• Mossy Feathers (She/They)@pawb.social
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    1 year ago

    Honestly, fuck diamonds in general. Normalize jewelry with unnatural laboratory gems. The old gems are boring, bring on the synthetic glowy gems.

    Edit: damn, you can get chunks of reject sapphire made for F35 fighter jet windows on their new store. They’ve got some pieces over 1kg.

      • Mossy Feathers (She/They)@pawb.social
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        1 year ago

        They are so fucking cool. If I had the money, I’d have a room that’s just these gems+blacklights. There are some that change color based on the wavelength of UV light they’re exposed to. Some glow a different color under UV than they do under normal light. Some are both fluorescent and phosphorescent, meaning they light up in response to UV, but then they can maintain their glow temporarily. Some change color based on the angle you view them at. They’re so fucking cool.

    • Track_Shovel@slrpnk.net
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      1 year ago

      The mechanics of extracting diamonds is baffling. Hell, even gold. Cutoff grades (where it is no longer feasible to mine economically) for gold is about 2.5 grams per tonne of overburden… that’s a fucking metric shitpile of waste rock, some of which is ML/ARD (Metal leaching or acid generating).

      I find the whole thing fascinating, and mining can be done responsibly, but it is not an easy thing in general

    • moosepuggle@startrek.website
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      1 year ago

      Holy shit I need blacklight jewelry! I got lab alexandrite and lab moissanite for my wedding ring, but I didn’t know I could get SCIENCE gems! And I do a ton of confocal microscopy where we use dichroic for splitting the wavelengths! Thank you for this link, I’m def buying all my jewelry from here from now on!

  • flicker@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    My nightmare of a previous boss called my moissanite engagement ring “cheap” and “trashy,” and treated us to a 30-minute speech about how if it’s not “real” diamond, it doesn’t count.

    I hope sucking down those Marlboro blacks takes care of that problem of a woman sooner, rather than later, and in the meantime the gorgeous rainbow sparkle of my pretty ring is made all the more beautiful for the complete lack of child slavery that went into making it!

    … I also just realized that horrible harridan didn’t have an engagement ring, or even a boyfriend, and now some things make sense.

    • Haui@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      We all have these people in our jobs, don’t we? I‘m practicing to engage them with a therapist rn. Have been through abuse when I was young and they love to dump on me. My new goal is to pin a notice on my wall that I get for telling the next bully where to stick it (in public). Lets see how that goes.

      • TheActualDevil@sffa.community
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        1 year ago

        “I consider this harassment inappropriate for a workplace. I’d rather not get HR involved.”

        Key words from the employee manual or even better, HR training. No emotion, just stating facts. Don’t trust HR, but management knows that more than anyone. They use it as a bludgeon against employees all the time, they know it could be turned against them just as easily.

    • HurlingDurling@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I would have just sat there quietly and when she finished answered her with “well, that’s your opinion”

      I don’t care if I depend on my job and my boss is a POS, my self worth is more valuable than any job.

      • oatscoop@midwest.social
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        1 year ago

        I usually take a month off of work in the fall each year. One of my bucket list items is taking that time off to find a job with the worst bosses and seeing how far I can go while giving no fucks.

    • Batpool23@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Moissanite is a perfect replacement of a diamond. Definitely agree that it looks great, better off putting the money towards something that will actually enhance your life.

    • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Average employer. I bet they only see diamonds as legitimate because of the slave labour put into them.

  • spookedbyroaches@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    The diamond industry sucks don’t get me wrong. But the real culpurists are the dumbfuck diamond buyers.

    My friend is a diamond salesperson and told me a story about one of their customers. They were looking at different pieces and the customer kept asking about the purity of the diamonds in the piece. Whenever my friend said it’s “SI,” the customer would be visibly disappointed and would ask for “VS” or “VVS” which are purer. My friend then got annoyed a bit and told the customer that purity doesn’t matter once you reach “SI” since the impurities are not really visible by the naked eye. He even showed the customer 2 pieces with one looking 10 times better than the other but has SI diamonds and the non-pretty piece has VS diamonds. He asked the customer to tell him which is which and the customer wrongly said the SI one was more pure. Even after he revealed his ruse and showed that purity doesn’t matter much, the customer kept asking for more pure pieces as if nothing happened.

    These “people” literallly are willingly being lied to, and they like it. If a diamond buyer saw a piece, told you they love it, told you they would buy it, then you told them it’s a synthetic, they would be disgusted. It’s bullshit from all sides and they deserve eachother.

    • Signtist@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I feel like the high-end buyer’s don’t care about how much they like their possessions, they care about how expensive their possessions sound when described to others. They couldn’t tell that the SI was less pure, but they knew they couldn’t describe it to their friends as the purest, so they didn’t care.

      • spookedbyroaches@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Funny thing is that this comes from middle class people. There’s still VVS and flawless diamonds which are significantly more expensive. But they can’t afford one that looks any good. Given the choice they’d absolutely burn their money to buy those though.

    • tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      There’s a concept, ‘conspicuous consumption,’ that people will use products in such a way for their social power regardless of anything else. So getting higher quality diamonds, whatever imperceptible difference it has, is still worth it to be seen as affording the higher tier. One of the ways in which market economies poison the brain.

    • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      The people who don’t deserve this are the slavers who make gorillians off the abusive trade, plus the slaves who are forced to work the mines.

    • Helmic [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      If it’s wedding ring, the marketing has been about how the purity of the diamond is symbolic of the purity of one’s love. So picking an uglier, but purer, diamond then coild be about prioritizing love over beauty or whatever in that person’s head.

      So not necessarily exclusive to people wanting to present themselves as wealthy, that sort of emotional manipulation convinces broke people to blow their savings on a ring all the time.

  • hperrin@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    But if you don’t buy her a real blood diamond how will she know that you love her enough to support slave labor?

  • executive_chicken@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Look up moissanite. It’s literally the cheaper, superior diamond. The fact that it exists just goes to show how inflated the diamond market is

    • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Saw a story about a wedding ring where instead of a diamond the ring was jeweled with the couple’s birth stones fit together into the shape of a heart, which honestly I think is WAY better and probably WAY cheaper too.

    • fristislurper@feddit.nl
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      1 year ago

      Moissanite is chemically different to diamond (SiC vs C), has a different crystal structure, and is less hard. You can also get actual lab-grown diamond, but they are quite expensive. But you probabaly won’t be able to tell the difference anyway.

      • TheActualDevil@sffa.community
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        1 year ago

        But also, who cares that it’s less hard? I’m not using it for a drill bit, it’s a cosmetic piece. Literally it’s only function is visual. And moissanite is superior. All the visual markers that are used for beauty in a diamond it surpasses. And some quick googling I did to confirm that also showed me that diamond is only barely harder (“With a hardness of 9.25, moissanite is the second-hardest material used a gemstone.” a diamond is a 10.) and it turns out, less likely to break in some cases. “Moissanite doesn’t have a cleavage plane, while diamond does. (This is an internal plane along which a diamond crystal can easily split)” So if you hit a diamond in the wrong spot, it can still crack. Moissanite does not have a weak spot.

        source

        • Chunk@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          It’s very important to me that my gemstone only has carbon. If it has silicon I’m going to get very upset. Silicon interferes with your inner flow and can have harmful ions.

          • my crystal wearing, hippy Grandma.
      • hperrin@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Usually you can tell the difference. Lab grown diamond is pure while rock grown diamond is imperfect.

        But you have to look at it under a magnifying glass to tell, and know what you’re looking for.

      • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Don’t hang around people who demand you consume in order to get their approval. They are empty people who will not support you.

      • Sami_Uso@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Everything can be pointless when it comes down to it. I never ever wore jewelry but when I got married we got really nice matching plain bands and now I never take it off and quite like how it looks, it’s not pointless to me.

  • foggy@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    If your significant other would be upset with a brass ring for an engagement ring, I don’t pity the misery that will be both of your lives.

      • AttackPanda@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        Yeah brass wouldn’t work as brass polishing sucks. I’ve had to spend hours every year polishing the brass pots at my grandparents place. Never again.

          • AttackPanda@programming.dev
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            1 year ago

            Yeah it’s (as far as I know) just aesthetic since the pots were decorative from the 1800s. I don’t think anyone cares about the aesthetics of like brass pipe fittings but for something decorative (like the pots and a wedding ring) the aesthetics matter.

  • dansity@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    Opals are the superior stone and they actually look awsome. Transparent glass like stones are so boring. They are also much cheaper and not harvested with child labor.

        • NotThatKindofDoctor@midwest.social
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          1 year ago

          Rings, like engagement/wedding rings, can take quite a beating. You need a hard stone or it won’t really last very long.

          I have a lab Ruby in my engagement ring and then lab diamonds around it. The lab Ruby is a good alternative because it’s a hard stone! Sapphires and alexandrite are also just as hard and could be good stones in a ring you’d wear everyday.

          • LilB0kChoy@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            This is what we did. I got my wife a nice ice blue sapphire center stone instead of a diamond. It was less expensive, durable and more unique.

      • lud@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Why does harness matter? You are supposed to wear them, not cut or drill with them.

        • shuzuko@midwest.social
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          Hardness absolutely matters in rings. Not as much in pendants or earrings, but people don’t realize how rough they are with their hands. Most people do not take their rings off to wash their hands, or do their laundry, or, or, or. So many things have unexpected abrasives that may just feel a little rough on your skin, but can significantly damage a soft stone like opal. In a rush and accidentally bang your hand against the door frame? Chipped opal. Back of your hand itches, so you rub it against your jeans briefly? Scratched opal. They’re very fragile stones.

    • Son_of_dad@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      My wife’s is made of a purple sapphire as the main stone with a small diamond on each side. She loves the purple. The diamonds I didn’t pay for, they were her grandmother’s that I got from her sister.

  • CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    The Kimberley certification process for diamonds has been entirely co-opted and no longer serves the purpose of ensuring you are not buying blood diamonds. All the NGOs that matter have already walked away considering it a lost cause.

    If you buy natural diamonds, there is a good chance you are supporting criminal enterprise and warlords.

    • seitanic@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      You’re getting ripped off, too. The price is artificially inflated, because it’s controlled by a cartel.

  • Batpool23@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I got my wife a moissanite ring. Looks great and just about as strong as diamond. It is time to use advertisements as guide what not to buy.

        • PolarisFx@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 year ago

          My life is actually easier long term. I’ve never been attracted to white women. My mom is an affluent white Karen, my sister is on her way to being the same. My dad and sisters SO are constantly fighting, mostly to get them to shut up for 5 mins.

          My wife is cold, blunt and super hot. She looks just as good at 40 as she did at 20. Leaves me alone to do my own thing, when we found out I was shooting blanks it wasn’t a huge deal, she was upset we wouldn’t have a kid but she stuck with me anyway. I’ve gotten used to the way she is and will play damage control when she has to deal with other white people. I am a glorified man servant to her whims sometimes.

          But at the end of the day I’m happy. Which is more than I can say for my closest friends who have been through multiple divorces

        • PolarisFx@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          Oh no she’s a science teacher and is obsessed with the hardness of diamonds. I bought her a synthetic which she wasn’t pleased with but I’ve had words about I feel about DeBeers and diamonds in general. Love won out, or begrudgingly won out in the end.

      • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        My cousin’s ex-wife is Chinese. She left him because their son of 2 has chronic asthma and that interferes with her career.

        Chinese girls, man…

        • PolarisFx@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          Ahh I know the type, mine isn’t that bad but maybe had she went into a different field she might’ve ended up that way. The men in her family are that way though. One’s a cardiologist, didn’t have kids on purpose. Married a woman with an older kid, doesn’t really parent just throws money at the kid.

  • Destide@feddit.uk
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    1 year ago

    we can achive what the earth can in a matter of months or we can chuck kids in a pit …humanity chose

    • gullible@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Wait, wait, go back a second. Are the child death pits still an option? Can we retroactively volunteer ourselves?