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Comment by krustyburger | Hacker News Reader

What kind of jewelry did people think they were getting for a few quid?

Of course, everyone who bought it already knew it was crap. It's the same thing for buying $15K engagement rings. Everyone knows it's a stupid use of money and that the rings have no value. Same goes for clothing, cars, and many other things.

These types of products succeed because of a shared delusion. Take fashion for instance. Everyone believes some clothes are more fashionable than others. The way you dress says a lot about you but why? It's simply because other people think it does. If the delusion runs into reality from the person hawking it, it can collapse quite quickly.

That's a far leap from engagement ring cost being the result of society sharing a delusion and believing there is a delusion with some clothes being more fashionable than others.

Psychology has a definition named the halo effect and it's very real. A person definitely gains advantages in society when they appear more attractive than less attractive. Naturally people associate good health with attractiveness and it's hard wired in us for finding a healthy mate compared to an unhealthy mate. Good choice of clothing for the frame of a person can enhance personal features and make a person look better than if wearing something less fitting. So there is some benefit & gain that can be made with understanding fashion of clothes as a real benefit. Is the advantage based on a delusion of a person being more healthy than another? Sure, but it isn't because people intentionally have a delusion about one shirt looking better than another.

If that were the whole story then fashion would never change. The idea that your clothes should be the right size doesn't have much to do with the weird color cycling that clothing companies try to foist on people.

I absolutely agree with some clothing is used for health/sexual/wealth signaling and it works to some degree. But these simple ideas don't nearly explain fashion. If fashion didn't include a huge amount of delusion, it would converge. It wouldn't shift with each generation.

We are more than hardwired to find the most capable mate. We're also hardwired to pick up social cues so if a large enough group of people believe something, we believe it too. If everyone you knew started wearing those MC Hammer pants tomorrow, how long would you hold out? If people suddenly and entirely stopped wearing ties with suits, would continue to wear the most unnecessary accessory ever? Why does everyone in tech dress so similarly?

Well, isn't it a similar process to ring prices? Everybody thinks spending few month of your life to finance some brown people exploitation is a way to show commitment and other desirable qualities for a mate, so doing so is advantageous.

yes, that's known as the famous "emporer's new clothes" effect

It's not delusion, it's signaling.

Signaling is the effort through which you participate in a shared delusion.

It's not (necessarily) a delusion though, because it is something rational non-deluded people would do. For example, to use a really simple toy example, if you're a man then buying an expensive ring for a women is a credible signal of commitment. Why? Because you can't fake the sacrifice of 6 months of sacrificed work in order to buy a ring for her.

If you're a man who wants a wife, this is a clear level headed choice to make. I think delusion as a term should not include optimal choices made by individual actors.

It's a rational move in a crazy delusional game created by the marketing department of a diamond company about 100 years ago. By doing such, you are simply perpetuating the delusion.

Sometimes it makes rational, logical sense to play the game. It's a form of intentional stupidity. Forgoing your rationality to get the things you want. If you ever worked at a large enough company, I'm sure you understand.

If I know it's crap, and you know it's crap, but I don't know that you know it's crap, I may think that it still works as a social signal. Once it becomes common knowledge, the jig is up.

There's a difference between both you and the recipient sorta knowing it's cheaper/cheap jewelry but, heh, people like us can't really afford the posh stuff. It's the thought that counts and all that. And the company's CEO describing it as "crap."

Cheap status symbols are a bit of a paradox. They are purchased with the intent of being indistinguishable from luxury status symbol at a distance, even though the quality of the item is what gives it status. There is an entire industry of forgery and a culture of shaming because of this.

Many commenters in this thread seem not to have imagined that people get pleasure from owning and using attractive things. I mean, hardly anything has the same appeal to everyone, but most luxury items that are aimed at the middle and upper middle class have more resources spent on making them attractive to look at and use. It's not as though being a "status symbol" was just an arbitrary thing unrelated to that. Conformity and symbolism are part of the value, but only one part.

Something that was good enough to invest a little of their hopes and dreams in. You are applying a sophisticated buyer's perspective to the situation of a fairly naive person; some customers would certainly recognize the sales strategy for what it was, but many younger or less well off customers would take the retailer's claims at face value at least for a while.

Sure, nobody might expect much of a pair of earrings bought to wear at a party for a couple of pounds, but you'd be upset if you bought an engagement ring and the stone fell out.

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