Hacker News Reader

I'm in no way advocating this trade should continue, but I never knew about the art carved out of ivory. I've always seen on tv/movies just the tusk. The pieces in the picture are so beautiful.

That being said, ivory it's self doesn't look much different from a concrete mix or a nicely painted piece of wood. I wonder why so many people are obsessed with it.

View on HN

China has a long fascination with ivory, and Chinese have traditionally valued many exotic goods derived from animals. China also doesn't care much about the environment or natural resources, especially those that are not the natural heritage of China. The rising price of ivory will not deter people in China, on the contrary, the prestige of many items in china (eg Chateau Lafite Rothschild) is connected primarily to the price of the items.

China is a country with a population exceeding a billion people. Generalizations like this don't help anyone.

Those types of goods are known as Veblen Goods:

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

Reply on news.ycombinator.com