Everything I know, I know from googling around and researching. So please don’t regard me as an expert. I recommend you, too, google around. Don’t ask random people questions and trust their answers as given. They may bullshit or lie.

I think the thing about the whole “blood diamond” dispute is that the movie is set in the past. New laws have happened. New workarounds have been invented. So yes, there are still slaves mining diamonds, and diamonds being smuggled over borders so that they can enter the legal diamond market. I think the source locations change. This report says Cote d’Ivoire is a current trouble spot, and goes into the Kimberley Process and what’s going on with it as well as its weaknesses.

I think unless you have pretty solid papers certifying the diamonds come from someplace free from conflict, you can’t be 100% sure. Likewise, papers *can* be forged or diamonds could get their documentation through trickery, as outlined in the linked paper above.

100% sure doesn’t mean 100% bad. Most diamonds don’t fund conflicts. However, if you’re interested in environmental issues as well, I’ve read that only Canadian diamonds can offer that pedigree, so that’s worth considering.

Finally, you can never be sure of anything anyone tells you when they’re selling you something. If you think the diamond market is too linked to corruption, or you cannot bear the possibility some kid had his hand (or head) chopped off because he hid the very stone you’re looking at up his ass and tried to run away, there’s really only one response that offers certainty: don’t buy diamonds. (Likewise coffee, or jewelry, or sugar, or all kinds of other unfairly traded commodities.) Chances are the stone wasn’t in some kid’s backside, but certainty can only be attained by not buying it.

(Just like you can only be 100% sure of never catching AIDS by never having sex, never sharing needles, and never coming into contact with another’s body fluids. 100% certainty doesn’t come cheap.)

It’s an invented tradition anyway, and it’s hard to understand where the fascination comes from once you look closely at how consciously the “tradition” was manufactured.

If the seller does not have the stone in stock and is selling a diamond from over seas, how can I be sure the diamond is conflict free?

If seller claims that the stone is from a legitimate source, but the stone has no paper work showing where the diamond came from. Could this be a Blood diamond?

I have been told that the majority of conflict diamonds originate from Liberia and Sierra Leone is this correct ?

If I buy a diamond from one of these countries should I get proof that it is conflict free or benefiting the people in those countries?

How can I be sure that the seller claiming to help the people of these war torn countries, is not exploiting the situation for their own profit?

(Mine is 1/3 carat and that’s as big as I can stand, actually. I’m not big into jewelry besides earrings, though.)

It was relatively simple, as I had done my homework before hand and knew I wanted to get a diamond solitaire. I had thought of going to Tiffany’s, but the diamond would have been half the size if I bought something there.

Buying the diamond itself was an interesting process. At the place where I got her the engagement ring, I picked out the stone first, than the ring and the setting, and they put it all together for me. It really does bring out the caveman in you when you see those diamonds put out on that black piece of felt.

BTW, an interest in clothing and amassing knowledge are not mutually exclusive.

Yeah. I’m glad you know I wasn’t attacking or mocking you. It got me to thinking, is all. :)

Julia,

Yeah, she doesn’t want the most expensive kimchi fridge. Mind you, many people around here do want a nice big kimchi fridge. (And I suppose if you eat a lot of the stuff, it might be worthwhile to have a fridge with a kimchi-storage component.)

The thing with weddings here is they’re profoundly expensive because a lot of people think you need to (a) get an apartment (huge expense), plus (b) get ALL new appliances and furniture. The whole “Young couples with crappy used stuff in their place” probably does happen here, but the stereotype and, from what many say to me, the normal aspiration, is to start out life together with nice, wonderful, new, and relatively expensive stuff.

As for status, I don’t pursue it in certain ways — clothing, for example, or conspicuous consumption — but in others, such as copious expenditures of time amassing knowledge, or writing skills and publication credits, or musical ability, I am capable of rather ridiculous amounts of obsessive expenditure. So like I say, I’m not above all of this either.

2) He has a co-worker who got married less than a year before we did. Co-worker decided to give his wife one of those 10-year anniversary rings, multiple diamonds, etc. He told me about it and how much it cost, and my first reaction was, “Geez, you know how many top-of-the-line computers that would buy?” (Of course he did, and that had been *his* first thought.) So I got a computer for our 10th anniversary. Cheaper than the diamond ring, and it got a lot more use than the anniversary ring apparently did.

At this point, yes, I appreciate generosity, but it worries me if it’s not pragmatic generosity. You could buy Lime the most expensive kimchi fridge, but that would use up resources you might need later. And I think she’s sensible enough to understand this.

I don’t understand “status” very well; I didn’t really “get” it until I read Pinker’s _How the Mind Works_, and I started to understand with the evolutionary psychology explanation. I like pretty things, fun things, but I’m not wanting them to impress someone else, I’m wanting them for their prettiness/amusement/functionality/comfort. And the last 2 are important to me. (I’ll pay more for the cotton thing that doesn’t have the cachet of the synthetic thing because the cotton will be comfortable for me to wear, and the synthetic won’t. I’m not paying more for any reason other than the 4 I gave.)