You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

philh comments on Stupid Questions June 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: Gondolinian 31 May 2015 02:14AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (195)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: adamzerner 01 June 2015 06:53:29AM 0 points [-]

If you're not familiar with the diamond industry, you may want to read Diamonds are Bullshit (or watch this less formal video.

I don't mean for this to be offensive, but I've always disapproved of the idea of purchasing diamonds, especially for an engagement.

There's a lot of abuse, fraud and mistreatment that happens throughout their production and distribution (then again, this is true for a lot of industries...). From a physical standpoint, it's x thousand dollars for a shiny rock (money that could have been used to do good). I get that people see it as a symbol of love and that it's reasonable to pay that amount of money for the symbolic meaning you get in return. I just find it odd that people derive such meaning, given the realities that exist beneath the surface.

Comment author: philh 01 June 2015 12:52:05PM 1 point [-]

Do your criticisms also apply to artificial diamonds? It seems likely that ve knows something about the diamond industry, given

I am leaning towards an artificial diamond, as it seems hard to guarantee conflict-free otherwise

Comment author: adamzerner 01 June 2015 01:29:27PM *  0 points [-]

Woops, I missed that statement. My apologies.

There's still a lot of stuff "beneath the surface", and so I still think my criticisms still apply, but obviously a lot less so if they're truly conflict-free.