Try substituting flowers in, and the article mostly stands (dates and companies changed). Turns out, they are a shitty investment, spoil pretty quickly, and do nothing but signify romantic interest and pretty-up a small area for a little bit of time. Just like jewelry.
If you ignore the social signaling value of everything, and reduce it to it's baseline economic story, then yeah, a lot of normal things start to look like bullshit.
Diamond and flower giving are two (of many) things that illuminate our simple animal beginnings as a species. People chuckle watching a Bowerbird spend days collecting and curating color coordinated piles of petals to attract a mate yet don’t see the irony in then spending many months of money on a useless rock.
Flowers are (1) much cheaper and (2) more sustainable. Also, to my mind, flowers are more beautiful in many cases.
Diamonds of very moderate sizes can still make good jewellery, e.g. in earrings. The biggest problem with the diamond engagement rings is that they are collecting dust after the wedding. Long-term diamond jewellery may be more cost-effective than flowers :)
Try substituting flowers in, and the article mostly stands (dates and companies changed). Turns out, they are a shitty investment, spoil pretty quickly, and do nothing but signify romantic interest and pretty-up a small area for a little bit of time. Just like jewelry.
If you ignore the social signaling value of everything, and reduce it to it's baseline economic story, then yeah, a lot of normal things start to look like bullshit.