Diamonds Are Bullshit
blog.priceonomics.com
blog.priceonomics.com
Diamonds that are man-made[1] are stronger (fewer imperfections) than those that are mined from the earth. Because of this, industrial diamonds tend to be man-made. (for reference, industrial diamonds when cutting hard materials, such as metals).
While working on these diamonds, GE decided to start investigating making consumer level diamonds that could be sold for jewelry. They were able to produce diamonds that would have excelled when compared to natural diamonds (when it comes to the 4 Cs). One of the fun things was they could add various gases to the manufacturing process to create diamonds of various colors. There is still a decent cost associated with producing diamonds this way, so they probably would have still been expensive, but not at the levels that De Beers was charging at the time.
At this point GE started to look into what would happen if they would have actually gone down this line, selling consumer-level diamonds. After a little investigation, the GE lawyers and upper-management decided to kill off the idea as it would not have been worth the hassle. De Beers started a small campaign that was discrediting man-made diamonds, and it would have gotten a lot worse if GE even tried to enter the market. GE decided it was not worth the hassle, and killed the consumer-level diamond project.
De Beers has created an artificial market and they are doing what they can to prevent anyone else from entering their market. Most companies don't want to deal going up against them, so they just leave De Beers to run around gouging consumers.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_diamond#High_pressure...
That's kind of missing the point. If diamonds were 5 bucks a piece, women would no longer be interested in receiving rings bejeweled by them.
A woman wants a man who is financially secure. If you can't afford a shiny rock, you can't afford what's coming after it either, so there's no point.
It's a valid point, yes -- but kyrra couldn't have missed it, because no one had made it before you did.
I'm inclined to agree that you're right about the price being the point. I think it has more to do with "You're worth it to me". I still think it's utter bollocks.
The issue here isn't the scarcity of diamonds. It's the scarcity if women.
I realize how chauvinistic this rant sounds, but truly, I would rather give equivalent money to my fiancee's charity of choice than to these diamond shilling scumbags.
Charities, if you're listening, here's an idea: create uniquely identified jewelry (bracelets, necklaces) marketed as devotional donations, charge $5000 for them, and at least give men an option in the matter.
This is actually a very interesting idea. It has I guess a few complications--are we comfortable with making generosity a commodity? I'm not at all, actually--but at the very least it would be preferable to diamond rings.
As much as I think it'd be a great alternative to diamonds, my feelings on the matter have quickly been drawn to the same cynicism about diamonds.
It's a problem that we want to flaunt our wealth, _however_ we do it. It's the root problem.
The diamond industry is flawed because it's acting exactly as desired: to fulfill our need for vacuous display.
And flaunting your moral superiority? Well, that's not as bad as flaunting your wealth, but only because it's less practical. People notice and _hate_ when you're morally superior.
Isn't that a sad commentary? That when bragging about morals is more easily attacked than bragging about wealth?
There's something interesting in how when the social drive to appear wealthy approaches appearing moral, it is diluted and weakened. Just mere contact with the idea of morality is enough to lose our respect for the egregious use of wealth.
Perhaps if she's going to wear a ring for the rest of her life, she wants it to be a nice ring that is color neutral. Perhaps she doesn't want something cheap and easily replaceable acting as a symbol for your marriage.
Cubic zirconia or other gems might be cosmetically identical to a diamond. Wanting a $30K ring for its "color neutral" characteristics smacks of astroturfing.
And to be clear, it's not exactly as if women are the only ones who have this vice. Women are just the ones likely to receive engagement rings.
It's because social status by definition is a zero-sum game. For status symbols, the absolute value is irrelevant; but what matters is the value relative to your peers.
i.e. she cares more about symbols than about the real thing.
So CZ then? That saves money for the point below.
> Perhaps she doesn't want something cheap and easily replaceable acting as a symbol for your marriage.
You mean like having kids?
My wife and I eschewed engagement rings or expensive wedding rings (her's was a little pricey, but from an artisan jeweler, but not a lot of bling), instead we opted for spending the money on property (not our main residence). At the least, despite ups and downs here in the states, it has held it's value.
Charities or other personal investments really are a better option than the bling. That said, some people like the material status comparison.
How do you put charities on the same level as personal investments?
If you make an investment you have something that theoretically might increase in value (as your example "spending money on property"). If you give it to charity you feel good but that's not something that's not something you can retire on or insure the financial well being of your family (or pay for your children's college).
Yes, one is giving to others, one is giving to the couple. My point was, don't throw the money away on baubles.
My only point is that not ALL women are about making other women feel inadequate. Or showing off their diamonds. Many are actually just as disgusted as men are about it. And they prefer men who have that conscious, and will put some thought into an alternative.
However... Your last suggestion, I grant you, has merit.
How is that any different?
Or, maybe they actually care ..
"Wasting" resources is one of the ways to make sure that the signal (of fitness -- financial security for example) is honest.
Buying a ring, having a fancy sports car, owning a nice house, coming from a prestigious university... these are signals for sexual reproduction. "Look at me, look at what I can afford to do!"
It does signal financial irresponsibility. Who can demonstrate such a thing? Those who are actually financially secure. But then it gets to be backwards, as those who can barely afford to live paycheck to paycheck seek out these red herrings, these peacock's tails, before actual wealth and stability.
Same thing with ties. Those used to be signals of wealth. They evolved from the cravate, used by nobility to protect their shirts whilst eating. Being wealthy, these embryonic ties, the cravates, would be made of expensive materials. When those who weren't so wealthy got ahold of them and started using them as a display, it became backwards.
We now take off our ties, or toss them over our shirts to protect from getting dirty when we eat, because they're often quite expensive!
So, yeah. Diamonds signal financial security by being financially irresponsible. We're a species evolved to pay attention to status, to these symbols more so than the real value behind such things.
Not if you have assets that are considerably greater (have accumulated) than whatever your "salary" is.
Women can't talk for themselves? Do women still want a man who is financially secure? What about independent women? How many women have posted in this thread (compared to HN's overall male-female posting ratio)?
Or, as you indicate, perhaps that's just a symptom of the general male-female ratio.
I understand the point you're making -- the value of expensive things in signaling to someone you don't know. I can't see the point in marrying someone if I couldn't trust them with my bank account.
Edit: I'm realizing that this is entirely from my perspective. How does a woman without earning potential display her husband's wealth to her family and friends? She asks him to buy her an ornament to prove how much he values her. This puts the man above the woman, inequalizing them.
Is there any custom where a bride and groom exchange gifts of equal value?
No matter how nice a car is, the large-scale social consequences of flashing a status symbol should be considered before purchasing a brand associated with that, especially for a daily driver.
Last week I was in a sales training course where the trainer explained 'leitmotifs' of buyers, one being 'status', his example being 'a guy driving a Porsche and wearing a Rolex'. Of course there was one guy there with a Porsche and a Rolex who then found it necessary to defend his choices as being objective, rational, etc. (He didn't need to, but I guess it's hard not feeling being put on the spot in a situation like that). Still it was funny seeing him squirm while being hit over the head with all sorts of variations of your argument. (not that I disapprove of status symbols or some such thing, I'd buy them if I could afford them I guess :) )
Not sure what you mean here - are you saying 'show everybody the receipt'? That's not signalling, signalling includes 'being socially acceptable', which talking about how money you have or walking around showing your ATM receipts certainly isn't.
(Scroll down for more reporting on how the liberal view and equality mindset might currently clash with reality; the explosion of this comment thread is more evidence of the same phenomena)
Most of my female friends are professionals (graduate degrees, well-paying jobs, etc). The vast majority of them (literally 90%+) want a man who is financially secure. Part of it is attraction, but it's also part pragmatic. Most women will have kids at some point in their lives (the %-age of women who remain childless by 45 is actually trending down slightly after peaking around 20%), and even in 2013 the burden of child rearing still falls disproportionately on women. Women are still the ones that, disproportionately, compromise their careers to take care of children.[1] Given the statistics, even "independent" women have a rational reason to seek financially secure men.
[1] A longitudinal study of graduates of the UVA Law School class of 1990 found that while women and men went into private practice and to large law firms in similar proportions, after 20 years almost all the men were still working while half the women had either dropped out of practice entirely or were part-time.
Understandable, Why.. Continue reading..
>>Women are still the ones that, disproportionately, compromise their careers to take care of children.
Sorry. women 'want' to compromise their careers and take care of the kids. I'm not saying raising kids isn't tough.
But most men I know will happily stay back at home and take care of the kids, if the their wives would take up all the financial problems/responsibilities of the home.
'Compared'(and compared to raising kids) what you have to do make the financial ends meet. I would say most women will pick raising kids. That's more or less is a no brainer.
Women want diamonds not because of any symbolic reasons ("Diamonds are forever!") but because of reasons that are much more practical: they want to be able to show off the diamonds to their group of (female) and boost their social status among them. At the end of the day it is nothing more than a way of saying "I am better than you!"
This is why many women will accept, at the rational level, that diamonds are horrible and stupid and even evil (since they fuel all kinds of violence in Africa, where they are mined). But most of them will not be able to bring themselves to accept substitutes such as sapphires, rubies, or emeralds. Because that would make their female friends think that the guy does not value them as much (or that they weren't able to find a guy who finds them worthy enough for a diamond).
Social status. That's what it is all about.
For example my wife has a Sapphire ring (yes I know Sapphires can be made at any size artificially) and so does my brothers. A close friends wife has a Ruby and I have seen Emerald ones.
EDIT: And to avoid misrepresenting my wife, I should add it was not a diamond ring (it's a pearl). My wife worked in African before we got married and would have nothing to do with diamonds.
While they are young, status is the deal they want because of pressures from social circles.
A bit over 23 years ago I had a wedding which - including wedding bands - was under $200. I'm still married to her. We're both glad we didn't go into debt to get married...
So is divorce. I did the math, and it came up wanting.
I've been happily married for 10 years and paid about the same for our wedding and bands. It was a registry office and cheap rings.
It was about the marriage and not the wedding.
I think people forget this these days.
With inflation it would be a bit more today.
I suspect that the demand for diamonds for both men and women has way less to do with that kind of forward thinking (or subconscious status weighing), and way more to do with what an incredibly expensive marketing juggernaut has hammered into their heads since they were children. A lot is made of status games and seeking evolutionarily fit mates, but it seems to me that "advertising works" is a perfectly adequate solution.
For a somewhat analogous perspective, consider soft drinks. Do people buy Coca-Cola rather than a cheaper store brand because they want to signal their high status? No, they buy it because a ton of money has been spent convincing them that it's superior. And sure, some of them really would prefer Coke in a vacuum. But it's almost certain that a very significant chunk would be either indifferent, or prefer the generic brand in a world without advertising.
Social Proof, Envy - You're 28. Many of your good friends are married or engaged by now. All of them got diamonds. Your mother got a diamond. Your sister got a diamond. All of your celebrity idols got diamonds. Surely, it's a normal thing. There's nothing wrong with you wanting one, too, right?
Doubt, Insecurity - You're dating the man of your dreams. You love him and want to spend the rest of your life with him. Marriage is a big step, and you want to know he's committed. Sure, diamonds are useless and overdone, but it's expected of him to get you one. And a big one, too, if he can. You know it. He knows it. So if he doesn't, surely it's a subtle way of him saying, "You aren't worth it."
Fear of Loss - You've been looking forward to this your entire life. By the time you were old enough to consider the possibility that diamond-giving is a dumb and arguably immoral tradition, you'd already spend 15 or 20 or 25 years wanting one. You'd already accepted that you would get one. The fear of loss is a powerful force, even when you're "losing" something you don't have yet.
Inconsistency Avoidance - Refusing to accept a diamond would undoubtedly and repeatedly put you in the position to explain yourself. In a way, it's a silent judgment of all those who do accept diamonds. You've never denounced them in the past. In fact, you were right there with all your friends joking about how big of a rock you'd get some day. So denouncing them today will seem inconsistent, and you don't want to be inconsistent. Nobody does. (If you doubt this this a major psychological factor capable of influencing behavior, read Cialdini's "Influence".)
Etc.
Advertising spend in and of itself isn't a reason people buy things. Nobody ever said, "I want a Coke because Coca-Cola spent $3B on marketing this year." Instead, people want things for primarily carnal and psychological reasons. Because it's hot outside and you know Coke is cold. Because you're craving stimulation and you know carbonation tickles your mouth. Because you know your friends with their big expensive rings will think less of your relationship if you don't get one, too.
Good marketers understand human psychology and play to its weaknesses.
1. Cognitive dissonance reduction: he spent so much, so to avoid cognitive dissonance he's going to tell himself she's worth it. Helps keep marriages together. It is the same reason that hazing ritual happen in college and why secret societies have all sorts of strange initiation rituals, often hazardous or difficult. - Easy way to test this would be RQ: Do couples with relatively more expensive wedding rings for their income level(s) stay together longer than those who spend less on their wedding ring (controlling for other initial ritual costs like the wedding, although I suspect similar effects and interactions there).
2. Symbolic Interactionism This suggests that the initiation rites are there precisely to bind people together socially. It's a social-level theory explanation for all of the rites of passage rituals which are common in mating-couple pairing cultures in humans (and probably other primates, for that matter). A big token like this is a constant reminder of the commitment, and the meaning ascribed to this again helps with the ongoing project. If course this is entirely consistent with the marketing phenomenon, as it's more of an anthropological descriptive approach.
3. and oh... Shiny!
'Blood is thicker than water' when referring to family over people you encounter.
Beyond the shared experiences and the irrational bond (I use the phrase as devil's advocate whilst being happily irrationally bonded with my family), there's not a lot to prescribing value to familial relationships over other ones.
We prescribe irrational value to diamonds, because offering a big rock to a bride in front of our family imbues value beyond the intrinsic worth of the rock.
That happened thirty years ago and we are still happily married with three kids, two of them in college right now and one in high school.
Advertising does one thing, and one thing only: create symbolic associations. (Well, I guess web ads are a departure, since the goal is a click).
What does Coke's advertising budget actually pay for? Images of people having fun and drinking Coke, which are then distributed through every media known to man. Three billion just for Coke = fun, popular. Think about that for a minute, and you'll recognize it's almost impossible to comprehend how intimate symbols really are, how they turn something intangible into something real that you can buy.
Now let's look at the diamond. In my opinion there is only one association that actually drives the purchase. Diamond = marriage. And not just marriage. The loving side of marriage, the tender and personal one as opposed to the banal legal one symbolized by a certificate or the familial one symbolized by the ceremony.
You can come up with a story as to why you don't have one, but there always must be a story. The diamond needs no story, because it's already a symbol. I'd love to see some examples of the early advertising campaign the article discusses.
Imagine instead buying a plastic ring for your beloved which would have engraved the account number and sum total of your engagement 401k you bought for the love of your life.
Diamonds are a sign of social status in large part because De Beers marketing has convinced them (and their friends) that it is a sign of social status.
The connection between diamonds and social status in this case is supporting evidence for the assertion that "advertising works".
Basically came down to some variation on "I don't ask for a lot (she doesn't), but I want the diamond ring."
As some one newly married, I have observed the following.
1. See <something>. Demand for it.
2. When rationally explained why we can't buy it.
3. Simply state.. "I don't ask for a lot, but I want the <something>."
4. I buy it.
"Great idea, I never thought about it, we really need <something>! Problem is, this particular model of <something> is not the best and will not do <something that something is supposed to do> very well. In fact I remember reading bad reviews about this. But fear not! We'll go home, spend some time reading review sites and will find a really good version of <something>."
This will buy you some time, and might even look that YOU want it, which might even make it less appealing to your other half. Now, find a really expensive model of something, but at such price point that the rationality wins, even in someone who usually does not listen to your arguments (step 2). YMMV, but sometimes this tactic works out quite well.
There are a lot of girls out there you haven't met yet. Go find one who gets you.
Of course if she wants it, it's useless.
I've always wondered how other diamond rings get recycled or removed from the market. Diamonds are forever, after all, so why doesn't the price collapse from being awash in used stones from three or four generations of dead women?
After a certain age is reached though, the stigma seems to go away somewhat. We got a 'vintage' ring (about 100 years old) in the end - but they're hard to find; you won't find them in most chain jewelry stores.
Incidentally, the reason you don't see many used bands is different; the metals are worth so much now that it's more cost effective to melt them down than to resell them at the depressed price the market demands for used jewelry compared to new.
Bear in mind that it is in the jeweller's interest to perpetuate such superstitions as it means they can persuade many customers to buy a new ring instead.
Buying a diamonds as a romantic gesture, the buyer is vulnerable for two reasons:
1) They're unlikely to have much experience of buying jewellery; for many, this is the only occasion.
2) They probably feel very strongly about the gesture; it's very important that they get it right. Overspending pales beside the risk of offending the love of their life and/or subjecting them to negative judgement by their peers.
As a result, it is all too easy for jewellers to intimidate the buyer by telling them exactly what is 'expected' and charging absurd prices for it.
Still, 'real' superstition or manufactured one, we didn't fall for it. I suspect many do though. A web search for "used engagement ring back luck" reveals the superstition is pretty widespread.
[Edit: Not that I mean that many people actually _believe_ that the used status of the ring will affect their marriage - I suspect they're more concerned on how their partner and, perhaps more so, their peers will judge their decision]
De Beers marketing worked on you. It is not that hard to destroy diamonds. Google "burning diamonds" for examples.
| It doesn't have anything to do with financial
| security. Look, if your man is spending three
| months worth of salary on a piece of shiny
| rock, he is exercising poor financial judgment
| and that is a signal against future financial
| security.
Besides, depending on the cost of the ring, and the length of the marriage, it would make you more likely to terminate the marriage over time as the cost of the ring gets amortized over the length of the marriage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engagement_ring#Legal_ownership
Since you'll have to decline one of these proposals, one of them gets their ring back. Which one are you more likely to accept? All things equal, the 20k resale ring.
That's true. But why do diamonds have high social status? Because they are expensive. They are a reliable signal of the wealth of the man. Social status is a proxy for actual wealth and power, and thus the probability of wealth and power for the woman's potential offspring.
Unfortunately they have become such a strong signal that people without wealth to spare feel compelled to over-spend on them. Like a peacock's tail.
Spending a hundred bucks on something useful is not a signal showing wealth; but lighting a cigar with a hundred dollar bill is such a signal.
Being seen with, say, an expensive computer is less powerful wealth signal than being seen with an exactly equally expensive ring; the computer might be (even if it isn't) practical, but the ring states "hey, I can afford to waste money, so if you don't then obviously I'm of a higher social status/pecking order than you".
Man am I lucky I got married right at the end of college and we purchased the engagement ring and wedding bands together to negotiate the price down, for far less money. I can't ever imagine my wife wearing rings like that. When we bought them, the sales lady told us we "can always upgrade the stone later" and we both laughed at the idea. We're still laughing, actually.
I spent quite a chunk of change on an engagement ring for my fiancée, but it was closer to a week's salary. I think if I'd spent three months salary on it the rock would be so big she wouldn't be able to lift her hand.
I'm making good money, but we're not exactly talking Fortune-500 CEO levels here.
I'd be kinda tempted buying one that big for a woman because, you know, if we're going to go for a vulgar display of wealth, then let's make it really f*cking vulgar :)
(I still have better things to do with the money...)
If you goto a diamond store (that houses tons onsite) and just go for eye appeal rather than rating. You can get a '15-20k$' mall diamond for a third or less.
The funny thing is that diamonds are one of the most unstable minerals when taken out of the conditions they were formed. Although, it would still take thousands of years for them to turn into graphite.
This is, sadly, so very very true.
When I was proposing I wanted to get an alternative precious stone that would be actually rate - or, at least, a man-made diamond. I told my SO everything about how they're not rare, the price-fixing, the conflict diamonds - but she barely budged because of what her friends would think of it. I managed to sell the idea of a man-made diamond, but eventually had to settle for a natural one which wasn't sourced from Africa because of just how rare they are and how difficult it was to ship them to my country.
Because Africa is all one big war zone. Because any money sent to Africa funds violence.
Seriously? Why is it so much better to buy from Russia than South Africa or Botswana? (the money's all going to De Beers -- which was originally a South African company -- or a similar multinational anyway).
The top four diamond-producing countries in Africa (the top two are actually not African: Russia and Canada) are Botswana, Angola, South Africa and Namibia. All of these countries are poor, sure. They all have some political problems, sure. But they are all democracies with somewhat functional governments; none of them are at war (the Angolan civil war ended in 2002).
Multinational mineral companies aren't always the best thing for locals, but the idea that the only money sent to Africa should arrive on a UN food truck is far worse.
Canadian ice diamonds, on the other hand, are all laser-engraved with a serial number, making it possible to verify each diamond's authenticity and source. According to the jeweller I spoke to, the only guarantee she could make is 'Canadian' or 'not Canadian'; she couldn't even guarantee me African, Russian, etc.
She did, of course, offer to sell me a ring with 'who knows' diamonds and then remove them and put Canadian diamonds in, but at that point I'm paying for 'who knows' and Canadian diamonds, which seemed a little idiotic.
Hmm, actually, they aren't perfectly fungible. 100 one-carat diamonds aren't worth the same as one 100-carat diamond, and even diamonds of the same weight aren't substitutable. But with respect to country of origin, yeah.
Wanting superficial respect based on material things is sad.
And to drive the point home: those diamonds you see in rings have a non-negligible chance of coming from child slaves, who have been torn from their families in civil war and will probably be setting off land mines once the diamond mines run out. I actively disrespect the choice to purchase them.
> What differentiates "superficial" respect from genuine respect?
This question is quite telling.
There is an interesting couple of articles on the subject here:
http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/01/what_would_you_do_if_...
http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/02/what_would_you_do_if_...
I found it quite hard to extract anything from those articles. I think what it's trying to say is that if the ring becomes an issue then the relationship may be far from perfect anyway.
But then, I don't see how she'll be satisfied with any ring. Surely if a guy could sacrifice this much he could sacrifice just a bit more - so she may not be that valuable to him. I don't even want to start thinking about a guy who can afford a bigger rock suddenly showing up :D
Basically, the moral of the story, for me, was: 1) Avoid women who don't know their worth and require external confirmations; 2) Develop your own sense of self-worth by doing something worthwhile, then finding a like-minded woman would be easier.
I think.
I think my SO would be happy with an alternative stone (or perhaps no stone at all!) and that's because her and my friends largely aren't the type to ogle a ring, a watch, or a car. Friends that do fancy material things are able to recognize it and laugh at their own materialistic tendencies because they are the outliers in our circles. Watches are cool but experiences are cooler (plus my g-shock from '98 happily survives the abuse travel and hobbies give it).
Now, we aren't a couple that will settle for tying human hair around our fingers and calling it a wedding band, but I sure as hell won't be spending 20 grand on a rock. And my friends will happily accept the free rounds that savings can cover over the next xx years.
The Mating Mind, Geoffrey Miller
I don't get it. Why would you even want to be engaged with women so stupid to want a shiny rock no matter what. If anything I'd want a man-made diamond, because it's cooler. I never even heard of the rule that you have to get a diamond ring for engagement, guess that's a USA thing. Well, my BF still bought me a good monitor, which is much more useful.
Have some extra you want to keep for harder times? Convert it to gold and hang it on your wife's ears. Many other things we take for granted now are storage: cheese, wine, ham, jam are all efficient ways to store food.
So giving a diamond to your wife is just a supplemental reserve of wealth. Read only two books about people of the past, you'll see many stories of ladies selling their earrings when in trouble and getting through by this mean.
Now, rather than bragging about how big and expensive the stone is, my wife happily shows off her ring and tells her girlfriends how I made it for her, and how beautiful and special it is.
My wife is the most awesome woman ever! (Source: Personal experience and careful study and observation).
The rest of the ring I'm including fragments from a martian meteorite, a lunar meteorite, and a deep space iron meteorite...... and then other gems from every continent. :)
That is AWESOME that you made your ring. I'm having this one made... as I just... seriously lack the artistic skill to create what I want. :)
Here's the obligatory xkcd comic: http://xkcd.com/260/ It's about glass, but the resulting piece is very cool because of the story.
She and I love traveling and travel a lot-- I wanted her ring to represent every place mankind has gone/will go to in our lifetime.... I bet there are few objects in the world that have been combined with pieces from so many distant origins.
An article similar to this came up six months ago, at about the same time I was getting ready to propose to my fiancee. It sparked this comment thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4536010
patio11 suggested that I wasn't "selling" her correctly. Women want the story, the status, the "Facebook status". So that's exactly what I did.
I bought her a white gold ring with a purple sapphire. It took me over a month to find the right gemstone. While it may not be as expensive as an equivalent weight/quality diamond, it is incredibly hard to replace, since they're so rare.
I also made sure that the white gold was made with palladium instead of nickel + rhodium-plating, since I was concerned about skin irritations. I had it completely custom-made, with the design done in CAD and 3D printed. As an engineer, this was awesome. My fiancee didn't quite appreciate that as much as I did, admittedly, but she did say it was cool.
Having done all that, I still spent a lot less money on the actual ring than if I had bought a diamond ring. So with the remaining money, I booked a flight to Rome for a 24 hour trip, to catch her by surprise on her last day of her Europe vacation she was on with her sister. I surprised her in a spot I had coordinated, and I hired a local photographer to take engagement pictures of us throughout Rome.
So I didn't buy a diamond, but I did end up spending about the same amount of money. However, I was able to "sell" my fiancee on the rarity and authenticity of the ring, and the story of the proposal. To this day, she looks back on the ring, the pictures, and remembers it all fondly.
So diamonds may be bullshit, but the story and memories aren't.
You may be interested in signalling theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory
What a quaint and gross way of looking at the world.
Yes, women seek men with status and financial security. I'd give you a pointer to a specific line or paragraph, but its all relevant.
There's a difference between wanting something and demanding it.
You'll find it shocking that in some parts of the world people are happily married without any jewelry at all.
A shiny rock is not a proxy for communication.
Maybe you think that flashing your wealth, not unlike a peacock fanning out their feathers, will get you a mate. It probably will, but it will probably be the kind of mate that is attracted to money.
> If the girl is even slightly intelligent she'll be able to make an assessment without needing a glittery ring.
Because she's clairvoyant? An expensive car can be rented or borrowed, a house can be inherited, bank statements easily faked. Men do these sorts of things. Frequently.
But a ring she has been pining on and on about? A ring she can easily get appraised? No. You can't fake that. You will need to fork over the cash and when all of your money is going toward regular expenses and all of a sudden you have to fork over 10K in cold hard cash, that's a strain and a fine test of a man's ability to withstand financial shock.
Wait til you have a baby. Now that's a real financial shock.
>A ring she can easily get appraised?
right before he talked about how hard it is to fake.
You can't fake a diamond that will fool an appraiser just as easily as a bank statement. It's much easier to covertly verify the value of diamond than the validity of a bank statement.
Without the help of professional services, a layman can be easily fooled in either context.
However, if the layman is going to get the diamond appraised by a professional, then the same standard should be applied to the other task. One can likewise use professional services to accurately determine a person's net worth.
My point remains.
That is simply not possible to do with a bank statement, there is no equivalent easy to use affordable service.
Given equivalent conditions, the two tasks are equally easy.
Hiring a PI to investigate someone is no where near as easy and affordable as dropping off a ring at a jeweler.
A jeweler can appraise a ring in less than an hour for less than $100, a PI will want at least a $500 retainer.
In addition a your average PI is going to have a hard time getting bank account information. His buddy in the police can't get that information without a court order.
>quasi-legal means like social engineering
There is no quasi-legal about it. It is explicitly illegal. And it's going to cost you a hell of a lot more than $100 to get a PI to risk jail time for you.
The only way for a PI to get someone's bank account information is by either pretending to be the person, or knowing someone on the inside. Either way is illegal and could be a huge problem for you if you hired someone to do it. (there are ways to do it legally, there could be public record from old civil proceedings, but that wouldn't tell you the current balance)
Appraising a ring without the giver's knowledge:
1. Drop off ring at jeweler
2. Pay $100
3. Pick up ring the next day
Determining the validity of a bank account without the owner's knowledge:
1. Make appointment with PI
2. Discuss specifics of case with PI
3. PI says he can't take the case because what you're asking is illegal
4. Repeat steps 1, and 2 until you find a PI who will accept
5. Pay PI huge retainer.
6. Wait 2 weeks, and hope law enforcement doesn't find out that you hired someone to break the law for you
Is it?
And why exactly is it the man's responsibility to provide financial security for the woman?
And I always thought women wanted equal rights. Its seems they only want a life long vacation at some body else's expense.
I'm sure for most women it's not that it is the man's responsibility to provide financial security, but that the man is going to work with you to be financially secure rather than against.
If you've spent your twenties working hard and saving, you probably don't want to marry someone who's spent their twenties running up a credit card bill. You very likely will spend your life together arguing.
Not that a diamond ring is necessarily the best way to demonstrate financial responsibility.
Wanting a mate who is financially secure doesn't make a woman a gold digger. It's no different than the vast majority of men who want a physically attractive mate.
>You'll find it shocking that in some parts of the world people are happily married without any jewelry at all.
Yes, different cultures have different standards (and there are outliers within cultures). In some places a herd of goats functions as a status symbol, in the US a diamond serves this function.
That doesn't mean that every woman here absolutely requires a man who can buy her a diamond, but the majority do.
Not everyone has two SUVs, two kids in private schools, and a vacation home.
>That doesn't mean that every woman here absolutely requires a man who can buy her a diamond, but the majority do.
right after talking about the US--meaning I was discussing women here in the US, where it is demonstrably true that the majority of women demand diamonds.
It's not sexist or derogatory. Financial security and status are evolutionary concepts that predate the diamond district. Diamonds are just one manifestation of a deeper, hardwired instinct to seek fit and capable mates.
This isn't a cynical concept, it's backed by studies of the entire animal kingdom, not just humans.
For example, demonstrate you can care for a dog goes a long way. Owning and maintaining a house even further.
A friend of mine got married. He could've bought his wife an extravagant engagement ring, but he put it to her in different terms, along the lines of: "Would you like an expensive ring, or what about something symbolic and we'll put the rest into a down-payment on a better house?"
They didn't squander tens of thousands on a wedding, nor went on a lavish honeymoon. They started out with money in the bank and a hefty down-payment made on a new house, not credit-card debt.
I really doubt that a significant percentage of those under ten will even bother with a diamond ring when at the age where they'll be getting engaged. By then they'll either be so saddled with student debt as to make the purchase impractical, or they'll be working two minimum wage jobs just to get by.
Fitness indicators change and trend between civilizations. Right now, with the predominance of capitalism, having a lot of "stuff" or access and ability to acquire "stuff" means you're a worthy sexual partner.
Yet very pervasive.
It would just have to be shiny, small, expensive, and easily seen.
The need for displays of status are common to many animals, humans included. There is a fundamental need there that will be filled if you devalue the predecessor.
Why pick on diamonds anyway? The fashion industry is just as bad - thousands of dollars for garments that cost a fraction of that to produce - and all because people wish to show social status by the clothes they are wearing.
A diamond is no worse than an expensive holiday, a new car, a new suit - whatever. At least a diamond is very durable and can be with the wearer for a lifetime if they so choose.
* A minority of men are truly financially secure, doesn't seem to stop couples from marrying
* Lots of people marry when young, a time when financial situations tend to be weak/modest.
* With this kind of reasoning you might as well extend the 'what's the point to marriage' to include those who are financially secure, it's ridiculous
* A woman, calculating enough to decide the decision on whether to marry on the current finances of a man, is just as likely to assess a broad range of factors, such as health and future earning potential.
If you're going to take a sober point of view, a more convincing case is this: The social norms are that diamond rings are part of the marrying process, people, on the whole, tend to stick to the social norms. It's what is expected, it's cultural and doing feels 'wrong' and maybe even shameful. There's potential pain involved in not following the expected course of action. This is why people who go into extra debt to purchase an expensive ring, it's what it means if you don't get it.
If you have a couple that clouds their better judgment to meet expectations set by culture and by conforming to norms like a sheep, what's the point.
In my experience women (and men) want to feel special. If you are able to make your partner feel special on an ongoing basis, you have pretty good odds to create a meaningful partnership. A diamond ring purchase is not a reliable indicator of said ability (it may be indicative of the opposite, but that's another matter).
It's a great test for gold-diggers, though.
When I was single, I found the Epstein article compelling. Then, I met the right woman, and I realized the article missed the point. If a woman you love feels good because you got her a diamond ring, then the diamond has served its purpose (to communicate that you listened to what she wanted, and got it, and that she is important). I listened to my wife, I got her a diamond ring she liked, and she has fond memories of our engagement.
My sister wanted a ring that didn't have diamonds. My brother-in-law wisely listened, got her one without diamonds, and she was happy.
If you got a great marriage out of it, and your wife has fond memories of getting engaged, then nothing about the ring really matters. If you can overpay a few thousand dollars for a ring, and get a great marriage in return, you just made the best trade of your life. What matters is that you listen to what your fiance wants, and got her something that communicates your attentiveness to her.
Whether the ring has real financial value, or diamonds are a marketing invention, is entirely irrelevant.
You COULD not get your wife a diamond ring, you COULD not take her out for Valentine's day because it's a made-up holiday, you COULD not get her a Christmas present because you think it's a commercial holiday, etc. But... well good luck with that.
It's not rational; it's an emotional. Society has a tremendous emotional investment in the concept of the diamond engagement ring.
If a much less expensive synthetic diamond were to enter the marketplace, it would have the same problem as a CZ. Anyone who purchases one would either have to be honest about their purchase, and therein lose the social status benefit, or lie about their purchase, in which case they might as well have bought a CZ.
What other manufactured fairy tales have huge quantities of humans swallowed hook line and sinker?
[1]http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/625/who-decided-wom...
"The gist of the article is that U.S. women were browbeaten into shaving underarm hair by a sustained marketing assault that began in 1915. (Leg hair came later.) The aim of what Hope calls the Great Underarm Campaign was to inform American womanhood of a problem that till then it didn't know it had, namely unsightly underarm hair."
[2]http://history.barnard.edu/sites/default/files/inline/kirste...
"In July of 1915, the first Gillette razor for women came on the market. But where Gillette had responded to a clear void in the men’s hair removal market, he now faced the dilemma of promoting to a market that did not yet exist. Hence Gillette was responsible for introducing to American women the revolutionary concept of shaving."
[3]http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1542-734X.1982....
:)
(I kid, I kid... we're actually a Rails shop ourselves)
If you blind taste test wines, it looks like there's nearly no correlation between price and quality above $5-$10 a bottle.
Now, there is a lot of bull inovlved in some wine places, but don't commit the baby and bathwater fallacy by saying it's all rubbish!
How do you know that after "honing your palate" you you'll calibrate your sense of taste to actual quality of wine, rather than to whatever the difference is between more and less expensive ones? People can learn to see any kind of patterns if they try hard enough, but that doesn't mean those patterns are in any way useful or relevant.
I frequently prefer cheaper wines to more expensive ones, and agree price-quality correlation is not good, depending on what your wine source is, but at the same time you're going to have to find good data to demonstrate no correlation: for price is one (flawed but still input-data-rich) indicator!
We do fool ourselves with patterns, but also we do not. AFAIK there is not enough research to rove it either way, but qualitative methods can point us to better theories to work with until we have good enough constructs for quantitative analysis for our minds' perceptions.
I don't understand this. Flavourful chemicals aren't a scarce resource to "go around" -- they're organic compounds plants synthesise "from scratch" (or their reaction products, after aging). Perhaps scarce soil nutrients influence this, for better or worse (I don't know), but this isn't a priori obvious.
Wikipedia didn't help me resolve this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yield_(wine)#Yield_as_an_indic...
I tried and failed (wikipedia) -- can you point me to something informative? I don't know what I'm looking for.
There is a finite number of nutrients in the soil, and the plant can make a finite amount of such things out of these nutrients (like phenols in the grape skins and... er.. this is not my subject, but I can look it up again myself should I have to).
In general they're not finite. Phenols are just C,H,O -- they're made from water and CO2. All of these compounds, as far as I can tell:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenolic_content_in_wine
I haven't found anything that says that, for example, soil nutrients correlate with phenol concentrations in vines (for example). It's not obvious.
I'm interested to see how they did it. I'm open to new data and changing my mind (I have done several times already, and used to be insufferable!) but I want to see several studies with good method.
I see you're not denying that more expensive wine can taste better, and I misread this at first to think that you were denying any possible objective (conventionally-agreed at least) values for "higher quality" wine and that it was all bull. You haven't said that, and so I think you're not contesting that, but just noting the market's strangeness, that there is no relation in price and a wine's agreed quality.
Correct! Price correlates with rarity and place of origin and all sorts of other neat stuff, but as far as 'will I like this wine?', ain't no there there.
That said, individual people should buy based on their tastes - but a $20 bottle of Burgundy wine has even odds to be better than a $40 bottle of Burgundy. The only way is to try it!
Come on - even if you're against the industry and everything they stand for, a large, well cut, diamond under the extreme lighting of a jewelry store counter is a beautiful thing.
De Beers should have been investigated for cartel / monopoly practices but they just too well politically and economically connected.
They are bit like the American Rifle Association only on steroids and then some. Rather untouchable.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4535611
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1405698
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1110283
1: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-you...
I'm not much of a fan of simply rewriting content for one's blog.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4522922
It's funny to see how that article recirculates. One of my first comments on HN was a link to the same The Atlantic article (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4523063)
I've studied and analysed what we did wrong / why we failed to gain traction - and might try to attack the problems from a different angle if we decide to give it a second shot.
Raynier posted this deep down in a reply which might be lost to you if you don't read all the comments. It would be a shame to miss it. Read it, along with the reasoning where he says such criterias would be perfectly valid for his own daughter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5404423
It seems perfectly valid, yet I could not disagree more. We are forgetting a important (4) : you fund atrocious wars and dictatorships. That's a strong negative externality.
When you see a diamonds, instead of seeing a shiny rock, you should see part of a human soul instead, a fraction of a person who died in vain for this worthless piece of rock you want for your wives or daughters to "sustain the tradition".
If social convention required 1 pound of flesh taken by the knife on a living human, would you insist on it, for the sake of the tradition? (I fear many would - after all, it matches the 1,2,3 requirements)
If social convention requires a diamond, which you know very well will cause war, death and misery, and if you did not say yes to the previous question, why are you insisting on it?
It strikes me as illogical, inconsistent. Either you believe that human life is more important than tradition, or you don't. I can understand diverging opinions, I can hardly understand inconsistency in a system of belief, so I'm very sad to see intelligent replies advocating this 1,2,3 argument while missing the huge downside #4 is.
Maybe someday the sale of things containing "natural diamonds" will be banned - just like the sale of things containing bald eagles feathers.
IHMO, it should: as much as I love the market and freedom, sometimes externalities are just too big to be ignored - especially when there is also a monopolist in action, and perfect substitutes like man made diamonds.
It's massively hypocritical to single out diamonds amongst all this.
> "If you're an American, your comfortable life exists because of the American government's willingness to inflict violence on other people to maintain our status in the world"
There are few alternatives with our current technology, if the american way of life is not to be negotiated, so let's leave that aside. In any case, when north america becomes self sufficient again or even a net exporter of energy, things will change.
OTOH, for diamonds, there does not seems to be any change in sight. They are a massive hypocrisy, with the huge negative externality of fuelling wars and human misery - and they are controlled by a monopolist!
I'm sorry maybe I'm too heartless and an economist in the soul, but I just can't dig this idea. Diamonds are awful in any way I can see them. And I miss my life partner because of this IT WILL BE A GOOD THING: better splitting up early : both the costs and the emotional attachment will be lower.
EDIT: you talk about taking a train, walking, relocating - that's not acceptable for most people; also it will cause them undue burdens. Replacing a shiny rock by a purer shinier rock is possible and simple. It just requires some cultural or legal changes (think bald eagle feathers) which seems already underway.
The negative externality caused by diamonds is tiny in comparison to the ones caused by fossil fuels.
For individuals, there are reasonable, cost-effective substitutes to reduce oil consumption. I take an electric train to work and walk everywhere else. I own a car, but drive it maybe once a month. People choose to drive, they choose to live in places like Silicon Valley where driving is part of the culture, they choose to live in suburbs, etc. We could use a lot less oil if people chose to life in places like New York. But the choice to live a car-centric lifestyle probably won't engender as much vitriol here on HN as the choice to buy a diamond engagement ring, even though in the grand scheme of things it's far more damaging.
For individuals, there are reasonable, cost-effective
substitutes to reduce oil consumption.
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2012/12/are-silicon... http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/01/silicon-val...
Not in the USA.
Building anything other than car-dependent sprawl is illegal in the USA. The few areas grandfathered in before New Deal laws and regulations in the 1930s are expensive for their scarcity. It's a major driver of NY and SF real estate prices that you're not allowed to build anything like them anywhere in the USA.
And if you do move to NY or SF, you're not doing the environment any good. You just displaced someone else out of the city into car-dependent sprawl. The only way to use quality and efficient urbanism to improve the environment is to build more of it and no demand or price increase will do that because, as I mentioned, it's illegal.
I recommend "The High Cost of Free Parking" by Dr. Shoup, and "The Geography of Nowhere" by Kunstler if you want to understand more.
You're trying to handwave over the fact that you're accepting something instead of dealing with it temporarily.
And if you're doing that, you've already lost, you just haven't admitted it to yourself.
Don't you get it? Here, right here and right now, is where we're having a conversation about what we want to value. And you're on the side that says we should still value it, and trying to excuse yourself by saying we're not having all of the other conversations.
But we are. Just not here.
2) I didn't say adoption is bad for smart parents I said its not equivalent to having children of your own for smart parents. There aren't exactly a ton of children of high IQ couples in the adoption market. My bother in law is adopted and he is a doll and adoption is great. But it's not completely equivalent to having your own kids.
2) I should've let it go, I have no desire to argue to have an irrelevant discussion about adoption that already offends my sensibilities.
I care that when the lens is focused on you, the only defense you have is that you're just as bad as the rest of us.
It's completely non-inspirational and devoid of the idea that we should try to be better.
It's as empty as the diamonds you're defending.
He's pointing out that you have a relatively weak argument to be standing on if you are going to get outraged over how evil diamond are, then continue to happily consume dozens of other "evil" products in your everyday life. The only reason these other "evil" products are being brushed under the table is they are much harder for you to do without day to day than a diamond.
This is utter failure.
Do you think I'm not outraged at all the other things we see?
It absolutely _infuriates_ me that you expect me _not_ to be outraged at something because I should be _more_ outraged at _everything_.
It's _so useless_. It's _so dysfunctional_.
Believe me, my outrage is very _active_ and directed towards things outside this conversation.
In this conversation, though, it just seems to me that... there's just nothing ambiguous! Diamonds are awful. They're just awful.
And if that means I'm firing on a hair-trigger, well... so be it.
Comparatively, there is basically no lifestyle difference required to wear a ring without a diamond.
Many people doing other stupid and wasteful things is a poor justification to do any particular stupid and wasteful thing.
It's also really fulfilling. Just don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
No it's not. Diamonds are far more optional than fuel. And tackling small problems does not need to be put off just because you haven't tackled a larger on yet. Faulty logic.
Inconsistent with what? Only with the position you have projected on your readers. You can't say to your readers, "I assume you believe this. Therefore, you are illogical and inconsistent". That is illogical.
In Wales, and I believe parts of Scandinavia (which opens up interesting theories as to vikings bringing the custom to Wales), a man would propose with a spoon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovespoon
To me that is infinitely more expressive and thoughtful than purchasing a transparent rock. Maybe it's because I currently live in Wales, or the fact that I carve spoons for fun, but there's a romance there which I just can't see in a ring.
Unfortunately the pressures of society (especially not helped by Disney fairytale romances) seem to have brought us to the point of no return. My girlfriend knows that diamonds are worthless, but I know that were I to propose without one that there would be a part of her which felt like she was missing something; even if she didn't want to feel that way.
Hear hear, but good luck convincing zillions of single women that they'll be the first generation in living memory to miss out on their carbon.
It's social signaling. Or to put it another way: How many $$ can your man throw away without incurring pauperhood?
It sounds like it has barbaric roots -- who can provide the most food / kill the biggest animal / lift the heaviest rock / travel the fastest / find the rarest material / pay someone else the most money to do so.
You'll never find an end to the people who are willing to provide the same product for a higher price.
Slightly more subtle than that: Waste the resources without incurring financial hardship. That last part is important.
> It sounds like it has barbaric roots
Not unlike the mating ritual itself.
> You'll never find an end to the people who are willing to provide the same product for a higher price.
Again, it's more subtle: The social signal includes being able to discern and choose well among the competing alternatives.
"Let's admit that women buying sports cars for their fiancé-to-be is bullshit."
Hmmmm... Now I want a Z4 Zagato.
But in all seriousness this would have ended in the 70s when feminist protests started.
I started dating in the 70s: I thought it was a period of bizarre contrasts.
But then as time went by, I realized dating has been bizarre since the time we were all living in caves.
This was the comment that convinced me that you are a sexist.
Considering the readership of this site will be predominantly male anyways..
(And for the love of pascal would you please stop bandying about the "sexism" label? It is literally nothing more than a personal attack that adds nothing to any conversation)
The man is expressing his opinion and if you're bothered by that, perhaps you should consider turning off your computer and not participating in internet discussions. There are plenty of places in this world where people won't offend your delicate sensibilities.
He expressed his opinion that women are inscrutable and more susceptible to irrational impulses, but failed to provide any rational evidence of the same. This is sexist. The fact that it's "his opinion" and "his right to express it" buys him nothing in my book.
> consider turning off your computer
I'm fine where I am, thanks.
I can honestly say that you are being over-sensitive here. It was a tongue-in-cheek comment. You should remove the stick.
The marketing campaigns by jewelers have first and foremost been successful at setting an expectation of big spending. The stone type itself might be somewhat negotiable.
I consider this an amazing social signal: She is verifying that you have a proper amount of resources to burn, but does not want her girlfriends to easily calibrate how many you have. Therefore, she leaves them a little bit in the dark about what a great catch you are (because most women can't calibrate ruby pricing by just looking.)
My compliments to you sir. Simultaneously, my condolences to your bank balance.
Which tells me the woman is stupid, and not a keeper.
A balance statement would be a much better way.
Really, I don't think diamonds would be much of a problem at all if it were possible to sell them for anywhere close to what they cost.
That day I realized the power of the diamond marketing engine.
Regardless, even if I had, manufacturers of gem grade diamonds wouldn't need to undercut the price of natural diamonds by much. The cartel has done all the hard work raising the price for them already. Market them at 90% of natural diamonds and reap the rewards.
If we want to help fix this diamond bullshit, we've got to reframe the discussion. It's not about natural vs synthetic, it's about cultured diamonds vs blood diamonds.
Also, how is this any different from fashion? Both are nearly useless raw materials that have been transformed and shaped into something people will pay money to own and wear (signaling). For diamonds, you get conflict in Africa. For fashion, you get sweatshops in Asia.
If she doesn't have enough money, then she should work until she does. Or she should provide something of equivalent value, at which point this becomes a business negotiation.
But his time it's completely different: the reactions are crushing! I was bashed and put down like never before on the web, although I never even suggested that I agree with the author's opinion. They even went so far as to scan my older threads. They found one from half a year ago, where I pointed out another article with a similar topic, and then began to bach me in this dead topic, too.
Meanwhile it seams that the mods have closed the old thread, and I have deleted the new one myself since the bashing was getting me down.
What is it that makes american women so aggressive, when it comes to criticizing diamonds? I don't get it.
Living in Germany, I never quite understood how you can restrict a whole culture to believe so fiercely that a piece of compressed carbon is so very meaningful.
Link to the closed thread: http://boards.weddingbee.com/topic/mens-view-on-engagement-r...
If you refuse to buy a diamond, it's because you're cheap or don't love "her" enough. No amount of hand waving or sensible logic will make up for the fact that you'll just look like an asshole.
There's no logic in love, just shut up and buy her the damned ring.
So, given that, instead of trying to use logic to sway someone who needs a ring, what are some tactics that appeal to emotion that can work?
- get a secondhand stone and have it re-set. - get certified non-conflict diamond (or in my case, an Australian diamond) - get some other precious stone
The best one is to get hold of a family heirloom. Costs nothing and has far greater emotional value.
These days, although she still has her original engagement and wedding rings she doesn't wear them. What she does is buy rings every year or two and designate these as her "official" engagement and wedding rings...
The particularly amusing thing is that she never spends much money (I checked this morning and the rings she is currently wearing cost £12 and £55). However, they were bought in interesting places (Marrakech and Krakow) and look great - in particular her current "engagement" ring (cost £55) - has huge clear stones. Because she is now a successful commercial litigation lawyer everyone assumes they are real, although when people ask she tells the truth. Everyone assumes that because she could afford a real ring her fake ring must be real.
The real reason isn't the blood diamond aspect. It is the male equivalent of "get in the kitchen and bake me a pie", except social expectation is for men to do the things that are expected of them, regardless of the inherit fairness or rationality.
The demand in countries like India and China is rising. Diamonds and jewelry is the modern dowry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowry
Its inherent value is that it shows people that the family is well to do.
Things may change with the advent of artificial factory made diamonds (already showing up, but not in big quantities). But it won't ruin the diamond prices, just create two diamond categories. It should follow the trends that the pearl industry followed after the advent of cultural pearls.
Source: my Dad is a diamond trader.
But a big part of the world give a lot of importance to status and social standing. This is precisely the notion that has made money for companies like Rolex. And the haute couture fashion industry.
Don't justify haute couture in a topic like this. It's terribly out of fashion.
Much later edit: I'll accept whatever downvotes are given me as long as I can say something about "Being a minimalist myself." Why did you even _assume_ that I associated myself with minimalism? My comment doesn't need to have any relevance as long as I can attack a person that attempts to pretend that _I_ want a pedigree that he thinks isn't a diamond.
Don't know if you are an India. In India jewellery is the most ancient form of dowry.
Modern dowry is more like Cars, Flats etc.
Luckily the woman I chose to marry, preferred that our money would be better spent on putting a roof over our heads and paying for our children's education.
At the end of the day, the people that sell diamonds being mined out of the earth, are a bunch of scum, trading on the poverty and blood of (mostly) war torn Africa.
I would have serious doubts about any woman, that feels that their necessity for an expensive shiny stone, is worth the suffering of others.
DeBeer's wins. Either you get over it, or you end up heartbroken or with a very grumpy fiance.
No! I really don't! I kind of imagine that as a middle-class British guy I'm not too far from modal HN culture, but this sounds totally bizarre and alien to me.
http://news.walmart.com/news-archive/2013/02/04/walmart-surv...
(Disclaimer: I work on the tool they used to conduct the survey, which is why I know about it.)
Congratulations on your successful marriage with a woman you want to be with!
No it does not! It exists because idiots go along with this senseless idea. It's the same idiots that jump in line like little marketing-driven robots every Valentina's day and every other holiday. It's almost as if people have an API call for "time to shop for some senseless shit".
In our own case, no diamond ring, no jewelry at all. We bought a frigging house, we spent a couple of weeks in the Caribean and a few weeks in Europe. There is no way a diamond or jewelry can compare to that. Oh, yes, no getting down on one knee either. What a demeaning way to start a relationship. If you want to show respect do it with the actions you take every day, not empty marketing-driven cargo-cult gestures.
As for my own daughter, we are going to teach her that a moron who spends his life savings on a diamond ring is just that and someone who can't reason his way out of a paper bag. What a horrible financial decision.
In jest now. Perhaps one could launch a marketing campaign to make people give programming courses as engagement gifts. Talk about a life-changing gift.
The diamond ads even go as far as suggesting what percentage of your income you should spend on a wedding ring (oh and of course there has to be an engagement ring).
There is even guilt instilled if you do not spend that much; as if your love and commitment is somehow measured in the price of the wedding ring.
Don't fall for this bullsh*t.
Profit available from stopping it? Probably none unless you're going to just replace it with another kind of brainwashing.
Often the truth is simply out competed by manipulation in the market because the truth belongs to everyone and can't be monetized well.
After seeing my girlfriend's Facebook session plastered with wedding crap and her recently married friend's Facebook plastered with baby crap it became clear to me how potentially harmful to society as a whole this grand brainwashing infrastructure— all of these advertising platforms invading every moment of our lives— we've built is… and I try to stay as far away from it as I can. Because that is all I can do: I certainly can't outspend it.
In that sense, buying a diamond is like graduating from college -- you've demonstrated a willingness to engage in possibly irrational behavior in furtherance of a widely revered symbol. This is not to say that college has no value, only that its value is often much less than the required investment. Just like marriage.
On a related note: I don't want gay marriage. I want governments to stop handing out "you are in a relationship certificates" to EVERYONE.
No problem -- if you aren't gay, you aren't required to have a gay marriage. But ask yourself if you want to deny that right to other people. That's quite a different thing -- it's not unlike saying, "I don't want black people marrying white people."
Before you reply saying, "But that's not a fair comparison -- black and white people are normal, but gay people are abnormal", consider that (a) it wasn't too long ago that black people were unfairly regarded as abnormal, and (b) there's no good evidence that being gay is abnormal, as that word is most commonly used.
Also, why not ask yourself the same question that judges are expected to ask themselves before making a ruling -- which is "Where's the harm?" How does the existence of gay marriage hurt you personally? Consider that gay couples are going to live together anyway (because being gay is not a crime) -- all that changes is that the rights and traditions of civil unions extend to those couples.
> I want governments to stop handing out "you are in a relationship certificates" to EVERYONE.
I want LGBT equality. But beyond that, and looking at the bigger picture, I think the idea of marriage should be abolished altogether.
1. Produce man-made diamonds and sell them at the same price as De Beers diamonds.
2. Use the revenue to fund education and health-care in poor African villages.
3. Market your diamonds as 'clean diamonds' and label the De Beers diamonds 'blood diamonds'.
Would that work?
At least now we know where MSN news is getting it's money from.
| If the ring is more important to the
| woman than I am, then she's not marrying
| me, she's marrying the ring
(Just playing devil's advocate. With the argument I got.)
It's kind of a two-way street - which of you is more willing to make a sacrifice for this relationship? Perhaps a compromise can be reached...
-d, husband for 18.5yrs and counting
I wouldn't want a woman so ignorant.
For the record, not all women insist on a diamond, except reflexively... I actually know few couples that have bought diamond rings (for many reasons - some financial planning (a young couple should be worried about a house, insurance and retirement before a shiny ring) and some ethical (if you buy a new diamond, there is absolutely metaphorical blood on it - terrible juju to kick off a lifetime commitment of love))
Self-interest/selfish alert: if you're rolling in it and get that $30k ring for your spouse-to-be, don't give it to them on their birthday, Christmas or any other gifting occasion, because they don't have to give it back if they decide to ditch you Pre-nuptuals.
In my mind if a marriage isn't a lifetime commitment, then forget any of the other traditions.
This is logical. Otherwise why not string along as many man as possible to the point of proposal, then thank them for the shiny ring and wish them farewell? Take the strategy to its inevitable conclusion, and if the woman in question calls off the engagement at any point, she should return the ring.
They're not marrying the ring, they're marrying you, but the ring is a signal about your relationship.
Yes, how else would you start reversing it?
Heels will damage her feet over the long run, clothes are over priced and expensive, the makeup industry causes all sorts of evil just like diamonds. But you'll want her to look good the way your culture defines it, because it signals your value socially.
But diamonds are horrible and women are selfish and irrational for wanting them.
Diamonds are great for their purpose, which is social signaling at a high level.
Reality is they want something to gaze at when it catches the light and for friends to fawn over. Perhaps fight the giant diamond fraud with a sneaky play of your own?
Your endless research and fretting about whether the microscopic flaws will be visible will barely count unless you're marrying a diamond grader.
(GF wanted a diamond. I was not so keen to buy one. Split my budget between a legit stone and surprise trip to propose overseas. Third wedding anniversary is today. In hindsight, I wonder if I should've looked at synthetic stones and gone on a longer holiday...)
I tend to think they are usually written by a guy who's girlfriend wants a diamond and he doesn't want to spend "all that money" on a rock.
Its "fashion" people. It is a "luxury" item. No one has to buy them. Besides, there are some great clear alternatives out there if someone is set on a "diamond". White sapphire, white topaz, moissanite, there are even some very nice CZs out there, but I'm sure those are way over priced as well.
In my head there are basically three options: 1. Talk rationally and convince her that no diamond or CZ engagement ring. 2. A small ring that essentially go unnoticed to a tech person's budget. 3. Do the whole 1.5 to 2.5 Carat thing.
The problem with 1. is that people will think you are an asshole and her friends may question your commitment. The problem with 2. is that you know people are going to make assumptions about how well you are doing in life ("Did you see how small that ring was, wow, I thought he was in tech!") and the problem with 3. is that you are supporting a giant scam that makes absolutely no sense. "Ohhh, look at that! That stone is huge!" for the cost of $20 to 40 grand. It isn't even about the money, it is the idea of the whole thing.
This kind of errata in our language doesn't help us do anything and it just causes confusion and frustration.
Edit: heh, I guess I won't delete it now (to preserve continuity of extant conversation). Sorry.
Edit: sorry Clicks it was too tempting :)
It looks like the guy is a graduate from
Stanford's business school... and is the
co-founder of Pricenomics. What the heck.
Many guides to using apostrophes [1,2,3,4] say they can be used for contractions (the dog's outside) and to indicate possession (the dog's ball) - Why shouldn't something possessed by "it" use a possessive apostrophe?
Some people tried to correct my using of "it's" to indicate possession by explaining "Apostrophes are used for contractions like it is" which was unconvincing as obviously they can be used to indicate possession.
It wasn't until I got to college that someone gave me a satisfactory explanation: It/Its belongs to the same class of words as he/his, her/hers, your/yours, who/whose which do not follow normal apostrophe usage rules as the rules are descriptive, not prescriptive and nothing obliges the language and its users to be consistent.
[1] http://www.economist.com/style-guide/apostrophes [2] http://www.angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif [3] http://lilt.ilstu.edu/golson/punctuation/apostrophe.html [4] http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apostrophe
A teacher taught me a simpler rule: "It's" normally has an apostrophe, while most words don't. So instead of adding a apostrophe to show possession, we remove it.
Basically we're toggling the apostrophe state. Or..."it's" always results in a NOT output when compared to other outputs.
Reminds me of growing up "Ain't ain't a word!"
Fixed: "'Ain't' ain't no word!"
Interesting thought since, prior to the 19th century, "its" frequently was spelled "it's".
I have long considered it one of the abominations of the English language that a contraction ("it is" -> "it's") is given precedence over a pronoun with what is clearly a saxon genitive. Contractions should always take the lowest possible precedence in cases of collisions as far as I am concerned.
1) The idea of "blood" diamonds as well as the fat that the industry marks up diamonds to a ridiculous notion without translating any of those benefits to the societies it exploits. 2) There is no tangible benefit to a diamond ring that CZ or similar gem would not provide.
That being said, my fiancee very strongly wanted a genuine diamond ring. When I explained my viewpoints and she understood and said that she did not want to force me to purchase a ring that I felt very conflicted about. At no point was our relationship in jeopardy over the issue. Even so, I knew that she really wanted a rock and it took me a while to figure out what to do.
In the end I decide to get her a ring because it was what she really wanted, even though she was wiling to suppress her desires to respect mine. I wanted to respect her wishes as well. If she had threatened or had gotten upset over the matter, I might have not reached this conclusion. Maybe she's just a super shrewd negotiator.
For me, the biggest blocking point is the human hardship that goes behind the diamond industry, and I was able to somewhat subdue this by seeking out a conflict free diamond provider. There are a couple around and if this is your biggest blocking point as well you should look into it. Artificial diamonds were not an option for me, because at the moment they are not able to provide colorless diamonds afaik.
Here in Northern Europe, I know many couples have abandoned the idea of gold wedding rings because of the huge environmental damage that comes with gold. A titanium ring is kinda cool too. Someone can buy 5 euro hematite rings, and their marriage's been just fine, with children.
In the future, the price of diamonds and gold could go down because of such trends spreading further. They will be replaced with some other, possibly just as symbolic things. Wouldn't it be much more awe inspiring to say in a ladies dinner table conversation that your fiancee is going to donate tens of thousands of dollars to a children's education project in Peru that you picked, as a symbol of his love for you? Instead of a useless rock that doesn't hold its value...
Maybe such symbols of richness are not so important here as the society is more egalitarian and there are more safety networks and springboards for children's success than just your own / family / spouse's money - couple selection is a lot about what it's actually like to live with someone.
"Diamonds are bought, not because of what they are but what they represent.
The whole point of diamonds is to capitalise on what they're representing rather than their actual worth.
Their value is created through the likes of "diamonds are a girl's best friend" which is why the price is high for them. Hence the advertisements have been developed around the whole perceived value of diamonds ala. "diamond's are a girls best friend" because when you present a woman with a diamond you're presenting her with a promise - a promise that you will look after & take care of her. Which is something that most women want."
[1] http://priceonomics.com/mattresses/#industry
She needed to get the ring resized later and it was very easy. Returned via FedEx and had it back a week later.
If you want to marry someone intelligent, you may find that she considered the content of this blog post long ago and is astounded at its popularity on Hacker News, and she would prefer a ring from a bubble gum machine, or one made from ash from that volcano you hiked together, or an heirloom or something.
When I decided who to marry, I kept in mind that intelligence decays much less reliably than looks. But your mileage, gentlemen mostly it seems, may vary.
With enough money you could create a counter-marketing campaign over a decade to stop their attraction but I suspect they will find a way for horrible things to happen to you with that kind of profit involved.
What is really interesting in this type of discussion is the way people build up massive internal models to describe and explain concepts that really are very simple and repetitive in nature. It highlights the way many of us are driven and controlled by our tendency to seek a narrative in data and to see complex patterns in place of a simpler pattern.
I will note that I think there is validity to the idea that willingness to pay a high "bride price" of some sort has actual value. But it's after midnight and this conversation is essentially dead already. So I think I will not waste my time elaborating. No one will read this comment anyway. :-)
Later.
It takes quite a bit of work to get over a good marketing campaign, it creates peer pressure which can from friends/coworkers who all wonder if you're really married/engaged since you don't have a ring on. Screw peer pressure, yet another sign we were right for each other.
I mean, hey, look at language. That's pretty dumb. It was made by a bunch of poor dudes sitting in caves and squawking at each other? Who would buy into that shit, am I right?
There are plenty of diamond exchanges online. You buy the diamond and the setting separately, and then bring them to any jeweler to set it.
Also, you can buy moissanite instead - it's cheaper and hard to tell apart. Much better quality than cubic zirconia.
Because of a stupid patent you can't buy pre-made moissanite jewelery, instead you buy the stone and the setting separately.
My wife has more gold and diamonds than money my family ever owned otherwise. All that stuff doesn't suite her, is locked up in locker rooms of some bank 364 days a year. (And yeah I pay for that fucking locker as well).
Any discussion of selling it would lead to a WWII like situation in the home. The cost of Gold might be skyrocketing but when you actually try to sell gold ornaments or diamonds it is a different game altogether because when I walk to sell the gold not one wants to buy it unless they know me or I pester them. So this is what happens when I met a jeweler to sell a gold chain my mother had made for me when I was 2 years old. Gold typically 15 times most costlier than that time. so I was expecting at least 1000% ROI.
1. I need to first determine if this is real Gold and how pure it is. For that you will have to pay me X. 2. This chain is old and I cant sell it the way it is, it needs to be melted and converted into something else so I will lose Y value in the process. 3. Making a new ornament out of this will lead to more loss of metal during melting and hence I will lose Z.
Then later he tells me that the gold is not "as pure" as I thought it to be. So eventually I make only 200% profit over period of around 12 years. (not to mention the feeling of getting cheated).
Scenario of diamond seems to be lot more similar to that of Gold.
Only if women had little brains.
That's the kind of thing I think is a good idea.
You might think such a development would destroy De Beers, but I'm not so sure. Perhaps girls would simply switch from wanting a 'diamond ring' to wanting a 'diamond ring with dug-out-of-the-ground certificate'?
Even if everybody knew diamonds were BS, they'd still be the premier engagement ring jewel. Nothing says "I love you" like throwing $6000 out the window like it was nothing at all.
The prices are less than 1/4 of a "real" one, and they look much better (clearer, not cloudy, less imperfections).
Even if nothing changes as far as diamonds are concerned, it is still worth writing this article - imagine someone landing on this article and he/she hasn't heard of priceonomics before - they will read through their excellent other posts and learn a thing or two.
And lastly, look at the intense discussion at HN on this article. How many articles do that?
This is an awesome blog, consistently writing high quality articles. Thanks for writing this guys.
It is true that of the three aspects that originally made diamonds "above the rest" and therefore desirable, i.e., their rarity, unparalleled hardness, and beauty, the first two don't really apply anymore and the third is increasingly iffy as technology marches on -- but the same could be said of other objects to which we ascribe great value, i.e., "fine" art, which began as sublime and evocative interpretation of life, divinity and transcendence, but which these days more often than not is just a hodgepodge of "Emperor has no clothes" random splotches, un-made beds and (literally) piles of shit, but to which we nevertheless still ascribe great value. So go know.
In any case, the "death" of diamonds has been predicted before, and by better writers and more thorough reporters than Mr. Dhar, here, c.f.: Edward Jay Epstein "The Rise And Fall Of Diamonds", 1982, -- and yet Cecil Rhodes' babies are still going, stronger and more lucrative than ever.
There is certainly nothing intrinsically valuable about diamonds -- but then what does have "intrinsic" value? Even gold is largely "valuable" because of a near-universal belief and agreement that it should have value, and has done so since the dawn of recorded time. If everyone in the world suddenly decided that gold (or diamonds, come to that), no longer had any value, well, that "value" would certainly disappear -- it has happened before, to other "valuable" commodities, such as tulips in the early 17th century and other evanescent enthusiasms throughout history. But some consensuses seem to be more permanent and on solid ground than others -- and I suspect that diamonds and other precious stones are more in the "gold" class than in the "tulip" and "piles of arty shit" class....
So are diamonds really "forever"? Maybe not, but probably so. They've survived the emergence of synthetics without so much as a hiccup, and they've even survived the disappearance of DeBeers as a controlling agent (DeBeers, although still an important factor, no longer has anything like any monopolistic control -- it is just one of 4 or 5 other "important players" in the business), and the diamond industry even laughed off (with my, ahem, small contribution) the "blood diamond" non-scandal, so I'm pretty confident that they (diamonds) will carry on through such iconoclastic pinpricks and nitpicks as may appear on W's "Interwebs".
So, "bullshit" diamonds well may be, but tell me -- when did being "bullshit" ever stop (or even slow down) anybody or anything, especially in these days of ascendancy of the likes of Justin Bieber and Dennis Rodman? Nevah hotchee, GI -- in fact, I'd say that bullshit is one of our great growth industries as we move heedlessly into the 21st Century, so if diamonds really are "bullshit", then this article can only constitute yet another boost for the industry.'
Especially the '"emperor has not clothes" random splotches' part ; )
There are however great differences between gold and diamonds: liquidity of the market and buy/sell price. As TFA points out you're getting scammed everytime you buy a diamond and you're getting super-scammed everytime you buy one. Not so much with gold: you buy gold at price X, you sell it 6 months later when it took 3%, you're still making a benefit (even with the margin taken by the professional vendor / buyer). With diamond if you buy one at $2000 you're lucky to be able to sell it at $600.
The other difference is can we can synthetize diamonds now. Gold not so much: the only way we know how to create synthetic gold is to start from an even rarer metal (which is hence guaranteed to be always more expensive than gold).
Unless a major discovery in physics --so important that the world as we know it would profoundly change-- we can't create gold.
If suddenly we could synthetize gold from a lower-grade metal, it means we could also synthetize silver and then copper etc. The implication in various industries would be more than major: it would be a revolution.
Now my great-grandmother gave me a nice, never mounted, one-carat diamond that I've tested and that is true: it got hidden in Europe during WWII so that the nazis wouldn't confiscate it. I love it because I know it's a real one (tested) and I know it's history. So it's "sentimental" and one day my SO shall wear it and one day my daughter... And then my daughter's daughter.
If all goes well ; )
I don't care much that it would take me anywhere from $5k to $12k to buy one. I know that if I were to sell it I wouldn't make anywhere near as that and I'd regret it anyway.
I bought the girl a diamond because she wanted a diamond. It makes her happy. She says it makes her smile every day. That's "worthless", huh? If that is worthless then find me something that makes her so happy that isn't worthless and I would have bought that instead. But there is no such thing, for her. For some girls, yes, they do not want diamonds. (But I assure you, there is something they want that you will label as "irrational" and "worthless", too.) But many girls do, and men buy them for them not because they are stupid and irrational but because they are in love and because it will make the person they love happy. Life is too short to view every dollar spent as an investment and every purchase justifiable onto some balance sheet or long-term plan based upon prudent thinking. What do we work for, after all, than to earn the ability to do what we want with our money? And what better way to use that money than to make those we love happy?
The bottom line is diamond rings and all that nonsense will continue to be a thing as long as it makes girls happy to have one. It could be it makes them happy because it reminds them of their husband's commitment. It could be because it reminds them of the time in their lives of their engagement. It could be because it is just shiny and nice to look at. It could be because it might be the nicest thing they own and the biggest sacrifice a person ever made, just to make them happy. According to this thread, the only reason a girl wants a diamond is because she is a selfish person who wants to wave it around her friends and show she is better than them. That's a very sad perspective and shows a lack of understanding.
If you want to figure out how to get diamonds to go away you need to figure out something that will have the same effect on women that diamonds do, or you need to somehow convince millions of women to no longer feel the way they do about diamond rings and the meaning behind them. Getting up and yelling about it being a poor investment and irrational and all makes it fairly clear you do not understand why women are so obsessed with diamonds in the first place.
The only reason the focus is on diamonds is because of the high price tag, not because there is some inherent moral argument being made about the nature of purchasing things irrationally because you simply want to do something nice for someone you love. I'm sure you have plenty of things you want that you don't need, but somehow you are able to compartmentalize them because they are a) not as expensive as a diamond or b) serve some "function" beyond being a shiny rock. Good for you. But really, if you want to argue about ethics and morals in consumer choices, the price tag a person pays relative to the "intrinsic value" of the object so desired should not be a part of the equation. To me, I don't give a damn what the "intrinsic value" of a diamond is on the market, I give a damn what the "intrinsic value" of a diamond (specifically the diamond I purchased) is to the person I gave it to. And in my case you will hardly find a larger gap between price and intrinsic value (in my favor) than probably anything else I've purchased.
See, when you say you see a "thread full of bitter men", I cant help but feel you are expressing some kind of bitterness yourself. At least, I don't share your dismissive feelings towards the concept that a ring should symbolize more than monetize (yeah, strawman right back at'ya :) ). You know... when something is _really_ important, yet no argument is provided to back it up. "Makes her smile", is a positive side-effect, yet not a rational reason that can counter what is bad about diamonds. The whole notion that affection and devotion should be demonstrated through financial sacrifice (and I don't use sacrifice in the terms of "something given up or lost", but "destruction or surrender of something for the sake of [deity]") is a cultural irrationality that you seem to have a very positive look on, and good for you!
If someone looks at his/her ring, and feels negative emotion because this ring, which is meant to symbolize the "let's share a life together" between two people, is only made of plain gold, and not something which was more expensive to obtain... It's a good thing for me that I find this cultural irrationality an unattractive red flag.
Have a nice day.
Basically these threads boil down to money, not ethics, not morals, not character, not de beers, or any of that bullshit. It's only an issue because of a high price tag. There are millions of other issues that have thorny ethical consequences but the reason this thread is so filled with passionate arguments judging other people is because of the amount of money involved.
You could try with true feelings, they don't cost much.
If you don't want to buy her a diamond, fine. But realize what an asshole you sound like when you judge other people over something as stupid as if they bought an engagement ring.
I'll just let you read what you wrote.
Lev Leviev - Cracked De Beers: http://www.forbes.com/global/2003/0915/046.html
All of these are rarer than diamonds and most cost less.
me: http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/45768546804/diamonds-are-b... Friend: that shit is way too long me: way too long for a woman to read Friend: haha when you start bleeding out of your penis every month, then we'll talk me: hm
Honestly, I'm not even sure what that question means?
I'll occasionally take shots at my sister for this (because, well, she's my sister and she loves taking shots at me too so it's fair). But my God I don't dare challenge the issue of spending extravagantly on rings/weddings with another woman (I once did, it didn't go very nicely for me).
But... overtime here's how I've come to rationalize it: symbolism is a strong emotional asset. If it helps make the girl happy, then it's worth it -- because mental happiness is worth it; because mental health is a component of your overall state. And hey, afterall, I did spend $700 on my chair, $300 on my kinesis keyboard, $800 on my LCD monitor, etc. etc.
Emotion is all in your head after all. :-)
The difference is that these are all things that increase comfort and health, not only happiness. As somebody who sits at a computer all day, this has a huge impact on your back, wrists, eyes, etc.
We've all seen plenty of insane, $50k weddings result in 3-year marriages.
There's no doubt that the wedding industry is a racket (oh, did you want your dinner guests to have forks? That'll be $3 each. Water glasses too? ...) but also there's something to be said for not cheaping out on what's ostensibly one of the most important days of your life. FWIW, we managed to pay less than many people, while getting much better food and drinks than the average wedding and a more memorable, personalized experience by foregoing traditional wedding venues and caterers and instead simply buying out one of our favorite restaurants for the evening.
The key though is having a good quality stone from a reputable cutter with full certification. Diamonds are not fungible like say gold. A low-quality diamond purchased in an expensive mass-market ring isn't going to be worth anything on resale.
My wedding was stockily expensive by my standards (low to mid five figures), but with gifts we essentially broke even and the party was priceless. I would do it again.
what real use does a piece of rock (which is what a diamond is) have? How can it possibly give mental happiness? I'm not sure I understand
It is also a well-entrenched example of costly signaling [1] in humans [2]
(For the lazy, costly signaling basically says, a costly empty gesture is a strong indicator of mate quality, because only a high-quality mate can afford to waste lots of resources on an empty gesture)
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory#Costly_signal...
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory#Human_honest_...
Good, at least you understand it is only an illusion ;)
When was the last time your murdered someone with your bare hands at the supermarket?
toh-may-toh/toh-mah-toh
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engagement_ring
> Before the 20th century, other types of betrothal gifts were common. Near the end of the 19th century, it was typical for the bride-to-be to receive a sewing thimble rather than an engagement ring.[1] This practice was particularly common among religious groups that shunned jewelry (plain people). Engagement rings did not become standard in the West until the end of the 19th century, and diamond rings did not become common until in the 1930s in the United States, as a result of an extensive nationwide marketing campaign by the diamond industry. The phenomenon arose even later in other countries.[1] Now, 80% of American women are offered a diamond ring to signify engagement.[1]
> The idea that a man should spend a significant fraction of his annual income for an engagement ring originated de novo from De Beers marketing materials in the early 20th century, in an effort to increase the sale of diamonds.[1] In the 1930s, they suggested that a man should spend the equivalent of one month's income in the engagement ring; later they suggested that he should spend two months' income on it.[1] In 2007, the average cost of an engagement ring in USA as reported by the industry was US$2,100.[9]
Having an understanding with my partner that we're willing to indulge each others irrational, socialized preferences does have its upsides.
Karma be damned but women as a whole are swayed more by marketing then men are. They've been sold the princess wedding, the diamond ring, the brand-name clothing, etc. It's difficult to break them of this so sometimes the fight isn't worth it.
I didn't pay for my wedding so that was my in-laws problem although it wasn't grandiose (but it could've been) and I was fairly poor when we got engaged so the two-month salary guideline was a joke.
As for diamonds, my wife loves jewelery but has grown up and realized that everyone off the street can't tell the difference between CZ and a diamond. Case in point, I bought her a very nice ring from Nordstrom that looks like it's probably an $8k+ diamond ring and that everyone else thinks is a 'rock'. But it's just a big piece of CZ, surrounded by smaller pieces of CZ. Not one person has ever questioned whether it's a diamond or at least doesn't have the balls to. If asked my wife would be honest but she's never been asked (at least around me).
To make a claim like this, I'd normally expect data, not a bunch of anecdotes. Men I know are highly swayed by marketing as well. They want expensive cars, tools, games, alcohol, and other toys. It is hard to reason about the degree to which each is influenced solely from the products that are marketed to them.
It is quite a stretch for me to believe that women are fundamentally more susceptible to marketing of frivolous luxuries than men. My guess is that you just don't think the things you want a frivolous.
It's not a name brand or a lifestyle, almost everything marketed to men has some sort of pragmatic function to it. Be it the big F-150 that can tow a ton, to the comfortable (yet fuel efficient!) 4-door sedan. Sport cars might be an exception for most men (although not for me). As much as you don't need it, a $2000 60" HDTV is still more functional than a purse that costs the same amount of money.
And now to the marketing for women. Victoria's Secret: you want to look as good as this. Coach: you want a purse that looks like you can afford it. Disney: every girl is a princess. DeBeers: it shows you he loves you. I can go on, but there's no practicality in any of it. It's even worse when the target of the ads are women but the stuff they are selling are for men, since women do a lot of purchasing in relationships. You see this a lot in 'high-end' stuff like watches and sunglasses.
It's not sexism if it's honest - just accept that men and women are wired differently otherwise you do a disservice to women.
I'm amused at your implied claim that men aren't advertised to in fashion, since I can barely turn on the TV or radio without hearing an ad for Men's Wearhouse. Disney absolutely sells the prince metaphor to little boys too, and the fact that they grow into men who wants princesses is a big part of why that whole thing has stuck around so long. And if you think diamond advertisements aren't at least partially to men who don't know their wives and are at a loss for what will please them besides jewelry, then you simply aren't paying attention to the imagery in these ads or the types of shows they get placed on (e.g. the god damn Superbowl).
The Men's Warehouse commercials are as I described before, they talk about looking good for a function - work but life also. This is the pragmatic men's marketing. It's not the 'expensive so it must be good' branding that is on a lot of female products.
When was the last Disney 'prince' movie? Aladdin? Lion King? Meanwhile, Disney has now deemed Mulan and Tinker Bell as a princesses, there is now an African-American princess (Princess and the Frog), they added another pretty, white princess (Rapunzel from Tangled), a Scottish princess (Brave) and Disney is adding a hispanic princess[1] (although light on the hispanic). Girls have been sold the knight in shining armor. Boy could care less about princesses they just want be an action hero.
Diamond advertisements that talk about 'investment' are for men, but there aren't many of those. It's all about 'forever', 'love', etc, which are emotional pleas to women.
And the Superbowl has A TON of women watching[2]. It's sexist to think otherwise. The NFL is openly courting women as a way to increase viewership[3].
[1] http://www.examiner.com/article/disney-s-princess-sofia-the-...
[2] http://jamiedunham.wordpress.com/2013/02/03/marketing-to-wom...
[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/sports/football/nfl-hones-...
Are you serious? Is this a joke?
A purse actually serves a useful function. It doesn't serve $2000 of function, but it's useful in that it lets you carry around important items.
A TV serves no useful purpose whatsoever. None. Zero. There is nothing useful in your life that the TV lets you do.
I think your bias might be showing here just a little bit.
I won't bother arguing the value of a TV. I think there are many that can argue the value of a designer purse.
As far as the _quality_ of the TV being purchased, it seems the point that GP was making (whether I agree with his larger point or not) is that the 60" TV fills its function a lot better than the 19" one which costs a tenth of the price. By contrast, as far as I know there is no correlation to "how well a purse carries items" and its price (beyond the very very low end, of course, but far from the $2000 level). GP's point was that the price difference between a 200 and 2000 dollar purse is being spent almost entirely on brand (even the appearance is the same, when you consider off-brand purses), and the difference between a 200 and 2000 dollar TV is being spent on a VERY large difference in quality as far as functionality. This distinction between "paying for brand" and "paying for functionality" is exactly the point that GP is making about marketing.
As a thought experiment, consider what would happen if Sony started selling its current flagship $2000 TV for 20 dollars, and it was widely known and permanent. Now consider what would happen if the same happened for Louis Vuitton's flagship $2000 handbag. The perceived value of the handbag would vanish almost instantly. No one wants a status symbol that's cheap. You can't destroy _real_ consumer value (vs brand/marketing value) that easily just by dropping the price.
[1]http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/05/nielsen-gaming-tv-console/
Keywords being "marketed to." Marketing is a perverse beast and should not really be taken as proof of anything. I mean, the DeBeers story which eventually lead to the article here is specifically about how you can create, from whole cloth, a societal tradition simply with quality marketing.
I think you assume masculine things are functional while feminine things are not but that's not entirely true. You're completely overlooking, say, cleaning product and vacuum cleaner ads directed straight at women, and that masculine marketing is just as vapid in as many ways (e.g. Monster Cables, energy drinks). While diamonds don't really "do things" in the way that a car or a TV does, there are incredibly rational social reasons for buying the former and incredibly irrational, marketing-driven reasons for purchasing the latter.
I also think it's incredibly silly to assume we can learn anything about how men and women are wired by looking at marketing. A century or so ago pink was a color for boys and blue was for girls, and at that time you could have made some assumptions about what each sex innately prefers and you would have been just as wrong.
Purely for the sake of argument let's accept your premise for the moment that men are more concerned with pragmatism than women. It does NOT logically follow that men are less influenced by marketing than women.
You are pretty easily refuted by basically every beer commercial ever. Likewise the trucks you point to - show me a truck advertisement where an engineer comes out and explains exhaustively why this truck is better designed. That basically never happens, instead you get shots of the truck driving over mountains while "fk yea" rock music plays in the background and the truck is shown hauling giant weights around.
There certainly are differences in the way men and women think about things (in a general overall sense)...and I have no doubt that the WAYS in which things are marketed differ between men and women (in a general overall sense)...that doesn't mean women are somehow "more susceptible" though. The fact that advertising to men is just as common as advertising to women suggests they are about equally effective. If you want to suggest otherwise you need to provide actual evidence.
There have been studies on chimpanzees showing that female chimps choose girly toys (dolls etc), and male chimps choose male toys (weapons, trucks etc) without any outside influence. Yet people act like the human species is different. They believe people only become who they are because of indoctrination into their respective gender roles.
Then when you call BS on that... you're called a sexist. Then when you say "YES I AM A SEXIST" you're called a misogynist. I don't see how treating women differently (better in many cases) leads to "hating women."
As for marketing - I think women do choose products differently than men. It's because they're wired differently. They are more likely to choose products based on sentimental or perceived social value. If you look at the majority of Meyers-Briggs personality types among women, there aren't as many INTP,INTJ or other engineering types. Even if you don't agree with Meyers-Briggs... that there exists such a strong difference between the male and female population that an INTP (my type) is 4 times as likely to be a male, it should prove there are major differences.
The end result of these differences is that you should buy the woman you want to marry a diamond. As an INTP I know it's illogical - but I can accept it since I believe women and men are wired differently. I feel sorry for the men on HN who believe otherwise and are going to argue against diamonds with their future wife. (good luck with that - unless she's an INTP)
If I had bought my wife a diamond ring it would have showed her I really didn't know her.
Pull out whatever study you want that says men are wired X and women are wired Y - that study is based on samples and statistics. You'll find plenty of girls that like trucks and boys that like dolls. Treat the people around you like individuals who can have both male and female traits and their own unique personality.
And nobody is disagreeing with you. It is sexist to say "women are more influenced by marketing" when they are not. If men and women are influenced the same, then making a statement about the difference between them is being sexist.
So, if someone can actually provide some data that shows whether or not women are more influenced than men, instead of everyone continuing to provide anecdotes (as you have), then we can either stop saying false things, or we can accept that different genders work differently.
The thing is... if you value how you are perceived by others, then fashion is an extremely important investment. It does serve a purpose to women (and some socially-conscious men).
There is some interesting data that shows women are buying more... just Google "percentage of purchasing decisions made by women." It's over 70% - so it wouldn't be surprising if most marketing is targeted towards women.
This leads to the assumption that innate behavioral differences between genders is directly responsible for the discrepancy seen in cultural representations of gender in marketing, media, or even language.
this assumption is not only intuitively wrong, but it is directly contradicted by decades of sociological research.
Almost all of our perceived gender differences are constructed through our use of language and perpetuation of harmful, inaccurate stereotypes[0]. This means that a gender concept such as heterogeneous masculinity is self fulfilling. It simultaneously provides a standard of behavior (men should build stuff, men should be powerful, men should make lots of money, men should 'have' a woman) and is constructed by men's behavior (I made stuff, I am powerful, I make lots of money, I 'have' a woman, therefore I 'am a man').[1]
In regards to it being intuitively wrong:
You mentioned that many items that are marketed to men have a 'pragmatic' function. I'd argue that they're not always pragmatic (you mentioned sports cars), and instead, the overarching theme of most products marketed towards men(and, often by extension, most advertisements) is power.
An immediate example that comes to my mind is toy advertisements that are targeted at children. Most toys that are marketed towards boys feature an element of construction, violence, or critical thinking, while most ads targeted towards girls feature homemaking or visual arts. I don't feel the need to provide a footnote here as the google search 'gender differences in childrens' advertisements' provides a wealth of information.
These differences in advertisements are not because children who have a feminine gender identity are bad at or naturally averse to thinking critically. The disconnect between advertisements targeted at children is a clear example of marketing agencies accomplishing gender on a large scale. This is a particularly potent example because not only does it show that there _are_ differences in the way that gender is constructed, it shows that there is actually a power differential created between the two genders!
This is not to say that the marketing agencies are evil in any way - they are simply playing into a market separation that already exists because of our current construction of gender roles. However, by 'doing gender' and continuing to perpetuate our harmful stereotypes, they are in fact doing society a great disservice.
[0] West & Zimmerman, 1987, 'Doing gender'
[1] Mumby, 1998, 'Organizing Men: Power, Discourse, and the Social Construction of Masculinity(s) in the Workplace'
Either you provide a scientific cite for that claim or that is a straight up sexist statement. In case you haven't heard there's a lot of stupid irrational purchasing behavior by guys too.
There are a ton of crazy figures to digest on that page, again none addresses which sex is "swayed" more by a given advertisement. For example, "Women account for 85% of all consumer purchases including everything from autos to health care"; "Senior women age 50 and older control net worth of $19 trillion and own more than three-fourths of the nation’s financial wealth"; and "Wealthy boomer women...make 95 percent of the purchase decisions for their households".
Assuming it is true, women making 85% of consumer purchases is kind of mind blowing. This does not necessarily mean women are swayed more by marketing, but I think it is safe to say women as a whole are targeted by marketing campaigns more than men - at least after reading these numbers that is how I would market a consumer product.
>Women account for 85% of all consumer purchases including everything from autos to health care: 91% of New Homes 66% PCs 92% Vacations 80% Healthcare 65% New Cars 89% Bank Accounts 93% Food 93 % OTC Pharmaceuticals American women spend about $5 trillion annually… Over half the U.S. GDP
The list must be referencing "items purchased" rather than "dollar-wise". It is by no means definitive of the answer who makes more expensive purchases, but if women are buying 9 out of every 10 new houses, 65% of new cars, and 80% of healthcare plans what big ticket items are left for men to buy to outspend women?
Now the part at the end about $5 trillion being 1/2 the US GDP, might not be an error but be more telling of when these statistics are from (US GDP currently closer to $15T). Nevertheless like in my OP, the numbers are mind blowing, consider the following:
GDP = private consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports − imports)
Or
1/2 GDP = women spending = (private consumption - women spending) + gross investment + government spending + (exports − imports)
If you reread the page you posted, you can see the hints of that. People talking about how older women make up a demo that "no advertiser can afford to ignore" -- that's not something an advertiser would say unprompted about 18-35 year old males, for example, because the idea of advertisers ignoring 18-35 year old males would be absurd.
Citation needed. Plenty of men are swayed by marketing -- for instance, you'll note that the marketing ploy in TFA is directed at men.
It's also worth noting that the commentary here is lopsided. There are comments from men saying they don't care about diamonds but their fiancee did, but you don't see a whole lot of the inverse (women saying "I don't care about diamonds") . One could easily assume that's because "women...are swayed more by marketing then men are". In reality, it's more likely due to HN's readership being predominantly male.
Now, the misstep in marrying a geologist is that she owns many other rocks worth much more.
For an actual rock (which are classified differently than gemstones) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourmaline
and her reasoning, "Actually gains value, good ones are not common (like diamonds are), awesome variety of colors"
Also said she likes aquamarine for actual gemstones (it's beryl, same thing as emeralds), but it's not as hard as diamond and wouldn't stand up to the daily abuse as well.
She also said she'd enjoy an uncut diamond mounted in a ring, but that's probably purely the geologist in her speaking.
She's also a fan of monzinite and clear topaz.
My wife is a diamond nerd, as well as one of the most rational people you'll ever meet, and she'd explain it this way: the diamond is a test that serves various useful purposes from the perspective of the woman:
1) It demonstrates the man's ability to provide; 2) It demonstrates the man's willingness to forgo the other things he could buy with the money for a gift for her that does not directly benefit him in any way; and 3) It demonstrates to the woman's peers her husband's social standing.
An important thing to remember is that women take on a huge opportunity cost in getting married and having kids. My wife and I just had our first baby. Pregnancy and childbirth is a barbaric process and a woman will never be quite the same after. Taking care of an infant is tiring, stressful, boring, and thankless--and no matter how enlightened the husband is and how willing he is to help out, because of the baby's hard-wired inclinations the buck will always stop with the wife. Finally, if the woman is educated and has a career, that career will be permanently compromised by virtue of getting married and having kids. With all this in the background, it is evident that the social convention of the ring conveys valuable information to a woman considering getting married and bearing these costs. Re: 1, all else being equal a man that can provide more is more valuable than a man that can provide less. Re: 2, all else being equal a man that is willing to forgo things for himself is better than a man who is not; Re: 3, all else being equal a woman's social life will be positively affected in a tangible way by marring a man of higher social standing than of a lower one. It is totally rational for a woman to ask: "I'm willing to give up all this, what are you willing to do?" The ring is just a way to demonstrate this commitment in a way that is universally understood and spares everyone the awkward conversation of laying all the chips on the table.
Now, these elements are less important in 2013 than they were in say 1813. But at the same time to an extent they are not diminished in importance, but rather culture has shifted to downplay the uncomfortable truths at the root of these elements. For example, we like to downplay how much women really give up by being the child-bearers. But for an educated woman, if having kids cuts the probability of attaining a high position on her career by half,[1] the choice to have kids could mean millions of dollars in lost income over a lifetime. It's totally rational for a woman thinking of making such a compromise to demand from her potential husband a gesture showing that he is willing and able to take the other half of the bargain. But all this is something that we don't say in polite company, because we have fully bought into the mythologies about marriage that are in vogue at the moment: that it's just about "love" and all that matters is a mate that makes you "happy" and that it's an arrangement that is costless to enter into and exit out of.
There is, of course, nothing inherent about diamonds that makes them the only option for this kind of signaling. Indeed, in other cultures a cash gift is the norm instead. But the value of a signal is in its standardization, so to speak, and it just so happens that the diamond is the standard signal in western culture.
[1] Less than 20% of women never have kids, but about half of very high achieving women (executives, etc) never have kids.
2) See: 1)
3) It demonstrates to the woman's peers that she is shallow enough to respect social standing over more admirable (and important) qualities, unless they're just as shallow.
1) It demonstrates the man's ability to provide; 2) It
demonstrates the man's willingness to forgo the other
things he could buy with the money for a gift for her
that does not directly benefit him in any way; and 3)
It demonstrates to the woman's peers her husband's
social standing.
I've got a daughter. She's only 4 months old, but I've had occasion to think a bit about this. I would not want her to marry someone who wasn't willing to give her a ring? Why? Reasons (1) and (2) I mentioned, sure, but also reason (3). It is the mark of a sensible man that he cares what other people think about him. People who buck social conventions sometimes become trend-setters and are incredibly successful for it, but more often just make life harder on themselves and the people that depend on them. Do I want my daughter to be with a man that is willing to create headwinds for himself out of foolish principles and refusal to conform? All else being equal, no (although I don't have any illusions about how much of it is up to me!)
After all, it's just a matter of her social standing, not the importance of the relationship and a marriage between two human people. I hesitate to use the word soul, but maybe here it applies.
Diamonds are _so dehumanizing_ and this thread would have me thoroughly depressed if so many people weren't arguing against DeBeers.
That seems like a really shallow and material evaluator of the character of a human being.
> People who buck social conventions sometimes become trend-setters and are incredibly successful for it, but more often just make life harder on themselves and the people that depend on them
Well thank God that Jackie Robinson, Marie Curie, or Barack Obama didn't believe this. Sometimes being different from the rest of the crowd and following your passions is more worthwhile rather than striving to "fit in" by purchasing status-enhancers.
You've completely missed his point. It's about knowing when it's not worth the effort to buck society's dictates.
>Well thank God that Jackie Robinson, Marie Curie, or Barack Obama didn't believe this.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://rollingout.com/wp...
Most of us nerds are fighting the idea of diamonds signifying social standing. The practice, and culture of giving expensive rings is objectively wacky. You're right that in your social circle taking an odd position will cost you your reputation, but consider that in the past many morally reprehensible practices were the norm and being an odd one out would cost you your reputation. If you operate on a framework so rigidly tied to social standing you might make pretty wacky decisions down the line. Ultimately, decisions made on this framework may not always be the wisest decisions.
On the one hand, I admire you saying that outright.
On the other hand, isn't it somewhat true that the vast majority of backwardness and oppression in the world stems from that same doctrine?
The desire for a short timescale pragmatic conformism seems to be a partial cause of much of the world's problems throughout history.
A sensible man only cares what other people think about him when it is to his benefit to do so. A foolish man cares what other people think about him all of the time.
> People who buck social conventions sometimes become trend-setters and are incredibly successful for it, but more often just make life harder on themselves and the people that depend on them.
In my experience, people who believe in marking the checkboxes of life have an awfully hard time discerning the difference between falling off the beaten path, and taking a shortcut.
> Do I want my daughter to be with a man that is willing to create headwinds for himself out of foolish principles and refusal to conform? All else being equal, no
It seems exceptionally foolish for you to rely on abstractions and proxy signaling (eg, buying a diamond) to discern the attributes of the person your daughter would be considering marrying. One would hope that the evidence for those attributes ought to be entirely apparent to her before that point.
My wife and I have been married 4 years now and gone primarily without rings. No negative consequences so far, and I'm definitely glad I didn't dedicate 20%+ of my income to a valueless trinket. We have objects that signify our relationship, but they're cheap or free, and imbued primarily with sentimental value only. This is, in my estimation, much better than propping up the diamond myth and cartel.
*Just to clarify, to avoid making this seem like a strawman: I'm creating a deliberately extreme example that to me seems like the logical extension of optimizing for "success" (or minimizing headwinds) at the expense of character (personified in your example by someone who's principled as opposed to a follow-the-herd type person). The purpose of this is to highlight the fact that this is someone you're accepting into your family, and the importance of that becomes particularly clear when you consider that the man he is will in large part shape the men and women you're grandchildren are.
Parent commenter is interested in someone who thinks the way he does. There is nothing wrong with that and there are probably more parents from my experience who wants someone who hold their views then are willing to accept someone with different views.
I hope you get your wish! Children often find a way to push our buttons, however.
Tell me this statement is satire: "Do I want my daughter to be with a man that is willing to create headwinds for himself out of foolish principles and refusal to conform? All else being equal, no"
Agree with you (and my daughter is much much older).
I would be totally wary of a man that decided in lieu of buying a ring for my daughter to make a donation to a charity. The ring is a gift for the woman. In the event of a divorce the woman typically gets to keep the ring it's an asset and does have value despite all the drivel of the OP and everyone else here is saying. Owning 100% of something that is only worth 50% of what someone else paid for it is still more than 0 (what you get with a charity donation at least monetarily).
Someone who actually cares what someone thinks of him based on whether he bought an overpriced hunk of carbon is what sensible call a "deuschebag."
This is a really disgusting line of thinking
That's a pretty loaded way of putting it. It comes across as saying that the only two options are being an incredibly successful trendsetter or making things difficult for themselves and dependents. Yes, you could argue that technically it's not saying these are the only options, but it sure strongly suggests they are.
I think that dichotomy is ridiculous - as if the two ends of the spectrum are the only two possible outcomes. If you put it that way of course it seems like a bad thing to buck social conventions.
> Do I want my daughter to be with a man that is willing to create headwinds for himself out of foolish principles and refusal to conform?
I don't think your comment gives an argument for why those principles are supposedly foolish.
.
You are of course free to say and do as you please. Such freedom of views also applies to others, and IMO the attitude expressed in your comment is a small-minded one.
Blind conformity is one of the most dangerous behaviors a society could exhibit.
Caring about what other people think of you leads to things like joining the KKK, stockpiling guns and killing six million Jews. It's religious think.
See, me, for my daughter, I'd be proud if she married someone who suggested they take the $30,000 he would have spent on a dumb diamond ring and try their hand at starting a business. Even from failure they would grow and learn.
There is no learning from in buying a diamond ring. It does not prepare you for life in any imaginable way. It does not prepare you for economic difficulties, medical problems or to develop a good sense on financial matters. It's just plain dumb.
So what's the functional value of entertainment then? It makes you feel good. A diamond makes a woman feel good. It's that simple. Doesn't matter why. It's for her. Not up to a man to judge the value anymore then you want a woman deciding the value of why you might spend you money on whatever makes you feel good.
(To be clear, though, I'm a nerdy gay like the parent commenter, and I can't fathom a situation where either my boyfriend or I would ever want the other one to buy a diamond for any reason, so there's probably some component of the dynamics here that I don't fully grasp.)
The ring does have functional value, but for her and not for you. Part of the point is that is doesn't directly benefit you at all.
tl;dr if a woman will only love you / stay with you when you buy them expensive things they don't actually love you.
When you buy things for other people, it is generally a positive for your relationship with them. In general, they are happier and think better of you. Getting upset about it and saying they don't 'really love you' is not true and not super helpful.
Human nature is very hard to change, no matter how intelligent / introspective we become. Do you never buy your significant other dinner, a night out, or gifts of any kind?
If someone isn't willing to compromise in the face of reason (e.g. "we can't afford an expensive wedding or a ring", or "I'm concerned about supporting conflict in Africa and supporting the diamond cartel") then I'd say the relationship is probably not strong enough to last.
And you're moving the argument here - previously we were talking about buying an expensive ring, not supporting armed conflict or purchasing something you can't afford.
And if the _symbol_ of your supposedly permanent commitment is a diamond, that says something very cynical about that marriage.
I'm sure there are good marriages with diamond rings involved. I'm pretty sure those marriages aren't successful because of that, but rather in spite of it.
1) Your wife can measure how much you can provide just as well by having you actually provide valuable things. Like a house.
2) Your wife can measure your unselfishness by having you buy something that is actually valuable to her but useless to you. Like daycations with her friends. There's no sense in buying something which is valuable to neither party.
3) The need to demonstrate your social standing to other people is the result of low self-esteem. Maybe your wife needs therapy, not a diamond.
This doesn't make it right, but there are numerous human psychology reasons why this tradition endures and so many people take part in it. Writing off people who want or provide a diamond ring as mentally ill (as many people in this thread seem to be doing) is silly.
What do you consider mental illness to be? And what is therapy in your view?
The term 'mentally ill' in my view has been stigmatized quite a bit, and being 'unwell' mentally does not mean you are crazy, but that you have issues you feel you need to deal with. Isn't that the point of seeing a therapist?
An interesting blog on this topic here:
http://www.theage.com.au/executive-style/culture/blogs/all-m...
Just about anything people may have talked to priests about in the past they can now talk to therapists about.
Now, if you want to define mental illness such that it covers all of these things, and all the other reasons to see a therapist, that is fine. Words are just what you make of them; you can, of course, define them as you see fit.
However, if you redefine mental illness in such a way then I can see really no justification for using the negative connotations that mental illness normally holds to facilitate mock outrage ("Writing off people who want or provide a diamond ring as mentally ill (as many people in this thread seem to be doing) is silly.") Instead of criticizing erikpukinskis for "writing off those people as mentally ill", perhaps you should instead explain why you do not agree with his suggestion that low self-esteem could be a factor.
Enjoy your stay. Good luck and have fun!
No, wasting money on a valueless shiny rock is silly. But let's just keep advocating people 'keep up the tradition' instead.
Why? It is, to this day, even in the U.S., the dominant arrangement between men and women, especially in the context of relationships that result in children.
> The need to demonstrate your social standing to other people is the result of low self-esteem.
That are very pragmatic reasons to invest in signals of social standing. It minimizes the cultural friction between yourself and the people who can help you get ahead, who are overwhelmingly people of high social standing themselves.
Because I advocate relationships where contributions are granulated and distributed according to participant interest, not participant gender. Monolithic roles like "provider" (and the concomitant role of "consumer/sex object") of are inherently coercive. Because they're monolithic and tied to gender. I think that kind of coercion is perverse.
> That are very pragmatic reasons to invest in signals of social standing
I don't think those signals are meaningfully connected to anything real, they're just signals of standing. They are power begetting power, and I think willfully engaging that system is perverse.
Okay how do you distribute child-bearing according to participant interest? How do you distribute child-rearing according to participant interest, bearing in mind that an infant just wants to suck on a breast and doesn't care about your views on gender roles.
Adoption.
> How do you distribute child-rearing according to participant interest, bearing in mind that an infant just wants to suck on a breast and doesn't care about your views on gender roles.
There are some limits to what can be shared. I advocate going right up to that line. A woman who wants to raise a baby at some point has to make tough choices about formula, breast pumping, bonding, and her other priorities in life. There is a qualitative difference between the handful of hard limits imposed by biology, and the many limits imposed by compulsory monolithic gender roles.
The IQ of children is highly correlated with the IQ of parents. Adoption is not, for educated couples, an alternative to having their own children.
> A woman who wants to raise a baby at some point has to make tough choices about formula, breast pumping, bonding, and her other priorities in life.
You can make things as equal as possible, but no more. My wife and I have almost identical educational backgrounds. We accepted very similar jobs out of school (she will technically be making more money than me considering benefits). We had our baby her last year of school so she wouldn't have to take maternity leave, with the negative stigma associated with that. I'm taking a couple of years off from working at a large law firm so I can work a 9-5 with a judge and take more baby responsibilities and allow her to focus on her career. We're trying extremely hard to make things as equitable as possible between the two of us.
But at the end of the day if my wife had suffered a complication in child birth (it is still the most dangerous thing most people do), it would have fallen to me to provide for her and the child. I was not the one who had to take that bodily risk, therefore I assumed by default the "provider" role, or at least had to be fully prepared to assume that role. Therefore, it was totally rational for her to have been concerned, pre-marriage, about my ability to do so.
That's some useful education.
This is the most depressing thing I read in this whole thread. The idea that one should view raising "highly successful" children as some kind of outcome they can control or influence through "high IQ tigerness" and cold economic analysis is humorous and sad all at once. Coupled with encouragement to not buck a pointless social tradition because it may make (shallow, deplorable) people judge you as less worthy and thus may negatively impact your future prospects of becoming more like them seems like a rather sad way to live life, but I guess we all have our own goals. The fact that after thousands of years our species is still mesmerized by shiny rocks we dug out of the ground is also odd to me, but apparently not others.
Like BBC radio 4 has a leftie, public-services-union-member audience and a rightwing traditionalist audience who are largely unaware of each other, HN has an ivy league educated randian-hero readership and a more old-school, "just give me an ounce of weed and a hex editor and I'm happy forever" readership, and both is convinced the other is intruding on their community.
There is plenty of research to suggest that socio-economic (SES) status is the driving factor behind IQ, not genetics. An adopted child's IQ will tend to be higher if adopting parents have high SES
Translation: I have shitty friends and assume everyone else does too.
"We" spend on average three months worth of salary. Around £5k I guess. Certainly not enough for a house, but a good amount of money to put towards your first family home when you get married. Houses need furniture and all that fancy stuff. :)
I'm British and I've never heard this three month thing outside of the US. Surely this isn't a UK cultural thing too?
Never been married either, mind, or in a position to propose, so it hasn't exactly come up.
The silly/sad/stupid thing is when you put it in context of a ring+marriage ceremony. The same way many college students are starting out life with debt, they often go and add 25-30K of extra debt between an expensive, value-less ring and a wedding ceremony.
A mortgage is usually on three times annual salary, so 312x = 36x. A ring is 'worth' 3x, so not far off a tenth.
1. Adherence to social convention for its own sake
2. Submission to a multinational construed as something positive
3. Imbalanced monogamous relationships based on opportunity cost and trading status for reproductive capacity
4. Spending money and life on creating more humans
Probably a few more but I don't really want to dig through it any more.
We are a species where, thus far, the burdens of
motherhood are associated with a single gender
But I disagree on the point that the role of motherhood inextricably falls down on a woman's turf for the years to come. As a male I can say that I would be happy to be a stay-at-home-dad after the infant is of a certain age -- and I have met many women who're okay with this idea (of the man staying at home while the woman makes money).
As a practical matter, the latter follows the former, almost inexorably. Between the negative stigma of being pregnant at work to the negative stigma of taking maternity leave, to the negative stigma of having to be there for your young child when it is still in the "I need my mommy" stage (which lasts into the first couple of years), by the time the father can assume a fully co-equal role in parenting the woman has already substantially compromised her career and it becomes rational, in a perverse way, for her to be the one to undertake further compromises.
However I wonder if many of the stigmas you mention are ingrained into society only by the persisting culture, and so one should not fear challenging them? There are many single-dads that do a wonderful job of raising kids alone as a single parent (admittedly I don't know any who started taking care of the kids below the age of 2 -- and I do accept that even 2 years is a hell of a long time).
I'd recommend dropping a small note to info@ycombinator.com telling them to do something about this.
edit: I just did, let's see what they do about it. (and it was this post that is showing up as dead: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5404947)
Forunately none of these things prescribe (or justify) human behavior.
It's not an "alternate" world when many of us are already living here and welcoming others.
No, an end to population growth isn't good for economic growth, luckily that's not what life's about.
That's ok though, desires/hobbies/cultural practices/etc are generally not based in reason.
/* For example, it's very doubtful that today you would gain any real insight into a persons ability to "provide" from them giving you a diamond...in fact it's more likely to deceive you (they could purchase on credit, buy a stolen/fake one, etc). You'd learn much more about that from simply dating/courting them - knowing about their spending/saving habits, profession, etc.
Seriously?
I guess this just shows one aspect of how screwed up our modern society is.
Yeah, it's "magical" and whatnot, but my wife would rather be water-boarded than be pregnant again.
It is a life changing experience for both wife and husband. It's part of life. Life isn't a video game. It's not a synthetic experience. Some people may prefer to be a brain in a jar hooked to some wires but then where would they put the diamond ring? :-)
But, yes, giving birth can involve complications.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternal_death
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-re...
What you so casually disregard as "mythologies of marriage" is the result of striving for equality. A hundred years ago, marriage was indeed just another economic transaction. The suitor paid the father of the girl, who was happy to have her off his hands, being of no use in succeeding him to lead the family business.
We have not yet reached equality, so alimony is still law and being pregnant a career ender. Hence we still need the economic signaling provided by diamonds.
Edit: And that reads like I'm competing with you. I'm not, because that just as bad. Remembering the loud comments and idiocy of strangers makes me a touch wild.
I can do that by buying houses. Diamonds are only a good indicator of frivolity with cash.
"2) It demonstrates the man's willingness to forgo the other things he could buy with the money for a gift for her that does not directly benefit him in any way;"
It demonstrates a lack of sense on the part of both parties.
"3) It demonstrates to the woman's peers her husband's social standing."
Not if you start to look at it as a huge waste of cash it doesn't.
--edit-- to expand on that last point; if diamonds started to be viewed as a pointless and vulgar excess, like shiny rims or a full set of gold teeth, then it could demonstrate a lack of social standing. They only currently demonstrate a positive social message because of convention. Why not change convention?
I wanted to bring up rims and teeth to head off the obvious criticism that something expensive (the diamond) is worn to demonstrate exactly that you don't have to think about money - many other things purchased for this reason are sneered at by most people.
Giving up sex with other women.
The lack of social traditions and traditional obligations seems daunting at first but it's kind of fun to be unencumbered (especially when I read reynir's replies and go white-faced from the ridiculous sexist pressure put on men and women to be macho and feminine still today).
http://www.yourengagement101.com/files/2012/05/mark-zuckerbe...
That's also shiny and should keep its value much better (since gold requires nuclear reaction to make).
Depending on how expensive the jewelry would be, it might be cheaper to buy your own lumps of gold and have someone craft them into jewelry.