Post memes here.
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Laittakaa meemejä tänne.
It was weird to me, when I was looking for rings and jewelry that there are gems that have a higher brilliance and luster than diamonds (and unlike super-fancy bright glass is actually robust enough for typical use). And yet, the folks that want diamonds want diamonds. Since around 2016 after seeing the Mnuchins in the news, it felt like conflict diamonds and slave-mined diamonds are in.
Use to work opposite a De Beers building that had a helipad on the roof. Choppers were always flying in and out.
Thought it was the CEO coming and going by heli, but turns out they were for diamond shipments. Safer to transport them by air than on the road.
At this point you're not paying money for a diamond, you're paying money for a certificate.
If you want to know how much a diamond is really worth, go to any jewelry store and ask them to appraise the resell value of your natural diamond ring with certificate and all, no matter how much you paid for it, they're probably going to tell you only the precious metal setting is worth any money, and the rock itself is utterly worthless the second you received it.
Which makes diamond a terrible symbol for love.
Considering more than 50% of marriages end in divorce, maybe a worthless symbol is fitting.
Initially inflated and overwhelming, then completely ordinary with little value beyond how you feel about it.
"See, our love is just like a diamond: Turns to ~~coal under high pressure and to~~ smoke when heated."
Edited for facts
Diamonds turn to coal under pressure? I thought it was the other way around. i.e. formed from coal under high pressure.
The fact diamonds can burn is pretty crazy, but it makes sense since they're mostly (entirely?) carbon.
Edit: Sorry for ruining your otherwise perfect analogy :)
I like diamonds, my wife calls me a magpie. I buy her jewelry so I get to look at it while she wears it. That being said, I only buy jewelry with artificial diamonds for my better half. She jokingly reacts affronted when I tell her, with an incredulous face she will go "What? No children died for this? Some husband you are!"
Your wife sounds absolutely lovely.
I'm not even sure where the need for an expensive gem stone came from, diamond or otherwise.
My wedding/engagement ring came from an artist and the bands are sculpted and fit together. It's beautiful and I never have to worry about the stone falling out of the setting, plus it was in our price range. Gem stones can be nice, not arguing against them, but rings without them can be just as pretty and more affordable.
It was a marketing campaign from De Beers. Where else would it have come from.
I gave my wife a natural diamond engagement ring, but it belonged to my great-grandmother, so I felt that it was ethical enough. You can't really do much about suffering 120 years ago (or whatever it was) and probably everyone involved in making that ring was treated like shit in one way or another because it was 1904 and everyone who wasn't white, male and rich suffered.
The most suffering-free and eco-friendly ring is the one already made, so, you did the best thing!
I think so too, thank you.
My brain; "120 years? So the mid 1800s right?....."
How many world wars were fought in the last century? The answer might surprise you!
If by last century, you mean 1900-1999; 2
If you mean in the last 100 years; 1. Which is honestly impressive all things considered.
Yeah only question for me right now is if it will go to 0 or 2 before going back to 1.
Don't limit yourself, could go to 2 and then 3 instead of back to 1.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good
A Veblen good is a type of luxury good, named after American economist Thorstein Veblen, for which the demand increases as the price increases, in apparent contradiction of the law of demand, resulting in an upward-sloping demand curve. The higher prices of Veblen goods may make them desirable as a status symbol in the practices of conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure. A product may be a Veblen good because it is a positional good, something few others can own.
That said, part of the problem with lab-grown diamonds is that they're not competing against a rare commodity. They're competing against a powerful vertically integrated cartel. There isn't any real diamond shortage, just a supply-side monopoly. There isn't a natural high demand for diamonds, just a market saturated with aggressive advertising. There isn't a wholesale diamond exchange judging the rocks objectively on their quality, just a series of elaborate marketing gimmicks and scammy sales goons trying to upsell you.
Diamonds have always been a racket. The one blessing of manufactured diamonds is that they're no longer a racket putting market pressure on industrial grade diamond equipment. But the jewelry exists to separate gullible superficial status-fixated people from their money. Ethics was never part of the equation.
Shit like that is why I think neuro-atypical people might actually be the correct psychological state and everyone else is just a "normal" animal.
An AuDHD perspective: Neurotypicals tend to lack curiosity and passion for interests. They're less in-touch with their senses, sometimes needing mind-altering substances in order to appreciate basic sensory stimuli. Not only that, but they are overly-invested in "following the group" and "blending in," even if it ends up harming them.
So yeah, you might be onto something.
I like to call it Attention Surplus Disorder. It's crazy to me how most people can just focus on something for 50 hours a week that they're not interested in at all, and this doesn't set off warning bells in their head.
Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of antiwork neurotypicals, but it seems weird how many people actively support it.
I think for most people it's just a matter of tradeoffs. You don't have to be interested in the act of doing something in order to be interested in the consequence of doing that thing.
Someone who doesn't like driving may still drive, and concentrate on driving the entire time, to get to a destination where they want to end up. For someone who doesn't like to cook but wants to eat hot food, cooking is a means to that end.
Now, if you're saying that you don't think that tradeoff is worth it to you, maybe that's true of them if they stop to think about it, too. But I'm not sure that's what's going on for most people who continue to work jobs they don't like.
Anything to the effect of "this ring isn't expensive enough" is the only reason you need to never marry that person.
My (former) best friend got married young, and her and her husband had rings they got at the flea market that cost about 20 bucks a piece. I always respected the hell out of her for that. Her sisters tried to make it out like it was some kind of bad omen, or like it meant they didn't love each other. She had a lot of pressure to cave into and act like a snotty brat about the cost of the rings. She never did, and loved her cheap ass flea market ring.
She turned out to be a terrible person in a multitude of other ways, but on that note, good for her.
My wife and I, very early in our relationship, bought cheap tungsten carbide rings to prank my parents by telling them we had eloped. When we actually did get married, we decided to use those same rings. I like her.
The fact that the human race sees scarcity as a good thing....
Is everything I need to justify misanthropy in its most literal form (Hatred of humanity)
For a few years I've saved this pic from previous similar posts in various places, no need even for freaking diamonds
Moisannaite gives the most rainbows, and I think they are gorgeous.
But I do love the sparkle of diamonds, and sometimes prefer it. Fortunately synthetic ones are easy to come by.
