chunk of money on one. I got my wife an eternity ring as an engagement ring - not because of any rules but because we both liked it and it wasn't very expensive. Been married 27 years so far so it seems to have worked! ;-)
  - peatmoss 8y ago
    > Been married 27 years so far so it seems to have worked! As I like to joke with my wife, it’s not a successful marriage until one of us dies. As for rings, we didn’t do an engagement ring, and my wife’s ring contains a sapphire mined from our home state.
- thecatspaw 8y ago
  A nice engagement ring does not require a diamond though. It does not require 3 months of salary. So what _is_ the point of an engagement ring? To show love? I can do that without a ring. To show I'm taken? I've got another ring for that. We both do. Those rings cost about 20$ together
- antirez 8y ago
  You are implying then that the point is to pay a lot of money and your future wife should be happy that you are paying a lot of money for a useless thing, just to show you did it. This is a bad ground for a relationship IMHO. Because otherwise the physical qualities (how it looks) is the whole point.
chrisseaton 8y ago
People who are against diamonds seem extremely aggressive about making sure other people agree with them and validate their opinions. I can't imagine making a website about any of my jewellery preferences (short of ethical, which isn't mentioned prominently here).
- baud147258 8y ago
  Well it's like vegans. Except here instead of animal suffering, it's human suffering; which can give a greater sense of importance to the cause. And in turn, it would make people against diamonds feels justified to be more aggressive.
  - chrisseaton 8y ago
    The human suffering part is pretty far down this person's list of complaints against diamonds. Their principle problems are price and marketing.
- harrumph 8y ago
  >People who are against diamonds seem extremely aggressive about making sure other people agree with them and validate their opinions. People who profit obscenely from false scarcity, public relations manipulation and civil war seem way, way, way more aggressive about making sure the profits keep flowing.
tzaman 8y ago
Out of curiosity, what's all the fuss with engagement rings in the first place? When me and my wife got engaged, I gave her nothing (nor did she expect anything), just asked her to marry me and she agreed, we kissed and that was it. We did, however, made wedding rings, which together were about $1300, but that's because they were made out of gold. Why overcomplicate things? :)
- mysterydip 8y ago
  I assume peer pressure of some sort. When my now wife was telling all her friends she was engaged, the first thing they all asked was "let me see the ring!"
  - tzaman 8y ago
    Must be cultural differences then - nobody around here (Central Europe) cares or asks about rings.
    - Freak_NL 8y ago
      It's seems to be mostly a US thing (it doesn't seem common in Western Europe either). It boggles the mind how spending several monthly salaries on a ring became a solidly embedded tradition over there.
      - glandium 8y ago
        It got to Japan too. Probably from the US.
      - skywhopper 8y ago
        You seem to believe the commercials more than most Americans do. The vast majority of people don't spend that much on an engagement ring (I'm pretty sure the commercials said "two months'" not "several" anyway--but still, that's nuts, no one I know spent anywhere near that much). An engagement ring is pretty entrenched as a tradition, sure, but not the boggling part about the expense.
LordHeini 8y ago
As a sidenote, the rings with diamonds thing is mostly an American fad. All people i know in Germany have just plain gold rings. It is way nicer because it is more a symbol of commitment than a show of wealth. Those never get out of style, can hardly be damaged and if need be can be replaced cheaply.
- specializeded 8y ago
  It is way nicer (in my opinion)* Diamonds are beautiful, and in my opinion much nicer than a boring solid gold ring. Still a scam, but a pretty one!
- realusername 8y ago
  In France it's the same, it's mostly gold or silver, one example website I found randomly on google:(http://www.histoiredor.com/fr/mariage/alliances/(univers)/homme http://www.histoiredor.com/fr/mariage/alliances/(univers)/ho...). Even when you search on google with the two languages, you see that difference clearly in the illustrations.
  - baud147258 8y ago
    In France, you can have both: an engagement ring (with stones like diamands) and an "alliance" (wedding ring).
    - realusername 8y ago
      Engagement rings are very rare in France, I don't know personally any couple who did it and even the wikipedia page on it is very small, unless you are from the upper class or an international couple, it's pretty rare.
      - moviuro 8y ago
        Weird. Friends are getting engaged all around me and the ladies all have an engagement ring. No international couple nor upper class. Weird.
scandox 8y ago
People who buy engagements rings are simply spending lots of money as an expression of love and providing visible proof of that to other people. I don't think that's a great idea but everybody's different. So the value of diamonds is somewhat irrelevant.
- FrozenVoid 8y ago
  Nope, they're victims of succesful marketing campaign by De Beers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engagement_ring#20th_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engagement_ring#20th_century In 1938, the diamond cartel De Beers began a marketing campaign that would have a major impact on engagement rings. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the price of diamonds collapsed.[25] At the same time, market research indicated that engagement rings were going out of style with the younger generation. Before World War II, only 10% of American engagement rings contained a diamond.[26] While the first phase of the marketing campaign consisted of market research, the advertising phase began in 1939. One of the first elements of this campaign was to educate the public about the 4 Cs (cut, carats, color, and clarity). In 1947 the slogan "a diamond is forever" was introduced.[27] Ultimately, the De Beers campaign sought to persuade the consumer that an engagement ring is indispensable, and that a diamond is the only acceptable stone for an engagement ring.
- mijamo 8y ago
  You could do that without mined diamonds and all its negative consequences.
  - scandox 8y ago
    Yeah big time. But you can say that about a lot of things. Point I'm making is that if people want to consume ridiculous things the current system we live under kind of favours that. If it isn't diamonds then it's going to be some other crap that requires other people to live lives of utter drudgery. That's kind of the point. If you want a vision of the future, Winston, imagine a Jimmy Choo stamping on a human face forever.
deleted 8y ago
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boobsbr 8y ago
If your marriage being successful, fulfilling and happy depends on a chunk of expensive rock and/or metal, you'd better not get married.
- GuB-42 8y ago
  It is not about the object itself, it is about respecting your partner's values. If an expensive ring means a lot to your partner, then it is definitely important for your marriage. The same can be said for extramarital sex. Assuming proper precautions are taken to avoid medical issues, rationally, it is not a big deal. And yet, besides a small minority of couples who embrace open marriage, this is hugely important. If requiring some compromise warrants not getting married, no one will ever get married.
  - gkya 8y ago
    It's also a measure of the value of your partner's personality. A SO which needs me to communicate in $$$ is the last thing I'd ever want in my life. It's a glaring symptom of a shallow personality.
cygned 8y ago
For German readers, I really recommend the following podcast episode about diamonds: https://cre.fm/cre218-diamanten https://cre.fm/cre218-diamanten
dkobia 8y ago
Unfortunately this is one of those American traditions we love to hate but are for the moment powerless to change. Your significant other may not care but societal pressure and expectation is hard to get around. She has a mother, sisters, friends etc. It is the same reason an expensive handbag makes absolutely no sense to a man but matters so much to a woman. It is confounding.
- xg15 8y ago
  In other words, as with most successful marketing campaigns (sadly), you can't dispel its effects simply by saying "it's a marketing campaign". (Edit/add: Though, contradicting my own argument a bit, I think point 2 and 4 - that there was deliberate effort to establish it as a "luxury item" and that today it's used to fund all kinds of atrocities - could be able to change demand of diamonds: They also change the things that wearing a diamond would imply about the wearer. The Mossanite argument makes no sense because one of the points of wearing a diamond is to be seen as "my significant other is rich and/or dedicated enough to gift me this" - however, no-one wants to be seen as a helpless brainwashed sheep or a supporter of war crimes.)
- GimbalLock 8y ago
  Powerless? No. Just don’t buy it. It really is that simple. You don’t have to change everyone’s mind. Just stand up for yourself.
  - bitwize 8y ago
    And say goodbye to the girl of your dreams, who was really looking forward to showing her friends the "rock" on her finger and hearing them ooh and ahh over it. Even if she doesn't leave you over this, unless you somehow married a Hackernews you've set up the image in her head that you're a skinflint who isn't willing to provide for your wife and it will affect your relationship in negative ways. Is your autism that strong that you will put a pedantic commitment to your own head logic and fighting the evil forces of marketing above your wife's feelings? If so, maybe you don't deserve to be married.
    - 8y ago
xstartup 8y ago
Yes, this post missing the point that I as a diamond buyer already know this but it will not stop me from purchasing more diamonds. In a hypothetical world, if a diamond could be bought for $10K and sold for $10K, where is the risk? Then it's no longer for only rich, others can take a loan from a bank and purchase diamonds. When I pay for a diamond, I don't pay for its intrinsic value. I pay for diamonds because other people around me feel they are expensive and you've to be rich enough to set your money on fire (like you do while purchasing a diamond). It's a signal for others that I am "fuck you money" rich. The very same reason for which I purchase a sports car, yes a sports car does have some advanced engineering but the resale value is not same. As long as diamond purchase price stays up I'll keep buying. Only thing I want is that no other people are able to acquire them for cheap when I am willing to pay a premium. (I hate price discrimination, i've also worked hard for my money, why should anyone get them cheap?) Please stop treating me like a victim of De Beers campaign.
- FrozenVoid 8y ago
  No you purchase the diamond because of De Beers marketing techniques influencing people around and peer pressure. Its manufactured status symbol for the purpose of enriching exploitative diamond industry that strives to maintain its monopoly at all cost. The reality of diamond industry is far less polished than their PR material: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labour_in_the_diamond_industry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labour_in_the_diamond_in...
- wycy 8y ago
  How does a diamond represent "fuck you money" if everyone has them?
- lgl 8y ago
  When I pay for a diamond, I don't pay for its intrinsic value. I pay for diamonds because other people around me feel they are expensive and you've to be rich enough to set your money on fire (like you do while purchasing a diamond). It's a signal for others that I am "fuck you money" rich. This may have been a sarcastic post (?) but why do you care if other people think you have "fuck you money"? That just makes you look intellectually weak and poor imho. But here's one thing that "fuck you money" won't buy: class.
paulie_a 8y ago
The weirdest aspect about diamonds is they are not even that pretty. Plenty of other gems are much more beautiful for a lot less money.
forkLding 8y ago
I've always found it fascinating how powerful DeBeers' marketing is, considering that in nature gems like rubies and sapphires are much rarer than diamonds yet are worth considerably less.
Oras 8y ago
I know I will get a hell of downvotes for this, but "Brainwashed" term can also be applied to people trading Bitcoins? Some people agreed that it is valuable and gave some tokens a huge value and its a market now.
- zeroxfe 8y ago
  Diamond prices are artificially inflated by a single organization. Bitcoin is priced by the market. (Yes, there is lots of manipulation in the latter, but it's still not comparable to diamonds.)
  - bluedevil2k 8y ago
    Wrong. The DeBeers monopoly doesn't exist anymore and the market sets the prices on diamonds. Nearly all diamonds are priced through auctions now a days.
- nialv7 8y ago
  Well, I guess it could be true that some people are "brainwashed" to trade bitcoin. But I think there are some differences between the two. First, diamond is not in itself useful. While it some industrial uses, that is not where its value comes from. The value of diamond is the result of misinfomation about its rarity and an extensive marketing campaign. On the other hand, BitCoin (or rather, blockchain) promised to be a distributed exchange, and more or less acheieves that. And although it is debateable whether its current valuation is reasonable, at least that grows organically from its use. The value BitCoin and diamond are both influenced by their limited availability. Diamond supply is tightly controlled by a corperation, but there is no guarantee that corperation will continue to have this controll indefinitely. On the other hand the limit on the number of bitcoins is more rigid and will only break if someone took controll of at least half of the network.
  - bluedevil2k 8y ago
    Wrong. The belief that DeBeers is a diamond monopoly and controls the market is outdated. In fact, DeBeers is now only the 2nd largest diamond miner, after Alrosa, a Russian mining company.
josh_fyi 8y ago
Nothing says "Marry me! Marry someone who wastes lots of your shared money!" like a diamond.
andrei821 8y ago
> Isn't it amazing (and scary) how brainwashed people are about the "value" of diamonds, even though they're not actually worth that much? It seems to me that the same strategy is curently used in the crypto ecosystem.
- chasingthewind 8y ago
  I was wondering to myself "what are the diamonds of the HN crowd?" and found you've answered my question.
matthberg 8y ago
If I might ask, why was this flagged? It was last discussed in 2016 [0], and though it needs a [2006] tag, it is otherwise a really valid and interesting post. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12944464 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12944464
- wyclif 8y ago
  I wondered the same thing.
NikolaNovak 8y ago
Anybody know anything about this "Moissanite" thing? I find it interesting that in the 100+ comments here, there's no mention of the item the linked website so heavily promotes, yet I personally never heard of until now. One of the reasons I love HN is that usually relevant knowledge and experience will come out of woodworks and share their wisdom - so, anybody ever heard of "Moissanite"? :)
- decimalstus 8y ago
  Moissanite is another name for Silicon Carbide - it's often used as a diamond 'lookalike' in jewelry, as it's much cheaper to produce.
- groby_b 8y ago
  It's a stone engineered to be a diamond replacement, as the article mentions. From there, what would you like to know? (My wife's a jeweler, so I'll probably have to forward the harder question, but as study-buddy for her gemologist education I know at least some trivia :) It's... a different stone. You can usually tell cut diamonds and moissanites apart with the naked eye once they reach a sufficient size. (Moissanites have a telltale rainbow sparkle, diamonds don't. Large moissanites have a color tinge, "good" diamonds don't) You can debate which one looks better - I prefer diamonds with an old european cut, because they're spectacular :) - but ultimately, it's a rock. You buy a pretty bauble because you like how it looks. There's very little intrinsic value here.
ivanhoe 8y ago
I always thought of the engagement ring tradition as a financial safety-net for a woman, in a culture where it was customary that only men work and women stay home. Woman in such setup has no "her" money, but if she owns an expensive ring that she can easily sell that gives her some level of freedom, if needed.
- Qub3d 8y ago
  Its an interesting theory, but falls apart in practice. The parent article mentions the abysmal resell value of diamonds. Ignoring the advertisement at the end, this article sums things up pretty well: https://www.diamonds.pro/education/sell-diamonds/ https://www.diamonds.pro/education/sell-diamonds/
xstartup 8y ago
There are many people crafting software with category theory, refactoring it 10 times a week, using whatever latest JS framework is the trend, then asking for a price. Most of it might mean absolutely nothing to a customer. But you think the price you charge is fair. Don't conflate the efforts you put, with that actual value of your product. Many software might have the same utility as of a diamond and may have the same price as a diamond.
0xcafecafe 8y ago
moissanite.net redirects to some diamond jeweler's site now. Any idea what happened to that domain?

392 points by nsomaru 8y ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12944464 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12944464

Another option: second hand diamonds, which diamond merchants will tell you don't exist. People die, if they don't pass their stones onto their children, this is where they end up. Sotheby's jewelly auctions. Know what you want, buy stones and ignore settings (they'll be dated and you can sell the metals), and know you're the only retail customer in a room full of diamond merchants. Another option: get a house deposit and work on building an eventual family with your woman rather than provide her with trinkets.

ainiriand 8y ago
It reminds me of one of my friends that owns 4 jewelries. One of those was converted to a sort of gold pawn broker when things got complicated in Spain. He showed me plastic bags full of diamonds that nobody wanted in the industry.
wycy 8y ago
How easy/hard is it to extract diamonds from these old settings and get a new setting for it? Where would one even go to get a diamond placed in a new setting?
- nailer 8y ago
  Easy. If you have the stone you can get a new setting (and the stone placed in it) at most high/main street jewellers. Everyone who reuses their family stones gets this done, so the jeweller won't mind doing it.
bowlich 8y ago
I've thrown around the property idea myself (we already own the house). Instead of the big ring, or an expensive party. I could buy her ten acres somewhere nice for a future retirement-vacation house. The value is almost guaranteed to appreciate over the course of our marriage (which strikes me as romantic) -- and if there is an unfortunate divorce, she has a chunk of valuable land to sell instead of a useless rock.

isostatic 8y ago

> If I can prevent a single reader from needlessly dropping $6,000-10,000+ on a diamond engagement ring, this site will be a success. Financial worries are the #1 cause of stress in a married relationship - there is absolutely NO excuse to start your married life by taking on that level of debt. Average U.S. wedding cost $30k in 2014, while the average engagement ring was $5600, or 19% of the cost [0] https://www.valuepenguin.com/average-cost-of-wedding https://www.valuepenguin.com/average-cost-of-wedding While reducing/eliminating the cost of the ring is a big saving, the entire wedding industry is a shocking way to start your marriage (especially given about half will end in divorce)

charlesdm 8y ago
Not everything is about money though. Want to have an extravagant wedding? Fine. Want something basic? Also fine. Yes: diamonds, jewellery, mechanical watches etc are all bad value for money. People don't buy them because they're bad value. They buy them because they like wearing them, and women buy jewellery because it makes them feel pretty. That's life. It's fine throwing money away sometime.
- darkcha0s 8y ago
  >mechanical watches [...] are all bad value for money Citation needed. Seriously, mechanical watches can be a great investment if you know what you are buying.
  - tgb 8y ago
    I think the meaning was in terms of a time keeping device not as a value store. The cheapest Walmart watch keeps time significantly better than the most expensive mechanic watch and many will last years of use.
- koolba 8y ago
  > That's life. It's fine throwing money away sometime. Sure if you have the money. The problem is that most people don’t and spend what would be a down payment on a house on complete bullshit. It’s a terrible way to start a marriage and likely leads to higher rates of divorce.

maaaats 8y ago

What is the difference between a diamond and an expensive handbag or other accessory? If a thing is worth what people pay, how come diamonds are a scam and other items not? I have a hard time grasping this everytime an anti-diamond article pops up. I can see the logic in not using that kind of money on a ring, but not what's so special about the price/scarcity/fashion of diamonds compared to other luxury goods.

kuschku 8y ago
Natural diamonds are exactly the same as synthetic ones. Except you have to pay much more, and people have to suffer unnecessarily in mines for it.
starbugs 8y ago
Who said that other items are not a scam as well? I think the point the author is trying to make is that you can invest your money more wisely if you buy something that retains its value instead of depreciating drastically the moment you close the transaction.
charlesdm 8y ago
Just another guy pointing out WHY they're a ripoff. Most luxury goods are "ripoffs" (from a financial point of view). Yet plenty of people love buying luxury items for the feeling it gives them and the experience, and because the item (in comparison to a non luxury item) is still much better. Nothing wrong with that in my view. Personally I don't share they view they're a ripoff, but to each their own. Have you ever bought a mechanical watch? I have, and I loved the experience -- from researching and exploring it, to visiting a few jewellers, to getting a good deal, to finally getting the item. I look forward to the day when I can buy my (to be) wife amazing pieces of jewellery, regardless of the price.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- stinos 8y ago
  Yet plenty of people love buying luxury items for the feeling it gives them For me that is the huge rip-off next to the financial part: for a lot of these luxury items the extra money doesn't get you proportionally more or better functionality nor quality (2 things which are imo actually worth money since they give you something practical and useful back). It's often more about looks and how it feels. But do the people really care about the looks themselves, or rather how they are perceived by others? And is that really worth pursuing? And does buying a feeling really work and how long does this feeling last? Also is the feeling 'real' or is it just made-up in the end because culture tells you it's like that?

mehwoot 8y ago

If you think that solely the physical properties of the stone are what matters then you dont understand the point of an engagement ring.

tzaman 8y ago
So what is the point of one?
- deleted 8y ago
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arethuza 8y ago
Well, I do understand the point of an engagement ring - what I am completely flummoxed by is the idea that you should spend a huge chunk of money on one. I got my wife an eternity ring as an engagement ring - not because of any rules but because we both liked it and it wasn't very expensive. Been married 27 years so far so it seems to have worked! ;-)
- peatmoss 8y ago
  > Been married 27 years so far so it seems to have worked! As I like to joke with my wife, it’s not a successful marriage until one of us dies. As for rings, we didn’t do an engagement ring, and my wife’s ring contains a sapphire mined from our home state.
thecatspaw 8y ago
A nice engagement ring does not require a diamond though. It does not require 3 months of salary. So what _is_ the point of an engagement ring? To show love? I can do that without a ring. To show I'm taken? I've got another ring for that. We both do. Those rings cost about 20$ together
antirez 8y ago
You are implying then that the point is to pay a lot of money and your future wife should be happy that you are paying a lot of money for a useless thing, just to show you did it. This is a bad ground for a relationship IMHO. Because otherwise the physical qualities (how it looks) is the whole point.

chrisseaton 8y ago

People who are against diamonds seem extremely aggressive about making sure other people agree with them and validate their opinions. I can't imagine making a website about any of my jewellery preferences (short of ethical, which isn't mentioned prominently here).

baud147258 8y ago
Well it's like vegans. Except here instead of animal suffering, it's human suffering; which can give a greater sense of importance to the cause. And in turn, it would make people against diamonds feels justified to be more aggressive.
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  The human suffering part is pretty far down this person's list of complaints against diamonds. Their principle problems are price and marketing.
harrumph 8y ago
>People who are against diamonds seem extremely aggressive about making sure other people agree with them and validate their opinions. People who profit obscenely from false scarcity, public relations manipulation and civil war seem way, way, way more aggressive about making sure the profits keep flowing.

tzaman 8y ago

Out of curiosity, what's all the fuss with engagement rings in the first place? When me and my wife got engaged, I gave her nothing (nor did she expect anything), just asked her to marry me and she agreed, we kissed and that was it. We did, however, made wedding rings, which together were about $1300, but that's because they were made out of gold. Why overcomplicate things? :)

mysterydip 8y ago
I assume peer pressure of some sort. When my now wife was telling all her friends she was engaged, the first thing they all asked was "let me see the ring!"
- tzaman 8y ago
  Must be cultural differences then - nobody around here (Central Europe) cares or asks about rings.
  - Freak_NL 8y ago
    It's seems to be mostly a US thing (it doesn't seem common in Western Europe either). It boggles the mind how spending several monthly salaries on a ring became a solidly embedded tradition over there.
    - glandium 8y ago
      It got to Japan too. Probably from the US.
    - skywhopper 8y ago
      You seem to believe the commercials more than most Americans do. The vast majority of people don't spend that much on an engagement ring (I'm pretty sure the commercials said "two months'" not "several" anyway--but still, that's nuts, no one I know spent anywhere near that much). An engagement ring is pretty entrenched as a tradition, sure, but not the boggling part about the expense.

LordHeini 8y ago

As a sidenote, the rings with diamonds thing is mostly an American fad. All people i know in Germany have just plain gold rings. It is way nicer because it is more a symbol of commitment than a show of wealth. Those never get out of style, can hardly be damaged and if need be can be replaced cheaply.

specializeded 8y ago
It is way nicer (in my opinion)* Diamonds are beautiful, and in my opinion much nicer than a boring solid gold ring. Still a scam, but a pretty one!
realusername 8y ago
In France it's the same, it's mostly gold or silver, one example website I found randomly on google:(http://www.histoiredor.com/fr/mariage/alliances/(univers)/homme http://www.histoiredor.com/fr/mariage/alliances/(univers)/ho...). Even when you search on google with the two languages, you see that difference clearly in the illustrations.
- baud147258 8y ago
  In France, you can have both: an engagement ring (with stones like diamands) and an "alliance" (wedding ring).
  - realusername 8y ago
    Engagement rings are very rare in France, I don't know personally any couple who did it and even the wikipedia page on it is very small, unless you are from the upper class or an international couple, it's pretty rare.
    - moviuro 8y ago
      Weird. Friends are getting engaged all around me and the ladies all have an engagement ring. No international couple nor upper class. Weird.

scandox 8y ago

People who buy engagements rings are simply spending lots of money as an expression of love and providing visible proof of that to other people. I don't think that's a great idea but everybody's different. So the value of diamonds is somewhat irrelevant.

FrozenVoid 8y ago
Nope, they're victims of succesful marketing campaign by De Beers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engagement_ring#20th_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engagement_ring#20th_century In 1938, the diamond cartel De Beers began a marketing campaign that would have a major impact on engagement rings. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the price of diamonds collapsed.[25] At the same time, market research indicated that engagement rings were going out of style with the younger generation. Before World War II, only 10% of American engagement rings contained a diamond.[26] While the first phase of the marketing campaign consisted of market research, the advertising phase began in 1939. One of the first elements of this campaign was to educate the public about the 4 Cs (cut, carats, color, and clarity). In 1947 the slogan "a diamond is forever" was introduced.[27] Ultimately, the De Beers campaign sought to persuade the consumer that an engagement ring is indispensable, and that a diamond is the only acceptable stone for an engagement ring.
mijamo 8y ago
You could do that without mined diamonds and all its negative consequences.
- scandox 8y ago
  Yeah big time. But you can say that about a lot of things. Point I'm making is that if people want to consume ridiculous things the current system we live under kind of favours that. If it isn't diamonds then it's going to be some other crap that requires other people to live lives of utter drudgery. That's kind of the point. If you want a vision of the future, Winston, imagine a Jimmy Choo stamping on a human face forever.

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boobsbr 8y ago

If your marriage being successful, fulfilling and happy depends on a chunk of expensive rock and/or metal, you'd better not get married.

GuB-42 8y ago
It is not about the object itself, it is about respecting your partner's values. If an expensive ring means a lot to your partner, then it is definitely important for your marriage. The same can be said for extramarital sex. Assuming proper precautions are taken to avoid medical issues, rationally, it is not a big deal. And yet, besides a small minority of couples who embrace open marriage, this is hugely important. If requiring some compromise warrants not getting married, no one will ever get married.
- gkya 8y ago
  It's also a measure of the value of your partner's personality. A SO which needs me to communicate in $$$ is the last thing I'd ever want in my life. It's a glaring symptom of a shallow personality.

cygned 8y ago

For German readers, I really recommend the following podcast episode about diamonds: https://cre.fm/cre218-diamanten https://cre.fm/cre218-diamanten

dkobia 8y ago

Unfortunately this is one of those American traditions we love to hate but are for the moment powerless to change. Your significant other may not care but societal pressure and expectation is hard to get around. She has a mother, sisters, friends etc. It is the same reason an expensive handbag makes absolutely no sense to a man but matters so much to a woman. It is confounding.

xg15 8y ago
In other words, as with most successful marketing campaigns (sadly), you can't dispel its effects simply by saying "it's a marketing campaign". (Edit/add: Though, contradicting my own argument a bit, I think point 2 and 4 - that there was deliberate effort to establish it as a "luxury item" and that today it's used to fund all kinds of atrocities - could be able to change demand of diamonds: They also change the things that wearing a diamond would imply about the wearer. The Mossanite argument makes no sense because one of the points of wearing a diamond is to be seen as "my significant other is rich and/or dedicated enough to gift me this" - however, no-one wants to be seen as a helpless brainwashed sheep or a supporter of war crimes.)
GimbalLock 8y ago
Powerless? No. Just don’t buy it. It really is that simple. You don’t have to change everyone’s mind. Just stand up for yourself.
- bitwize 8y ago
  And say goodbye to the girl of your dreams, who was really looking forward to showing her friends the "rock" on her finger and hearing them ooh and ahh over it. Even if she doesn't leave you over this, unless you somehow married a Hackernews you've set up the image in her head that you're a skinflint who isn't willing to provide for your wife and it will affect your relationship in negative ways. Is your autism that strong that you will put a pedantic commitment to your own head logic and fighting the evil forces of marketing above your wife's feelings? If so, maybe you don't deserve to be married.
  - 8y ago

xstartup 8y ago

Yes, this post missing the point that I as a diamond buyer already know this but it will not stop me from purchasing more diamonds. In a hypothetical world, if a diamond could be bought for $10K and sold for $10K, where is the risk? Then it's no longer for only rich, others can take a loan from a bank and purchase diamonds. When I pay for a diamond, I don't pay for its intrinsic value. I pay for diamonds because other people around me feel they are expensive and you've to be rich enough to set your money on fire (like you do while purchasing a diamond). It's a signal for others that I am "fuck you money" rich. The very same reason for which I purchase a sports car, yes a sports car does have some advanced engineering but the resale value is not same. As long as diamond purchase price stays up I'll keep buying. Only thing I want is that no other people are able to acquire them for cheap when I am willing to pay a premium. (I hate price discrimination, i've also worked hard for my money, why should anyone get them cheap?) Please stop treating me like a victim of De Beers campaign.

FrozenVoid 8y ago
No you purchase the diamond because of De Beers marketing techniques influencing people around and peer pressure. Its manufactured status symbol for the purpose of enriching exploitative diamond industry that strives to maintain its monopoly at all cost. The reality of diamond industry is far less polished than their PR material: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labour_in_the_diamond_industry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labour_in_the_diamond_in...
wycy 8y ago
How does a diamond represent "fuck you money" if everyone has them?
lgl 8y ago
When I pay for a diamond, I don't pay for its intrinsic value. I pay for diamonds because other people around me feel they are expensive and you've to be rich enough to set your money on fire (like you do while purchasing a diamond). It's a signal for others that I am "fuck you money" rich. This may have been a sarcastic post (?) but why do you care if other people think you have "fuck you money"? That just makes you look intellectually weak and poor imho. But here's one thing that "fuck you money" won't buy: class.

paulie_a 8y ago

The weirdest aspect about diamonds is they are not even that pretty. Plenty of other gems are much more beautiful for a lot less money.

forkLding 8y ago

I've always found it fascinating how powerful DeBeers' marketing is, considering that in nature gems like rubies and sapphires are much rarer than diamonds yet are worth considerably less.

Oras 8y ago

I know I will get a hell of downvotes for this, but "Brainwashed" term can also be applied to people trading Bitcoins? Some people agreed that it is valuable and gave some tokens a huge value and its a market now.

zeroxfe 8y ago
Diamond prices are artificially inflated by a single organization. Bitcoin is priced by the market. (Yes, there is lots of manipulation in the latter, but it's still not comparable to diamonds.)
- bluedevil2k 8y ago
  Wrong. The DeBeers monopoly doesn't exist anymore and the market sets the prices on diamonds. Nearly all diamonds are priced through auctions now a days.
nialv7 8y ago
Well, I guess it could be true that some people are "brainwashed" to trade bitcoin. But I think there are some differences between the two. First, diamond is not in itself useful. While it some industrial uses, that is not where its value comes from. The value of diamond is the result of misinfomation about its rarity and an extensive marketing campaign. On the other hand, BitCoin (or rather, blockchain) promised to be a distributed exchange, and more or less acheieves that. And although it is debateable whether its current valuation is reasonable, at least that grows organically from its use. The value BitCoin and diamond are both influenced by their limited availability. Diamond supply is tightly controlled by a corperation, but there is no guarantee that corperation will continue to have this controll indefinitely. On the other hand the limit on the number of bitcoins is more rigid and will only break if someone took controll of at least half of the network.
- bluedevil2k 8y ago
  Wrong. The belief that DeBeers is a diamond monopoly and controls the market is outdated. In fact, DeBeers is now only the 2nd largest diamond miner, after Alrosa, a Russian mining company.

josh_fyi 8y ago

Nothing says "Marry me! Marry someone who wastes lots of your shared money!" like a diamond.

andrei821 8y ago

> Isn't it amazing (and scary) how brainwashed people are about the "value" of diamonds, even though they're not actually worth that much? It seems to me that the same strategy is curently used in the crypto ecosystem.

chasingthewind 8y ago
I was wondering to myself "what are the diamonds of the HN crowd?" and found you've answered my question.

matthberg 8y ago

If I might ask, why was this flagged? It was last discussed in 2016 [0], and though it needs a [2006] tag, it is otherwise a really valid and interesting post. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12944464 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12944464

wyclif 8y ago
I wondered the same thing.

NikolaNovak 8y ago

Anybody know anything about this "Moissanite" thing? I find it interesting that in the 100+ comments here, there's no mention of the item the linked website so heavily promotes, yet I personally never heard of until now. One of the reasons I love HN is that usually relevant knowledge and experience will come out of woodworks and share their wisdom - so, anybody ever heard of "Moissanite"? :)

decimalstus 8y ago
Moissanite is another name for Silicon Carbide - it's often used as a diamond 'lookalike' in jewelry, as it's much cheaper to produce.
groby_b 8y ago
It's a stone engineered to be a diamond replacement, as the article mentions. From there, what would you like to know? (My wife's a jeweler, so I'll probably have to forward the harder question, but as study-buddy for her gemologist education I know at least some trivia :) It's... a different stone. You can usually tell cut diamonds and moissanites apart with the naked eye once they reach a sufficient size. (Moissanites have a telltale rainbow sparkle, diamonds don't. Large moissanites have a color tinge, "good" diamonds don't) You can debate which one looks better - I prefer diamonds with an old european cut, because they're spectacular :) - but ultimately, it's a rock. You buy a pretty bauble because you like how it looks. There's very little intrinsic value here.

ivanhoe 8y ago

I always thought of the engagement ring tradition as a financial safety-net for a woman, in a culture where it was customary that only men work and women stay home. Woman in such setup has no "her" money, but if she owns an expensive ring that she can easily sell that gives her some level of freedom, if needed.

Qub3d 8y ago
Its an interesting theory, but falls apart in practice. The parent article mentions the abysmal resell value of diamonds. Ignoring the advertisement at the end, this article sums things up pretty well: https://www.diamonds.pro/education/sell-diamonds/ https://www.diamonds.pro/education/sell-diamonds/

xstartup 8y ago

There are many people crafting software with category theory, refactoring it 10 times a week, using whatever latest JS framework is the trend, then asking for a price. Most of it might mean absolutely nothing to a customer. But you think the price you charge is fair. Don't conflate the efforts you put, with that actual value of your product. Many software might have the same utility as of a diamond and may have the same price as a diamond.

0xcafecafe 8y ago

moissanite.net redirects to some diamond jeweler's site now. Any idea what happened to that domain?