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Comment by kyrra | Hacker News Reader

(person I know) worked for GE (General Electric) on their industrial diamond production process back in the 90's, and I got to hear lots of fun stories from this.

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...

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> so they just leave De Beers to run around gouging consumers

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.

That wasn't the point of the article -- you introduced it right after telling him (s)he's missing the point.

It's a valid point, yes -- but kyrra couldn't have missed it, because no one had made it before you did.

I doubt the point is to demonstrate financial security: Spending three months' salary on a single ring would seem to indicate financial irresponsibility more than financial security (unless it's like a rebate and you sell the ring once you're married? /s).

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.

Diamonds aren't popular because they have any real value. No one actually believes they do. They cost a lot and are an easily worn, thus making them perfect for their favorite hobby: making other women feel inadequate. Even women who are positively liberal on such matters are drawn to the idea of forcing their husbands to show such monetary devotion.

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.

>Charities, if you're listening, here's an idea: create uniquely identified jewelry (bracelets, necklaces) marketed as devotional donations

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.

It's been done: Pink products to support breast cancer research, PRODUCT (RED) for combating AIDS in Africa.

Eh, point. And witness discomfort about making generosity a commodity.

Just needs the right marketing behind it to nullify that. Sell these pieces of charity jewelry to the public as not only ways to flaunt your wealth, as diamonds are, but also a way to flaunt your moral superiority.

Forgive me if I don't trust _marketing_, of all facets of society, to nullify that.

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.

What makes you think women, as a whole entire gender of people, enjoy making other people feel inadequate?

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.

It's a very common human vice, to want to feel competitively superior to one's peers. Fancy cars, jewelry, designer clothes, you name it--these industries depend on the urge to make others jealous.

Cubic zirconia or other gems might be cosmetically identical to a diamond. Wanting a $30K ring for its "color neutral" characteristics smacks of astroturfing.

> It's a very common human vice, to want to feel competitively superior to one's peers.

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 relevant not simply to "an entire gender", but to the whole world of people, primates and most other animals.

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.

+1 for social status as zero-sum game. Imagine your social status if you jumped back 2,000 years and could still conduct your current lifestyle: being able to feed yourself for a week from only a fews hours of labour; travel across the Atlantic in a 8 hours at the cost of one weeks labour; access all human knowledge in seconds at near zero cost.

> Perhaps she doesn't want something cheap and easily replaceable acting as a symbol for your marriage.

i.e. she cares more about symbols than about the real thing.

> 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.

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?

The comment "making other women feel inadequate" is chauvinistic and generalizing...but at least you acknowledge it...

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.

"Charities or other personal investments really are a better option than the bling. "

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).

I lump them in the "not throwing money away" bucket.

Yes, one is giving to others, one is giving to the couple. My point was, don't throw the money away on baubles.

There are a great many couples in my social circle who eschewed the diamond ring. They have meaningful, and expensive alternative rings, but not diamonds. We don't have diamonds either.

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.

> They have meaningful, and expensive alternative rings, but not diamonds.

How is that any different?

One is showing off with how much money you can spend, the other one is showing off with "how much you care".

Or, maybe they actually care ..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good

> I doubt the point is to demonstrate financial security: Spending three months' salary on a single ring would seem to indicate financial irresponsibility more than financial security

"Wasting" resources is one of the ways to make sure that the signal (of fitness -- financial security for example) is honest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handicap_principle

The wiki entry you posted mentions this, but it is interesting and related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potlatch

It's a peacock's tail. In any environment where resources are abundant and there's no natural predators, species evolve to create lavish displays for sexual selection.

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.

"Spending three months' salary on a single ring would seem to indicate financial irresponsibility more than financial security"

Not if you have assets that are considerably greater (have accumulated) than whatever your "salary" is.

I don't think anyone's discussing the independently wealthy.

Someone thinking it's utter bollocks but doing it anyway somewhat demonstrates that a partner is worth even more to them. ;)

Women can't use another proxy to signal financial security, like the dollar amount in a bank account, or a house down-payment, or a secure job?

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)?

On that subject, perhaps it's noteworthy re: diamonds that the loudest--as far as attention goes--feminine point of view (in the heteronormative sense) in this topic has been expressed only by proxy.

Or, as you indicate, perhaps that's just a symptom of the general male-female ratio.

How do you signal the value of your bank account besides using it to buy expensive things? (And this is certainly not a gender-specific problem: consider sports cars, gold chains, or bottle service at clubs)

You could signal directly, such as an ATM receipt.

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?

Yes, it's for signaling peers, not partners. I assume most people who buy a Porche do so for the same reason: they want their community to know they have a lot of disposable income.

Or maybe they like nice cars. (I don't have a Porsche).

There are many nice cars that aren't Porsches, and there are ways to own and/or drive a Porsche discreetly.

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.

Sure, I was just being antagonistic.

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 :) )

"You could signal directly, such as an ATM receipt."

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.

Regarding gifts of approximately equal value, I've heard of women giving men "engagement watches". It seems like they're generally worth less than the rings, though.

You can argue that the diamond market was mischaracterized here, but right now you're arguing a strawman.

(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)

> Do women still want a man who is financially secure? What about independent women?

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.

>>Part of it is attraction, but it's also part pragmatic.

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.

Yes, and given that women are more likely to pick raising kids, then it becomes important to partner with a man who makes good money. It seems like you agree with the person you're responding to.

No.It becomes important for women to stop leeching off of men. It becomes important for women to let more men leech off of them. This is what equality entails.

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.

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.

The social status is changing I think. I commented on this in some other Diamond discussion thread but I have noticed an increase in people my age group (Gen Y) having engagement/wedding rings with other stones. Purely anecdotal but it seems to be a trend in my group of friends at least.

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.

Several people (including myself) in my social circle ended up going the antique route the past few years -- There's a few shops in the area that specialize in antique (read: used) jewelry. My wife really wanted something with a unique/classic flair; was able to find the perfect ring that was made in the 1920s. The fact that we were sort of able to fantasize about the back story added to the allure.

This is what we did about 10 years ago (GenX), for a similar reason (wife wanted something unique). It was really fun going around antique shops looking for a ring -- and we're not really the "antiquing" types. Something to look into if you're looking for something different, particularly if you're in a city with a large neighborhood of antique shops.

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.

I'm older than Gen Y and I have a sapphire ring. It's my birthstone and I always loved it.

Financial security and status are two sides of the same coin.

It's funny how this obvious connection eluded most of the higher up commenters.

Except that women value Financial security only when they grow old and are in need of money.

While they are young, status is the deal they want because of pressures from social circles.

Same thing. The baby cravings (i.e. need for security) hit almost all women by age 24, many earlier... I don't think of that as old.

“From birth to age 18, a girl needs good parents, from 18 to 35 she needs good looks, from 35 to 55 she needs a good personality, and from 55 on she needs cash.” --Sophie Tucker

What if I bought a nominal ring and instead threw the rest of the money (and then some) at a REALLY awesome vacation for us?

Havent't you heard? A vacation is a few days, but A Diamond Is Forever.

You have to find the right woman.

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...

I was gobsmacked when I heard that people borrow money to have a wedding. I have never heard of that happening in New Zealand. How common is this? Or am I just mixing in the wrong circles?

It's quite common to be $30,000+ in debt for a wedding where my family is from (Turkey).

Yea but don't your weddings last for days? In the US a wedding can be done in a matter of hours and still cost close to that.

You read too many fairy tales.

I don't know if a lot of people borrow, but ridiculously expensive weddings are common in America, and they are terrible. Many people won't get married if they can't "afford a wedding". Like the parent, our wedding was under $200 when all was said and done, including rings (which neither of us wear).

In Thailand, people borrow money to have a wedding. But guests pay some money (+ gift) at the wedding. So you usually got enough back, if not more, to pay for the debt.

Going into debt for a wedding, in the USA, is very common.

So is divorce. I did the math, and it came up wanting.

+1 for this.

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.

Our wedding bands totalled $198. The deli platter took use over $200.

My sister bought the deli platter so I didn't count it.

With inflation it would be a bit more today.

Exactly what I did. Spent 6 months salary for 3 months of travel. I am from Austria though, so there was no social stigma attached

>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.

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.

I don't think there has to be merely one single solitary reason for the popularity of diamonds. Whenever you see profound effects (in this case, a massive number of people people grossly overpaying for a useless rock), it's worth considering the possibility that you have several strong forces all pushing in the same direction. In this case, yes, advertising doesn't hurt. But there are plenty of other factors that may be contributing:

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.

csallen, thank you for thinking of making a list! I do have one or two more reasons to add to your list.

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!

Another way of thinking about it is the age old saying:

'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.

An anecdotal data point: a friend used to work with a man who had married right out of high school, as had most of his classmates. At that point, probably 15 or 20 years out, this marriage was one of the few still intact. The man's observation was that in this group, the length of marriage was inversely proportional to the cost of the wedding.

Another anecdotal data point: When I married, I was working as a low-level reporter for near minimum wage. We married at a city courthouse and had a reception in the living room with my housemates who happened to be home at the time. I didn't buy a rock of any sort, though I gave her a plain gold wedding band I got from an estate sale. She gave me one she bought for $70 at a jewelry store.

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.

In graduate school, I took a class on evolutionary biology. One of the principles put forth was that women (think cave women) evolved to focus on seeking a mate that provided time and resources because women are more focused on the long-term reproduction strategy of investing in their offspring and want a mate to help maximize their success (i.e. that offspring surviving to reproduce). Both men and women were shown to engage in both short and long term reproduction strategies of sorts. Men sleeping around (short term) and supporting a child (long term). Women supporting a child with a mate's help (long term) and sneaking out on mate to have sex with genetically superior mate (short term). One of the supporting studies showed that in a list of things that would most anger a man or women relative to their mate, men rated sexual infidelity as number one (this is in part because men have paternal uncertainty and their worst outcome is investing in the long term strategy of raising another male's child). Women listed sexual infidelity as somewhere in the top few, but number one was their mate spending time/money/resources on another woman. For example, imagining their guy taking another woman out to dinner, spending time and thought on her, buying her a gift, etc. upset them more than the thought of him simply have sex with a women he wasn't otherwise invested in. Within this theory, an expensive diamond communicates that the male is making a large investment and communicates to other women that the woman with the diamond is worthy of that large investment. In real life, women of course range from "don't care or think that way" or "achieve that validation through non-material means" to "totally obsessed with sucking material goods and services from a man and showing that off to other people (mostly women). It was an interesting course and study.

I think your second point is the most salient.

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.

Does "I'm not stupid enough to pay insane margins on a worthlessly common piece of rock." count as a story? It sounds more like a statement of fact to me.

All good points. I think the real takeaway here though is if the price of a diamond really floated to its fair value, we'd be buying rings with something else on them. Which satisfies most of your list, but in addition, it would be more rational because what you buy could actually be justified as some sort of investment and not merely burning your money in essentially a grand century long con job.

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.

Why do you think your argument contradicts the claim that it is about social status?

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".

Coke plain tastes better. They spend millions on research getting the taste just right. Most store brand colas have one overpowering flavor that ruins the experience.

You absolutely nailed it with this comment. Was reading pieces of the debate out loud to my girlfriend, who is rather rational and intelligent but for some reason still wants a diamond ring (and I couldn't really figure out why) - when I read this and looked over, I knew you got it 100% right. Well done.

Same with my wife. Told her about blood diamonds, and how the price is artificially inflated. She agreed. Still got the diamond ring.

Yup, I've had a similar conversation.

Basically came down to some variation on "I don't ask for a lot (she doesn't), but I want the diamond ring."

>>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.

Repeat steps 1 - 4 endlessly.

Did you try modifying step 2 to something along these lines:

"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.

"actually I decided that I don't want to spend the rest of my life with someone who wants this badly to manipulate me to buy them something useless."

There are a lot of girls out there you haven't met yet. Go find one who gets you.

Interesting assumption there that he is buying her something. Agreeing as a married couple whether to spend money on something doesn't indicate that it is his or her money, the discussion implies that money is shared. For all you know if could be all her money in terms of income.

Of course if she wants it, it's useless.

Gigolos servicing rich cougars don't ask for diamond rings.

That sounds like the process with my 3 year old daughter ;-) (though never my wife, luckily)

Yeah, the things that women do in order to outdo their female friends are expensive and pointless--almost as much so as the things that men do to outdo their male friends!

At least men tend to spend their own money to increase social status by buying more expensive cars and gadgets.

Well women spend their time and health bearing and nursing our (hopefully :) children. That's resources they could have dedicated to pumping their social status. So in the end it's fair I guess...

Then buy used (the diamond) and pay for a nice ring design. But don't tell her.

My grandfather ran a grocery store throughout the Depression, and he accumulated a large selection of diamond rings from cash strapped customers. When my father and his brother were getting married, they had their choice of the rings.

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?

As we found out when looking for a ring, there is (perhaps manufactured) superstitious social stigma attached to using a used engagement ring. How do you know it's not from a failed marriage? Many jewelers were confused and incredulous when we asked about one.

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.

> Many jewelers were confused and incredulous when we asked about one.

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.

Absolutely - which is why I said the sentiment was perhaps manufactured. We went to multiple jewellers though, big and small, and either _all_ the employees were great actors or at least some were genuinely surprised that we made the request.

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]

Agreed. I accompanied my fiance when he shopped for my ring and most salespeople tried to tell both of us that we were wrong. We ended up getting it from a catalog.

I would imagine diamond rings were rare during the Depression, while today they're common. Perhaps an entire year's sales of diamonds in 1930 takes place in a single day today. Wait til 1 or 2 generations from now. I'm willing to bet the entire racket will collapse on its own weight by then.

"Diamonds are forever, after all"

De Beers marketing worked on you. It is not that hard to destroy diamonds. Google "burning diamonds" for examples.

nobody does it, after all

..And then deal with the crap storm that would erupt when she discovers about it..

If the ring is new but only the stone is "used", it´ll be hard to be discovered and still much cheaper. Even a refinished old ring would be quite hard to tell apart from a brand new one (unless your fiance is quite an expert on ring designs, and able to tell apart if a ring is 20 years old, then of course you better buy a new one). But don´t do it if you are not good at keeping secrets...

No such problem in my case. I explained I was strongly against the idea for most of the reasons listed in the original article and it wasn't a negotiable point. Basically if she still wanted the diamond ring then she didn't understand me well enough to be married to me. I didn't get all RMS-esque about it, but somethings are under our control, some aren't. It is one of those things that was. We got order-made platinum wedding rings instead.

  | 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.

But A Diamond is Forever. It's an investment. If you're ever on hard times, then you can just turn around and sell the... oh... ;-)

If you are seriously worried about that, it's a huge sign you're not committed. Tiny resale value is preferable here.

Committed doesn't mean that there's zero chance of a failed relationship. In fact, there's a rather high chance that any given relationship will fail these days. There's nothing wrong by realizing that it's a possibility and it shouldn't signal non-commitment.

Yes there is. It's like the classic burning of your ships once you've landed. Once you know there's no turning back, you have no option but to make things work by going forwards.

Huh? Having the money to splurge on a ring is a signal of financial fitness because you have the extra money to spend on something that will 'have no return' (so the speak). It's hardly a case of 'burning of your ships.' If you have the financial security to splurge on some ridiculous ring, then it's also possible that you have the ability to just absorb the cost if you don't like the marriage.

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.

Two people propose to you with rings that cost 25k each. One ring is resellable for 20k. One is resellable for 5k. Which one do you think is more likely to renege?

Why would two people propose?

http://abc.go.com/shows/the-bachelorette

LMAO

If a proposer reneges, then you'll own the ring:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engagement_ring#Legal_ownership

By then it's too late. The point is not to get more out of it if things go south. The point is to make sure they don't. This is basic game theory, buddy.

Perhaps I should have been more verbose. The point I was trying to make is that neither proposer is more likely to renege. Since they have both given away their 25k investment, it doesn't matter to either of them what the resale value is and thus it has no impact on their decisions. Unless it's assumed that you'll be combining assets upon marriage, which I hadn't taken into account in my original post.

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.

The one with better romantic prospects, obviously.

I don't know why everyone assumed "hard times" as referring to the marriage... I interpreted it as hard financial times, even in a good marriage.

Although it's at least implied in most vows, many people can't imagine a marriage surviving hard financial times.

Do you mean that you feel many people respond to financial problems by splitting up. Doesn't that exacerbate their financial problems, at least short term, and - if there are no other issues - dispose of many benefits in the process?

| they want to be able to show off the diamonds to their group of (female) and boost their social status among them.

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.

Lots of things are expensive though, so it has to be more than that.

It is more than that. Not only is it expensive, but its also small enough that you wear it everywhere. Think about why ipod/iphones are so popular amongst teenagers

It's better if everyone in society can agree on the same signal to use. Otherwise it's too hard to verify.

From all psychology signaling is most powerful when it shows expensive resources spent on unpractical, useless things. As the peacock 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".

Out of curiosity, I started looking at what a three-months salary engagement ring would look like if I proposed to my wife today.

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.

Is the price of diamonds in the U.S. really that high?

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.

For a senior developer in SF area, 3 months salary could get you a loose diamond in the 3-4 carat range off a site like bluenile.com. That's enormous for a ring. In fact, probably so large that disbelief becomes a problem: "That can't be real!"

Wowsers. 1.5 carat solitaire rings look quite huge, 3 carats would be enormous.

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...)

It depends where you go. Mall stores (Kay/Jareds/etc) are all owned by 1 company[0]. Which means you can "shop around" the mall and one may be a few hundred cheaper than the others. But, still all over priced. Stores outside that brand are generally near those stores and also over charge. Both, don't keep many diamonds onsite. They all ask for your budget, and ship in 2-3 stones for you to look at (in your budget). Then, you buy one. Illusion of choice.

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.

[0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterling_Jewelers

>Women want diamonds not because of any symbolic reasons ("Diamonds are forever!")

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 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).

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.

> but eventually had to settle for a natural one which wasn't sourced from Africa

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.

No, but it's impossible for me to know where in Africa the diamond is coming from, which means it's impossible to know whether or not it's a conflict diamond. I know that diamond miners in Russia or India have decent working conditions and that there's no chance of the proceeds going to fund a bloody civil war; I have no such confidence when the most specific answer the jeweler can give me regarding the stone's origins is "Africa."

Is it really true (I'm not doubtful, just shocked) that the jeweller can tell you what country the diamond came from unless that country is in a particular continent?

Countries in Africa are smaller than Russia or India. Borders are crossed much more easily.

Because of the 'blood diamond' controversy, the diamonds get mixed up together, sold around, exported, smuggled, etc. There's no way to track them.

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.

The problem with buying diamonds from anywhere is that you're giving conflict diamonds added value through the simple fact of your demand for them. They're a fungible commodity. Essentially there is no diamond that is not a blood diamond.

Absolutely. Buying Canadian/Russian/Indian diamonds doesn't help.

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 the respect of others in your peer group is sad now?

I think what's sad here is not the desire for the respect of one's peers, but the means chosen to attain it; or rather, the arbitrarily-established mechanisms for doing so.

She should change her friends.

Wanting respect is fine, but not respect based upon the size of an arbitrary stone.

What's worse about that than any other silly thing to respect someone for?

> Wanting the respect of others in your peer group is sad now?

Wanting superficial respect based on material things is sad.

Why do you care what the respect is based on? What differentiates "superficial" respect from genuine respect? I guarantee you the criteria you use to judge people look equally ridiculous to other people too.

What's your point, exactly? Slaveholders and abolitionists certainly chose to respect different people in the 19th century. That doesn't change the fact that slaveholders who judged people based on how large their plantation was were horrible people not worthy of our respect.

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.

The point is not about who you should or should not respect. The point is that other people are going to respect certain aspects in people that you don't agree with, and it's silly to say that respect is not real just because you don't agree with its motivations. It's the same reason we don't like c# developers who say that python devs aren't real programmers.

Are you from debeers or did are you someone who bought a huge rock for their wife?

> What differentiates "superficial" respect from genuine respect?

This question is quite telling.

Do you honestly believe that you are so obviously correct, anyone who disagrees with you must only be doing it because they are financially invested in presenting that way?

Respect for something you are or something you do is not the same as respect for something you buy.

Not sure why you got downvoted.

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'm not sure either. Weird.

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.

The main thing I took away was in this passage: "you prove to me I'm worth it. ...make me know how valuable I am. Because I don't have any idea..."

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.

Earning money and buying things with it is something you do, no less than climbing a mountain or writing a play.

That's not the point though. If anything is worth the respect of your peers there it's what you do to earn the money, not shiny rocks that you spend the cash on.

It's important to think about how this is a product of the people with whom one surround oneself.

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.

Exactly. If you aren't into those sorts of symbols, odds are the friends you select aren't, either. None of my friends had diamonds - including me - and none of the rest of us cared, one way or the other.

Well but don't you say it yourself that the diamond is a kind of "showy waste"* to show that they are able to command a fiancé/husband of their own that is able to provide? That is a symbolic reason no?

The Mating Mind, Geoffrey Miller

> 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.

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.

I wanted my birthstone, a sapphire, and that's what I got. Everyone in my family and circle of friends thought it was great. The only one who had an issue was my mother-in-law, who said "I know my son loves you more than that". My MIL and I had different values. . .

The birthstone myth is just as made up as the De Beers diamond myths.

If that is true, at least birthstones don't cost as much generally.

You're wrong. Jewelry is the historical way to store wealth.

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.

But don't they always sell at a loss? Yes, it beats a blank, but still, isn't it a depreciating asset? Back then, they didn't have the investment vehicles that we have today.

I am very glad that my wife was reasonable and agreed that I need not get her a diamond. She still wanted a ring, so I designed and made a claddagh style ring for her, with a blue topaz set in silver. It cost me less than $50, plus many hours researching, designing, and carving the wax mold. (I have a friend who is a jeweler, and he was able to provide expert assistance and tools to get the job done :)

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).

This is the kind of lady I'll be happy to find and bond with i just such a way! Congratuations!

I would be far more happy to have a ring made for me then one that was just bought from a store no matter what the price difference for all sorts of reasons (unique, easy to just spend money, hard to actually make one wtc)

My girlfriend said the same thing. I did however get her a diamond (she doesn't know about it yet)... but it cost me 1/20th the price as I have a friend in that industry. I would not have paid retail for a diamond as I know how much of a rip off it is.

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. :)

I think your collection of stones is quite awesome as well, and tells a far better story than just a diamond.

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.

XKCD is always relevant.

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.

I love the collection of stones! Great idea. I wish you and your girlfriend the best of fortunes in your life together!

Sure, that's definitely for some women. But you can also use that to your advantage.

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 spent an amount of money equivalent to what De Beers charges for a diamond ring because of the advertising campaign De Beers started about a century ago. You felt like you had to match that expenditure, perhaps subconsciously. If the diamond cartel and diamond advertising and diamond pricing didn't exist, you wouldn't have that specific financial figure to aspire to.

>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.

You may be interested in signalling theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory

>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.

What a quaint and gross way of looking at the world.

Except it happens to be factually, empirically true. Read the behavioral & social psychology literature; double blind experiments.

[citation needed]

I've had this discussion on reddit far too many times with too many incredulous responses to what is plainly obvious if you're willing to see it: http://www.psy.cmu.edu/~rakison/bussandschmitt.pdf

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.

Men seek out highly attractive women using different criteria, but that doesn't mean they're successful.

There's a difference between wanting something and demanding it.

I'm not sure what your point is.

Maybe I'd like to work for a company that gives me a yacht, but I'm not going to demand a yacht as terms of employment.

You'll have a much better shot at getting it if you explicitly make it part of your negotiation process, since most companies won't think to include it on their own.

All the boring but stable and decently successful men that get laid like crazy.. oh, wait..

We're not talking about getting laid, we're talking about getting married. Fact is, married people get way more sex than single people.

So the world is filled with gold-diggers? No. Not true.

You'll find it shocking that in some parts of the world people are happily married without any jewelry at all.

I find it shocking that there are people that think that a woman wanting financial security makes that woman a 'gold-digger'.

There is an enormous difference between wanting financial security and wanting someone to buy them a giant diamond ring as a token of it.

No, there isn't. If the girl is even slightly intelligent, she will want proof of that financial security and a diamond ring is adequate proof that she can verify on her own.

If she's even slightly intelligent they will have discussed finances well ahead of the wedding, probably lived together for some time and know the situation very well.

A shiny rock is not a proxy for communication.

If the girl is even slightly intelligent she'll be able to make an assessment without needing a glittery ring.

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.

All mates are attracted to money, some are simply more attracted than others.

> 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 diamond is just as easily faked as a bank statement.

The OP said,

>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.

Both can be faked equally easily, given equivalent verification mechanisms.

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.

To get a ring appraised you can walk into a jewelry store and pay $100 without the person who bought the diamond knowing about it.

That is simply not possible to do with a bank statement, there is no equivalent easy to use affordable service.

Of course it's possible. Private detectives can procure an insane amount of information on anyone, often using quasi-legal means like social engineering of the target or "favors" from friends on the police force.

Given equivalent conditions, the two tasks are equally easy.

>there is no equivalent easy to use affordable service.

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

The implication, in this context, is that the man and the woman would have very unequal shares of financial responsibility (or expectations). That's why she would be perceived as a gold digger.

>>I find it shocking that there are people that think that a woman wanting financial security makes that woman a 'gold-digger'.

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.

> And why exactly is it the man's responsibility to provide financial security for the woman?

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.

>So the world is filled with gold-diggers? No. Not true.

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.

I think your viewpoint is skewed extremely strongly towards the peculiar tendencies expressed in Western society and America in particular.

Not everyone has two SUVs, two kids in private schools, and a vacation home.

He explicitly doesn't, his whole point was to say that the ways of expressing affluence differ between regions and culture.

That point was made, then completely dismissed when stating that the "majority" of women demand a man that can provide a diamond.

This is mostly thanks to De Beers expanding the scope of their advertising campaign internationally.

I said this,

>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.

Seeking financial security != gold digging.

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.

There are better ways to demonstrate your capability as a provider and evidence of financial security than buying diamond rings.

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.

Why do people insist on citing outliers as if that somehow negates the trend? It really derails and otherwise productive discussion. Yes, for every general rule there are always outliers. It's so obvious that it serves no useful purpose to state it explicitly.

He wasn't negating the trend. He was saying there are better ways to satisfy the evolutionary pressure than buying diamonds.

The perception that an expensive diamond is required is flawed. I'm trying to illustrate that it's an institution that's crumbling.

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.

Please, keep your "friend of mine" anecdotes out of generally intelligent discussion.

I don't know that anything "financial" qualifies as an evolutionary concept.

Financial no, because that's one derivation of a greater desire - to find a fit mate.

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.

or jsut hang around with people

>What a quaint and gross way of looking at the world.

Yet very pervasive.

If X is the price of the rock then for sufficiently large X it can be guaranteed that he won't have any money left over for what's coming "after it" anyway. In some cases a large value of X simply proves that he doesn't apply common sense when managing his finances.

Welcome to planet earth. Have you met women yet? They are quaint and gross.

If you devalued the diamond, something else would just step into the void, whether it was another gem, something synthetic, whatever.

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.

Actually, an expensive holiday is much better than any of the others: http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2009/08/27/money-and-happines...

I agree, except that I believe that an expensive holiday can be a very fullfilling way of spending your money that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with showing off.

Some of us dislike monopolies.

This depiction is camouflaging itself as if it is a brutally truthful account of the way things are, but I don't see how it even remotely stacks up to reality from any angle you look at it.

* 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).

This is absolutely true. My wife was entirely happy with any sort of token of our marriage and engagement, being entirely confident of how special she is to me. There are women out there who do not care, just want to feel special. Some people react against a trend like buying diamonds and see NOT receiving one as a sign of how profoundly different and special they are. Oddly too, we both come from very low income families, so the over-compensating effect did not manifest. Everyone is different, all reasons for explaining something like a desire for diamonds never apply to everyone.

Works the other way round as well: If your spouse can't be talked out of a vain purchase with a rational argument, you won't be able to do that after it either, so there's no point.

Wouldn't it make more sense (and be easier - more supply) if a woman "bought" a man for future earning potential, i.e. connections, skills, ambitions, ...?

It's a great test for gold-diggers, though.

Potential is incredibly hard to judge. The cost of the ring he buys you is easy.

Basically, the diamond ring is the peacock's tail (as explained by Dawkins).

From my perspective, this comment has some truth, but is a little off also.

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.

Exactly. No matter the cause of WHY diamonds seem to be valued so highly in societal worth, the fact is, well, they are.

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.

I know lots of people that don't do anything couple-ish for valentines day, it's becoming more and more common to ignore it.

Women deserve better than to be coddled like children. They deserve to be given a reality check like adults.

I remember reading this very good Wired article [1] ("Armed with inexpensive, mass-produced gems, two startups are launching an assault on the De Beers cartel. Next up: the computing industry.") and assuming we were on the verge of a major disruption. But that was 10 years ago. Anyone know why it didn't quite work out that way?

[1] http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/diamond.html

The psychology of diamonds only works if you pay a lot for the stone. I would posit that synthetic diamonds fail for the same reasons that knock-offs like cubic zirconiums fail. They don't deliver on the promise of the advertising. The advertising promises that your love can only be shown by spending a lot of money on this specific thing with these specific set of arbitrary selected attributes. E.g., it must come from the ground, and it must cost a lot of money, even if your only reward is that you can tell people you spent a lot on it and that it came from the ground.

It's not rational; it's an emotional. Society has a tremendous emotional investment in the concept of the diamond engagement ring.

Sure, but part of the point of the article was that the "created" diamonds could be made that are literally indistinguishable from those found in the ground. Seems like that has the potential to disrupt the diamond cartel's stranglehold on supply.

In a practical sense, cubic zirconium stones are indistinguishable from diamonds as well. Unless someone breaks out a diamond tester, no one will be able to see the difference. Yet consumers continue to purchase real diamonds.

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.

Perhaps you're right. But I bet a lot more people would be willing to lie about how "real" their diamond is if there was no way anyone could prove otherwise.

It's like believing in the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny, but for adults.

What other manufactured fairy tales have huge quantities of humans swallowed hook line and sinker?

Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Shintoism etc.

Gilette. During WW2, they didn't have anyone to sell their products to, so they started marketing shaving to women. Before this, a woman shaving was akin to claiming yourself to be a prostitute. Now, it's a cultural norm for women to shave...all because of manufactured desire.

This sounds apocryphal. Women were shaving their armpits in the 1920s.

Sorry, WW1. I get those two mixed up all the time. And yeah, actually, it may be apocryphal, but here's why I believe it to be true.

[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....

Though not shaving, women and men had been removing bodily hair with a variety of creams/razors way before WW1.

Ruby on Rails.

(I kid, I kid... we're actually a Rails shop ourselves)

Wine. Wine prices are based mostly on arbitrary criteria, not on actual quality.

If you blind taste test wines, it looks like there's nearly no correlation between price and quality above $5-$10 a bottle.

Up to a point. The correlation is not good, and I've had some horredous expensive wines, but for a weak-medium price-quality correlation I'd say the cut off is more like $50 or so, after which it gets a lot weaker! This is because there are better wines, but you can't tell the nuances until you hone your palate... practise a lot! It's just as a professional skier gets more use out of the nuances of his or her skis for greater performance, so does a mindful and interested drinker (aesthete?) of wines, beers, or eater of good cheese for that matter, find more depth in the aesthetics because of the attention to the process over time.

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!

> This is because there are better wines, but you can't tell the nuances until you hone your palate... practice a lot!

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.

It happens in a similar way to anything: you see what works, and create sense with symbols and consistent repetition as in any semantic field. Why is one burger better than another, or one steak? I can't say we have the science yet for exact measurement, but it may come. Sometimes it's obvious: cheap industrial plastic supermarket cheddar really is full of less decent chemicals for your senses than pricier artisan ones like Humboldt Fog. That can be demonstrated, and I suspect in the future more will be demonstrable with wine. So far you can realise why that cheap Zin blend from Lodi doesn't really do it for you with the most obvious of measurements: yield! They get even 10 tons per acre there rather than 1-3 tons in a high-quality vineyard. Fewer nutrients and flavours to go around, and more water, sugar and untasty components have to flesh it out (poor overburdened vines, eh!) that's just the first variable: I know some more, but there are good soil scientists who can tell you a lot about all of the other variables too. Feel free to ping me for pointers, as I don't have time to write about it now.

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.

So far you can realise why that cheap Zin blend from Lodi doesn't really do it for you with the most obvious of measurements: yield! They get even 10 tons per acre there rather than 1-3 tons in a high-quality vineyard. Fewer nutrients and flavours to go around, and more water, sugar and untasty components have to flesh it out (poor overburdened vines, eh!),

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...

Look up, for example, why top Napa vineyards go for low yields. It's also basic chemistry. 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).

Look up, for example, why top Napa vineyards go for low yields.

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.

When i have a moment I"lk try to find a source.. In the eanwhile, this is the book to get by the ultimate wine scientist http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520275195

No, I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but they used trained wine experts. No statistically valid correlation between price and quality.

jag - see above reply. So the markets are such that some wines are heavily underpriced and others overpriced, often because of extrinsic social variables! Absolutely! I'd be very surprised if the correlation was zero, however! Show me the data!

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.

> 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!

We'll then just have to agree too disagree. Until you can show me some good and extensive research to demonstrate otherwise, I'll go with the extensive soft data there is out there to support the consensual position.

This study is worth a skim: http://www.wine-economics.org/aawe/wp-content/uploads/2012/1...

"Audiophile" gear.

Yes, like gifts in many situations it's not what you buy that's important. It's what you spend.

If they were cheap, people would still buy them because they are incredibly pretty stones. The social aspect of diamond engagement rings would fall apart but they wouldn't go away.

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.

It's not an artificial market, it's a real one, for real diamonds. Nobody has to buy them.

It's artificial because it's very difficult to sell diamonds. If the market wasn't so messed up, dealers would be willing to buy diamonds from individuals. But in general, they aren't.

Pretty much if you buy a diamond you are a victim of a rather successful campaign that De Beers have been running for decades in order to limit the availability of diamonds and create an artificial scarcity.

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.

Can I get one of these industrial diamonds in a ring?

I don't know, but you can buy men-made Moissanite (silicon carbide), which is superior to diamond in every category except for hardness: it's only the second hardest rock in the known universe!

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