My gf has diamond stud earrings plus 3-4 diamond rings (including one... rock. big fucker), all of which she inherited from her grandmother. I'm fine with the fact that when I propose, if there's a diamond on the ring it's going to be a synthetic one.
If that's the understanding you and your girlfriend have, that seems fine with me. I'd say a lot of people are actually more materialist than they let on, but effort and the weight behind a gesture doesn't have to be focused on an expensive rock.
I think I'd be a little more understanding of the "REEEEAL DIAMOND!" craze if the girl didn't already have a bunch of real diamonds (still probably wouldn't buy one). Luckily my gf knows enough about DeBeers to not want to buy any diamonds from them.
This is in addition to me being incapable of understanding the point of spending bucketloads of money on certain pretty rocks when other rocks look exactly the same... but that's a different argument.
I will show my eternal love for you with this here sparkly rock that people died for.
I once had a discussion with my girlfriend and one of her best friends about diamonds, and how appalled I was by the various things De Beers had done over the years.
In that conversation I discovered that otherwise intelligent and supposedly non-materialistic women had a huge cognitive gap when it came to "OOOOOH! SPARKLY!".
Apparently crimes against humanity and terrible business practices aren't strong enough to overcome that reflex in the women around me.
Ha, yeah I've had this conversation with quite a few ex girlfriends and other women, and every single one of them have looked at me like I'm on fire when I try explain why you should never buy diamonds, and the entire sham surrounding the engagement ring practice. They try and call me cheap and so on, but the bottom line is if they can't go into work/class/whatever the next day and show off their giant money phallus to the other women, they're not interested. And people wonder why I'm so sour on the idea of marriage.
You wouldn't believe how many people fall for the "natural is always better than artificial" crap that so many companies put out, even for products that are physically indistinguishable from each other. It's times like this that I like to point out how anthrax, Ebola, and cyanide are all naturally formed.
I won't even get into the ruckus I caused when I brought up the concept of synthetic diamonds.
Not cubic zirconia, but as noted earlier in the thread, diamonds that happened to be made in a lab, rather than plucked from the Earth.
Again I pointed out to them that to the vast majority of people (especially those without lab equipment) they were essentially indestinguishable from one another, but one likely came at some cost to a poor nation, and the other was the result of some guy in a white lab coat and a bunch of awesome technology.
Still had none of it. They even cited the 2 month salary minimum as some kind of benchmark against which they'd hold the ring (and presumably, me).
Really?
I'm not sure which made me sadder; that love, attention and affection have a pricetag, or that the pricetag was so low. Like, I make a fine salary, but 4 paycheques prove devotion using some rock that some assholes decided should be valuable?
I hope this hasn't drifted too tangentally, but while I lack the focused rage of some within this thread, De Beers is definitely one of the top companies I think of when it comes to horrific business practices.
Edit: though if it comes down to it, I may have just found my "out" if the relationship falls apart.
Get her a gimmal and/or puzzle ring. The idea of coming together in marriage is really romantic, and the big, complicated intertwinings look really cool. If you're really loaded, you could make the whole thing out of synthetic diamond, and they can't really complain because you can't specify what shapes natural diamonds come in.
honestly though if the financial industry counts i think goldman-sachs would have to be pretty near the top as well
even atrociously shitty corps like east india and pacific railroad had something to show for it, they kept trade moving and built infrastructure while they were getting millions of people killed
the financial industry at this point does nothing except move imaginary money around amongst people and institutions where it's never used, to the detriment of literally everybody except those people
it's a $595 trillion business that's completely unregulated and goldman-sachs is at its forefront to make sure the status quo is never interrupted
Central Pacific Railroad Company vs East India Trading Company FIGHT!
Trading in the period of the East India Trading Company was just nasty. For comparison, look at the the Dutch East Indies Company, and the West (Americas) variant. Both were complete and utter bastards, and their suppression and explotation of natives, sanctioned piracy and slavery made a small country rich.
How does this go in China, Loren? The tainted milk bunch were executed but how do protests and boycotts work over there for the not-poisoning-babies-but-still-evil companies?
My understanding is that small scale protests are often beaten down, but unless they're threatening to the party establishment as a whole, there are often consequences for higher-ups if the resentment sticks around. Protests are effective if they don't threaten the party structure as a whole (often this is done by having grievances that target local corruption as opposed to broad, systemic corruption) and they get past and outlast the attempts to quiet them.
Loren Michael on
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
This is in addition to me being incapable of understanding the point of spending bucketloads of money on certain pretty rocks when other rocks look exactly the same... but that's a different argument.
An e-machines PC from 1998 and something from Falcon Northwest can both be dressed up to appear the same on the outside. :P
I might be misinterpreting the analogy, but computers are handy because they can do stuff; what they look like is secondary (unless you're buying a Mac hurr hurr!). Unless you're building a city-destroying laser, looking good is all diamonds do.
(Apparently they're also good as value-storing commodity, but when I buy a ring I'm getting something pretty-looking, not turning my fortune of Deutschmarks into something that'll be valuable after the war.)
This is in addition to me being incapable of understanding the point of spending bucketloads of money on certain pretty rocks when other rocks look exactly the same... but that's a different argument.
I will show my eternal love for you with this here sparkly rock that people died for.
Again, it's a show of effort used and resources spent. The appearance is (almost) incidental to the actual purpose of the rock.
This is in addition to me being incapable of understanding the point of spending bucketloads of money on certain pretty rocks when other rocks look exactly the same... but that's a different argument.
An e-machines PC from 1998 and something from Falcon Northwest can both be dressed up to appear the same on the outside. :P
I might be misinterpreting the analogy, but computers are handy because they can do stuff; what they look like is secondary (unless you're buying a Mac hurr hurr!). Unless you're building a city-destroying laser, looking good is all diamonds do.
(Apparently they're also good as value-storing commodity, but when I buy a ring I'm getting something pretty-looking, not turning my fortune of Deutschmarks into something that'll be valuable after the war.)
Also the fact that a synthetic diamond is still a god damned diamond. The molecules aren't any different, it's all just carbon atoms.
honestly though if the financial industry counts i think goldman-sachs would have to be pretty near the top as well
even atrociously shitty corps like east india and pacific railroad had something to show for it, they kept trade moving and built infrastructure while they were getting millions of people killed
the financial industry at this point does nothing except move imaginary money around amongst people and institutions where it's never used, to the detriment of literally everybody except those people
it's a $595 trillion business that's completely unregulated and goldman-sachs is at its forefront to make sure the status quo is never interrupted
You've got to admire them for pulling all that shit off. They either have a hand in or are able to leverage every world event.
Again I pointed out to them that to the vast majority of people (especially those without lab equipment) they were essentially indestinguishable from one another, but one likely came at some cost to a poor nation, and the other was the result of some guy in a white lab coat and a bunch of awesome technology.
Gem-quality diamonds grown in a lab can be chemically, physically and optically identical to naturally occurring ones, although they can be distinguished by spectroscopy in infrared, ultraviolet, or X-ray wavelengths. The DiamondView tester from De Beers uses UV fluorescence to detect trace impurities of nitrogen, nickel or other metals in HPHT or CVD diamonds.[87]
The mined diamond industry is evaluating marketing and distribution countermeasures to the appearance of the relatively cheap synthetic diamonds on the gem market. The three largest distributors of natural diamonds have made public statements about selling their diamonds with full disclosure of the individual diamond history, and have implemented measures to laser-inscribe serial numbers on their gemstones.[84]
So what exactly is their reasoning behind wanting the one mined over the one created through the power of SCIENCE! Hell, why the hell do companies care about distinguishing between them?
Because if you can't distinguish between the one that was created in a lab and the one that was mined out of the Earth, then just anyone can start up a lab and start making diamonds. Not something DeBeers is a big fan of.
Pretty much this.
The big irony of it all is that for all this time DeBeers has been marketing the "value" of their diamonds according to their perfection and clarity. Now that perfect, completely artificial diamonds are a reality they're having to say that it's not a true, REAL diamond unless it has those imperfections that come crushing carbon between slabs of dirt for millenia.
All of this diamond talk is making me mighty proud/happy that my girlfriend flat out told me after we started dating that if I ever got her a diamond for her birthday or an anniversary/engagement, she'd leave me.
This is in addition to me being incapable of understanding the point of spending bucketloads of money on certain pretty rocks when other rocks look exactly the same... but that's a different argument.
An e-machines PC from 1998 and something from Falcon Northwest can both be dressed up to appear the same on the outside. :P
I might be misinterpreting the analogy, but computers are handy because they can do stuff; what they look like is secondary (unless you're buying a Mac hurr hurr!). Unless you're building a city-destroying laser, looking good is all diamonds do.
(Apparently they're also good as value-storing commodity, but when I buy a ring I'm getting something pretty-looking, not turning my fortune of Deutschmarks into something that'll be valuable after the war.)
The only reason it has that freaking value is artificial inflation of price through price fixing, monoply maintaining a shortage over the supply, and insidious marketing.
If artificial diamonds come to be accepted as just as good, DeBeers is wholly screwed, and the so called investment value of that commodity is going to dry up.
So when I was talking about marriage with my wife, I tried to explain to her about the problems with the diamond trade. She thought I was being cheap. She even saw Blood Diamond, but was convinced there was no chance of our diamond being a conflict diamond (likely so, but still supporting a process that allows that shit).
I did tell her that she was full of shit if she thought I'd spend 6 or 7 thousand dollars on a fucking ring (2 or 3 months salary?!? fuck that shit). After a bit of somber thought, she realized I was right. That much money on what is supposed to be a symbol of committment is insane. Hell, she even said that she'd be happy with a ring that was just 1k.
If I have a daughter, I am going to make sure she knows that diamonds are the most pointless lump of carbon that human society trades in.
This is in addition to me being incapable of understanding the point of spending bucketloads of money on certain pretty rocks when other rocks look exactly the same... but that's a different argument.
An e-machines PC from 1998 and something from Falcon Northwest can both be dressed up to appear the same on the outside. :P
I might be misinterpreting the analogy, but computers are handy because they can do stuff; what they look like is secondary (unless you're buying a Mac hurr hurr!). Unless you're building a city-destroying laser, looking good is all diamonds do.
(Apparently they're also good as value-storing commodity, but when I buy a ring I'm getting something pretty-looking, not turning my fortune of Deutschmarks into something that'll be valuable after the war.)
First, diamonds are shit as a value storing commodity. That's 100% pure scam. You'll be lucky to get half back out of what you pay, and diamonds depreciate each year. Plus, synthetic SCIENCE! diamonds are poised to shitkick the cartel's high prices.
Second, synthetic diamonds are more perfect. They have fewer imperfections, greater clarity and no trace crystals or other elements. By all objective measures, synthetic diamonds are superior in every way. They literally check a diamond's 'naturalness' by seeing if it's shitty enough to have come out of the dirt instead of being perfectly made in a lab.
All of this diamond talk is making me mighty proud/happy that my girlfriend flat out told me after we started dating that if I ever got her a diamond for her birthday or an anniversary/engagement, she'd leave me.
Well, if she is clingy, crazy and you need a way out, just buy her a single cheap stud earing. Hell, buy a plastic one and say it is diamond.
Is it possible to imitate the imperfections and such of a real diamond? Just start making them and selling them as the real deal.
Sure, it would probably be illegal, but do it from Russia or Bulgaria or some shit. No one will touch you. Flood the market and buy out DeBeers in a decade. A mansion the size of Rhode Island in Bulgaria is still a mansion the size of Rhode Island.
Is it possible to imitate the imperfections and such of a real diamond? Just start making them and selling them as the real deal.
Sure, it would probably be illegal, but do it from Russia or Bulgaria or some shit. No one will touch you. Flood the market and buy out DeBeers in a decade. A mansion the size of Rhode Island in Bulgaria is still a mansion the size of Rhode Island.
Have China make knock off synthetic diamonds in bulk.
Is it possible to imitate the imperfections and such of a real diamond? Just start making them and selling them as the real deal.
Sure, it would probably be illegal, but do it from Russia or Bulgaria or some shit. No one will touch you. Flood the market and buy out DeBeers in a decade. A mansion the size of Rhode Island in Bulgaria is still a mansion the size of Rhode Island.
Have China make knock off synthetic diamonds in bulk.
Hey, Chinese save humanity in 2012. They can save Africa of the diamond trade.
One of my requirements for a mate, should I ever settle down, is "not so vain as to require a diamond."
I also have this requirement, as well as a flat refusal to spend any significant amount on a wedding (with a heavy emphasis on eloping), and every time I discuss these things with a gf or my mom, it at a minimum ends with a fight, usually a hard punch in the arm and being called a total dick.
As to horrible companies, you could pretty easily lump most of Wall St.'s brokerage firms in there for sure.
While I understand a moral position against diamonds, it does make you a dick to be so against anything that she might want by way of a wedding.
Improvolone on
Voice actor for hire. My time is free if your project is!
One of my requirements for a mate, should I ever settle down, is "not so vain as to require a diamond."
I also have this requirement, as well as a flat refusal to spend any significant amount on a wedding (with a heavy emphasis on eloping), and every time I discuss these things with a gf or my mom, it at a minimum ends with a fight, usually a hard punch in the arm and being called a total dick.
As to horrible companies, you could pretty easily lump most of Wall St.'s brokerage firms in there for sure.
While I understand a moral position against diamonds, it does make you a dick to be so against anything that she might want by way of a wedding.
Buying natural diamonds is fucking stupid on a variety of levels that have nothing to do with the morality of how people get them.
The sheer lunacy of paying a premium for a flawed product over a perfect one boggles the mind. Also natural diamonds have no fucking use, they use the perfect, synthetic ones for everything. At least with say gold it has a fucking use outside of "shiny".
The only really women want that sort of junk is because they've been told all their life if a guy really loves her he will be a clear shiny rock and the bigger and more expensive it is the better of a guy he is.
The only really women want that sort of junk is because they've been told all their life if a guy really loves her he will be a clear shiny rock and the bigger and more expensive it is the better of a guy he is.
If it's too big and shiny, obviously his love is not real. Unless it's 'authentically' too big and shiny.
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KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
Here's a list of some of Monsanto's products (you should totally not buy them!):
...
*Ambien
Say whatever you want about Monsanto and the rest of their products, but there are plenty of people out there who legitimately need Ambien, and for whom other similar sleep medications just don't work or aren't covered by insurance because they're newer and more expensive.
Telling people they shouldn't buy/use Ambien is borderline irresponsible.
Here's a list of some of Monsanto's products (you should totally not buy them!):
...
*Ambien
Say whatever you want about Monsanto and the rest of their products, but there are plenty of people out there who legitimately need Ambien, and for whom other similar sleep medications just don't work or aren't covered by insurance because they're newer and more expensive.
Telling people they shouldn't buy/use Ambien is borderline irresponsible.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, meatpacking is the nation's most dangerous occupation. In 1999, more than one-quarter of America's nearly 150,000 meatpacking workers suffered a job-related injury or illness. The meatpacking industry not only has the highest injury rate, but also has by far the highest rate of serious injury—more than five times the national average, as measured in lost workdays. If you accept the official figures, about 40,000 meatpacking workers are injured on the job every year. But the actual number is most likely higher. The meatpacking industry has a well-documented history of discouraging injury reports, falsifying injury data, and putting injured workers back on the job quickly to minimize the reporting of lost workdays. Over the past four years, I've met scores of meatpacking workers in Nebraska, Colorado, and Texas who tell stories of being injured and then discarded by their employers. Like Kenny Dobbins, many now rely on public assistance for their food, shelter, and medical care. Each new year throws more injured workers on the dole, forcing taxpayers to subsidize the meatpacking industry's poor safety record. No government statistics can measure the true amount of pain and suffering in the nation's meatpacking communities today.
There's also bottled water wasting natural water supplies and how Walmart puts their employees on government aid instead of insuring them. Shit at this point it seems impossible not to find every corporation doing at least one fucked up thing right now....well maybe except Costco. From what I've heard that place is run by Daddy Warbucks.
Talleyrand on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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RentI'm always rightFuckin' deal with itRegistered Userregular
edited November 2009
Man, if a girl told me I could only propose to her with real diamonds, I would make it quite clear I was never going to propose to her, so the point's moot
I don't know anything about manufactured diamonds. I thought whenever someone used the phrase "manufactured diamond" they were meaning cubic zirconia
In case you couldn't tell diamonds are my pet civil rights abuse to get all angry about, so if you could link me more info (I love urging people not to buy diamonds and going "Here's why. It's cheaper, better quality, and you're not encouraging human rights abuses when you buy synthetic")
Moissanite is basically the new Cubic Zirconia. It's more expensive, but also closer to real diamond.
Synthetic diamond is the realization that diamonds are nothing but compressed carbon. There's two major ways to make them, either getting a big press and crushing a diamond superman-style, or creating a vacuum and using carbon vapor to seed like you're making rock candy. Typically, the press style diamonds are cheaper and of higher quality (but suffer scaling problems past 2-3 carats), while the vapor diamonds have the advantage of making arbitrarily large diamonds or creating unusual shapes and uses (such as semiconductors or heatsinks).
Gemesis and Lifegem use the press method, and are notable for their vivid color. Apollo Diamond uses the vacuum method, and is one of the few synthetic manufacturers to make pure diamonds.
Oh yeah, and vacuum labs have already made 10 carat diamonds, with the theoretical ability to go all the way up to 300 carats.
Whoever woman I propose to, better fucking like her some science. Cause if she's all "it's not a real diamond" then she's not a keeper.
Man, if a girl told me I could only propose to her with real diamonds, I would make it quite clear I was never going to propose to her, so the point's moot
Good luck with that. Diamonds tend to not come up on the first date or so. Consequently, when the impact of the diamond trade on the act of engagement comes up, there are far larger issues. Particularly, your feelings about her, the in love experience, the prospect of a life with the person, opinions on child-rearing and financial matters.
In the end, her opinion on the diamond trade becomes decidedly small in comparison to the positives of it all. I think that almost everyone would bite the diamond and give her what she wants.
Also, you aren't dealing with her perceptions but those of her family and friends as well. If they think you're being a cheap-ass, she will eventually start to suspect it might be true.
Whoever woman I propose to, better fucking like her some science. Cause if she's all "it's not a real diamond" then she's not a keeper.
Good luck with that. I work in a research company. We do SCIENCE! all day. Outside of a physicist who is strange in a whole new category, all of the women have diamond engagement rings despite being informed of the diamond trades problems. The physicist didn't get a diamond ring because she didn't want a big deal for the wedding.
I don't know how to describe it. They are all decidedly rational people, but the value of perceptions and the environment they've grown up in is very weighty.
Man, if a girl told me I could only propose to her with real diamonds, I would make it quite clear I was never going to propose to her, so the point's moot
Good luck with that. Diamonds tend to not come up on the first date or so. Consequently, when the impact of the diamond trade on the act of engagement comes up, there are far larger issues. Particularly, your feelings about her, the in love experience, the prospect of a life with the person, opinions on child-rearing and financial matters.
In the end, her opinion on the diamond trade becomes decidedly small in comparison to the positives of it all. I think that almost everyone would bite the diamond and give her what she wants.
Also, you aren't dealing with her perceptions but those of her family and friends as well. If they think you're being a cheap-ass, she will eventually start to suspect it might be true.
The rest of you, I fucking hate you for the fact that I now have a blue dot on this god awful thread.
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
edited November 2009
If a woman's (or her family's) only measure of your worth is how much money you dump on a ring, blood-soaked or not, you're probably better off without her.
An e-machines PC from 1998 and something from Falcon Northwest can both be dressed up to appear the same on the outside. :P
Well, see, the FNW machine will play Dragon Age, whereas the e-machine will probably struggle just to boot XP, let alone run a top end game.
The "real" diamond is bright and shiny and came from the earth. The "fake" diamond is just as bright and shiny and came from a lab.
... wait what?
The better ones they make are even impossible to differentiate by professional appraisers
There's a solution for a stubborn-minded family anyway. If she doesn't care if it's real but they do, get an indistinguishable synthetic one and tell them it's real.
Posts
Central Pacific Railroad Company vs East India Trading Company
FIGHT!
I will show my eternal love for you with this here sparkly rock that people died for.
You wouldn't believe how many people fall for the "natural is always better than artificial" crap that so many companies put out, even for products that are physically indistinguishable from each other. It's times like this that I like to point out how anthrax, Ebola, and cyanide are all naturally formed.
Get her a gimmal and/or puzzle ring. The idea of coming together in marriage is really romantic, and the big, complicated intertwinings look really cool. If you're really loaded, you could make the whole thing out of synthetic diamond, and they can't really complain because you can't specify what shapes natural diamonds come in.
even atrociously shitty corps like east india and pacific railroad had something to show for it, they kept trade moving and built infrastructure while they were getting millions of people killed
the financial industry at this point does nothing except move imaginary money around amongst people and institutions where it's never used, to the detriment of literally everybody except those people
it's a $595 trillion business that's completely unregulated and goldman-sachs is at its forefront to make sure the status quo is never interrupted
Trading in the period of the East India Trading Company was just nasty. For comparison, look at the the Dutch East Indies Company, and the West (Americas) variant. Both were complete and utter bastards, and their suppression and explotation of natives, sanctioned piracy and slavery made a small country rich.
My understanding is that small scale protests are often beaten down, but unless they're threatening to the party establishment as a whole, there are often consequences for higher-ups if the resentment sticks around. Protests are effective if they don't threaten the party structure as a whole (often this is done by having grievances that target local corruption as opposed to broad, systemic corruption) and they get past and outlast the attempts to quiet them.
I might be misinterpreting the analogy, but computers are handy because they can do stuff; what they look like is secondary (unless you're buying a Mac hurr hurr!). Unless you're building a city-destroying laser, looking good is all diamonds do.
(Apparently they're also good as value-storing commodity, but when I buy a ring I'm getting something pretty-looking, not turning my fortune of Deutschmarks into something that'll be valuable after the war.)
Again, it's a show of effort used and resources spent. The appearance is (almost) incidental to the actual purpose of the rock.
You've got to admire them for pulling all that shit off. They either have a hand in or are able to leverage every world event.
Pretty much this.
The big irony of it all is that for all this time DeBeers has been marketing the "value" of their diamonds according to their perfection and clarity. Now that perfect, completely artificial diamonds are a reality they're having to say that it's not a true, REAL diamond unless it has those imperfections that come crushing carbon between slabs of dirt for millenia.
Our first game is now available for free on Google Play: Frontier: Isle of the Seven Gods
The only reason it has that freaking value is artificial inflation of price through price fixing, monoply maintaining a shortage over the supply, and insidious marketing.
If artificial diamonds come to be accepted as just as good, DeBeers is wholly screwed, and the so called investment value of that commodity is going to dry up.
I did tell her that she was full of shit if she thought I'd spend 6 or 7 thousand dollars on a fucking ring (2 or 3 months salary?!? fuck that shit). After a bit of somber thought, she realized I was right. That much money on what is supposed to be a symbol of committment is insane. Hell, she even said that she'd be happy with a ring that was just 1k.
If I have a daughter, I am going to make sure she knows that diamonds are the most pointless lump of carbon that human society trades in.
First, diamonds are shit as a value storing commodity. That's 100% pure scam. You'll be lucky to get half back out of what you pay, and diamonds depreciate each year. Plus, synthetic SCIENCE! diamonds are poised to shitkick the cartel's high prices.
Second, synthetic diamonds are more perfect. They have fewer imperfections, greater clarity and no trace crystals or other elements. By all objective measures, synthetic diamonds are superior in every way. They literally check a diamond's 'naturalness' by seeing if it's shitty enough to have come out of the dirt instead of being perfectly made in a lab.
Well, if she is clingy, crazy and you need a way out, just buy her a single cheap stud earing. Hell, buy a plastic one and say it is diamond.
Sure, it would probably be illegal, but do it from Russia or Bulgaria or some shit. No one will touch you. Flood the market and buy out DeBeers in a decade. A mansion the size of Rhode Island in Bulgaria is still a mansion the size of Rhode Island.
Have China make knock off synthetic diamonds in bulk.
Hey, Chinese save humanity in 2012. They can save Africa of the diamond trade.
C60 says diamonds are small time.
This, plus single-walled carbon nanotubes.
But for what purpose?
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
While I understand a moral position against diamonds, it does make you a dick to be so against anything that she might want by way of a wedding.
Buying natural diamonds is fucking stupid on a variety of levels that have nothing to do with the morality of how people get them.
The sheer lunacy of paying a premium for a flawed product over a perfect one boggles the mind. Also natural diamonds have no fucking use, they use the perfect, synthetic ones for everything. At least with say gold it has a fucking use outside of "shiny".
The only really women want that sort of junk is because they've been told all their life if a guy really loves her he will be a clear shiny rock and the bigger and more expensive it is the better of a guy he is.
IMHO, that's stupid.
If it's too big and shiny, obviously his love is not real. Unless it's 'authentically' too big and shiny.
Say whatever you want about Monsanto and the rest of their products, but there are plenty of people out there who legitimately need Ambien, and for whom other similar sleep medications just don't work or aren't covered by insurance because they're newer and more expensive.
Telling people they shouldn't buy/use Ambien is borderline irresponsible.
Nah, it makes you this douche bag!
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2001/07/chain-never-stops
There's also bottled water wasting natural water supplies and how Walmart puts their employees on government aid instead of insuring them. Shit at this point it seems impossible not to find every corporation doing at least one fucked up thing right now....well maybe except Costco. From what I've heard that place is run by Daddy Warbucks.
This is true, but prozac is not any more of a "bad drug" than any other mental health medication.
Also the game giant medical conglomerates, drug multinationals and huge insurance agencies is nothing sort of horrific here in these United States.
True, but that statement does little to support "Ambien and Prozac are bad for you!"
Which they may be, but the inherent shady business practices of their respective companies don't have anything to do with their effectiveness.
Well, see, the FNW machine will play Dragon Age, whereas the e-machine will probably struggle just to boot XP, let alone run a top end game.
The "real" diamond is bright and shiny and came from the earth. The "fake" diamond is just as bright and shiny and came from a lab.
... wait what?
Whoever woman I propose to, better fucking like her some science. Cause if she's all "it's not a real diamond" then she's not a keeper.
Good luck with that. Diamonds tend to not come up on the first date or so. Consequently, when the impact of the diamond trade on the act of engagement comes up, there are far larger issues. Particularly, your feelings about her, the in love experience, the prospect of a life with the person, opinions on child-rearing and financial matters.
In the end, her opinion on the diamond trade becomes decidedly small in comparison to the positives of it all. I think that almost everyone would bite the diamond and give her what she wants.
Also, you aren't dealing with her perceptions but those of her family and friends as well. If they think you're being a cheap-ass, she will eventually start to suspect it might be true.
Good luck with that. I work in a research company. We do SCIENCE! all day. Outside of a physicist who is strange in a whole new category, all of the women have diamond engagement rings despite being informed of the diamond trades problems. The physicist didn't get a diamond ring because she didn't want a big deal for the wedding.
I don't know how to describe it. They are all decidedly rational people, but the value of perceptions and the environment they've grown up in is very weighty.
The better ones they make are even impossible to differentiate by professional appraisers
Where are you dating?
There's a solution for a stubborn-minded family anyway. If she doesn't care if it's real but they do, get an indistinguishable synthetic one and tell them it's real.